I think this whole thread just serves to
emphasise that "ease of use" or "plug and play"
are still figments of the imagination of the top guns in the computer industry.
I too struggle time and again with trying to sort
out the supposedly simplest things. I've been
around personal computers since the Apple IIe and
before that was using mini and mainframe
machines. Problem was I was always a user so had
a back-up team to sort the problems. Being
interested in technology I always asked questions
and learnt a lot, but was never sent by an
employer on any sort of training course. It's
been listening and reading the manuals (Oh
shame!! LOL) that has taught me most. The result
has been that I do know a fair amount - more than
many of my peers and as a result they seem to
think I'm some sort of guru. That leads to all
sorts of issues in terms of people impinging on
my time for help with the most mundane things.
Fortunately I have a son who is know an IT
Manager for a largish firm in London using
multi-networks of PCs so he can help and if he's
not available (he travels sometimes to branch
offices) I have my good friends here on this
forum which I have honestly found to be more sue
than any of the fora dedicated to specific programs or systems.
Right now I'm struggling with trying to figure
out why our parish office can't download emails
from the email address related to their web site.
I can get them if I set up my email - but they
aren't for me and some are confidential. I've
spent most of this week messing with this problem
on and off and am tearing my hair our. Their
system keeps defaulting to their ISP email
details and won't hold those for the web! I've
scanned their machine for viruses, updated their
ant-virus and firewall (and now set the machine
to do it automatically, but as they are on a
dial-up that is a problem at times) but nothing
so far has worked. This is a prize example of
what should be so simple and straightforward but is in fact a nightmare.
Neither their ISP nor the web service host has a
telephone help line so we are waiting around for
email support all the time. Whatever about Deb's
comment about laws against software suppliers
having their products do things without warning,
I firmly believe that any company that provides
any service that is delivered over the telephone
system should have people on the end of the phone
to provide help on a one to one basis. Not
answering machines, not multi-press options on
the phone pad - a real live human being that
knows the system inside out and can talk you through the problems and options.
Hey Ho! Back to hair tearing!
Cheers
Peter MacGregor
At 07:52 20/10/2006, you wrote:
At 01:16 AM 10/20/2006, you wrote:
I apologise sincerely for any offence if you
thought I was being sarcastic at you! I should
have said "type *just* the right question into
Google". You have to have a fairly twisted mind
to produce the answer you want at the first, or
even fifty-first, attempt. None of the
300-plus computer users that I support can do
this, or I'd be out of a job. Also when I said
'to save you the trouble' that's exactly what I
meant, it would have been quite rude of me to
just leave it at steps 1-3 when I had the
answer on my screen. But if I had just posted
the answer without the method, perhaps I would
have been posing as some kind of super guru
instead of just someone who used Google to get
the answer... modesty and helpfulness, see, not
bitterness and cheap shots at all.... :-)
Thanks, Bj. You are correct in that you really
do have to twist your mind to find what you need
sometimes. I thought I was searching on the
right words but as you can see, I was wrong. I
also assumed just searching in the WinXP help
files on my own computer would yield me the answer - bzzzt - wrong answer, Deb!
I have been in tech support for about twenty
years but frankly, skill, knowledge, experience
and training are only useful in about 5% of
situations. Mainly I earn my living by
switching equipment off and back on again, and
when that occasionally fails, typing *just* the
right question into Google / looking in *just*
the right place in the manual or help file...
it's a rare gift, I mean a *rare* gift.
Erm, also, I must admit finding this one
probably was more like the fifty-first attempt,
the first time I had to look for it...
I do appreciate the trouble you went to to find it for me.
I'm not going to mess w/this anymore. I just
don't have the time and after being totally
locked out after my attempts - I'm now more on
the paranoid side of terrified of this happening
again. It would have been nice had the program
that installed this given me the option of
setting it up this way - I'd have surely checked
NO! It has to be either the printer or the
Wacom Pen Tab as this all happened after
that. I do remember something about MSN
Messenger or ??? coming up but for the life of
me can't remember what it was now. I was just
dumbfounded to have installed all of this, gone
to bed, got up - rebooted and suddenly there is
was w/no warning. There oughta be a law against
software doing this but then I would imagine
they'd listen about as well as the spammers
listen to the laws about spamming and to the people who don't want it.
Deb
Bj
----- Original Message ----- From: "PBC Web
Design" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 2:48 AM
Subject: Re: [wdvltalk] OT: ridding myself of the Windows Welcome screen
At 05:17 PM 10/19/2006, you wrote:
The answer takes a bit of finding, you have
to type just the right question into Google.
Apparently, this was the problem. I had not
worded my searches correctly in the WinXP help
files to find what you did. Nothing I found
in the help files had anything like this. I
neglected to mention that I did try the WinXP
help files before posting. I did not however,
try Google. Thank you. I will try this.
:: Deb | PBC Web Design
:: http://www.PBCWebDesign.com
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