Posted on 12/25/2007 5:28:49 AM PST by Kaslin
Heh! Those guys need to stop playing Half Life 2 all day and night and realize how the real world works from time to time.
With RFID coming to every piece of merchandise including socks, it might be wise to keep an eye open for a cell phone that can read your own clothing so you know what's happening. No sense being surprised in the greeting card aisle with a personalized message of what your kid wants for his birthday.
That's my take on the situation. It's an electronic version of Parkinson's Law - the ability to have doo-dads grows with the capacity to handle them. As power and storage expands, the engineers will find more things to add on the device, until you start getting nonsensical - like using a 3 Gig computer to watch a movie..
[Sidebar] Regarding the many-language instructions, I find I get ticked off if they are only in English-Spanish. However, when you get to English-Italian-German-RestOfTheWorld, it's not a biggie. You can also see why English is the lingua-franca of the world, where time is money. All the other languages take up to a third more space to say the same thing. In some cases they sound like an old Sid Cesear routine, where they rattle on in their lingo and then suddenly throw in an English word as they don't have an equivalent.
Parkinson clearly wasn't referring to a person's capacity for handling them.
Had the same problem until we doped out that by pressing the volume button, a menu canme up on the display. When we got to "clock" we hit "Scan" to up the hours and "Seek" for the minutes. Dunno how we ever figured it out without the manual, but now it's old hat as it seems to work on many other car radios. Still, the companies' big problem is that they don't make this stuff intuitive any more.
I’m waiting for a rotary cellphone before i get one. Laugh all you want. When the client server fashion started making our VAXen obsolete, and the executive row secretaries were given 386 PCs and had to give up, kicking and screaming, their Wangs and Selectrics, and the high school educated data entry clerks were to given those shiny IBM ATs and had to give up their VT100s, our IT VP said, to me, it’ll come back around, just wait and see.
Flash forward to 2007. I’ve got a Dell laptop on my desk, an old Dell desktop running Linux and a twelve year old Sun workstation. One of my engineer pals upstairs has a 21 or more inch screen attached to a dumb terminal, admittedly smarter than a 20 year old VT100, connected to a server in the data center, today’s equivalent of a VAX mini, and he can run all three OS’ on that screen simultaneously.
P.S. The company that had to a dozen or so years ago replace the $250 VT100s and VT220s, well over a thousand of them, with $2500 PCs just to follow the IT trends, and of course, train the data entry clerks, p[urchase software and support PCs now instead of cheap terminals, soon thereafter went belly up, Chapter 7. Client server - that’ll save you money, Mr Chairman.
He obviously struck a nerve here. All of us can sympathize with this craziness. Too much complication. As far as cell phones we recently dumped our contract carrier when the contract expired and got another Tracfone. Don’t take photos. I have a complicated digital camera for that. But I do want something that I can figure out how to turn on and turn off and I can talk to someone with clarity. It is possible to have something both inexpensive, works well and doesn’t confuse more than it illuminates.
Computers are actually pretty simple if one knows how to plug in a few plugs and turn on the on button. However, when one tries to set up network connections and the like it can be daunting expecially routers. But the rest is pretty simple.
I don’t see the point of these complicated cell phones although I suppose there are some who believe they are neat. I guess I am just getting old.
I think we have the same watch. I was ready to throw it out when my son mentioned if you press all four buttons at the same time and hold for a few seconds it resets the thing and it stops beeping. Of course for reason unclear to me it will start beeping again every few weeks.
I'd suggest you look into PagePlus at pageplus.com
Far and away the CHEAPEST service plan if you're not going to make many calls and just need to carry a phone for emergencies.
They're a "prepay" service, and for $10 you can buy a card good for about 100 minutes or so, and it lasts for 4 months (120 days). They do charge you a service fee (about $ .50, I think) per month. So, if you don't use the phone, you can get a full year's subscription for about $30 - $2.50 a month.
They have a few phones for sale, or you can "bring your own phone". They use Verizon as their carrier, so any Verizon-compatible phone works.
I picked up a Samsung "930" from ebay for $61. Walmart was selling these for around $250 with a Verizon service plan, which I didn't want or need. You also need to pick up a PagePlus "activation" card if you bring in your own phone, they sell for $5 on ebay or you might find a dealer selling them locally (see the PagePlus web site for dealers in your area.
Again, if all you need is an emergency phone, PagePlus fills the bill. I've had my phone for about 3 months, and haven't made a call yet!
- John
As a professional Technical Editor for a DJ30 company, let me add my 2 cents.
The marketing people certainly bear a large share of the guilt. They view Technical Documentation as a necessary evil, and are constantly attempting to implement cost-cutting measures in the area of TD.
For one thing, they’d ideally like all Technical Instructions to be in pictures, without explanatory text (q.v. IKEA). That’s to save translation expenses.
Secondly, they’d like the product itself to have no explanatory printed language on it - so instead of buttons marked “ON” and “OFF,” you get funny little pictograms which supposedly mean “ON” and “OFF” - and also pictograms for such subtle concepts as “this is the button which you should press when you wish to temporarily (i.e. < 30 min) override the normally programmed nighttime/non-occupancy temperature control program;” yes, didn’t you know that that’s what a “half-moon” symbol means?
Thirdly, the “higher-ups” come to us with demands like: “We want you to write a 30-page manual for this radio-frequency handheld control unit, but you have to make it as GENERIC as possible, since a lot of its features and functionalities (e.g. effective operating radius, size, shape, number of buttons, and yes, even its NAME) are still “up in the air.” So we end up writing stuff like “Congratulations on the purchase of your unit! To turn your unit ON, activate** the appropriate control**.”
*”activate” = PUSH in the case of the models X1001 and XY1002, but SLIDE in the case of the ABC5 and ABC 6, or ROTATE in the case of the models Z100 and Z200. To determine which model you have, unscrew the housing...
**pushbutton, slide switch, or dial, depending upon model.
Fourthly, we’ve outsourced a LOT of our engineering to places like the Czech Republic, Hungary, and, yes, China. And we Tech Writers base much of our manuals on spec sheets which non-native speakers have “penned.” (We often don’t even get to actually SEE the product we are writing about ourselves until it’s already too late.)
I agree with you completely. I had an old, old copy of WordPerfect that worked perfectly and was instinctive in use. One day I replaced it with the upgraded version, since the upgrade must be better.
What a load of crap. It took me a day to figure out how to make it stop reformatting everything that I wrote, and how to make it perform a simple task like writing a letter without turning it into a web page or a Powerpoint presentation.
Merry Christmas to you and yours
Dang, we’ll have to try that! This is a radio that you turn on by pressing “source,” although at least it’s got an Off button. It came with the used car.
I *loved* that old WordPerfect. I could do wonders with it. Hated it when my employer went to Windows-based cr*p.
Exactly! And when it went to the default settings, I of course could not hear it and had no way of knowing. THAT was the part that caused the watch's Walk In Traffic.
Good afternoon, Blue. Hope you’re having a fine Christmas.
***
Here are the monthly plans
You pay for the phone ($147), Activation fees ($35), cheapest monthly plan is $10 for SOS calls only, $.35 per minute! They even charge you an additional $3.00 a month for voicemail!!!***
WHEW! That’s a hefty charge for the phone. The last one I got was only $40.
The $10 for SOS (if that means emergency calls) would be great because that’s all I intend to use it for. But, with your information, I’m rethinking the whole deal.
Have a look at post 72 for more information on the Jitterbug phone. I may not be getting it after all.
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