[geeks] geeks Digest, Vol 86, Issue 14

[Fred]

From:	IN%"geeks at sunhelp.org" 17-JAN-2010 20:48:11.92
To:	IN%"geeks at sunhelp.org"
CC:	
Subj:	geeks Digest, Vol 86, Issue 14

From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [geeks] geeks Digest, Vol 86, Issue 11

>That is our complaint with our users. When we make a new software  
>image it not only has to have, for example, word 2007 on the start  
>menu/taskbar, it also has to be in the same spot, since the teacher  
>says things like "click on Word 2007, it's the fourth item in the  
>start menu/taskbar" if it is somewhere else the teachers complain 'on  
>behalf' of their students.

Choir, meet Preacher ... :)

Leaving aside for the moment that this may be bad interface design - I had
this happen all the time at $previous_job when there would be a version update
of a terminal based OpenVMS application that users would be use.  Move a menu
item or rename it to make room for a sub menu and all sorts of heck would
break loose despite being notified weeks in advance of the change.

Move an icon in their Netware application launcher and I'd get calls that they
couldn't find it.  A simple reply by me "It's there, keep looking" would have
them find it.  These are intelligent people, mind you - perhaps not technology
people.   My guess is because I was there for support, they considered that
they didn't have to at least make an attempt to find the icon before calling
me, that it was my job to hand hold them.

The teachers "teaching" "fourth row, second icon from the right in the middle
of the screen" type of stuff need to be taken out back and slapped around. 
That is NOT teaching IMHO.   Maybe I'm the enigma becaue I came into
technology right in the middle of the transition from DOS to Windows - so I
had been exposed (and *learned*) both worlds.  

$ SET THREAD MODE/DRIFT

I shake my head when I see management types (and most of these are MBAs, 
which lends itself to another discussion ...) shudder when they encounter 
a terminal emulated app and not know how to deal with it, or disparage the 
command line and say "it all should be graphical".   All they know is Windows 
and do not understand that there is MUCH more out there in the world of 
technology.

$ SET THREAD MODE/NODRIFT

>On a related note, we are about to make our applications available for  
>use by students from home over remote desktop/terminal server web  
>interfaces... That will be fun!

I have found RDP relatively easy to use by non technical people.  Create an
icon for them, explain what it does, and after they double click, sign on as
normal.   I normally do this via ssh tunnels, and it works very well.  It's
darn handy for an administrator as well when you're at the other end of a
facility and need to run a quick command on a server, but I'm sure you knew
that (there's that choir again ...)  :)

Fred