Some Perspective from the low-tech side....

[mongrel]

I've grumbled a bit, here and there, over the years, about how people who are familiar with computers, when asked by someone like me for directions on how to do such-and-such, will respond with something like, "You just unzip the folder and send it into the cloud."

Ta-DAAAA....

The "perspective" I refer to in the title of this topic is about just how low-tech I am and why directions like the above, though they seem perfectly simple and clear, are useless to me (and, I suspect, to a good-sized percentage of members here). Allow me to illustrate:

I have been having trouble with my phone crashing my computer when I or the answering machine pick up. It got to where if I came in from the shop to use the computer, I switched the answering machine off and ignored the phone when it started ringing, so that whatever I was doing on the computer I could finish. I have DSL and previous to my old phone finally going south, I could talk on the phone and work the internet at the same time -- useful when discussing the parts to be used on a customer's build. But the old phone did go south and I broke out one that my parents sent me a couple of years ago, and got it hooked up, and just assumed that since it was a Wal-Mart cheapie that it was somehow responsible for the computer suddenly losing the internet when the phone or the built-in answering machine was activated.

Well, without dragging this story out over another couple of paragraphs, after the umpteenth time of losing the internet I read the little notice that pops up, informing me that it can't connect, and noticed something about making sure the DSL line was in the correct port of the DSL filter. Huh. I had assumed that the DSL line and phone line each would only fit into a certain port, so that if they were hooked up at all they HAD to be hooked up right.

Not so. Now I can talk and surf at the same time and I can watch YouTube again and a number of other things that my computer just didn't seem to be able to handle, there, for a few months.

The point? When someone asks a tech-related question like, How do I load pictures? or, Anyone have any idea why it takes half an hour for a four-minute Dropkick Murphys video to load and play? -- it might help to assume, first and foremost, that the individual asking really doesn't know computers. Like, to the point he plugged his phone and DSL lines into the wrong ports, and didn't even know it. And that any instruction to someone operating on this level should not begin with "Access the cloud" or "Unzip a folder" -- but, rather, with "Make sure your computer is plugged in correctly...."

[Otter]

Point taken. Just because you understand something or know how doesn't mean the other guy does?

[mongrel]

Ta-DAAAA....

The biggest problem I have with explanations/instructions, computer-wise, is the assumption that I'm familiar with the various terminology and, when told to do such-and-such, that I will know HOW.

I've run into the same issue, many times, trying to explain to someone how some feature of their gun works (or why it isn't working). I've learned to lead off with, "Okay, are you familiar with what a fly is and how it works?" or something along those lines. It helps, immensely, to determine what common ground I need to establish with the questioner, before I ever attempt to get into the actual problem that's hopefully to be solved.

Looking at it from another angle -- we deal primarily with traditional muzzleloaders, here. In one form or another the basics of traditional muzzleloaders were not only in existence but had been effectively perfected and standardized roughly 400 years ago, from lock workings to trigger types to general terminology. It's taken for granted that there are going to be people, a lot of them actually, who know nothing or next to it about the mechanics of how muzzleloaders function. Why then is it assumed that persons who came to full adulthood before computers in the home were much more than science fiction, will understand not only the terminology and workings, but the LATEST terminology and workings, of a device that in any sense of practical usage by the average person is only a relative few years old and still in a constant, often confusing process of development and evolution?

My reference to "the cloud" for instance. "The cloud" to me is a vaporous object in the sky that filters the direct sunlight and given the right conditions emits the rain. I know of it as a computer element only by way of having seen the term used recently in the "Dilbert" comic strip, in which a guy who's been out of the work force for a good while, when told the company employee manual is in "the cloud", is found gazing upward out a window, a lost look on his face. I AM THAT GUY. "The cloud" in this case has a completely different meaning and context than what I would be familiar with, and that meaning and context need explaining before I can be given directions to access the cloud and have there be any reasonable expectation that I will know what is being talked about or how to do it.

This is not brought on by any recent confusion or frustration on my part, or lack of asked-for help on anyone else's. I just notice when someone, like myself, asks a question and is answered in a way that is meant to be helpful but overlooks the fact that, if he understood the answer, he most likely wouldn't have needed to ask the question to start with.

[45 Bravo]

When I lived in Colorado, I worked for Hewlett Packard on the help desk for Dow chemical, and the US Postoffice.

2 VERY DIFFERENT groups of people.

The Dow group was all chemical engineers, when they had a problem, they called us, and we fixed the computers remotely.
Every computer had the same disk image so every computer was just alike, all of their documents and work was uploaded daily, automatically, or it was done online.

The post office was normally a little 80 year old lady in the middle of nowhere kansas with maybe 2 hours of computer training.

But on both, it was advantageous to work in the simplest terms.

The USPS used net meeting so instead of telling them to start program XYZ. I would say "in the bottom right corner of your screen, click on the blue world with 2 gold arrows around it.. "

Or when you need them to restart the computer, you have to say"turn off the hard drive part of the computer, not the tv part."

Most people like it when you can put things in terms they can understand..

So I know what you mean..

[45 Bravo]

If you notice my signature, I run mac computers.
I make my gun and spending money fixing and de virusing  windows based machines.

I also log into clients machines to fix them remotely, so I don't have to drive 100 miles to do some thing simple(simple for me) and cheaper for you as I can do it from home..

At work, we use macs in the design/printing phase of the newspaper, and billing/circulation & classifieds use pc's, in addition to being the graphic artist, proof reader, I am also the IT guy.

I keep the Mac @ pc's talking together..

I started off on windows machines years ago (actually pre windows DOS & BASIC machines) DOS & BASIC are computer operating systems that didn't have pictures to click on to make it do things like now..

The reason I run macs?
I don't have to fix them or tweak them or maintain them against things like viruses..

Running a Mac is like watching a magician, don't ask how it is done, just sit back and enjoy the show..

And any photos I take on my iPhone is automatically copied to my desktop Mac, my laptop Mac, and my iPad.

And any photos I upload from my digital camera to my computer is automatically distributed to all my devices, so I always have the photos available to show someone if I want to..


My wife runs a windows machine & a windows phone. (She says she is Macintosh intolerant) but she does play games on the iPad on trips.


45 Bravo

[beowulf]

had a cousin who built his own puters (as he called them ) , he`d tell me how to do some simple task in what he considered simple directions (yeah ! right !) might as well have been coaching me on how to plot a course through hyperspace to a star system on the other side of the galaxy !  he`d start talking and all I`d hear was ,bla bla bla waka bla waka waka ! I`m learning , but it`s been a long slow process !

[Red Badger]

This is not the place for a discussion of this type... Mikes original post was fine in pointing out the need to go back to basics when helping others... but what followed was not relevant to the issue.  I am in the process of trying to find the time to build a tutorial for posting pictures since the one we had has been deleted. 

Jim