Computer Troubleshooting - no more.
Apr. 15th, 2010 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleI've been doing a fair bit of computer troubleshooting for local people and organizations lately. Some of it has been very successful - I got a whole bunch of things working for a local nonprofit, helped people with their digital photos, etc. Before I got my current job, I was thinking of setting up a low-cost repair and training business as a way of making a little money without working very hard; most of this stuff is easy and pleasant work.
What I really can't take, though, is the tragic end of it. Being outside the nerdtopia of Silicon Valley has been an eye-opener concerning how dysfunctional the human-computer relationship has become. Ironically, making computers "easier to use" has made the problem worse. Troubleshooting is a lot easier now - there's no more futzing with third-party TCP/IP stacks or RS-232 connections or whatnot - but the underlying cognitive problems have not gone away.
Did you know that most ordinary people don't actually understand the concept of hierarchical directories? Abstract instructions like "move the files from this folder to that folder" are pretty much beyond the typical computer user. It bothers me immensely when nerds declare such people to be "stupid", because they aren't - they're just ordinary people. Creating home appliances with high cognitive burdens and blaming users when they can't meet them is exactly the same as making them incredibly heavy and blaming users if they're too weak to move the mouse. (So what if the creators of these devices were all built like Charles Alas? If people want to manage their digital photos, they can bloody well start going to the gym!)
Over the years, I've become much more attuned to the mental states of other people, and sitting there at the computer with them trying to explain things, I have come to sense their confusion directly, and it kind of hurts. The goal of making computers "easy to use" has been a failure because most software designers have no idea of what makes them difficult in the first place. Not that ease of use is a simple thing to achieve. It's very hard. But if "cognitive complexity" were given the same weight as memory use or graphics performance, the world of computing would be a very different place.
Anyway, I've been helping my neighbor with his email. Turns out he had a forgotten email account, and Windows Mail had been configured to use it. In the meanwhile, he has been using several Yahoo accounts as well. Earlier, I had installed Picasa for him, and he had figured out how to send pictures via email on his own. Unfortunately, Picasa automatically sent them using Windows Mail and the "unused" account. I asked him, was he getting any replies to these emailed photos? He assured me he was, but I couldn't figure out how that could be. He had no idea what the password was on the unused account, and wasn't aware it even existed. A few phone calls later, we had the password - and he was shocked to find a whole stack of replies to these emailed photos, most of which involved ongoing transactions to buy and sell vehicles. Needless to say, almost all of these deals had fallen through while the email sat unread at his ISP. :-(
I don't know if it was related - perhaps the increased disk activity due to all this incoming mail triggered it - but the very next day, his computer was unbootable. Most likely this was due to a hard disk failure. I opened up his box to see if I could take his disk and put it into one of my enclosure at home, for testing and possible rescue. No such luck, I didn't have the right enclosure. So I told him he had to take it to a repair shop, where they will be better equipped for hard disk rescue attempts.
Of course, he had no idea what "backing up files" meant, so it is likely that he's lost everything. Including all the photos of his son growing up. :-( :-( :-( And yes, I did tell him last year that backup is an absolute necessity, but that concept was lost in the fog of confusion created by the computer itself.
Anyway, it's an enormous loss that would never have occurred if I hadn't helped him with his digital camera in the first place. And no, it's not my "fault", and no, he's not the kind of person that blames whoever is nearest. But he could have been, and if he were a paid client, it could have been really fucking ugly.
And that is why I have decided to not pursue this line of work any further. Aside from the fact that I don't want to be in the line of fire for other people's frustrations, I simply can't handle the tragedy of it. Desktop computing has been Bad News for too many people, and I'm thinking they'd be better off without it.
What I really can't take, though, is the tragic end of it. Being outside the nerdtopia of Silicon Valley has been an eye-opener concerning how dysfunctional the human-computer relationship has become. Ironically, making computers "easier to use" has made the problem worse. Troubleshooting is a lot easier now - there's no more futzing with third-party TCP/IP stacks or RS-232 connections or whatnot - but the underlying cognitive problems have not gone away.
Did you know that most ordinary people don't actually understand the concept of hierarchical directories? Abstract instructions like "move the files from this folder to that folder" are pretty much beyond the typical computer user. It bothers me immensely when nerds declare such people to be "stupid", because they aren't - they're just ordinary people. Creating home appliances with high cognitive burdens and blaming users when they can't meet them is exactly the same as making them incredibly heavy and blaming users if they're too weak to move the mouse. (So what if the creators of these devices were all built like Charles Alas? If people want to manage their digital photos, they can bloody well start going to the gym!)
Over the years, I've become much more attuned to the mental states of other people, and sitting there at the computer with them trying to explain things, I have come to sense their confusion directly, and it kind of hurts. The goal of making computers "easy to use" has been a failure because most software designers have no idea of what makes them difficult in the first place. Not that ease of use is a simple thing to achieve. It's very hard. But if "cognitive complexity" were given the same weight as memory use or graphics performance, the world of computing would be a very different place.
Anyway, I've been helping my neighbor with his email. Turns out he had a forgotten email account, and Windows Mail had been configured to use it. In the meanwhile, he has been using several Yahoo accounts as well. Earlier, I had installed Picasa for him, and he had figured out how to send pictures via email on his own. Unfortunately, Picasa automatically sent them using Windows Mail and the "unused" account. I asked him, was he getting any replies to these emailed photos? He assured me he was, but I couldn't figure out how that could be. He had no idea what the password was on the unused account, and wasn't aware it even existed. A few phone calls later, we had the password - and he was shocked to find a whole stack of replies to these emailed photos, most of which involved ongoing transactions to buy and sell vehicles. Needless to say, almost all of these deals had fallen through while the email sat unread at his ISP. :-(
I don't know if it was related - perhaps the increased disk activity due to all this incoming mail triggered it - but the very next day, his computer was unbootable. Most likely this was due to a hard disk failure. I opened up his box to see if I could take his disk and put it into one of my enclosure at home, for testing and possible rescue. No such luck, I didn't have the right enclosure. So I told him he had to take it to a repair shop, where they will be better equipped for hard disk rescue attempts.
Of course, he had no idea what "backing up files" meant, so it is likely that he's lost everything. Including all the photos of his son growing up. :-( :-( :-( And yes, I did tell him last year that backup is an absolute necessity, but that concept was lost in the fog of confusion created by the computer itself.
Anyway, it's an enormous loss that would never have occurred if I hadn't helped him with his digital camera in the first place. And no, it's not my "fault", and no, he's not the kind of person that blames whoever is nearest. But he could have been, and if he were a paid client, it could have been really fucking ugly.
And that is why I have decided to not pursue this line of work any further. Aside from the fact that I don't want to be in the line of fire for other people's frustrations, I simply can't handle the tragedy of it. Desktop computing has been Bad News for too many people, and I'm thinking they'd be better off without it.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 07:08 pm (UTC)Apple has done a lot of user interface research and accomplished some great things that are now part of the general computer experience now but one still needs to have a basic understanding of at least the office desk metaphor they're working with.
It reminds me of the old VCR days when people would ask how the program got from the TV to the VCR. I'd explain a tuner in the VCR itself and they'd get even more confused.
And they're not stupid. Their talents just lie elsewhere.
I worry about photos being lost through media degeneration. I recently discovered a box of prints from about ten years ago. This was before I got a digital camera. I thought that these will probably last much longer than the more recent digital ones. I've set about a project to copy all my old CDs of files to newer DVD-ROMs. I had one of them fail even but managed to clean it and get it all off of it.
I dream of a film recorder service where you take in a drive full of digital photos and they transfer it all to film negatives for you.
If they read the little "Getting started" booklet
Date: 2010-04-16 05:49 am (UTC)Chuck, I do peruse "read me" files, now that nothing is printed
no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 09:24 pm (UTC)But, the fundamental problem is computer illiteracy. For instance, people just have no idea, conceptually or physically, how computers store and retrieve data or even what it means to link or network.
Without those concepts, it's impossible to adapt or understand changes or to really know what is going on, right?
Instead, people probably respond by creating "visual categories". They go to a page that they "recognize" and do something by rote that they've been told to do to get a result.
Take away that visual recognition, with an user-interface redesign or whatever, and poof, it's a whole new world for them. It's not like a basketball with a different color, it may as well be a different game, for them.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 07:16 am (UTC)But there's a reason I kept (and still keep) a Windoze 98 machine active. I think we've gone through 2 printers since the 98 machine, but neither of the new printers have very well-written or user-friendly code, especially for mac. Makes me wanna go out and find some free, basic software with no frills and no fuckin' bugs.
For instance, if I wanna print on both sides of the 98 machine and make a book: That's one click.Neither of our newer printers can do this, even if we stand on our head. Even though it's from the same damn manufacturer.
There's more reasons why we still got 98, due to code that ain't user friendly, but I don't wanna wright a novel.
In fact, I need rebooting:
no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 02:26 pm (UTC)Two things, I think, helps most beginners with computers
Have people write down the steps it takes to do what they want. Most people need cheat sheets to refer to, until they either understand, or at least memorize, the steps they need to do in order to perform a task.
When people begin to use a computer they must either take a beginning class or get one of the dummy manuals, or both.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 05:03 pm (UTC)DIE, C:\, DIE.
Date: 2010-04-16 07:14 pm (UTC)I want to see how far Apple can go before they're broken up into a dozen useless pieces. It's gratifying watching them re-architect backup, file, web, IPC, multitasking, I/O, firmware signing, code signing, code distribution, all of it.
Some reviewer nailed it: the iPad is a glimpse into the future of consumption computation.