Tekky
"BBC One has become Channel 5, my outbox won't work and there's nowhere to type a web address on my BBC homepage", my mother told me, sometime in 2007.
So, being the dutiful son that I am, I drove over there this morning (March 2008), to fix it.
Parents have a great ability to find obscure settings on mobile phones, televisions and computers that you never knew existed.
Resetting Channel One to BBC One from Channel 5 was relatively trivial, once you sorted out the Sony Wega manual. But how my mum got the setting to C5 in the first place ... a mystery.
Similarly, it only took a couple of minutes to reset the defaults for the web page, but her 'version' of the settings was like nothing I had ever seen. Not only had the address bar disappeared, burt the words File/Edit/View/Favourites/Tools/Help had disappeared as well.
And, finally, the outbox "problem". My mum had been trying to send e-mails by just clicking on "Outbox" -- a solution that, although it may seem strange to you and me, has a twisted kind of logic to it. I explained that what she was doing, in 20th century terms, was walking to the post box and shouting her message through the letter box, in the vague hope that the recipient would hear it.
People don't think in terms of process often enough (which is good, because I probvably wouldn't have as good a job otherwise). If you break down the physical acts involved in "writing a letter", you can often find rough equivalents in "sending an e-mail". If you explain it in those terms to the e-mail novice, then they understand it fairly quickly.
However, if you consult a Microsoft Help section, that is precisely what you do not get.
First, Windows and Office assign "names" to things that mean nothing, unless you know the name. So, how do I search for how to restore the line with File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help? I don't know, because I don't know what it is called, and to search for help on it, I have to type in its name. Well, it's a bar that requires tasks, isn't it? So, it must be a taskbar. But, no, that's something else. Because Microsoft also assigns names that are totally non-specific in their description.
This is mainly due to backwards thinking. Although the "Taskbar" is indeed a taskbar, that's not good enough, because it fails on one of the first steps of language -- distinction. It's as if you describe a horse, not as a horse, but as "the thing with a head". Both are accurate, but one is useful and the other is useless.
Microsoft has reams of these non-specific descriptions. All that was required was a bit of logical thought and, one would imagine, logical thought would be something that computer geeks would be good at. Language per se should be something computer geeks are good at.
So why aren't they?
My theory is that it's because they don't see it as important as it is. They know that if you put a minus sign where you should have put a plus sign, the final result will most likely be very wrong (unless you are squaring the number, of course...) but everyday language has so much redundancy, it leads to laziness. The trouble is, Help files don't have a similar degree of redundancy (because someone needs help...) but writers do not have the skills to get round this problem.
Let's take the word "background". Now, what does "background" mean in Office? I don't know. They use the word, and tell you how to display a blue one, but they give no indication as to what the "background" is.
How about a "table of authorities"? I tell you, if I saw a "table of authorities" in a Word document, I can guarantee that that is not the phrase that would spring to mind if I needed help on it. It would be more of a "how do I get rid of that"? Let's look up the Help file and type in "How do I get rid of that?"
Here's another one "Turn off the task pane on start up". "Task Pane". There's an all-descrptive word. Microsoft's description of Outlook 'windows' are startlingly unhelpful in this fashion. For example, the "preview pane". I read most of my e-mails in the preview pane, so there's no "preview" about it. It's the "viewing pane" for me.
I just typed "How do I get rid of that" into the help question (obviously an experiment thhat will leave many readers puzzled at its pointlessness --- these people are not typical of the ordinary computer user). About 30 answers canme up and, to be honest, there's a small chance that, if that were my question, it would provide a useful answer (eg, how to turn on or off automatic grammar or spell checking). The reason for this is, I guess, that turning this thing off (because the default is, insanely. "on") is one of the most frequent questions, and Microsoft Help is an interactive online operation now. Then again, it might be an idea to change the default...
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Party Poker continues to find new ways to drive me insane. The recent deposit bonus was 20% and appeared to have a 14-day window, which made me suspect that a $100 bonus at 6x (about 1,800 Party points for me) was doable.
I clocked up 1200 hands yesterday (suffering a couple of quite hysterical bad beats, btw, one of which was for 1.8 buyins in a single hand) and then went to Party's legendarily user-unfriendly account page. No sign of the bonus being active. No sign of anything, in fact.
Email to Party. Another email to Party. A third e-mail to Party. For all these I have to use my work computer because you can only e-mail Party support from your registered e-mail address.
No reply yet. And, of course, "the clock is ticking". I need another 3,000 hands or so to clear the $100 (which is an all-or-nothing offer because, of course, Party Gaming consists of total cunts who are also lousy at software) but, if the $100 offer is no longer there, I just won't play.
Party's recent annual report and AGM, the one at which the company's second CEO in three years effectively said "Fuck this for a lark, it isn't worth the candle, I'm off home", contained the comment that the loss of market share and "dollar income per punter" was due to increased competition in the poker sector. They might more effectively have said "Much of the opposition knows what it is doing, whereas we are total tossers when it comes to customer service and software".
IP Network looks to have overtaken Party as the de facto Number 3 (and so, effectively, the number 1 when the US is excluded). If I were a Party shareholder, which I'm not, I really would be asking questions about the competence of the people making the decisions. It looks as if the CEO came to the same conclusion.
Perpertual cost-cutting and shafting the punter (or indeed any other idea brought up by any marketing department) only holds the profit up for so long in the poker world. Paradise is the finest example of a market leader gone wrong. Party is going the same way.
**UPDATE**
Received this e-mail this afternoon:
Well, maybe there's something in this Elite Customer Service Qualification after all....
Of course, the money isn't actually in there, yet....
++++++++++++++++
I began watching my DVD of series 2 of Black Books last night. The first episode of this series is probably one of the best -- the one where Bill Bailey discovers that he can play the piano.
However, the beginning of the DVD has a sequence of stuff from Channel 4 "now available to buy" on DVD. As far as I could see, this roughly consists of "all of our output". There were very few series I could think of that weren't plugged as "available on DVD".
Whatever happened to just putting out the better stuff? I mean, a DVD of Big Brother? My god.
___________________
So, being the dutiful son that I am, I drove over there this morning (March 2008), to fix it.
Parents have a great ability to find obscure settings on mobile phones, televisions and computers that you never knew existed.
Resetting Channel One to BBC One from Channel 5 was relatively trivial, once you sorted out the Sony Wega manual. But how my mum got the setting to C5 in the first place ... a mystery.
Similarly, it only took a couple of minutes to reset the defaults for the web page, but her 'version' of the settings was like nothing I had ever seen. Not only had the address bar disappeared, burt the words File/Edit/View/Favourites/Tools/Help had disappeared as well.
And, finally, the outbox "problem". My mum had been trying to send e-mails by just clicking on "Outbox" -- a solution that, although it may seem strange to you and me, has a twisted kind of logic to it. I explained that what she was doing, in 20th century terms, was walking to the post box and shouting her message through the letter box, in the vague hope that the recipient would hear it.
People don't think in terms of process often enough (which is good, because I probvably wouldn't have as good a job otherwise). If you break down the physical acts involved in "writing a letter", you can often find rough equivalents in "sending an e-mail". If you explain it in those terms to the e-mail novice, then they understand it fairly quickly.
However, if you consult a Microsoft Help section, that is precisely what you do not get.
First, Windows and Office assign "names" to things that mean nothing, unless you know the name. So, how do I search for how to restore the line with File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help? I don't know, because I don't know what it is called, and to search for help on it, I have to type in its name. Well, it's a bar that requires tasks, isn't it? So, it must be a taskbar. But, no, that's something else. Because Microsoft also assigns names that are totally non-specific in their description.
This is mainly due to backwards thinking. Although the "Taskbar" is indeed a taskbar, that's not good enough, because it fails on one of the first steps of language -- distinction. It's as if you describe a horse, not as a horse, but as "the thing with a head". Both are accurate, but one is useful and the other is useless.
Microsoft has reams of these non-specific descriptions. All that was required was a bit of logical thought and, one would imagine, logical thought would be something that computer geeks would be good at. Language per se should be something computer geeks are good at.
So why aren't they?
My theory is that it's because they don't see it as important as it is. They know that if you put a minus sign where you should have put a plus sign, the final result will most likely be very wrong (unless you are squaring the number, of course...) but everyday language has so much redundancy, it leads to laziness. The trouble is, Help files don't have a similar degree of redundancy (because someone needs help...) but writers do not have the skills to get round this problem.
Let's take the word "background". Now, what does "background" mean in Office? I don't know. They use the word, and tell you how to display a blue one, but they give no indication as to what the "background" is.
How about a "table of authorities"? I tell you, if I saw a "table of authorities" in a Word document, I can guarantee that that is not the phrase that would spring to mind if I needed help on it. It would be more of a "how do I get rid of that"? Let's look up the Help file and type in "How do I get rid of that?"
Here's another one "Turn off the task pane on start up". "Task Pane". There's an all-descrptive word. Microsoft's description of Outlook 'windows' are startlingly unhelpful in this fashion. For example, the "preview pane". I read most of my e-mails in the preview pane, so there's no "preview" about it. It's the "viewing pane" for me.
I just typed "How do I get rid of that" into the help question (obviously an experiment thhat will leave many readers puzzled at its pointlessness --- these people are not typical of the ordinary computer user). About 30 answers canme up and, to be honest, there's a small chance that, if that were my question, it would provide a useful answer (eg, how to turn on or off automatic grammar or spell checking). The reason for this is, I guess, that turning this thing off (because the default is, insanely. "on") is one of the most frequent questions, and Microsoft Help is an interactive online operation now. Then again, it might be an idea to change the default...
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Party Poker continues to find new ways to drive me insane. The recent deposit bonus was 20% and appeared to have a 14-day window, which made me suspect that a $100 bonus at 6x (about 1,800 Party points for me) was doable.
I clocked up 1200 hands yesterday (suffering a couple of quite hysterical bad beats, btw, one of which was for 1.8 buyins in a single hand) and then went to Party's legendarily user-unfriendly account page. No sign of the bonus being active. No sign of anything, in fact.
Email to Party. Another email to Party. A third e-mail to Party. For all these I have to use my work computer because you can only e-mail Party support from your registered e-mail address.
No reply yet. And, of course, "the clock is ticking". I need another 3,000 hands or so to clear the $100 (which is an all-or-nothing offer because, of course, Party Gaming consists of total cunts who are also lousy at software) but, if the $100 offer is no longer there, I just won't play.
Party's recent annual report and AGM, the one at which the company's second CEO in three years effectively said "Fuck this for a lark, it isn't worth the candle, I'm off home", contained the comment that the loss of market share and "dollar income per punter" was due to increased competition in the poker sector. They might more effectively have said "Much of the opposition knows what it is doing, whereas we are total tossers when it comes to customer service and software".
IP Network looks to have overtaken Party as the de facto Number 3 (and so, effectively, the number 1 when the US is excluded). If I were a Party shareholder, which I'm not, I really would be asking questions about the competence of the people making the decisions. It looks as if the CEO came to the same conclusion.
Perpertual cost-cutting and shafting the punter (or indeed any other idea brought up by any marketing department) only holds the profit up for so long in the poker world. Paradise is the finest example of a market leader gone wrong. Party is going the same way.
**UPDATE**
Received this e-mail this afternoon:
Hello Peter,
Please note that the bonus expired due to the fact that it was only valid for 7 days after it was awarded. Unfortunately it was advertised as active for 14 days, which is why the bonus amount will be added manually to your account as compensation. You do not have to earn the required number of PartyPoints also.
In regard to this I kindly ask you to wait for 48 hours before the funds are actually credited to your account.
Sincerely,
Toma
Elite Customer Service
Well, maybe there's something in this Elite Customer Service Qualification after all....
Of course, the money isn't actually in there, yet....
++++++++++++++++
I began watching my DVD of series 2 of Black Books last night. The first episode of this series is probably one of the best -- the one where Bill Bailey discovers that he can play the piano.
However, the beginning of the DVD has a sequence of stuff from Channel 4 "now available to buy" on DVD. As far as I could see, this roughly consists of "all of our output". There were very few series I could think of that weren't plugged as "available on DVD".
Whatever happened to just putting out the better stuff? I mean, a DVD of Big Brother? My god.
___________________