Are End Users to Blame for OS Flaws? 278
tomsHH writes to mention OSWeekly author Brandon Watts claims that really it is end users who should be blamed for many OS flaws. "Believe it or not, as users, we also have a large role to play in the evolution of an operating system. We use what's been created, and this means that we're the best people to turn to for judging what works and what doesn't. Passionate communities that are supportive aid development, and when users join their efforts to make their voices heard, this benefits everyone. Have you ever thought that if you wanted something to be improved, then maybe you should just speak up and offer a solution instead of quietly or publicly venting without offering any input? Nothing changes by staying the same. Companies are listening, and as taboo as it may seem, most of them want to make their users happy, so if you shout loud enough, you're bound to be heard. If you need proof of this, then just look at how Linux has progressed in its development."
answers: (Score:5, Insightful)
Long answer: yes, but the OS should be robust enough to deal with clumsy endusers.
Re:answers: (Score:5, Insightful)
A famous quote by Douglas Adams was "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
In a perfect world with a perfect OS it would be robust enough to handle all user errors. In that same world we'd all be driving flying cars and live in peace, no one would ever starve and mySpace would never have been invented...oh, and the RIAA would promote people using the things they buy to their fullest
Re:answers: (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not as much as restricting them but actually minimizing damage control.
Take for example Excel 2003 (not really OS but still related in the menu structure)
If you open a CSV file and add formulas and formatting, and then save it will warn you that if you save as a CSV it won't of course save the the formatting and formulas and asks if you are sure you want to save the file as CSV format.
Of course most users will read this as "Do you really want to save the file" and hit yes when they really needed to go to file save as and choose
Which is why you really need to word your prompts so that it isn't just a Yes or No button (OS X apps usually strive to do this... except for the MS ones for some reason) and that the prompt actually could be understood correctly when only skimming the words.
Of course someone is always going to do the wrong thing, but you have to make it so a person would naturally choose the option that will hurt them less by default.
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The people who can't figure out or don't understand what's being asked of them in that dialogue are the same users who likely won't notice or mind the application eating up a little more disk space to
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What if somebody sent them a csv file and needs to recieve a csv file back? What if the csv file will be input to some other application? The user and Excel aren't just in a vacuum where Excel can use whatever format it likes.
"a dummy mode that's toggled on by default isn't necessa
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Right. The dialog should say "Are you sure you want to save as a CSV format file? ALL FORMATTING AND FORMULAS WILL BE LOST." Two buttons: "Save as CSV Anyway" and "Save as XLS". The default should be "Save as XLS" because the safe choice should always be the default. Maybe a cancel button, too.
That said, the #1 best way to protect against user error is to not have problems like this in the first place---design every file format and application to support reverting to previous states. For example, if there is a file format that provides a limited data set, save the file, but save a second file right beside it with the full data set. Tell them what you are doing and why. "Note: The CSV format cannot support the formatting and/or formulas used in this document. For your convenience, a copy in XLS format has been saved in the same location with formatting and formulas included." Give them the ability to do what they ask (even if it is probably the wrong thing to do), but provide a way for them to get back to a known good state if they screwed up.
In an ideal world, file formats would be designed to support this. An example of a good file format is the RCS format used by CVS. You have the current TOT stored as a complete copy, then every previous version as a reverse diff. I'd go one step farther, though. Add metarevisions that refer to arbitrary later revisions without branching. Revision 1.13 might incorporate changes, then 1.14 might revert to 1.12. Since 1.13 would now be defined as a diff from 1.12, the 1.12 revision diff from 1.13 would be cleared to reduce storage, and would be replaced by a metarevision that says "see 1.14". In this way, it becomes simple to have unlimited undo and redo without ever losing any of the states. If you undo ten revisions and make a new change, you could still back out that change, back out the undos, and you'd be back to effectively another branch.
Combine this with a format that is unknown-data-tolerant and a software architecture designed to support passing along unknown attributes (such as XML) and you can create a very user-friendly environment that is version agnostic, OS agnostic, and fairly bulletproof. In an era where disk space is almost free, I'm surprised software developers aren't doing this already. It seems pretty obvious to me, and I've been advocating it for years.
If every application made it so that any reasonable operation could be undone by the user if he/she made a mistake, computers would be a lot less scary for the naive user. Indeed, the prospect of ever being able to screw up and lose something forever is terrifying to non-geeks, and is the single largest user interface flaw in operating systems and application software today. Is it the part of the users? No, it is not.
(Yes, I think log-structured filesystems are cool. Why do you ask?)
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Even better would be for the knowledge of revisions to be part of the VFS layer (on top of existing filesystems), with (limited) application control over versioning and reversion. In this way, it would be possible to prevent viruses, etc. from being able to wreck your machine by providing the guaranteed ability to roll back any changes. By placing it under (limited) application control, you would eliminate the perpetual problem of deciding when to create a new version. It would also make it practical fo
Re:answers: (Score:4, Interesting)
My point is that with proper caching, there's no reason for undo/redo to not save a change log on the fly, then rewrite the final revision and reverse patch on close. You mentioned that Office does this. So does AppleWorks. Every app should work this way. If an OS-level service made it easy, more apps would do so. As it stands, I can count the apps tht do this on one hand. In fact, I believe between your post and this one, that's all the apps I know of. Okay, a few command-line tools like vi. With modern drives, for most applications, there's no reason not to write each change to disk. Let the OS batch the changes and write them when it has a whole block full of diffs.
As for your assertion that the VFS layer is the wrong layer, I disagree. The block layer, however, would be completely inappropriate because data changes to files do not tend to be block oriented. Diffs (in binary or text form) have to handle the notion of data sliding, which doesn't work optimally if you are looking at only a single block of data at a time. Thus, block layer versioning would only work reasonably for very limited file formats like disk images, and even then, would be suboptimal in terms of wasting space.
The best way to do it, IMHO, would be to support existing apps with "legacy I/O" (read/write system calls and variants thereof) in the most lightweight way possible, then do something completely different for apps that want control over versioning. It definitely can't be a per-write operation, as writes can have dependencies on nearby writes that can occur earlier or later. Thus, you'd probably just have to commit changes on close for apps that aren't versioning-aware.
You'd also have problems with apps that mv one file on top of another, which is why you would have to intercept those operations in the VFS layer and do a merge of the versioning data. Otherwise, viruses could completely subvert the whole system by writing a file and renaming it over top of another file and the whole history would go away. The only way to keep this out of the VFS layer would be to make it restricted to a single filesystem, which in my experience is the best way to guarantee that it never gets adopted by anyone....
For supporting new applications, most of the work would move out of the kernel and into the application level, but with significant integration with the kernel versioning bits (specifically, asking the kernel to check in a new top of tree version). The ideal design would be for the app to choose its access mode: block mode, structured mode, or text mode. Block mode would support data that will not typically change in length and shift data around, e.g. a disk image. It might either use binary diffs or a block log. Either way would work acceptably, but for performance reasons, block logs would probably be the better choice. In text mode, everything would be represented with text diffs.
The more interesting mode, though, is structured mode. In structured mode, everything would be represented with an XML schema. In effect, this would separate the data structure from the application itself, leading to more open file formats. Ideally, it should be possible through language constructs to tie member variables in C++ classes to values in the structured content so that changes to the values result in changes in the external representation.
This would essentially makes changes to the structure of the data a matter of recording the operations, doing diffs of long strings, etc. In that mode, the app would have a "commit change" call to save a new version. It would be up to the app to decide whether to commit after each change or wait until someone hits "save". For that matter, you could even have a "conditional commit" call that could be rolled back. Not sure how useful that would be, but it seems like a reasonable thing to add.
One more thing. In addition to a top-of-tree cache, it would be absolutely necessary for the initial revision to exist as a complete file. Otherwise, there are cases where an entire file could be lost due to a poorly timed power failure or an application attempting to subvert checking in the head revisioin using the private APIs used by the libc bits.
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At the end of the day the
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Now, it would be a lot harder to design a variable UI which adjusts to the user's knowledge, and I don't expect one any time soon. However, that's the only long-term solution I can see where all users can be happy, from novices to experts. No single approach will ever fit all users.
Re:answers: (Score:5, Funny)
Schwab
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but seriously... the issue with a quiz is that it would have to be able to be taken again in the future if your knowledge increases. it would also have to be called something nice and happy or else the user would think it's something that prevents them from using their computer to the fullest. something like "user experience survey" would work. the issue is that so
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I'll be the same thing that happened with the XP "simplified" control panel and Macintosh's "Simple Finder/Launcher" mode... people will immediately turn it back to how it was so they can use the new computer the same way they used the old. I don't think there's a single user who actually spent mor
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Every attempt by them to make computing "easier" has resulted a useless, broken new method that even newbies ought not to use. The control panel in Windows XP that let you do 6 things is a prime example.
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"The main difference between something that can go wrong and something that can't possibly go wrong is that when the thing which can't possibly go wrong goes wrong, it's always impossible to get at and fix."
Scarcity of Resources (Score:2)
This Breaks OS's
I don't mean all users, but every year I expect that much more from my computer/OS and in general user demands are rising.
Computers aren't a stable technology - in the sense that they aren't done evolving by any means, and user demands are high enough to create scarcity in the 'computer resources' available, forcing the continued expansion of OSs. It's a good thing that Users are Too Blame for the b
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For instance, I provide an icon for Firefox on the IceWM toolbar. The user clicks it, and Firefox boots up.
Now, the end-user goes to a certain website that has harmful javascript, etc. and he can't get loose from that
web page. All of Firefox's buttons are locked up tight. Now what? Turn the computer off?
Well, I use a "Security and Control Script" that Firefox runs in, lots of details here. [geocities.com]
(Way more is done for Firef
Once you call it an OS flaw (Score:2, Interesting)
Are
We've been complaining about that message for quite some time now, it didn't go away.
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Re:Once you call it an OS flaw (Score:4, Insightful)
"Are you sure to delete?"
Every time there's a Sony tech in the room I complain. In four years and several versions nothing's changed.
Are end users to blame? Exactly how am I supposed to change an error message?
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Not Qualified (Score:2)
Re:Once you call it an OS flaw (Score:5, Insightful)
Bzzzt. Wrong, and this is the typically techy approach to OSes. An OS with no bugs is not necessarily flawless. Flaw can be other things than bugs - flawed usability (e.g. having to go through a menu, 2 sub menus and an option page just to get to a very frequently used search, or having a modern OS that only supports 320x200 on the display).
Flaws are everywhere, in code, but also in DESIGN. And, of course, the design ones are often the hardest to fix, especially if you look at a list of flaws with only techy eyes
NO (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would the end user be responsible? That's just silly. With that outlook Linux is going nowhere, thankfully most people will agree that this is crazy.
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Yes and no. There's at least three kinds of email infections; there's the trojan, the virus, and the buffer overflow. We all know what trojans and viruses are, but consider that there have been numerous flaws that would allow execution of arbitrary code as the Admin or even in the NT kernel if you simply displayed an image. Displaying an image should not be a risky behavior! Being infected by viewing an imag
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Are End Users to Blame for OS Flaws? (Score:2, Insightful)
Blaming the end users is simply a cop out.
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But it is quite reasonable to blame end users for expecting to be able to handle something as complex as a computer without any training.
Most people don't expect to be able to drive a car without lessons, so why do they think they can manage a computer, which is many times more complex to use than a car?
Computers are already easy enough for anyone with ap
I'd like some of what he's smoking... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that most OSes receive PLENTY of feedback, strident and otherwise about perceived flaws and issues.
This article is basically content free.
Re:I'd like some of what he's smoking... (Score:4, Funny)
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But its very moving. After reading it, I slapped my grandma in the face while screaming, "THE GOD DAMN CiceroUIWndFrame ERROR I KEEP GETTING IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!!!"
Are Slashdot editors to blame for crappy articles? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are Slashdot editors to blame for crappy articl (Score:2)
There is an ad there?
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If nobody RTFA then there would be no click through revenue and this type of crappiness would go away.
Anyway, this is slashdot. You don't need to RTFA to express an opinion!
They're not flaws... (Score:2, Funny)
They don't constructively gripe? (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's a common issue, there will be plenty of people that do the same. The REAL issue, I think, is that the organizations I see DON'T use customer support calls as places to look for ways to improve the product.
I think most companies just see support as a neccesary evil, and not an easy way to see what your customers are wanting.
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I do, but most of the time they're just a phone monkey and not only do they not care, but they have no process for forwarding my comments along to anyone who would care. This is of course so that the corporate masters get all the input into telling them what to do, and they do listen to some people - people with lots of money who are more important to their bottom line than I am becaus
Re:They don't constructively gripe? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
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This is closely related to the fact that most users won't spend more than 3 minutes to learn how to use an advanced feature,
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Many Mac users hate the Finder, too. That's because the Finder sucks.
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Let's assume for the moment that spatial file browsing is a bad idea. Which I completely and utterly disagree with, but let's assume that.
Apple released version 10 of a product that had FEWER features than version 9. Microsoft was able to completely re-write the Office UI from scratch without removing a single feature. Why wasn't Apple able to completely re-write Finder from scratch without losing any features? Why is it acceptable for Apple to make a release with fewer features tha
Difference with Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difference with Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Linux user base is limited to programmers than Apple and Microsoft have absolutely nothing to fear in competition for the desktop.
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Generally speaking, no they can't. OS development is a skill that the vast majority of people do not, and never will, have. The best you can say is that a small fraction of Linux users can attempt to write a patch to fix the problem, and a fraction of those can do it successfully.
You might as well say that Windows users can decompile the
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With Windows and its merry gang of proprietary applications, this isn't an option. Sure, you can call MS's support line and pay $$$ to tell them there's a problem (remember, you have to pay per-call for the privilege of calling them). But don't expect anythi
What a great idea... (Score:2)
You have you ever thought that this what we call open-source and that talking less and actually doing something about the problem is what it's all about. Oh, it's not Microsoft's fault when they build crappy software that does not meet the needs of the user. Sure, it's not. It's o
Too many voices (Score:5, Interesting)
So I can't see blaming the users; I couldn't listen to all of them even if they were trying to tell us about their problems.
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Are you proposing that the users design the mockups? Because you are then ensuring that only those who have familiarity with a graphics program have a voice.
It makes far more sense just to have users suggest features, then tabulate them up, let them see which ones are most popular already, and then vote on them.
Of cou
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Yes, it forces people suggesting ideas to think through it enough to actually figure out what it should look like. A lot of what people think is obviously practical will actually turn out to be obviously stupid once they try to actually work out exactly how it will get used and where it goes. The OP was concerned about getting a hundred thousand sugge
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Strongly Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't give a shit about making you or I happy. They care about corporate customers with support contracts and umpteen-hojillion seats.
Even if you are heard, however, you're likely to be ignored. It's only when hundreds or thousands of voices in chorus ask for the same thing that any major developer gives a damn.
This is an exceptionally ignorant thing to say, unless we're speaking exclusively about Open Source or Free Software or something, and we are not. Linux is driven by two groups; one is the major companies which cater to paying customers. If you have purchased a large support contract, they care about you. Otherwise not. The other group is the hobbyists. They want to implement first those things which they think would be cool, second those things which they think are necessary (these may be swapped depending on sensibilities) and third any other feature they think is cool, or would teach them something, or which would get them some props. This last can be the most powerful motivator but usually the competent are not the greatest seekers of glory.
Compare this to a commercial corporation that only cares if you are important to the bottom line, and you will see how lame the comparison is.
Let me tell you what companies actually care about: Money. No one cares if you say that you want the product to do X, unless lots of other people said it. But if a product comes out that does what you want and you buy it, well, that sort of thing tends to be noticed. People will then emulate that product, trying to give you what you want.
Vote with your dollars. End of story, unless it's a free-as-in-beer Linux, and then you're either stroking someone's ego or helping their bottom line by growing their installed base and making their distribution look more desirable to corporate customers. If it's free-as-in-beer, vote with your feet, same concept. By all means tell people what you want, but don't expect to get it because unless everyone else wants it, you're probably not going to get it - again, if it's commercial.
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Huh. I remember reading an alleged quote of Ballmer saying "We could fix all the bugs if we spent enough money, but I'd rather spend that money on marketing where there's a return on the investment." (Heavily paraphrased from the depths of memory). But I can't actually find a source for this one. Does anyone know if he did indeed say that, or am I merely spreading evil rumours?
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Then explain the new Office interface. Explain the "task-based" interface in XP and Vista versions of Explorer.
Frankly, Microsoft is doing as much or more UI experimentation and improvement than any other company right now, and it's a good thing. Even if their experiments flopped, well, at least they tried... as opposed to Apple who re-wrote Finder from scratch and ended up with something with much worse usability than what they started with in the f
It is the marketplace (Score:2)
Seriously. People demand flashy new features, even if it means occasional (or even frequent) crashes and problems. Nobody says "I will only buy the upgrade to this operating system if it is more and stable." They say "I will only buy the upgrade if it supports more games, or more digital cameras, or has more flashy eye candy."
I'll leave it as an exercise to the interested reader to figure out how to get people to change their attitudes.
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that's not true at all. lots of people say that. but sales like that are for a handful of seats. they're for servers, or for hardcore nerds whose head explodes when their computer reboots. sales to people who want new features are for zillions of seats.
But obviously Vista is not the result of actually listening to user feedback, because no one said "I want you to break backwards compatibility as much as possible, a
Informed Consumers (Score:4, Interesting)
Now Microsoft might not be to blame for the mismanagement of Atari and Commodore, but they are certainly to blame for the massive efforts they have expended on controlling the expectations of their key markets. For more than a decade computer users thought it was perfectly acceptably to use buggy software that crashed often because they didn't know any better. To accuse the end users of not being better educated is a sad excuse that seems short sighted in the extreme. What are they suppose to expect when software that crashes frequently is all they have ever known? Are they suppose to all run off and study the history of computers so they can more critically examine the market and cast better informed economic votes?
I'm certainly not against the idea of having better educated consumers. I can't help but see education doing anything but helping most situations. Yet in most cases people view a computer as an appliance like a toaster or a refrigerator. They don't want to know how it works, they don't want to hear about regular maintenance plans or upkeep schedules. They just want it to work. And I really don't see that as being a horribly unreasonable expectation.
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I think that as a consumer/user I am pretty well educated, I can work around most problems within the OS or software and I'm not afraid to use the terminal and really search around for fixes to my problems (although getting suspend to ram whilst using beryl, an Nvidia card, and FC6 has eluded me... and I've not yet figured out how to use pm-utils to sort it). So I'm pretty clued up as a home u
Blame the Victim! (Score:2)
For an OS, I would say that is to avoid intentionally running undesired code. If the OS doesn't clear this hurdle (MS clearly does not), then all the feedback in the world will do nothing.
Yeah, stupid end users. NOT. (Score:4, Interesting)
NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO BE AN OPERATING SYSTEM EXPERT.
Users should use computers as tools. There are responsibilities. But users are hapless. My aunt doesn't have to know about overhead cams to drive to work, and people shouldn't have to know about 64-bit Vista WiFi drivers to logon.
Plainly, some people are irresponsible and you can't catch idiocy no matter how you try-- nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious. But OS makers have a hallowed responsibility to make their targeted users both produtive and protected. To say otherwise, is hubris.
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If your Aunt buys her PC with all the features she wants, and vista installed, she shouldn't have to install any drivers. It's only when she installs her own wifi card that she needs to get into drivers.
To return to your car analogy -- if you want to install your own stereo system, you're either gonna have to know something about stereo systems, or you're gonna have
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Microsoft Shell: Revealed forums (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to get some public feedback on Vista development. Late, but good. But then, they didn't listen to our feedback. Some of the stuff we brought up should have been pretty easy to fix, but was blown off instead.
The MOB is not always right. (Score:2)
I can't remember the details well, but the general idea was that there was a sunken submarine and two ways were used to find it.
The first was a sort of mob mentality method. A bunch of brilliant minds were brought together and asked to come up with one location they thought the submarine could be found at.
The second was an interesting twist on the mob mentality. They asked each person individually where they thought
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So what's gone wrong? Why is the OS market dominated by a monopoly with a deeply flawed product? Mostly because switching operating systems is much harder than it should be. It is also partly because the alternatives have only bec
Yeah, honestly, users are to blame. (Score:2)
In all fairness, he was wrong. A bot probes my internet address every few minutes. And most of the addresses come from my local ISP's block. It's no secret which computers are compromised, just as it's no secret the ISP doesn't care. It's cheaper to turn a blind eye and provide the bandwidth for patently illegal activity then it is to tur
Yes (Score:3)
Had a solution (Score:5, Funny)
You know, I did exactly just that and offered Microsoft a few ideas as to how they could improve Windows Vista (done during their beta program). And you know what Billg said to me? "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
Maybe, just maybe... (Score:2)
Give me a break! (Score:2)
Good luck getting you point across on the first level!
Or - the other option: Email to support over a web page.
About three email exchanges, you may be lucky to hit pay dirt!
You may be heard, if you threaten legal action - otherwise, just forget it!
That's for corporate efficiency. Who pays? The customer with his/her time.
Hey, baby. Hey, sweet thing. (Score:2)
hmmm (Score:2)
perhaps (shock) open source is more responsive!? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about software, but I think glue usage is responsible for this article's shittyness.
Cause and effect (Score:2)
On bugzilla.mozilla there was a feature that allowed users to vote for particular bugs they felt required attention. However the mozilla developers *never* responded except to close the bug (unfixed or unimplemented) at the bottom of two hundred pleas. The only exception was to implement the suggestion of the high-vote bug to 'remove the voting system from bugzil
it's the IT management! (Score:2)
let's suppose an IT manager of a 200 person company has the choice between windows and OSX (I'm assuming mostly non-technical lusers hence didn't offer linux); the former requires a team of 20 people (providing extended hours support) and a budget for hardware and software of say 100,000; the latter needs only 8 people and one half the budget.
now, if this is a typical corporate, the IT manager's status/influence is proportional to his budget and staffing, so is he really going to go for OSX, shrink his d
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In your example the IT manager will be repl
Users can mess up, but.. (Score:2)
"i installed this new program i got in an email" which turned out to be a worm is just part of the world today. But getting hit with a buffer overflow and turned into a spambot just from viewing a image on a webpage, shouldnt be.
Umm... this qualifies as a "technology column"? (Score:4, Insightful)
More infuriating is his use of the term "OS". What exactly are these user level features you are adding to your "OS"? Oh, right, things like internet browsers. Of course.
This reads like it was written by grade school student.
This wouldn't even pass as an insightful technical column on CNN. What is it doing here?
People, collectively, will behave as people. (Score:3, Insightful)
The users don't work collectively. Nor can we do anything except complain about the software flaws, which is a method that manifests itself by blaming the developers.
So the argument seems to be we shouldn't blame the developers. We should blame ourselves for not blaming the developers.
Devil Advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
Suggesting that the end user, the same people that answer "Word" when you ask them where they saved their file, could offer meaningful programming suggestions isn't very practical. End users aren't programmers and beyond feature requests or UI suggestions I can't really see them offering much. I apologize to those that like more in depth car analogies. It's been a long day and I just couldn't bring myself to try harder.
Of course they are! (Score:2)
The question should be: which *type* of design flaws is thinking-about-the-users responsible for? And is it actually possible to overcome this?
No, no, and dead-wrong no (Score:2)
This is bullshit (Score:2)
Microsoft isn't listening (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to Microsoft to report the bug and offer the fix. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the front door. There was one little door off to the side, but the bouncer wanted almost $200 to get through it. I found a large group of people congregating in the parking lot around a few guys with "MVP" badges. Figuring that the MVPs must be representing the company somehow, I told one of them about the problem. He repeated everything I said back to him, and then read something out of a manual. I explained to him that I wasn't having trouble understanding how the software was supposed to work, but I was there to report that the software was not working as documented. He repeated everything I had just said, then everything he had previously said, then everything I originally said, and then asked me about my network settings. I said, "no no, you don't understand. Here's the problem, and here is the fix." I handed him a copy of the exact instructions to fix the problem, and awaited his response. Perhaps a big smooch on the cheek and a check for $50!? No, he just stared off blankly for a while and then started asking some other guy for his network settings. "Click start. Click run. Enter cmd and press enter. Type ipconfig
I was a little disappointed that I didn't even get a hug or anything for solving a problem for the company who I had just given 24,000 dollars to earlier in the year, but I went away certain that the trustworthy MVP personally delivered my complaint to the proper executives once he had ascertained his daily quota of network settings. I mean, the MVPs can get past the bouncer, right? Of course, of course.
You know, sometimes bitching on the web 2.0 is all we got.
Companies? Listening? (Score:2)
Problem was I was using a Mac, which hasn't had IE since version 5.5. No way could I get robo-support to acknowledge that important detail.
Customer support is viewed as an expense, not an investment,
"Companies are listening" (Score:2)
In "free" software, yes. But else... (Score:3, Insightful)
In OSS, the user has actually a voice and more often than not, it gets heeded. Especially since some OSS developers open themselves to funding from their users. Of course, many OSS projects first and foremost follow that their inventor had in mind. That's a given. Funny enough, it often also matches the needs of their users. And many, larger, projects implement what their users suggest.
For those bugs, I do gladly take the blame. But certainly not for software that was made with completely different needs in mind than mine, or that of any other user.
Marketing vs Reality Gap (Score:3, Insightful)
"Easiest version ever"
"Simple as 1, 2, 3"
"Point and click"
"Set up for wireless in minutes!"
Seems to me that the companies are to blame for the gap between what the marketing guys say and the reality, not the users.
Last time I checked, nobody told me my car could withstand 60 mph head on with a bridge embankment so I don't treat it that way.
Likewise, last time I checked Microsoft and Apple could give two shits about what the knowledgeable geeks had to say about it and went for the dumb grandma dumb enough to pay full retail for the box at WalMart.
If it's an OS, people ARE told to treat it that way and it doesn't always work out so well.
So fire your marketing department, or make a better OS, or shut the fuck up cuz it sure as hell is not the users fault.
Only the FreeOS guys get anywhere close, "oh just [execute obscure and difficult to find script on some oddly formatted config files here] and it will work". With them, at least I know what the tasks are.
billg says.. (Score:2)
"Click here to get latest prices on Windows Vista" (Score:2)
That's the last line of the article. Really.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're beta-testing Windows, a quick Google gives http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/sentiments/d efault.mspx [microsoft.com] as a feedback form. I imagine other beta products have their own feedback ways (e.g. Office 2007 had Send a Smile / Send a Frown [msdn.com]).
Otherwise... it seems to vary from product to product. Windows Home Server has a dedicated suggestion forum [microsoft.com];