Interestingly, I received the same error, but this time I can paste it for you:
Invalid form key: 1xQAR1PK6f
Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.
I hope that it helps. By the way, I think grammar should be checked in the above error: Too many commas and conjunctions.
(i.e."firewall or proxy," should be changed to "firewall, proxy," and those are the only required commas in the statement.)
Please note that my last successful post was also submitted through a hotmail proxy, but this is the post that didn't work. ******************
Now for my actual post:
Usability is the difference between finishing a task in a few minutes with a low but reasonable learning curve, and spending hours without the ability to finish the same task.
Usability is the core reason that MS Windows pulled ahead of any other OS from 3.x onwards. Microsoft Press has published numerous titles regarding the "Windows User Experience," in order to educate developers and their managers on the importance of a user having consistent and adaptable experience throughout customers' use of their software.
Compared to contemporary competitors, Windows 3.x was crushing in all aspects of usability and Windows has since been top contender.
Regardless of MS business practices, usability was their real strength as it was always just a little more convenient to use their products.
Consider MS Office, while it is possible to have some considerable problems to have it do what you want, most users will never know of them. Their use of office is made similar to their expectations of something like a typewriter. This is supported with interface elements that meet this expectation rather than requiring more direct knowledge of the application.
A user needn't enter the em value of their word spacing or typeface width, or the point value of their tabs --- even though they are free to do so if needed. Instead, they can drag the options to their needed value and get back to the important things.
In fact, you can also set all of these things programmatically, but to expect a user to do this is unrealistic. Mention VBA to them and they will correct you saying the fish-fry is actually at the VFW.
This is part of the brilliance of Mozilla Firefox mimicking IE in the placement of Internet Options and KDE and GNOME provoding a Start Menu. Users are far closer to being "up to speed" immediately and are more likely to stay and contribute to whatever application they use.
While improving, Linux is most useful to developers and still abandons many users that would otherwise be interested.
When it comes down to it, people that need something to work --- particularly those that depend upon computing for business --- view initial and even yearly licensing of $500 or more as small change in the face of spending 2 weeks picking up a previously unneeded skill.
They may have lost many times that licensing cost by the time that they acheive their needed results.
The opposite should also be considered: while the usability of Windows is preferable, many simply can't afford to participate in a MS monopoly.
Populations that have the most to gain from Linux are left to learning an entirely new visual, verbal, and idea vocabulary on top of an unfamiliar method of production.
At this point usability takes on an economic tone as countries with deep poverty are exactly the places that open source software will prove needed as they develop as an economic fledgling.
I recently had a visit from a cousin of mine from the 'old country'. She had never seen a pool table except on the only TV in her villiage. This TV was in the richest household in her villiage of about 250 people.
I don't expect her to know anything of using any computer --- let alone figuring out how to configure her new Linux kernal or any other PC related skill. I have both Windows and Linux boxes at home. 3 of them. This was an impossible luxury to her and she was very curious to use them.
She was familiar enough with the idea of computing and the internet to get around and start digging.
She has seen PCs on the same TV and there is one --- ONE --- in the medical school that she attends to become a surgeon. She had never used it.
She tried both during the week that she was with me and was simply more comfortable using Windows regardless of the fact that she would never be able to afford it without a fight.
To give you an idea of the general impoverishment from where she comes: her yearly salary as a nurse is just over $230. You heard correctly: per year. That will nearly quintuple when she becomes a surgeon --- imagine that: a surgeon making less than $1500 per year. Even at a surgeon's income it would take her 3 or 4 years to be able to afford Windows licensing --- currently it would take her up to 10 years of heartbreaking saving.
That is not an option for her and will never be unless she is able to come to the US or some other affluent country. This kind of situation is just what makes Linux and open source so important to the world at large.
Regardless, she was more comfortable with Windows: worked more often even with no experience.
For instance, she discovered xKill (briefly: an app that kills a process under Linux --- it's actually really useful tool because you don't have to find the ID of the process to kill). While I was at work, she had killed the KDE taskbar accidentally simply by clicking on it with xKill.
She thought she had irrivocably ruined something and was horrified at what I would think or do. You must understand that this was A_COMPUTER, the same of which her medical school could only afford one. It had the same value as a house from where she comes. She seemed to react with the same gravity as if she had killed A_PERSON. When I got home, she looked as if she had been crying for hours:
1. Restart: problem solved. 2. Comfort the crying. 3. Get dinner somewhere other than at my home office.
Anyway...
(By the way, xKill immediately killing the taskbar? Seriously... have mercy.)
(PS: It's true that you can acheive the same effect in Windows by killing explorer.exe from the task manager, but it does warn you first.)
Back to my original discussioin: man and help pages are wonderful for seasoned *nix users. This is because grep is their friend. (Grep is NOT my friend.) This kind of self-help is virtually useless for those that are new to the platform.
While many *nix users will boast (sometimes surprisingly angrily) that they can enter a command in seconds that commits system-wide changes and that is why this method is the best and most usable.
The problem here is that a user must know explicitly what to do - that point is at the top of the learning curve.
Seasoned users forget while saying this that this is exactly what horrifies most mainstream users. Entering a command that commits system-wide changes is, well, a commitment. The command that is misspelled, forgotten how to use, or forgotten completely can cost them weeks.
Mainstream users expect a computer to act as any other appliance would in their home. They don't need to know how fast their spin cycle runs in their washing machine.
Frankly, they shouldn't mess with it. This is because it could put them in very serious danger. A washing machine needs two dials to do the job and users benefit from it. If a user wished to overclock the spin cycle, they can learn more when they feel the inescapable need to do so.
Regardless, this is an idea for someone other then a househusband/wife to discover.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
rpm -ivxzf forTheLoveOfGod
This isn't good enough for ME --- let alone anyone without any computing experience. I would change this torture in my spare time if I knew how, but I unfortunately don't.
Frankly, I personally hate installing anything in Linux. This is mostly because I have to find the thing once it is installed. Time. Searching for it is difficult because there is no common extension for an executable under Linux. If I search for it I receive hundreds of files with the same filename and I have to find the one missing an extension.
This assumes that it is actually missing an extension which isn't always the case.
A user should never be forced to edit a text file in order to get anything to work; requiring such an edit such as customizing a script or config file should be considered an embarrassment to the idea of usability.
If Linux and other OSS is to encourage migration, then the use of that software should be at least encouraging rather than discouraging.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:The Reason why
Posted by: nikolic on July 11, 2004 11:44 AMFirst, a note:
Interestingly, I received the same error, but this time I can paste it for you:
Invalid form key: 1xQAR1PK6f
Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.
I hope that it helps. By the way, I think grammar should be checked in the above error: Too many commas and conjunctions.
(i.e."firewall or proxy," should be changed to "firewall, proxy," and those are the only required commas in the statement.)
Please note that my last successful post was also submitted through a hotmail proxy, but this is the post that didn't work.
******************
Now for my actual post:
Usability is the difference between finishing a task in a few minutes with a low but reasonable learning curve, and spending hours without the ability to finish the same task.
Usability is the core reason that MS Windows pulled ahead of any other OS from 3.x onwards. Microsoft Press has published numerous titles regarding the "Windows User Experience," in order to educate developers and their managers on the importance of a user having consistent and adaptable experience throughout customers' use of their software.
Compared to contemporary competitors, Windows 3.x was crushing in all aspects of usability and Windows has since been top contender.
Regardless of MS business practices, usability was their real strength as it was always just a little more convenient to use their products.
Consider MS Office, while it is possible to have some considerable problems to have it do what you want, most users will never know of them. Their use of office is made similar to their expectations of something like a typewriter. This is supported with interface elements that meet this expectation rather than requiring more direct knowledge of the application.
A user needn't enter the em value of their word spacing or typeface width, or the point value of their tabs --- even though they are free to do so if needed. Instead, they can drag the options to their needed value and get back to the important things.
In fact, you can also set all of these things programmatically, but to expect a user to do this is unrealistic. Mention VBA to them and they will correct you saying the fish-fry is actually at the VFW.
This is part of the brilliance of Mozilla Firefox mimicking IE in the placement of Internet Options and KDE and GNOME provoding a Start Menu. Users are far closer to being "up to speed" immediately and are more likely to stay and contribute to whatever application they use.
While improving, Linux is most useful to developers and still abandons many users that would otherwise be interested.
When it comes down to it, people that need something to work --- particularly those that depend upon computing for business --- view initial and even yearly licensing of $500 or more as small change in the face of spending 2 weeks picking up a previously unneeded skill.
They may have lost many times that licensing cost by the time that they acheive their needed results.
The opposite should also be considered: while the usability of Windows is preferable, many simply can't afford to participate in a MS monopoly.
Populations that have the most to gain from Linux are left to learning an entirely new visual, verbal, and idea vocabulary on top of an unfamiliar method of production.
At this point usability takes on an economic tone as countries with deep poverty are exactly the places that open source software will prove needed as they develop as an economic fledgling.
I recently had a visit from a cousin of mine from the 'old country'. She had never seen a pool table except on the only TV in her villiage. This TV was in the richest household in her villiage of about 250 people.
I don't expect her to know anything of using any computer --- let alone figuring out how to configure her new Linux kernal or any other PC related skill. I have both Windows and Linux boxes at home. 3 of them. This was an impossible luxury to her and she was very curious to use them.
She was familiar enough with the idea of computing and the internet to get around and start digging.
She has seen PCs on the same TV and there is one --- ONE --- in the medical school that she attends to become a surgeon. She had never used it.
She tried both during the week that she was with me and was simply more comfortable using Windows regardless of the fact that she would never be able to afford it without a fight.
To give you an idea of the general impoverishment from where she comes: her yearly salary as a nurse is just over $230. You heard correctly: per year. That will nearly quintuple when she becomes a surgeon --- imagine that: a surgeon making less than $1500 per year. Even at a surgeon's income it would take her 3 or 4 years to be able to afford Windows licensing --- currently it would take her up to 10 years of heartbreaking saving.
That is not an option for her and will never be unless she is able to come to the US or some other affluent country. This kind of situation is just what makes Linux and open source so important to the world at large.
Regardless, she was more comfortable with Windows: worked more often even with no experience.
For instance, she discovered xKill (briefly: an app that kills a process under Linux --- it's actually really useful tool because you don't have to find the ID of the process to kill). While I was at work, she had killed the KDE taskbar accidentally simply by clicking on it with xKill.
She thought she had irrivocably ruined something and was horrified at what I would think or do. You must understand that this was A_COMPUTER, the same of which her medical school could only afford one. It had the same value as a house from where she comes. She seemed to react with the same gravity as if she had killed A_PERSON. When I got home, she looked as if she had been crying for hours:
1. Restart: problem solved.
2. Comfort the crying.
3. Get dinner somewhere other than at my home office.
Anyway...
(By the way, xKill immediately killing the taskbar? Seriously... have mercy.)
(PS: It's true that you can acheive the same effect in Windows by killing explorer.exe from the task manager, but it does warn you first.)
Back to my original discussioin: man and help pages are wonderful for seasoned *nix users. This is because grep is their friend. (Grep is NOT my friend.) This kind of self-help is virtually useless for those that are new to the platform.
While many *nix users will boast (sometimes surprisingly angrily) that they can enter a command in seconds that commits system-wide changes and that is why this method is the best and most usable.
The problem here is that a user must know explicitly what to do - that point is at the top of the learning curve.
Seasoned users forget while saying this that this is exactly what horrifies most mainstream users. Entering a command that commits system-wide changes is, well, a commitment. The command that is misspelled, forgotten how to use, or forgotten completely can cost them weeks.
Mainstream users expect a computer to act as any other appliance would in their home. They don't need to know how fast their spin cycle runs in their washing machine.
Frankly, they shouldn't mess with it. This is because it could put them in very serious danger. A washing machine needs two dials to do the job and users benefit from it. If a user wished to overclock the spin cycle, they can learn more when they feel the inescapable need to do so.
Regardless, this is an idea for someone other then a househusband/wife to discover.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
rpm -ivxzf forTheLoveOfGod
This isn't good enough for ME --- let alone anyone without any computing experience. I would change this torture in my spare time if I knew how, but I unfortunately don't.
Frankly, I personally hate installing anything in Linux. This is mostly because I have to find the thing once it is installed. Time. Searching for it is difficult because there is no common extension for an executable under Linux. If I search for it I receive hundreds of files with the same filename and I have to find the one missing an extension.
This assumes that it is actually missing an extension which isn't always the case.
A user should never be forced to edit a text file in order to get anything to work; requiring such an edit such as customizing a script or config file should be considered an embarrassment to the idea of usability.
If Linux and other OSS is to encourage migration, then the use of that software should be at least encouraging rather than discouraging.
#