• Jake Vinson (unregistered)

    I honestly don't mean this in a sarcastic or mean way, I think that is really cute.

    When my family got our first computer, a Compaq Presario 4706, it came with all these video guides to assist with registration. It started with a guy standing next to a huge button. "Go ahead," he urged, "press it! What's the worst that could happen?"

    At this point, my dad, new to computers, pressed the spot on the monitor. I made fun of him for it for being so dense when it happened, but in retrospect, why shouldn't that work, based on real world rules?

    That applies to this, too. If you schedule a task, as far as a new user is concerned, the computer should take care of it for you. Don't just dismiss the user as stupid.

  • Mike Dunn (unregistered)

    My mom once bought a 286 PC (so we're talking many years ago) and the DOS video configurator said "press almost any key to continue". Yes, almost any key.
    Too bad it didn't say which keys it wouldn't accept.

  • Jake Vinson (unregistered)

    When trying to cancel something from printing on my old system, you were prompted with

    Cancel print job?
    OK || Cancel

  • Dennis v/d Stelt (unregistered)

    Hehehehe, that cancel question is great as well.

    I always answer questions like that in the right way, which is actually wrong in natural language.

    For example, when someone wants to know if someone can also be done another way, they ask:
    Q: Can't this be done another way?
    The answer to might be:
    A: No

    By saying "no", people mean that it can't be done another way. But they actually say "no" to a negative question. And we all know 1 + -1 = 0

    So they correct answer to the question should be:
    A: Yes

    But when you actually say yes, they tend to ask what the other way is. But what I mean is "Yes, this can't be done another way."

    People get really confused when you answer negativally asked questions like this for a while. Every time you just answer "yes" or "no" they have to think about the answer and most of the time they ask : "So can this or can this NOT be done?"

    The cancel print job is somewhat of the same logic, but the cancel answer should be different. :)

  • Slippy (unregistered)

    "if someone can also be done another way"

    There are many ways to do someone, you just need to define the context. ;)

    tee hee

    J/K !!!

    Cheers

  • GUi (unregistered)

    The almost any key, certainly excludes shift, alt and ctrl keys.

  • runlevel0 (unregistered)

    Think about this:
    A newbie can not know if when a box is switched off it's raelly switched off, it could perfectly be in "stand-by" mode and awake... Many BIOSes have indeed the option of being woken up by network events or by a timer; somebody which is only a bit technical iliterate

    could perfectly thing a program would be able ro raise such an event and wake the box up in order to do the task it's scheduled for.

  • drew (unregistered)

    continuing on the parent theme, years ago i sent my father a computer to push-start him into the new era. I decided to tutor him on the phone. I setup his Windows© to have a separate user for both he and my mom (big mistake). The box was working fine when i sent it. So on the phone for the first 5 hours of our tutoring, we laboured with what seemed to be a really difficult hardware/machine issue. He could not get past the first screen to login.

    Trouble was, i told him to move the mouse cursor over the OK button and click the left button. It took 5, count'm five hours to figure out that he did exactly that.. he moved the cursor over the OK button and clicked, so of course, nothing happened.. Get it? Ü drew.. (my first post here..)

  • vb_curler (unregistered)

    "Go ahead," he urged, "press it! What's the worst that could happen?" I picture someone going ahead and pressing the button just as the massive northeast power failure happened last year.

  • Jeff (unregistered)

    Eons ago, before I got into IT, I worked as librarian for a small government agency and I was not particularly computer savvy. My boss recognized the value of this trait and used me to test drive software that was developed in house. His rationale was that an inexperienced user is unlikely to make the assumptions that seemed obvious to the developer.

    The first time I was presented with version 0.1 of a brand new product, I fired it up and was presented with a splash screen that invited me to "Press any key". Figuring that a conscientious and thorough tester would ultimately have to try every key, I started in the top left corner. I pressed the Escape key. The program obligingly shut down. My boss smiled. The developer rolled his eyes. My reputation as a brutal software test pilot became local legend.

  • Just Some GUIY I Met (unregistered)

    Cancel print job ?
    Ok || Cancel

    Hehe, it might just has well have read
    Do do Ok || Don't do Cancel

    Check out the addy: http://digilander.libero.it/chiediloapippo/Engineering/iarchitect/visual.htm - it's a bit dated now but shows some shockingly bad GUI gear

  • Bob the peasent (unregistered)

    Im a young guy with only four years experiance in IT as tech support. My step father taught me a lot of what i knew when i first started (telling you this so you know he isnt THAT computer iliterat) anyway last summer I was home and fixing his computers for him, (just little things like shuting down services he didnt need, well and re-regestering winsock after I done blowed it up) so anyway Im sitting around and he comes in and say "hey my sound isnt working, but im going to try to fix it my self first" 30 mins later I get off the couch and un-mute the sound in windows.

  • (cs)

    "Trouble was, i told him to move the mouse cursor over the OK button and click the left button. It took 5, count'm five hours to figure out that he did exactly that.. he moved the cursor over the OK button and clicked, so of course, nothing happened.. Get it? Ü drew.. (my first post here..) "

    Huh?  I'm confused.  It sounds like he clicked the OK button.  I'll have to ponder this to figure out what I'm missing (though it's probably obvious!).

  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    "I always turn the computer off at night."
    Some BIOS allow you to auto power up the PC at a certain time. But dunno how it will work without logging in (supposing its > Windows 2000).
  • (cs)

    Norton Antivirus has a live update feature that keeps track of when it should download updates. If it is not on when the update is scheduled, it will connect and update when you next boot the system.

    This really isn't rocket science...

    • jeff parker
  • (cs) in reply to DWalker
    DWalker:
    Huh?  I'm confused.  It sounds like he clicked the OK button.  I'll have to ponder this to figure out what I'm missing (though it's probably obvious!).


    Took me a few seconds, and then it dawned on me: he moved the pointer over the OK button-- as in, the pointer wasn't actually on OK, it was slightly above the button.  D'oh!
  • (cs) in reply to Bob the peasent
    :
    Im a young guy with only four years experiance in IT as tech support. My step father taught me a lot of what i knew when i first started (telling you this so you know he isnt THAT computer iliterat) anyway last summer I was home and fixing his computers for him, (just little things like shuting down services he didnt need, well and re-regestering winsock after I done blowed it up) so anyway Im sitting around and he comes in and say "hey my sound isnt working, but im going to try to fix it my self first" 30 mins later I get off the couch and un-mute the sound in windows.


    This is exactly the person I end up talking with when I have to call tech support.  (Not that I am "computer iliterat", but we've all come across issues not covered by documentation / FAQs.) 

  • (cs) in reply to runlevel0
    Anonymous:
    Think about this:
    A newbie can not know if when a box is switched off it's raelly switched off, it could perfectly be in "stand-by" mode and awake... Many BIOSes have indeed the option of being woken up by network events or by a timer; somebody which is only a bit technical iliterate
    could perfectly thing a program would be able ro raise such an event and wake the box up in order to do the task it's scheduled for.



    I don't think a computer newbie is going to have the faintest idea that things such as network wake-up even exist. Or even if they have heard of them, have no idea what they actually do.

    The scheduler should include a note like "The system must be on at the scheduled time."
  • (cs) in reply to Jeff
    Anonymous:
    "Press any key"
    ...
    I pressed the Escape key. The program obligingly shut down


    ROTFL

    Good for you.

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