Dne, 05. 01. 2011 15:28:47 je Lisi napisal(a):
On Wednesday 05 January 2011 12:03:59 Camaleón wrote: > At least you should have learned one lesson: _never trust_ what your> users say and tell them to _prove_ their wording with facts (that is, by> checking with her that the data was properly backed up and can be > restored from the aforementioned "unexistent" copy) >;-)I did look at the pen drive to make sure that the copies were there and retrievable. But I didn't know enough about her data to know that the most recent 'photos were missing. It is not certain that they could have beenrescued at that point even if I had known!If it weren't for the fact that she is going around telling very hurtful untruths about me, I would be the gainer. She was hard work, demanding andnot very profitable!But sometimes they _know_ that they haven't got copies, but are unwilling tohave them. It means buying something to put them on..... Lisi
Seems I'm one of the few who sincerely think that not all users should, or even could, be required to know the inner workings of each and every technology they use. In real life, people are forced (by their job or whatever) to use many modern technologies, and in our technology-based development model, this trend is bound to increase. Should every driver necessarily know ALL the fluid circuits of a vehicle, and their check/refill intervals? I honestly don't -- do you? Of course I know the obvious -- the fuel, the cooling fluid, the brake fluid -- but beyond that, everything becomes vague, blurred and, well, "fluid". The cars should be (and, after decades of development, finally are) projected such that without all the fluids in place they simply won't start, while notifying the driver with an appropriate flashing indicator on the dashboard. Much the same should go for computers -- even more so, since in computers, automating tasks is not just a collateral object, but the primary one. An operating system should have reliable backup policies built-in; for example, it should backup the entire /home subtree to rewritable DVDs, or a network share, on a weekly basis. When installing the system, the user should be asked where to and how often the backups should be made, just as (s)he is asked for the time zone and the language to be used. Without this info, the installation should simply refuse to go on. Computers -- just as cars -- are not aficionado, niche technology anymore, and we should stop treating them as such: a computer operating system should be as resilient, self-sufficient and user-independent as humanly possible. That doesn't mean, of course, that knowing the inner workings of our technologies should be obfuscated or even actively prevented (as seems, sadly, to be the trend in both Mac OS and Windows). However, it should be left to individual preferences, not forced upon us one way or the other. I, for one, enjoy fiddling with computers; but not nearly as much as I despise anything that has to do with inner combustion engines ...
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