Last July I posted a posting about how I hated being patronised by my computer which seemed unwilling to accept the proper UK spelling for things and tended to shove everything into active US grammar. Another thing I mentioned was how the computer constantly wants to shove downloads at me. This is still going on. I find that I am mid-way through writing an email for work when I am told I have to exit and shut down the computer because some download I did not request is complete. Again I feel patronised that my work counts for nothing compared to what the machine feels is more important. Of course it is not really my machine, which is loyal to me, it is the company at the end of the internet connection that keeps on wanting to remind me that it is there and install some incremental change. They did not provide me the computer for free so I do believe that my priorities should outrank theirs, but that does not seem to be the case.
It is far worse when the computer is provided to you for free, namely at work. In my company IT support did not feel we were paying them enough attention so now they have changed all the screensaves to simply show their name and have disabled us from putting any other screen saver on. They have done the same for the default internet page so that a dozen times a day I am told how wonderful the IT support team are and by implication how grateful I should be to them. I know IT staff feel undervalued now that so many of us can edit our own webpages and set up email accounts, but the finance department does not keep sending me reminder cards now that I can make payments to temporary staff employed electronically; the canteen does not pile cakes on my desk now that I can go across the road to a bakers instead of to them. I would like the ability to personalise my computer at least a little bit, but now, it is now a servant of IT support to force me to bow down to them with the respect they feel is due.
The other thing is passwords. Anyone could access my computer and find nothing of commercial or personal sensitivity. No-one has even tried to hack into my machine, I am sure they have better things to do with their time and if they really want to see a series of dull reports I am more than happy to email them to them. So, why do I have to keep changing my password? I have enough trouble remembering all my pin numbers (needed even to operate the photocopier these days, let alone to open doors) and now the passwords to get into my email account, to access this place, to shop online, to restart the computer when it has gone into screen save and so on. To make it harder every four months I have to change my password away from the one I have become familiar with to something else. At my last employers it was worse, you had to change it every month and you had to have 10 different ones as they would not allow you to repeat the first password until you had used 9 others. Consequently, what do you do, to stand any chance of remembering not only the current password but also the one you used 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 months ago especially when you come back from leave? You write it on a piece of paper which you stick next to the computer. So this is supposed to increase the security? IT staff need to realise to hold all these passwords we need another computer to put them on. I end up emailing it to myself and then at least I can go to a cybercafe and access the list of passwords so that when I get to my office I can get into my own computer!
IT support we love you, you do not have to keep on thinking up rituals to insert yourselves into our everyday life and make us poor workers exasperated as we watch your name scrolling across our screen as we struggle to conjure up yet another memorable password.
Showing posts with label downloads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downloads. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Monday, 2 July 2007
Computer: Let Me Be!
One irritant that I have not yet tackled is the hassle with computers which seem to think they know what I want better than I do myself. They are not my servant, rather they are like an annoying salesman camped out on my doorstep, who, whenever I happen to open my front door or even look out of my window bombard me with the latest products. Even in my house, they keep changing the channel on my TV and the decor on my walls, with the arrogant attitude that they know better.
Stopping with the analogy. Every time I switch on a computer, and on average, due to my work, I use three different machines in the average week, I have to wait for all the updates from the various companies to load in, plus the ones my own company feels I need. This means it can be 2-3 minutes before I can even start work. I cannot believe that there is that much new stuff every week that they have to take over my machine to load it in. Of course if I was not firewalled then there would be all the spam and the spyware and the adware and so on. In order of priority for access to my machine, I come last. As if this was not enough, when I come to close it down I have to wait sometimes fifteen minutes for it to do all the uploads. With a PC I walk away but with a laptop I have to keep it internet connected otherwise there will be twice as much stuff to wade through. If I happen not to use a computer for a couple of weeks, then it is 30 minutes plus. Why? Surely it is inefficient if each day I am losing 15 minutes' work watching a bar move across the screen.
On my home PC somehow I got an Adobe photo album tester. I have no idea how, but now I cannot rid my machine of it. Every time I log on it asks me if I want to buy it, I say no, but it still proceeds trying to search out photos on my machine and telling me my digital camera battery is low (I do not even have a digital camera) and so on. It tries again later too. For me, no means no, why can it not understand. My house mate's son who is almost 6 and can read a little, gets bewildered when midway through a game of 'Shrek' or 'Finding Nemo' the machine starts binging at him and sending up pop-ups even when he is logged in as his own identity. What is the point of asking him if he wants to upgrade the DVD player, he cannot even understand the words?
It does not stop when you are not even connected to the internet, software is just as bad. I write a lot, and yet even when I have corrected the spelling and grammar checker from US to UK spelling it still keeps interfering, putting in bullet points when I do not need them, telling me effectively that 'which' is not a proper word and you just try typing 'fora' as in the plural of 'forum' (for those of us who use proper plurals)! If I try to write a letter, it says do I need help - no I have been writing letters longer than even Microsoft has been in existence! It tries to put 'yours truly' at the end of the letter, even though in the UK that is a sarcastic phrase and 'yours faithfully' or 'yours sincerely' which it never offers me, are the correct ones. Every machine I have go through disabling all of these interruptions.
I understand that people often need help, but as in the classroom you should be able to ask for it when you need it. I hate my computer patronising me and trying to force words and a culture on me which I do not want. A computer should be about granting you freedom to compose and to explore as you choose, but instead we are driven to behave identically to each other, and coming from a non-US culture, in a way which jars with what I know and is correct for my 'locale'. Give me a computer that treats me like an adult.
Stopping with the analogy. Every time I switch on a computer, and on average, due to my work, I use three different machines in the average week, I have to wait for all the updates from the various companies to load in, plus the ones my own company feels I need. This means it can be 2-3 minutes before I can even start work. I cannot believe that there is that much new stuff every week that they have to take over my machine to load it in. Of course if I was not firewalled then there would be all the spam and the spyware and the adware and so on. In order of priority for access to my machine, I come last. As if this was not enough, when I come to close it down I have to wait sometimes fifteen minutes for it to do all the uploads. With a PC I walk away but with a laptop I have to keep it internet connected otherwise there will be twice as much stuff to wade through. If I happen not to use a computer for a couple of weeks, then it is 30 minutes plus. Why? Surely it is inefficient if each day I am losing 15 minutes' work watching a bar move across the screen.
On my home PC somehow I got an Adobe photo album tester. I have no idea how, but now I cannot rid my machine of it. Every time I log on it asks me if I want to buy it, I say no, but it still proceeds trying to search out photos on my machine and telling me my digital camera battery is low (I do not even have a digital camera) and so on. It tries again later too. For me, no means no, why can it not understand. My house mate's son who is almost 6 and can read a little, gets bewildered when midway through a game of 'Shrek' or 'Finding Nemo' the machine starts binging at him and sending up pop-ups even when he is logged in as his own identity. What is the point of asking him if he wants to upgrade the DVD player, he cannot even understand the words?
It does not stop when you are not even connected to the internet, software is just as bad. I write a lot, and yet even when I have corrected the spelling and grammar checker from US to UK spelling it still keeps interfering, putting in bullet points when I do not need them, telling me effectively that 'which' is not a proper word and you just try typing 'fora' as in the plural of 'forum' (for those of us who use proper plurals)! If I try to write a letter, it says do I need help - no I have been writing letters longer than even Microsoft has been in existence! It tries to put 'yours truly' at the end of the letter, even though in the UK that is a sarcastic phrase and 'yours faithfully' or 'yours sincerely' which it never offers me, are the correct ones. Every machine I have go through disabling all of these interruptions.
I understand that people often need help, but as in the classroom you should be able to ask for it when you need it. I hate my computer patronising me and trying to force words and a culture on me which I do not want. A computer should be about granting you freedom to compose and to explore as you choose, but instead we are driven to behave identically to each other, and coming from a non-US culture, in a way which jars with what I know and is correct for my 'locale'. Give me a computer that treats me like an adult.
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