On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 06:13 +1100, Tony Smith wrote:
> See, nerds.  It's a bit like asking a journalist for advice on the best word
> processor; they're obsessed by the word count feature, which no-one else on
> Earth gives a rats arse about.  Pointless.
> 
> Yeah, v1 Clippy was annoying, but later versions were better (Right-click,
> hide).  No one noticed, of course, having been scared of by the nerds
> shouting 'CLIPPY SUCKS".

Sorry, but it wasn't just the nerds.

At the time I was doing some computer support, one of the NUMBER ONE
support calls was how to banish that stupid paper clip. This was from
regular moms typing out a shopping list, no nerds involved.

Nerds can be very vocal, but something history has taught me is society
VERY RARELY listens to nerds.

> The "unasked for help" sums it up.  Done right, the intention of Clippy was
> to watch what you were doing, and make the occasional suggestion.  This is
> no different to watching a collegue at work, and tapping them on the
> shoulder to say 'You know...".  Every here has probably done that, now
> think: do you prefer to be the tapper or the tappee.  Sure you can Google
> the answer, but what if never occurs to you to ask the question?  There's a
> reason you're tapping those people on the shoulder...

Very true, if it had been unobtrusive. It wasn't, it stared at you,
wiggled it's butt every once in a while. How ANYONE at Mickeysoft
thought it would be a good idea is beyond me. But it wasn't the first
time, remember Bob?

As an engineer I value the advice of someone or something that knows
more then me (google being a "non" person who knows WAY more then me).
Otoh if this person or thing sits in front of me waving it's hand from
time to time, I will probably end up punching it.

> Humpf, how dare an annoying cartoon from a kids toy offer ME advice.  I'm
> not a luser, I wield the clue stick around here.

Nothing of the sort. As I said, if clippy had been easy to shut off, I
wouldn't have minded. It was Mickeysoft making it difficult to shut off
that REALLY annoyed me (Mickeysoft often thinks they "know" better, and
force things down your throat). And if me, a nerd, got annoyed trying to
figure out how to shut the bloody thing off, imagine grandma?

I know quite a few computer users who are as far from being a nerd as
possible, and NONE speak favourably of that stupid paperclip.

> As far as the iPod, I can't remember having an opinion one way or the other,
> except for the fact it had a hard drive in it, which means it chews thru
> power and breaks when you drops it.  But that's just mere nerdy technical
> complaints.

The first iPod was actually a very decent piece of hardware, it took
quite a bit of abuse in my experience and kept going (I never owned one,
but a friend did). About the only thing to complain about it was no
initial windows support, and the battery was not user replaceable.

I personally felt it was (and remains) too expensive for what it was.
However, to "non nerds" I did recommend it, since it was SO easy to use.
Other MP3 players were cheaper, but some were a nightmare to deal with.
Some of this was due to the RIAA. They originally forced MP3 makers to
NOT make their USB devices mass storage devices, meaning you HAD to use
software that came with the MP3 player to get music to the player. Of
course the RIAA did this so that you couldn't copy music BACK from the
MP3 player. An example of pointless and pathetic crippling of a great
technology that made every MP3 player a potentially buggy affair.

I choose an MP3 player with an SD slot. This way I never need to use the
software that came with the player (which I did once try, and it wasn't
that buggy, but it sure was slower to transfer music using their
software then by transferring directly to the SD card.

iPod OTOH has iTunes, while not the most flexible of software, it is
easy to use, and was relatively bug free.

Just my opinion. TTYL

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