Comments on: How To Be a “Technical” Whiz http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/2007/05/18/how-to-be-a-technical-whiz/ The dynamic new way to bore you with stories about what I watched on TV last night. Or stuff about Macs, libertarianism, prog rock, cockatiels, mountains, travel, science fiction, the Web, and what a totally awesome guy I would be if I were anything like I would like to think I am. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:32:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: JD http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/2007/05/18/how-to-be-a-technical-whiz/#comment-1034 JD Wed, 30 May 2007 02:28:01 +0000 http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/?p=494#comment-1034 Ah yes. I admit that the average (read "unskilled") computer user is probably understandably freaked out by all the different messages they get, and they don't know what's important and what's not. But what they don't get is that the rest of us get exactly the same messages, we just bothered to learn what they meant instead of shrieking, "Jimmy! This computer thingmabobber is driving me nuts again!" Ah yes. I admit that the average (read “unskilled”) computer user is probably understandably freaked out by all the different messages they get, and they don’t know what’s important and what’s not. But what they don’t get is that the rest of us get exactly the same messages, we just bothered to learn what they meant instead of shrieking, “Jimmy! This computer thingmabobber is driving me nuts again!”

]]> By: Stevo Darkly http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/2007/05/18/how-to-be-a-technical-whiz/#comment-1033 Stevo Darkly Wed, 30 May 2007 00:25:19 +0000 http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/?p=494#comment-1033 All good advice, Sandy. I have, however, encountered a couple of practical problems that would have kept me from implementing some of it in the past. 1) I often unwittingly make the error message window/dialogue box go away before I get a chance to write down what it said. 2) The error message is long and cumbersome to write down without possible making errors -- e.g., "Unable to load module fraooorfdxxmmnrrnnnwhhds.dll - check sysupd" or something like that. However, I'm slowly getting smarter. Sometimes if I hit the "Print Screen" button on my keyboard I can the paste a screenshot of the error into my image viewing software and save it as a JPEG. I can then even e-mail the JPEG to a help desk guy and ask, "Can you tell me what this means or whether I should be concerned about it?" (Assuming my computer doesn't crash before I can make and save the JPEG.) All good advice, Sandy.

I have, however, encountered a couple of practical problems that would have kept me from implementing some of it in the past.

1) I often unwittingly make the error message window/dialogue box go away before I get a chance to write down what it said.

2) The error message is long and cumbersome to write down without possible making errors — e.g., “Unable to load module fraooorfdxxmmnrrnnnwhhds.dll - check sysupd” or something like that.

However, I’m slowly getting smarter. Sometimes if I hit the “Print Screen” button on my keyboard I can the paste a screenshot of the error into my image viewing software and save it as a JPEG. I can then even e-mail the JPEG to a help desk guy and ask, “Can you tell me what this means or whether I should be concerned about it?” (Assuming my computer doesn’t crash before I can make and save the JPEG.)

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