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Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets

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On 06/02/2016 11:21, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>>> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>> <snip>
>>>> I'm having trouble sending a .exe or .zip file via email.
>>>>
>>>> The gmail system refuses to accept them (if you're lucky, you
>>>> sometimes get a failure message back).
>>
>>> Why not use a less picky SMTP server?
>>
>> In BartC's defense, he may have been talking about sending a .exe or
>> .zip _to_ a gmail recipient, in which case he has no choice if the
>> repipient uses gmail.
>
> Ah, yes, that's a more reasonable reading.  I've always thought of
> sub-par email systems as being the receiver's problem, but there will be
> cases when you have to send something, so it becomes yours.
>
> However, it did read rather like one of his generic rants about how
> everything is so awful now.  But the problems he documents are largely
> driven by the fact that so many more people use computing devices these
> days.  In the "good old days" of floppy discs, the few people who had
> such machines knew how to do more technical things with them -- they had
> to.

No, it is more complicated GUIs, as well as more complicated everything 
else. If you're giving instructions by email or support over the phone 
(of which I've had considerable experience), you have to keep a picture 
of what's happening on the user's screen at the other end.

Recently I tried duplicating operations at my end, on the same model of 
netbook, but I assumed they were using Windows 32, in fact they were 
running Windows 7, which explained a lot of perplexing differences!

(In this case, this was trying to get a specialised label-printer 
working, which in the old days would be plugged into a parallel port and 
it would Just Work.

Unfortunately those days are long gone. This printer is still driven by 
instructions in raw text. On Windows that means installing a 'virtual' 
Generic/Text printer, and somehow linking that to the same port as the 
label printer is, which is one of the USB ports. And then selecting that 
Text printer in the application.

Now /I/ hardly understand how it works, and I don't have the printer 
(it's thousands of miles away), but I have to make it work at the other 
end of the phone line.

It doesn't help that the trick of linking the Generic/Text printer only 
works with one USB printer at a time, and the client of course has two 
slightly different models in use.)

 > However, it did read rather like one of his generic rants about how
 > everything is so awful now.

That's because a lot of it is. If a printer didn't work in 1985, it 
might have been one of handful of things (not plugged in, not on-line, 
out of paper etc, all obvious). Now it could be a million things, few of 
which are obvious.

-- 
Bartc

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Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-02-01 17:05 +0000
  Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2016-02-02 14:26 +1100
    Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-02 03:41 +0000
      Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-02-02 06:36 +0000
        Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-02-02 09:24 +0000
          Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2016-02-02 09:33 +0000
            Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-02-02 12:55 +0100
        Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-02-02 11:34 +0100
          Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2016-02-03 09:38 +0300
            Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-02-03 11:59 +0100
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-03 11:38 +0000
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-03 12:55 -0500
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Andy Burns <usenet.jan2016@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2016-02-03 18:02 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-03 15:42 -0500
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-03 21:02 +0000
            Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Andy Burns <usenet.jan2016@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2016-02-03 14:26 +0000
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-02-03 19:46 +0300
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-03 16:51 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-03 13:01 -0500
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-03 19:19 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-03 12:59 -0500
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Andy Burns <usenet.jan2016@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2016-02-03 17:57 +0000
            Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets "Andy K." <andy.k466@gmail.com> - 2016-02-04 08:37 +0100
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-04 11:29 -0500
        Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-02 11:03 +0000
          Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-02 13:11 +0200
            Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-06 00:57 +0000
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-06 01:19 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-06 03:23 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-02-06 11:21 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-06 14:31 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-06 16:54 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-06 14:16 +0000
              Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-02-05 18:36 -0800
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-06 03:24 +0000
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-02-05 21:56 -0800
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-06 08:41 +0200
                Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-02-06 14:34 +0000
      Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-02 03:15 -0500
        Re: Report suggests users averse to doing "real work" on tablets Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2016-02-02 11:39 +0100

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