Hi,
Economically speaking, I have a BIG TIP FOR OUR GLOBAL friends making SOFTWARE and setting up sites for the immense buying public that they hope to attract.
MAKE IT SIMPLE--MAKE IT SENSIBLE--MAKE IT AS EASY AS A GOOD PROGRAM CAN BE!!!!!!!AND DON'T FOOL YOURSELVES INTO THINKING YOU CAN DO OTHERWISE!!!!!!!!!
The current trend in complex Computer software programs of any dimension (used by business, politicians, organized groups etc.) is to make them as difficult and mysterious as possible in order to SELL...SELL...SELL!!!!!! Just selling the software program is not enough. They write them so that you must buy many explanatory books, CDs, videos, short computer courses and long attended courses in various places. NOW AIN'T THAT JUST DUCKY!!!! Everyone has so much extra time after doing their work week, needed chores and and various activities that they would just love to spend it studying these SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS' programs in order to use them. NOT....NOT....NOT!!!!!!!!!!
At the moment, only a segment of the population is suffering the BITE OF THESE SHARKS BUT WITH MORE AND MORE GLOBAL INTERACTION, the number will soon increase. Some of the particular programs at present that suffer from inflated egos and arrogance are in the PUBLISHING FIELD. Many, who work for companies publishing booklets, brochures, books or whatever, are subsidized in time and money to achieve the necessary skills to use these programs. BUT IT SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY!!!!!!
A well-built software program can be made totally capable of solving or pointing out whatever is needed within the substance of the program. And the authors of the program (in many cases large firms) can easily provide chat rooms, email direction, or phone answers to questions that occur outside that range. INSTEAD THEY PROVIDE FAQS!!!!!!! BEEN THERE???? DONE THAT??????? IT'S A FOREST WITHOUT A PATH; A MOUNTAIN WITHOUT FOOTHOLDS; A MAZE FROM WHICH YOU MAY NEVER EMERGE!!!!!!!!
They need competition to slice through the arrogance and snobbery (I KNOW HOW!!! YOU DON'T!!YA-YA, YA childishness) and GREED!!!!!!!!!!!! AS YOU KNOW I believe in profit!!!!! I DON'T BELIEVE IN PROFITEERING!!!!! OFFERING NO WARRANTY, NO PERSONAL ASSISTANCE, MAKING THE PRODUCT UNNECESSARILY DIFFICULT THEREBY keeping the user from totally utilizing it without GOOD INSTRUCTION is WITHIN TECHNOLOGY tantamount to PROFITEERING!!!!!!!! THE END RESULT IS FORCING USERS INTO PAID INSTRUCTION after buying the ALREADY EXPENSIVE product. REMEMBER MR. SOFTWARE SNOB-COMPETITION IS OUT THERE and it'll be coming AFTER you!!!!!!!!!!
One of the available publishing programs is based on an OLD NEWSPAPER TYPESETTING PROGRAM (THAT FEW folks WOULD NOW KNOW) AND THEIR SHORTCUT SYMBOLS (or Greps as they are now known) and this old newspaper reporter REALLY benefited from some remembered composing room tips given TO her by compositors TOO many years ago to count!!!!!!!!
LUCKILY for the current SOFTWARE PRODUCERS, USERS of their software (SWEARING, SWEATING AND SCANNING FAQS) REQUIRE that software for their employment, business or publishing needs. SO THEY TOUGH IT OUT and many COMPANIES HAVE TO PAY FOR COURSES or for the time wasted on an unnecessarily rough search for answers to some inexplicable happening with the software projects.
YOU KNOW WHAT MADE BILL GATES AND STEVE JOBS AND THE OTHER GIANTS OF THE TECHIE WORLD RICH????????? The recognition that they had to provide a way for folks to easily use the new technological machines of the past--the home computers.
This blogger's first computer was a Radio Shack TRS80 computer which we nicknamed TRASH80. OKAY IT CAME WITH A WHOLE 16 kilobytes of memory with an upgrade to 32-64 KB and it took a techie to upgrade it. Minuscule (1 byte=8 bits) MEMORY-NO THAT'S NOT A MISTAKE--WHO THOUGHT WE'D NEED MORE???) and a switch hidden underneath. IT COST BASICALLY $600. (A FORTUNE in the 70s). Now you can get HP with big monitor, 6GB of ram and 1TB of hard drive. Trust me that's a LOT!!!!for only essentially $500.
It takes 1000 kilobytes to make just l megabyte. Home computers now often have 4,000,000 (4 million) kilobytes (KB). 1 million Megabytes translates into one 1000 GB to achieve a Terabyte (TB) of ROM. This is not to fill your head with numbers but to show HOW FAST WE'VE ADVANCED. I had that TRASH 80 in the mid l970s. That was 16 kilobytes as opposed to "GAD-ZILLION" MILLION bytes OF MEMORY TODAY!!!!!!!!!!! SOUNDS LIKE OUR NATIONAL DEBT DOESN'T IT????????
This sport took three weeks to get the computer running (LIKE CERTAIN SOFTWARE PROGRAM SUPPLIERS--NO ONE COULD OFFER ADVICE-my salesman disappeared into another store). I finally got a tiny SUPPLIED program into the machine. Ever sit for hours looking at a back lit piece of glass and one tiny blinking spot????????? No????????? Well you haven't missed anything. Seeing that dib dab of a program was a great relief when I finally figured out how to make the special Cassette TAPE (yes, it played like a tape recorder) WORK ON THE MACHINE!!!!!! You also saved your work on tape and it often got corrupted so you kept a lot around.
HOWEVER I STILL COULDN'T TYPE anything because I had to learn to write my own formatting program to get into Scripsit, the tiny word processing program on Cassette tape that contained a basic DOS format(that was computer language in the bowels of the machine). I AIN'T BRAGGING. IT CERTAINLY WASN'T MUCH of a program but it got me into the typing mode and I entered it thousands of times in the years to come.
After three weeks of initial frustration, my mate threatened to throw TRASH80 out or take an ax to it because my language was becoming increasingly salty!!!! Luckily, by that time I was close to PLAYING THROUGH, although I still had to learn how to print what I'd written. When I had it actually producing, it became a great time and paper saver for a writer who was accustomed to filling wastebaskets. AND I NEVER LOOKED BACK!!!!!!!
Trash 80 was a complete box--bulky but it included the guts, screen and keyboard all in one piece, however, it lacked much software assistance!!!!!!!!!!! A design that seems to be returning.
TA TANT DUH DAH.....RIDING IN A ON WHITE HORSE in the distance is GOOD OLE BILL GATES who had foreseen our need and prepared a program that let you use the computer EASILY with machine software that allowed the user to enter into the world of techies without having to write their own programs!!!!!!!!! HOORAY!!!!!! BILL IS THE REASON YOU CAN TURN ON THE COMPUTER AND FIND YOUR WAY AROUND EASILY. STEVE JOBS TOOK IT EVEN FURTHER WITH APPLE. Then, of course, the Internet became AVAILABLE because of other visionaries and that's why we need all those BYTES AND RAM FOR PROCESSING AND MEMORY!!!
MEN WITH VISION. OKAY, ALL YOU CURRENT VISIONARIES, THE USERS ARE IN DEEP DOO DOO AGAIN. There will be many more people wanting to use the computer for many tasks in the not too distant future and a need will exist for CREATIVE SOFTWARE that allows them to function without the struggles set up by various programs.
EITHER EXISTING SOFTWARE HAS TO BE MODIFIED SO THAT TIME IS NOT WASTED JUST LEARNING THE PROGRAM AND the user can accomplish the work OR COMPATIBLE SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED that breaks into the program and modifies or simplifies it. IT CAN BE DONE!!!!!!! AND YOU CAN BE RICH AS CROESUS WITHOUT HAVING TO STICK IT TO YOUR CONSUMERS!!!!
THAT'S WHAT the current Sophisticated Software Companies are doing. PULLING THEIR USERS CHAINS!!!!!!!!!THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR HIDING INFORMATION AND MAKING THINGS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THEY HAVE TO BE!!!!!! I'm not talking about Microsoft. It has done a fantastic job providing millions of office workers and others whose simple composing needs are accessed easily on the computer and in word processing.
As you can tell from my blog site, I write books and the sophisticated compositional software is now part of my life. SO, I KNOW WHEREOF I SPEAK. IT'S NOT A JOYOUS PART OF MY LIVING AND IS RENEWING MY FORMER %&^$# LANGUAGE SKILLS!!!!!!!!! And I know from my experience, it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!!!!!!!!!
SO, BEFORE OTHERS COPY THESE SOFTWARE PRODUCERS for the many NEW PROGRAMS THAT WILL BE REQUIRED IN FUTURE YEARS that you and yours will need to use, this blogger would like to SUGGEST TO FUTURE PROGRAMMERS THAT THEY HEED THE WARNING!!!!!!!!!If you want to be a HERO LIKE BILL GATES OR STEVE JOBS, PRODUCE SIMPLE BUT SOPHISTICATED SOFTWARE!!!!!!!!Yes, it can be done and it can be JUST AS GOOD OR EVEN BETTER BECAUSE YOU CAN INCLUDE MORE. If you simplify then it's possible to include even more sophistication for folks to use!!!!!!
This blogger (as Trash80 proves) is NO STRANGER to the FRUSTRATION TECHNOLOGY CAN PROVIDE AND HAS OVERCOME IT. So my complaint can't be cast aside as "TOO BAD, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY OR HAVE NO TENACITY, OR YOU'RE JUST TOO DUMB". Well, it could seem so to the arrogant snobs who wrote the programs but IT JUST DOESN'T WASH!!!!!!!! The means are there for simplicity and now we need the geniuses to implement them and make the user comfortable with the new needs of computing!!!!!!!!!!!!
CHEERS, CONNIE
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