Sender: root@raptor1.jonadab.homeip.net.jonadab.homeip.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW.... References: Mail-Copies-To: never From: "Jonadab the Unsightly One" Message-ID: Lines: 62 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: 31 Mar 2003 23:46:14 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.143.57.71 X-Complaints-To: abuse@bright.net X-Trace: cletus.bright.net 1049172114 209.143.57.71 (Mon, 31 Mar 2003 23:41:54 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 23:41:54 EST Organization: bright.net Ohio Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.news.qwest.net!cletus.bright.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:134058 This is a really old thread, but... alanh@primenet.com (Alan Hamilton) writes: > ....you get some e-mail from someone thanking you for your help in > getting their computer working, and you can't remember who the > person is or what their problem was. This happens to me in person on a weekly basis: people come up to the desk at work (I work at a library) and thank me and rave about how what I told them to do fixed their computer, and I have no recollection of them or their problem. And on that note... YKYB Working With End Users TLW... * You preview a new web-based service, and it happens to use a dark background and light foreground, and the first thing you wonder, before you even check for javascript errors, is whether the authors set up their media="print" styles correctly to invert the colors. You View->Source and are dismayed when you find that they didn't, because you know you're going to get complaints about the printer being out of toner. * You understand WHY people print web pages. * You can tell what mailreader a user uses (even though he doesn't have a clue) from his description of his problem. * You consider users to be "quite clueful" if they know how to copy and paste. * When you hear "modem", "hard drive", or "CPU" your preprocessor automagically substitutes "box" before you even consider the word in context. (I only do this when speaking to a user IRL; when reading stuff on the net this is disabled somehow.) * You know someone who would like to have that ancient Mac (remember System 7?) for typing letters. * You read User Friendly and feel compassion for the poor folks who call up tech support and get Greg. And just for old times' sake, a traditional YKYBHTLW that actually happened to me... At the public library where I'm TCG[1], whenever I check in computer-related computer-related items, I usually make a point of checking their circulation statistics so I can get an idea of how well various types of things circulate. (Sometimes I get called upon to make purchase recommendations...) So anyway, the Friday night befor elast (I think; maybe the previous) I was checking in some VHS tapes, and I checked in a feature film, a movie about CPAN, and a couple of national geographics, not thinking anything much about it, but then I realised, "Hey, I didn't know we had that video about CPAN", so I was going to check its circ stats, but when I looked at it again what it actually said was "C-SPAN Archives". I've been spending too much time thinking about Perl lately. [1] The Computer Guy -- i.e., one-man IT department.