Sure hope so. It keeps shearing off my paper cups!
I swear to god, this entire column can be boiled down to “Computers are too hard, he’s my magic way that I made up in 5 minutes on the can and have done no usability testing at all to make eveything easy.”
Worthless column. Completely.
“We need an approach in which everything is all on one big page—a form.”
Everything. All Windows configuration settings. On one big form. Right.
Apparently Dvorak doesn’t get why hierarchical options were invented in the first place.
I think he want the form idea instead of having advanced tabs so that more people that are 97% computer illiterate can fuck over their systems quicker thus giving tech support more work to do…
This guy is a fucking idiot. If he attended Certificate 2 of I.T* , where they teach you to use a mouse, most of the class would probably think he needed to be in special Education due to him being such a dumb arse (*which is at TAFE -the dumb/poor version of university in Australia).
I fully expect his next comments to be on the next line of
“Why do they call it a ‘start’ button? it hardley starts anything. In fact, I had to go throuigh multiple layers of confusing menus to get any of my programs to begin at all - this is terrible.”
Well, actually, it is pretty lousy UI design.
Still an idiot:
All the hobbyists in computing are gone!
Dvorak really can’t get over the fact that he doesn’t know how to use modern computers, can he? WordStar was easier to use than Word? WTF?
It takes me about, oh, I dunno, 30 seconds for me to acquaint myself with a newer version of Photoshop. Given, I won’t fully realize the new capabilities the extra features allow me to do for a few weeks, but it’s not like the interface changes radically with each new version. Ever since Photoshop 5, they’ve retained the exact same toolbar layout, and all that happens is some buttons get shuffled around. They only add about 2 to 5 new filters every release, and it takes a version or two before a new tool is created.
Dvorak needs to suck down some hemlock, STAT. The man is a nutbag.
That is, without a doubt, one of the stupidest articles I’ve ever read.
“Boo hoo! Computers aren’t dominated by beardy-men any more!”
Unbelievably out of touch. Hell, I can’t seem to go that many posts on Shacknews et al without “here’s a tool for this-or-that I/some random person created” or case mods or whatever. They don’t all smell bad and are social failures anymore, though.
I must live on a different planet from the rest of you. Most of what Dvorak said rang true to me:
The computing ecology is not as diverse and the products tend to be a lot more complex. This makes it less fun and more like work. The result is that fewer and fewer folks find computers, per se, fun to play with anymore. In a way it reminds me of cars. My dad was a physicist and my uncle was a chemist. They both used to spend untold hours tuning cars, nominally to save money but in reality because it was kind of fun. Pollution control equipment made it expensive and difficult to do that sort of thing, and they stopped. The same sort of thing is happening in computing.
Some of those folks have moved over to Linux, but it’s pretty complex in its own right and doesn’t really provide an equivalent to the DOS world of 1988. Sure, we’ve gained functionality since then. But some of the fun is gone.
Dvorak isn’t much of a technologist, but when he’s on he is fun to read. Which, honestly, is all I expect of a columnist… it isn’t as though I turn to PC Magazine for sage computing advice.
That’s funny, because I giggle with glee every time a new PC component arrives and I get to install it. I’m sorry, but PC enthusiasts exist, and there’s more of them than ever. They’re just not the kind of PC enthusiasts Dvorak knew.
Big surprise. The man is out of touch with reality, what can you expect?
I think that’s the thing – the change in technology has changed the nature of hobbyists.
Before they’d write assembler – now they’ll write .Net or something. Before, they’d wire up their own computer, now they spend their time making it run faster, run cooler, run quieter, run with neon lights, or whatever. Before, hobbyists would write some code and share it with their local user group, now they make a flash animation and share it with the world.
The other thing to realize is that hobbyists are probably a smaller percentage of people using computers at home nowadays, even if their numbers have grown.
I mean, its also crazy to claim that there are no car hobbyists any more. What else are you going to call those people that put homemade spoilers on their Civic EX (besides idiots, that is)?
Different kind of hobbyist. The number of car nuts who can rebuild an engine has dropped dramatically in the last quarter century… it’s too expensive and tedious to learn these days. Engines used to be simpler.
You’re right – they’ve changed. My boss has restored old Pontiac GTOs and VW Beetles – you should have HEARD the bitching when he had to fix the fuel pump on a recent Pontiac Firebird.
Hobbys that rely on technology change as the years go on. Nature of the beast.
Sure, the nature of the hobby changes.
Old gearheads - rebuild old engines, trany, etc. Do own modifications, exhaust, everything.
New gearheads - install mod chips, stereo systems, neon lights, some tuning, etc.
Old computer geeks - build your own computer hobby kits, program in ASM or punchcard, have fun user group hobby meetings, play pong
New computer geeks - build mod boxes from anything, gawk over the latest new cards, go to LAN parties, make everything run on PHP scripts, and play CS until 6 in the morning
Old amateur radio enthusiasts - build your own hobby kit radios, scan frequencies manually, use CW (morse) or voice across 4 or 5 sets of frequencies
New amateur radio enthusiasts - make your computer the amateur radio, scan with software, have packet radio BBS’s, and use frequencies previously reserved for satellite communication.
Most hobbies remain the same, but those based on technology of one kind or another will always change, and the hobbyists will change with it. Obvously there are diehards and retreads in any group - Monster Garage is a pretty good indicator of that - but it’s the nature of the beast I think.
Dvorak, is of course, an idiot.
— Alan
[quote=“Machfive”]
It takes me about, oh, I dunno, 30 seconds for me to acquaint myself with a newer version of Photoshop. Given, I won’t fully realize the new capabilities the extra features allow me to do for a few weeks, but it’s not like the interface changes radically with each new version. Ever since Photoshop 5, they’ve retained the exact same toolbar layout, and all that happens is some buttons get shuffled around. They only add about 2 to 5 new filters every release, and it takes a version or two before a new tool is created.
Dvorak needs to suck down some hemlock, STAT. The man is a nutbag.[/quote]
Who the hell buys PHOTOSHOP for CASUAL use? It’s over five hundred bucks, and 150 an upgrade.
Dvorak wasn’t an idiot this week.
He talked about super expensive digital cameras.
and
Which is basically, “duh”, except for the idea that Nvidia has a CPU design lying around and should merge with Transmeta. Not idiotic, but it is rather pulled out of his ass, with nothing to back it up.
This week,
we learn that everyone in America is bland.
Yet, when you read the column, what he tells you is that its companies which are boring and afraid to toe the line, because when these non-bland products show up, people like them.
I read it and thought “slow news week”.