Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half(itsupport.grammable.me) |
Show HN: Fun tool that cut my family and friends tech support time in half(itsupport.grammable.me) |
would be cool (albeit maybe difficult), to summarize the best result instead of taking them to Google directly. i suspect anyone using this page who gets to the Google results page will have no idea where to stat when they get there.
a less interesting solution would maybe be to provide a video that explains how to Google solutions for technical issues & error messages.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Um. Joke on the first question? Or typo?
lame.
The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case (prior experience?) and knew that if he asked "is it plugged in?" he would get a "yes". Taking the power plug out and putting it back in ensured that it would be in properly. But just asking the person to do that can be faced with push-back or even a lie that they did it (since the power plug obviously was already connected).
I always chuckled at the story but did not think it was true. I worked tech support while attending university. One time, I had an on-site where the monitor just stopped working. We went through the standard question on the phone, including asking if it is plugged in, and of course it was. Could not get it fixed over the phone. Once on-site, it turned out it was a loose power cable.
I could have avoided an on-site had I only asked them to blow the dust out of the power cable. Maybe this should be added to the questionnaire.
At one point I had to service some of the rural areas when the installer for that area quit and had one service request that I was sure would be fixed by a simple power cycle but wasn't. "Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?" I asked, and "If I come all the way out there and power cycle it and it works I'll have to charge you, do you understand?" I warned, he understood but wasn't worried because he knew that wasn't it.
After a nearly 2 hour drive out into the utter boondocks, I go inside and check the POE injector, unplug it and plug it back in. 20 seconds later I check his internet through his own router: golden (or as golden as you can be over a waverider 900Mhz link). He had just been unplugging his own router and plugging it back in over and over. In retrospect I could have made him physically trace the power cord but there was still a good 10% chance the unit actually had a problem.
People in the rural areas were really nice about everything though, being on 56k until 2010 makes you appreciate whatever broadband you can get. He just laughed and got his checkbook, in the city people complained when you told them the bill an hour after telling them what the charge would be over the phone.
There was an IBM engineer on site who insisted it was a software problem - I was on the phone to him and he was getting rather annoyed with me and I asked the inevitable "Is it actually plugged into the power?" which got him very angry that I would have the cheek to suggest that he hadn't checked that.
Then the phone went silent for a bit and he said "Try now".
Power supply was plugged into the power but the power cable from the supply wasn't plugged into the printer.
Edit: I'm sure I've been the guilty party in similar scenarios myself a few times, though hopefully not more than once in any particular context.
When I served in the German army as a battle tank weapons systems front line mechanic I didn't know all the tricks of the tank crews from the start (obviously) - nor that they did have tricks that they used to get out of training exercises and to (our) fresh coffee.
One common trick was to turn all the dials for brightness and contrast for the passive heat-sensor (night vision) all the way down. Then they told their commanding officer they had to go to the "Inst" (German "Instandhaltung" = maintenance depmt., in our case right behind the battle field - with power generator and attached coffee maker) because their screen had gone out. Which was quite important
The first time I went to such a tank I fumbled around for a few minutes, not finding anything, before admitting defeat. I called in a more senior colleague of mine. He went in, turned up the dials and that was all, case closed.
It was sooo embarrassing (to me, I don't think the other people gave it much thought) - that's the reason I still remember it even though it's been 16 years or so by now.
Once I thought it's because software is too complicated, but it seems every time I lower the entry barrier, people lower their opinion about what is a problem.
What I don't understand is, that even professionals turn their brain out when setting up a system of any kind.
When I have to go to a customer and need to set some stuff up, I ensure that I can complete that task without the help of others. If some unexpected happens, I write it down at some central place and consult it the next time.
But some people just head out every time without thinking or planning.
Still a great name for this though!
Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.
-Clarence Dayhttps://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040303-00/?p=...
> Here's the trick: Don't ask "Are you sure it's plugged in correctly?"
> If you do this, they will get all insulted and say indignantly, "Of course it is! Do I look like an idiot?" without actually checking.
> Instead, say "Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?"
> They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, "Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks."
If you ask directly, people will often just instantly tell you the cable is good, without even touching it.
Customers would sometimes question this, but I don't recall anyone refusing after I explained the reasoning.
> Is your device up to date?
First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device" must be the charger thingy. What does "updated" mean? The clock and date are correct, is that what it means? The SIM card is just a week old, so that means device is updated, right? Or they updated their calendar app, so then all is good. Or maybe "device" refers to the internet box at home? If they correctly identify it as "probably not updated", the next instruction is equally opaque:
> Update it.
This needs a "how?" answer, in addition to "okay".
For instance, if the browser icon on my parents computer is moved for whatever reason, they will say that "the Internet is broken". If my mother can't figure out what button to press in a mobile application to get what she wants, "her phone is broken".
Once my mother called that the tablet said it had a virus and should scan immediately. I asked what she saw on the screen, what she was doing when it occurred. It was an aggressive pop-up in an app she was using. I explained to her the intent of these pop-ups, which she understood and said that it did look fishy, hence her call. Next time I was around, I rooted their device and put an ad-blocker on it.
I've spent countless hours educating them about malware, but how can they know that the app that promises to make their computer fast again is malware?
I also think the "Did this fix your problem?" prompts after saying "Yes" are redundant.
Shoot, I guess even that is a poor wording. I do know, however, that every time Apple pushes an iOS update, I get a text from my mom to see if she should accept the update. (She got an iphone last summer for the first time, and does not know how to install apps.)
I used the tool like my mother would and had these Problems:
1. the device is on! Of course I know it's plugged in!
2. "is the device up to date". What does that mean? The clock seems to be going correctly! It's not the newest model, but fairly recent...
3. I now have the google results for "the titles don't work anymore"
-
I think far more helpful would be a simple form helping writing a report:
- What is the name of the program where the problem occurs (you can find that here [screenshot showing a title bar])
- Describe step by step what you did when the error occurred. Once done, please do these exact steps again to see if the problem still occurs.
- What did you expect to happen?
- What did actually happen?
- Did it work before?
- If it did, when did it work the last time? Did you change anything since than?
- Any further guesses on what might be relevant to the problem or what might cause it?
- When we solve the problem, what do I get? (multiple choice: nothing - still owed me one, a beer, a hug, other [ ])
Does that mean do I have the latest iPhone, or do I have the latest device drivers (I think I have heard that from Windows users).
Not too sure there.
[0]https://www.grammable.me/blogs/news/grammable-it-support-too...
I'm technical, and I didn't notice the new window (tab actually) till much later - I just thought the site was broken and ignored what I typed.
Someone non-technical is for sure not going to notice it.
It's annoying being asked to help with support, but if it's someone I care about I would never send them this.
Maybe I'm missing the joke?
I'd pay for a tool like this that was easy to set up and use that didn't have to involve my parents installing TeamViewer, coordinating a channel, and so on.
Edit: Thanks for the advice all, will install one of these suggestions when I head home for the holidays.
Just open up messages on both computer -> go to your parents' contact -> click details -> click the button next to their name that looks like two screens (it's next to the video chat button). It'll ring on their computer, all they have to do is accept.
Edit: Apparently you can just spotlight search for the "screen sharing" application and just type in their apple id.
I had hopes that Screen Hero would fill that role before Slack bought them out. Still a great tool, wish it wasn't tied to Slack though.
In a couple minutes I find that disabled setting, or the app she installed but can't find, or clean up the crapware from the kitten screensaver she installed, and she's on her way.
Power chord is a music thing.
Power cord is a cord that supplies power.
Looks like instapainting.com arbitrage, I wonder how long that will be viable.
Domain Name: GRAMMABLE.ME
Registry Domain ID: D425500000001103903-AGRS
Registrar WHOIS Server:
Registrar URL: www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2016-11-25T10:04:27Z
Creation Date: 2016-11-25T10:04:19Z
grammable.me was registered a few weeks after the [indiehacker article on instapainting](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/instapainting) buzzed on HN about a month ago : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12798767 .
Don't know what to think about it, looks like a bit unfair to me to copy cat someone who decided to share so much of his experience.
I would love to know what Chris Chen (instapainting founder) and Courtland Allen (indie hacker founder) think about it. Personally I really enjoy reading indie hacker stories, I find it very inspiring. It would be a shame people stop sharing their success because some guys copy cat them...
Then it could be fun AND useful :)
See [1] for a similar idea, but applied to guessing animals.
See [2] for a more serious approach.
[1] http://www.animalgame.com/
[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/09521976929...
It seems that the tool is inspired by the 'IT crowd'. IRL, unfortunately people may skip the first steps thinking that they are taken as idiots.
An iPad.
/thread
My dad complained that his laptop would pop up "strange pictures" and ask if he "liked what he saw" and that they kept coming up even though he always said no.
I thought he'd acquired some sort of malware popping up fake dating site ads, but it turned out that he had upgraded to Windows 10 and was referring to the scenic photos it now shows at the login prompt/unlock screen...
Of course this is not for everyone, but for folks who for the most only need a browser a Linux distro is a good choice.
I love Linux, but there really is no beating an iPad if you need a PC-approximate that is absurdly low maintenance.
The real issue is that malware (adware?) is so damn convincing that he honestly believes it will make his 2 year old computer cleaner/better/faster/longer battery life. Once these apps are installed, they set themselves up in /Library/LaunchDaemons, /Library/LaunchAgents, browser addons, default search engines and several other places and they are absolutely a pain to get rid of over the phone.
So no, the solution for them is not, switch to Chromebooks. Ideally Apple would update their existing malware rules to include these "legitimate" but extremely shady apps.
For his use case it's more user friendly than the Windows install because of the lack of constant update requests and antivirus stuff etc. etc. It's also faster on the same machine and the computer doesn't clog down every n month. I still remember that he asked me about 6 month in why the computer doesn't get slower :P
I'm fairly confident that a switch from Windows to macOS would have been a lot harder for him btw. Same for a switch to Windows 10 without making it look like the old Windows actually (not as confident in that statement as I don't know enough about Win10).
The harder people to move over are ones who have ingrained certain things like "I need WinRAR to open this kind of file", and not being able to independently research for alternatives. People with mid-level computer experience, but not much experience in new environments suffer a lot on these transitions.
Come on guys, why always the linux + mother argument. Do not do it. It is silly.
Besides that: most of the time you probably have to give support on apps they use instead of os related issues.
My non-techie wife wandered onto my Elementary OS installation one day while I was at work, and despite having never used anything but Windows on the desktop (not even a Mac) she navigated just fine without me there to guide her. She was able to use it to go online, find something she wanted to print, print it, and then download, edit, and save a photo she wanted for her blog. Granted, those weren't pro-level tasks, but it's typical of what your average Grandma will do with her PC. Everything the average user does these days is all done in the browser; Google grokked that, and we now have Chrome OS.
I'd love to move my mother to Elementary (I've previously considered a Chromebook for her but my new stance on Google gives me pause) just so she will not be as susceptible to drive-by malware. I think if you give folks a fighting chance, you'll find that Windows doesn't have to be the only OS for Mr. and Mrs. Average User.
I think you are the one making a joke rather. The overall Linux experience (when you choose the right hardware and when everything works as expected) is not bad, really. It's faster than a machine running on any other system, USB peripherals do not need tons of external drivers, you can choose the Windows Manager you prefer out of a dozen of them available, it has proper package management, user management with different levels of privileges, it does not need to reboot for every update like windows does, I could go on forever.
At best you can criticize some Linux distros for being unfamiliar for Windows or OSX users, but that's about it. The rest depends a lot more on what you do with it. If whoever uses it lives mostly in a browser, it makes basically no difference.
Since I installed Ubuntu on it I actually spend my time with her, not her computer. And she's happy about that, obviously, but also that her computer just works and she doesn't have to call me to get support all the time.
Canonical actually spent money on user interface testing. I can find some activity for Gnome shell but I'm having problems digging up any solid testing for KDE.
Linux Mint: my mother. two years since the switch and she loves it. can't say I don't either.
Arch Linux: my significant other. a year since she adopted it, and she can find her way around just fine.
FreeBSD: my father. with i3 and a couple of scripts, he's able to boot up into a single-use environment and do what he wants. very simple and easy and I don't have to touch his laptop for a long time.
so.. user friendly? user friendliness depends on the interface that you slap onto the front of the operating system. turns out, there are different UIs for different purposes!
and that's why linux is a good choice. underneath, it's secure, maintainable, and free. on top, it can look like anything you want, thanks to X and the various DE/WMs.
my mother needs a full-on Windows-like GUI, start menu and all. my SO needs a slim interface so she uses fluxbox, which with a click of her mouse has everything she needs in a convenient menu (plus workspaces), and my father doesn't need anything but a web browser.
the kernel doesn't matter to them if you dress it up nicely.
Linux runs better as a remotely administered machine than macos or windows, and can run photoshop cs2, unlike ios and chrome.
And "The WOW! Computer runs on a Linux operating system we’ve customized to support our touch screen capabilities. We chose Linux to avoid frequent problems with viruses and to provide a more secure, problem-free computer environment. Linux has been developed over the last 20 years by numerous companies and currently runs on millions of computers. In fact, about 60% of all internet servers run Linux."
So ...
Hell, when I introduced my mom to ubuntu ten years ago, Linux wasn't even as desktop friendly as it is now.
Not to say that it's the best choice, but it's plenty usable and user friendly.
edit: The best thing about Linux for non-technical people is that the GUIs don't change radically (for marketing purposes) every year or two. Once you get used to something, you can generally keep it, and changes and modernizations will accumulate slowly instead of forcing an adjustment all at once.
iOS or Android, doesn't matter. All most people do is surf Facebook, check webmail/im, and do online shopping.
Moving these people over to a tablet reduces Family IT Support to practically zero.
If you don't want to even worry about that, include a sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade as a cron job and everything will be up to date without them doing anything.
He was scared about downloading viruses and all that, to which I told him: you don't need to worry about it.
He's also on a mac sometimes, I wouldn't let
After many years the only problem ever occur was when she accepted upgrade proposal to Ubuntu 16.04 and then shortly after closed laptop so it's end up in half installed state. So it's would be smart not just setup unattended upgrades, but also disable all release upgrade suggestions.
Though I suppose for her ChromeOS could be enough too, but it's was too limited in offline mode and I not sure if she going to need new laptop anytime soon.
Also, Windows has annoying forced restarts and takes a long time to update. And it doesn't have a package manager. And drivers need to be annoying--needless waiting even for simple devices like a USB keyboard.
Problems come if they need more or are used to another OS.
ChromeOS is Linux. The principal difference between ChromeOS and Ubuntu is that if you want to run something other than Chrome then on Ubuntu you may and on ChromeOS you don't.
And the likes of Ubuntu have been easier to use than Windows for five years or more. The utility of Windows is if you need Windows-exclusive software or hardware, not that it's easier to use. And if that's your problem then you can't have ChromeOS or MacOS/iOS either.
You also can't lawfully install MacOS or iOS on the computers your family already has.
Linux is best for servers.
Linux is for grandmothers, old electricians ... and seasoned sysadmins and programmers like me.
Having said that, if she wanted a new computer right now, I'd probably recommend an iPad with a keyboard case (assuming that she can do what she wants with it, which I think she can -- most of her computer use nowadays is web browsing, email and the occasional word processing/spreadsheet. I use mine for everything except coding)
At the end of the day, its down to cost analysis: is it cheaper (in terms of time spent, for both of you) to leave things as they are and deal with support issues as they arise; or to retrain your mom to use something which has lower support overhead?
It may not make sense to get her to switch.
I agree that Linux might not be great for our parents. As for my own mother, I moved her to a Mac mini years ago and that has reduced my support time solely to explaining how specific websites work. She can do lots of things on her own now, like debugging the wifi (shitty telco router), she creates her own booklets for the classes she teaches, etc.
With windows she'd be stuck on non-task related issues 80% of the time, which made it impossible for her to learn how to use the computer at all.
Exactly as they ought to! Rising standards are a much-to-be-desired effect. Of course, that doesn't always mean contacting the support staff to solve problems, but it DOES mean no longer accepting minor problems that used be a normal part of how we operated but which now can be eliminated with minor effort.
But some people are just... I don't know, you just can't catch up with them.
I few days ago a friend of mine quoted something that sums it all up: "Imagine the average person. Now imagine that 50% of the population is dumber"
What you don't see on the other side is the guy using your software that was just stuck in a traffic jam for an hour, or hasn't had a solid night of sleep in three weeks due to his newborn, etc. The last thing they want to do is sit down and learn how to use your software that so-and-so from that other department insisted be rolled out across the company.
You have to excuse your customers for not learning things in earnest. It's part of your job to make that as easy as possible for them.
100000x this.
A couple of years later Iphones and Android appeared, and as I'm an Android user she picked one of those (to simplify potential support situations) and was very happy about her decision. (Because she liked the phone, not that she was getting support from me all the time.)
I'm sure some of her friends have Iphones, but that's never really come up as a thing. Maybe because the people my mom associate with aren't 8 years old with the need to flaunt their stuff in the face of everybody claiming "look my phone is so cool, woop woop, your phone sucks because you have a different brand!". ;-)
It's not even about not wanting to listen, it's about the amount of information they have to absorb to understand the problem.
Also, most of us are not Feinmann-level teachers who can explain complicated systems in simple terms.
Even techies can run into this problem - the only reason we might do better, on average, is that we experiment with more things, and perhaps pursue more of this knowledge for it's own sake. We got sick of being on hold for tech support, we encountered issues tech support couldn't help us with, so we spent more time experimenting and internalizing the solutions to our problems.
To some degree this suggests an answer: Give people some time to try and solve their own problems. "I can take a look when I'm over there next" instead of spending a lot of time trying to remotely troubleshoot the problem over the phone. "Sure - let me just finish this up and I'll swing by" instead of dropping everything to troubleshoot a problem in-person for a coworker.
I still help my mom out some with various tech problems, but I think we've both benifited from letting her (re)develop some independence and self-sufficiency when it comes to technology.
If you are using a Linux machine I'd still recommend that you double check for driver support on any hardware you buy. You can expect it to be okay but you should still check. You generally don't need to check for Windows, you can just assume and you will be right every time.
Haven't had a problem with wifi for a decade.
Double-checking for driver support is probably still worthwhile, but it's rare for it to be an issue these days, but I'd say it applies for Windows as well. Pretty much everything will have drivers for Windows, but their quality can be abysmal and you have require additional downloads.
It depends on the hardware. There is a lot of hardware that is still supported by Linux but has no drivers for any current Windows versions, because OEMs have no incentive to retroactively create drivers for new Windows versions for last year's hardware.
I was unable to fix it for two-monitor setups reliably in 4 years. It will not go away until Wayland is properly supporting nvidia, which might be another 5 years. So there is that.
You literally have to find a "linux compatible" laptop, or else you risk running into constant driver problems. Not so with Windows, at least, and macOS comes on its own hardware.
Picasa is/was great.
There are several ways switching an unsophisticated user reduces this problem:
- Ads for malware-laden $RANDOM_SOFTWARE downloads aren't targeted at Linux desktops in the first place.
- The ads that mimic UI widgets don't match anything in the desktop UI, making them much easier for unsophisticated users to identify as suspect.
- Saying that $RANDOM_SOFTWARE they want to install isn't Linux-compatible (which admittedly does generate moderate pressure to switch back) is usually a more acceptable answer than "No, I won't install that malware-riddled piece of crap for you", however gently worded.
I switched over my father-in-law's laptop to Chromium OS for this exact reason.
(mostly) automatic updates.
no malware.
zero configuration to allow for breaking anything.
no "can I install XX?" questions. The answer is always "if it's in the chrome store".
A good browser does everything he needs.
Very quickly most will get the idea that the computer is broken and you need to come and fix it because you were the one that broke it.
FYI, since a few years, TurboTax has an online version that I use on Linux.
Just an anecdote: I organised an Android phone for my gf's mother. After a lot of training, she was using it to send and receive photos to her family and loving having it.
If she took a photo and wasn't happy with it, she would want to delete it. In the Samsung gallery app (Galaxy S4), you long-press on the thumbnail of the photo, then choose delete.
Problem is, the thumbnail of the Album itself is actually the last photo that you've taken. So she has inadvertently deleted the whole album (all her photos) by accident twice now!
I can't blame her because the icon she is deleting looks exactly the same as the picture she's trying to delete, only the message is a tiny bit different ("would you like to delete this album?" versus the usual "would you like to delete this photo?"), easy to not read the last word of the message if you've seen it 1000x before and done it safely.
I blame Samsung 100% for these accidential deletions. These phones and software just aren't designed with the non-confident user in mind, and in my opinion that's a broken UI.
Deleting an album containing hundreds of photos is something so dangerous and something you'd probably want to do so rarely that such an operation should at least warrant an extra message saying, "you are about to delete an album containing $number photos, are you sure?" And why not have a recycle bin? There are many ways this could have been easily avoided.
I can totally understand why a user like that would be nervous about pressing buttons they're not sure about. Especially after accidentally deleting all their photos!
Also there's no way to use a better Gallery app, the camera app always uses the IMO broken Samsung Galley app to review photos, and there's no way to change that.
Unfortunately I can't tell her "it's impossible to break this system" with that phone. I wish I could.
Sometimes I think that I'm just lucky I didn't have an experience like that when I was first starting with computers, because I might have been so scared after that that I wouldn't have continued to explore and learn. Nowadays I basically think that there's no problem with computers that you can't fix given the time and motivation.
> Sometimes I think that I'm just lucky I didn't have an experience like that when I was first starting with computers,
Oh dear - tell me you've learned to make backups anyways! ;)
The reason why such things are harder to get to work in Linux sometimes is because such DRM-solutions are not always baked in or provided by the same providers as in windows, and might be proprietary.
Also companies like Netflix have been known to filter peoples useragent leading to the exclusion of Linux users. nowadays it's as easy as installing a Silverlight-alternative in your favourite browser or just running a chrome derived browser.
my main point being: it's not always Linux's fault that some things are hard.
I wonder why such people exist at all? They do - reading the comments up to here I saw them mentioned four or five times. Yet the mindset such people supposedly display is totally incomprehensible to me. I can't for the life of me understand why would anyone, when faced with a problem, automatically give up without researching and trying to solve it. This is how I - and probably most of us on HN - learned "computers" in the first place: hours and hours of typing and clicking random things until something happens.
Aside from where do they come from, another question is if we really need to cater to them? Are they truly a majority of users? Is the condition in-born, uncurable, or can they be educated?
certain games work only on consoles and not on windows so windows is not a suitable replacement of consoles for people who want to play those games.
I have become very good at data recovery though. Never lost anything I couldn't later recover!
But yeah, don't do that people!
Of course this made desktop a mess.
Many usability people also claim that it is good to have the menus attached to the top of the screen instead of attached to the window it affects.
Software recommended by usability people often have menus hidden away behind "gear" or "hamburger" icons.
I am not a usability expert but often I feel software is worse off after the ux people have had a say.
In particular it seems for many of them the goal is to mimic Mac OS X.
Unity (Canonical's fork of Gnome Shell) perpetrates neither the 'spatial' filer nor the hamburger thing. Gnome Shell's Nautilus no longer uses 'spatial' presentation either - I recollect that Acorn RISC-OS used that metaphor.
I think that menus at top of screen made perfect sense in the days of screens with resolutions of 512 x 342 - I used a Mac LC - and on netbooks which is where Unity came from after all. On a large monitor they make a lot less sense I agree - huge trek to the top of the screen to click on stuff and the danger of a misplaced click on the way changing the menus.
I stopped using Unity for ages because of the way it broke the 'ALT-F' style mnemonics (Alt-IOF to insert a typeset equation in LibreOffice &c) but things have improved recently.
I find myself in the strange position of actually rather liking Gnome shell from Debian Wheezy onward (3.8)
> That one quarter of the population can’t use a computer at all is the most serious element of the digital divide.
Frightening... but why?
> To a great extent, this problem is caused by computers still being much too complicated for many people.
Ok, but this doesn't answer my other question - is it possible to educate these people to use the current computers, or do computers really need to be streamlined that much?
I asked myself the same question when I saw a documentary about analphabets. They quoted a number of about 8 million total and functional analphabets for Germany (among 80 million population), which is absolutely staggering.
To witness, people who cannot use a computer are often called "digital analphabets" or similar.
Some can be taught, but not all of them.
There is a significant fraction of the population that simply can't "get" certain concepts in a usable form. These are the same folks that are only capable of solving an algebra problem by rote, don't see the difference between making a word bold & italic and doing it indirectly by applying a custom style, etc.
It is important to note that this doesn't have anything to do with a lack of intelligence. Many smart developers struggle in an analogous way with pointers and pointer arithmetic, for example. Some people's brains just don't easily bend very far in certain directions.
I would personally rather support a linux machine that I can remotely connect to, give them icons on the desktop, etc, than an iPad.
- many times desktop browser will be more compatible,
- you can install additional safety browser extensions beyond adblocker,
- Chrome Remote Desktop for remote service,
- updates on ChromeOS are entirely seamless - just reboot the machine every once in a while.
Yup, I agree, but some folks prefer a physical keyboard and an Ipad + bluetooth keyboard is not really super convenient.
Desktop browser compatibility have high practical importance. There are many sites that are important (i.e. government sites), but either are hard to navigate or can't be displayed properly. Users may use 20% of sites 80% of time. It does not matter then when they stumble upon a site that is important, but does not work. This sounds like a classic argument of FOSS proponents - everything works except: this game or that printer. In many cases it will be unacceptable.
Additional safety browser extensions and Chrome Remote Desktop are indeed for technical users. However it is meant to cut needed service time - that is of value to the normal users.
Seamless updates are important in a sense that the device is not bugging them and device is always ready to use. That also ensures that device is safe to use. It may be not of high importance to users, but it certainly is of practical importance.
I did not include price previously, but it was mentioned here above. The price is not practical importance per se, but it often overrides everything.
[1] http://web.ist.utl.pt/hugo.nicolau/publications/2012/assets1... - it's a small study, but nice place to start