🚀 go-pugleaf

hotelca@cris.com (Hotel California) writes:

>In article <3vlv30INN26h@keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca>, c2a192@ugrad.cs.ubc.ca
>(Kazimir Kylheku) wrote:

>> I say that you need training to make _effective_ use of any system.  I
>> mentioned this before:  I've met Mac users who would use spaces for
>> alignment in a word processing document, type in page numbers by
>> hand and use repeated carriage returns to cause a page break. 
>> That's the intuitive thing to do for an utter newbie who refuses
>> to read the manual.

>No, a newbie would see a command labeled "Insert Page Numbers" and say
>"gee, maybe that inserts page numbers" rather having to read a manual to
>see if the command even exists. 

That is utter nonsense. You obviously have never introduced a newbie to the
world of computers. They know TYPEWRITERS, so they sometimes even type a
newline at the end of each line.

Get them at a little more friendly terms with the machine, teach them some
of the basic concepts and give them a feeling for what a computer can do and
what it can't, and they might start to look around for a command like that.
Might. But only if you really made them understand what typing on the
computer is all about.

I know! My ex-girlfriend (who by God isn't a stupid person, with a measured
IQ of 127) didn't even transfer the idea "I don't have to tell the computer
where to break lines" to "If I want a page break HERE, I better find a
command for that". She was really desparate when, after proofreading, none
of the page breaks were right anymore. The curse of WYSIWIG.... Oh well, I
got her to write her diploma thesis in LaTeX, and though I took care of
including her graphics (the hardest part of this being Harvard Graphics for
Windows having totally broken export filters), she managed just fine. A good
book with a decent index helps a lot.

Bernie

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Anybody out there who knows how to connect a Wyse terminal keyboard to a PC
_without_ the terminal in between? Current keyboard lses chracters evr so
oftn.............  Getng wrs al te im. Hp!