Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

A thought experiment: presume you've never used a windows PC.

Now, how do you find the email client?

In any event, on Mac OS X, the default email client should be located in the top level Applications folder, and is known simply as "mail".

The URL problem may be related to what I see as a handy feature in Safari and other Mac browsers (and that's not in IE/Win).

If you type a name that doesn't have any .s in it, the browser will first see if that server exists, and, if it doesn't, it will try to put www. and .com around it. So, to go to this site, I could just type "hyperorg" and hit return, and the rest of the URL would be filled in.

I suspect that your father-in-law may have typed "wwwrcncom" into the bar and the browser tried "www.wwwrcncom.com" after it couldn't find the first server. (And, of course, not being able to find "wwwrcncom" is not a Mac-specific problem.)

Next time, just have him type "rcn" and it should be okay.

As for finding the mail program, the Finder's "Find" command (in the File menu) should work, though I suspect the program's just sitting in the Applications folder.

To get it back in the Dock, just drag it there.

Human misconception: Different isn't synonymous with "sucks." Once you lose your preconceptions of other operating systems, and see the logic of the unfamiliar system, then perhaps you'd be better suited to make declaration of suckidity. (Safari helped me spell synonymous, but not suckidity. It sucks.)

Assuming that a user of any device should forget all she knows about other devices is BAD.

I suggest reading and interview with Donald Norman on Mental Models.

In this interview, Donald Norman speaks candidly on mental models with interviewer Dr. Avi Parush. Topics covered include: What are mental models? When do we use them? How do we develop mental models? How can mental models be used to make design decisions? How do mental models interact with one another? How should mental models be used when teaching or learning? What role do emotions play in our use of mental models? Does the notion of a group mental model make any sense? What research has been done on mental models for date?

http://www.carleton.ca/hotlab/hottopics/Articles/DonNormanInterview.html

Ok, if you are in the Finder, have him press CMD-N (for new window), then have him browse to the root of the harddrive. In there you will find an Applications folder (IT IS THERE, I PROMISE)... Finally, open the Applications folder and scroll to Mail. Double click mail so that it opens. Once it is open and on the dock you should either drag it in the dock to where you want it (this will cause it to stay on the dock even after it is closed), or you can right click on it in the dock and select "Keep in Dock"... It should not be harder than that... Another way would be to go to finder, press CMD-F for find, and then search for mail.app

All computers suck, but some suck less. Macs generally suck less, in my experience.

The next time you're at your dad's place, set up his account so that when he logs in, Mail and Safari and anything else he is likely to need to use but may have trouble finding, especially if it disappears from the Dock, launch automatically. I believe it's in the Login system preference in Jaguar. Apple moved it in Panther, and I don't precisely recall what it was called in Jaguar.

Anyway, if he accidently quits an app and it isn't in the Dock and he doesn't know where to find it, just have him log out and log back in and all his apps will be running again.

And I'll make this offer to you again: I entered my correct e-mail address in this post. Send me a postal address to which I can send you two books on Jaguar that I no longer need. You can give one to your dad and you can keep one. They are Mac OS X The Missing Manual and Mac OS X Unleashed. Both are the Jaguar editions. The Missing Manual is more appropriate for your father; while Unleashed will give you more technical information if you so desire. It does a find job of offering non-technical coverage of the basics as well.

It's about $50.00 worth of books even if you bought them discounted, and I'll even pay the shipping. They're just sitting on my closet shelf looking for a good home.

Yes, Macs suck. They just tend to suck less than other popular options. Computer operating system makers - and computer hardware makers, for that matter - should be embarassed at the lack of real progress that has been made over the last 10 to 20 years in the area of usability. I often slip into this rant while teaching university faculty how to use iMovie or GoLive or Photoshop or whatever. It's an undeniable fact that people rarely speak out loud. I get tired of hearing users call themselves stupid when it's the computer that's stupid.

You're trying to support a platform you don't know for a person who isn't fluid with computers without having one to use yourself. And then you're blaming the platform!

Why don't you pony up the money for a book and buy a clue instead of saying that all knowledge tools should be immediately usable out of the box by people illiterate in the language of WIMP? It has never been that way and it's not looking like it's going to be that way any time soon.

Hire a kid from his neighborhood to come over once in a while. It sounds like even occasional teenage face to face would be better than your phone support.

First, please see the posting after this for my semi-apology.

Now, for some specific responses:

Mike R, yes, PC's would be similarly inoperable by someone with a similar degree of inexperience. But, to answer your question: "In the bottom left is a button labeled Start. Click it once. A menu appears. One of the first listings in the left column is probably (!) the name of your mail client. Click it." And what's an Applications folder?

Pete, you may well be right but I asked my father-in-law repeatedly to read me what he had typed in, dots and all.

~bs: Of course. I spoke in a fit of pique.

Hanan, the fact that I lack the mental model is my fault, not the Mac's. Still, there are inconsistencies in even the surface layer of the Mac's model (e.g., not all windows have close buttons and not all close buttons have x's in them). XP is even more inconsistent.

Jon, aha! That's what an Applications folder is! I tried to get him into the Finder but was never sure I succeeded. When he clicked on the Finder icon in the Dock, it said something like: "No window."

Dave, thanks for the tip. FWIW, I did have him log out and log back in, and Mail did not reappear in the Dock. I presume that's because I didn't set it to be locked as you recommend.

Dave, that's generous of you. I'll send you an email and we'll try to figure out a way I can pay for the shipping. (Do you take Amazon gift certificates?)

Scott, right on. E.g., my father-in-law still sees menus as windows, which they are technically. He's right to be confused about why they don't operate like other windows (e.g., no close box, click outside of them to close them, etc.). That's true of XP and the Mac.

Blame Anyone, your comment posted while I posting my response to the others. To you I can only say: You're absolutely right.

To get the Find function:

- go the Finder

- type command-F (apple-F)

Mark H, go (to) the finder, how? And for a non-mac user, what's the finder?

When you make big assumptions (like understanding platform specific, and non-self explainitory terminology) about what someone knows, your advice is likely to frustrate and defeat rather than help.

These are issues, no matter what platform. For those who 'know' it is often hard to think like someone who doesn't.

David, I was responding to other comments, not to what you have posted.

Yes, I also think computers suck. Badly.

On my wishlist for OS X is another button on the Dock preferences: "Lock dock." Even as an admin on my own machine, I want to be able to lock the dock down so that I can't accidentally lose an icon I've put there. In fact, I would easily trade "Lock dock" for the option, "Animate opening applications"... PUHHLEEZ!

Next time your at his place, you might consider simplifying his desktop from sys prefs > accounts.

I feel your pain. Doing tech support over the phone for a non-computer relative can be one of the most dreadful experiances. My biggest recomendation is to buy a book for them. At least that way they can educate themselves to the terminology. A huge obsticle to overcome is that there simply is no easy way to tell someone over the phone to open their hard drive and go to a folder if they don't know what a folder or a hard drive is. Even something that you take so completely for granted, like how to use a mouse, can lead to confusion over the phone. Click and drag. uggh. I spent hours on the phone at one point trying to explain click and drag to my mother.
I feel your pain brother. It's not the mac, but the lack. lack of a suitible language of comunication between the trio of you, your father, and the computer.
It gets easier.

Macintosh totally rules, and it would seem to me that if you put your father in law in front of a sucky windows PC then he'll probably fuck that up too. I work with fools who are constantly deleting their email tool bars, "what happened to my send/receive button? waaaaaa!" tech support for an individual who really has no interest and or reason to be on a computer is an exercise in frustration.

Peyote, I did give me father in law a Windows machine and a Linux machine, and both were too hard.

BTW, allowing users to delete their email tool bars by accident is a UI flaw.

Sounds to me as if the original post-er is a Windows user. Why get a Mac for a computer illiterate relative, then?

There is a way to lock the dock. I am presuming that your dad's computer is set up so that you thre is an admin and a normal user account, and he is a normal user (this is a good idea anyway, it makes sure that neither you nor a nasty virus can delete important files).

Log in as an admin, go to system preferences, select 'accounts', and, under the far right tab, you'll see options to lock the dock, and impose other varying restrictions if necessary.

Hope that helps. My email address is valid, if you need any more help.

I got one word for this idiot.

Tool.

yah blame the the platform when both you are your father have about half a clue between you.

developers can only make guis and operating systems so intuitive. There will always be some complete simpleton like you that can't figure out how to type the word "mail" in a search bar
or click on the applications folder that's plain as day in the side of finder. And then blame a browser when someone types in a bogus url. Lol what a moron! This just in! typing a bogus url in any browser yeilds little.

I have set up a iMac G5 for a person with quadriplegia who controls and runs the applications with a headcontroled mouse pointer and a sip and puff device to click. I have this problem where he drags stuff off the dock on occasion. I now see the error of my ways that I should not have set him up as admin for the system but as user. But now I have all of his appications installed tuned etc.

Is there a reasonable way to lock the dock now, or do I need to reconfigure a user account and install all of his applications again and lock the dock? Any insight would be appreciated.

You just don't know how to use a computer dumbass

There is no way I have found to successfully lock the dock in 10.4.2. Even if Modify the Dock is not enabled for an account in System Preferences, the user can simply use the context menu (by holding down the mouse on an icon in the dock) to remove it altogether. Desktop is locked as well and it still happens. I'd love a solution!

Funny how on some puters you have to go to the START in the bottom corner to shut it off???? Funny how I havnt seen any spyware or virus on OS X ????

Windows sucks too, Harvey.

My husband sounds like your father. The following explanation is a actually all of FIVE or SIX key strokes... it just long because of the way you have to say it.

Ok, Dad, do this:

See that key on the bottom row of the keybboard with an apple on it? Using your ring-finger of your RIGHT hand press and hold the SHIFT key. Now, using your index-finger of your LEFT hand press and hold that key with the apple on it. Now, Dad , this next one can be trickie -- while holding those two keys down use your LEFT hand ring finger to press A, now let go of everything. A window will open with all the programs you have on the computer listed in it, this window is called the Applications Folder. See, we pressed A in our keystroke, to OPEN the APPLICATIONS folder. It was SHIFT APPLE A, see? Now, click the mouse anywhere in this folder, just once, don't click the mouse and hold it, just click it once so the mouse knows you want it in that folder. Now, type the letter M. The first program in this folder whose name starts with M will be highlighted in blue. If the name you see there is not MAIL then press the DOWN ARROW key (depending on what keyboard you have the down arrow key is usually somewhere near the pinkie finger of your right hand). Press the down arrow ONCE, is it at MAIL yet, NO? Then press down arrow again, until you get to MAIL. Ok, now you have MAIL highlighted, Good. You should see a little picture (that's called an icon, Dad). Put your mouse right on that picture DO NOT PUT the mouse on the word MAIL, make sure the mouse is on the picture. Hold the mouse down and DRAG the picture down to the DOCK, the DOCK is the "menu bar" at the bottom of the page. Ok, when that picture gets onto the DOCK you let go of the mouse. Now, you should see the "mail icon" in your DOCK. Every time you want to use the MAIL, just put your mouse on this Mail icon and click the ONCE and the mail will open. When you want to quit using mail and not leave it open for any use do APPLE Q, see Q for Quit?

In actual fact, all of the above is like FIVE keystrokes !!!!! maybe six, if you have more than one application that begins with the letter M. Now, tell me you can do that that fast on a PC !!!! Almost all programs that run on an apple computer open with a mouse click on the dock, or double click if you are opening from the applications folder and like 99.9% of these programs quit with Apple Q, even my husband has finally begun to remember that one! You don't even have to move your fingers away from the keyboard, pick up the mouse and click fancy little red x's , you can, but it much faster to type Apple Q.

It's the explaining it to your DAD or my HUSBAND who are both apparently computer illiterate that takes time. And I swear, in order NOT to swear at my husband, I use sentences just like what I typed above. Small words that he will recognize. Making sure along the way that he has understood the last thing I told him to do. Because if I don't we'll be doing this same thing for hours!! He calls me at work for this stuff and I just don't have time for it. My husband is retired now, but he used to write instruction manuals for people to learn to run different machines. He always told me the best instruction manuals are written in the KISS language, that is Keep It Simple Stupid, so that is how I teach him how to use his computer K-I-S-S.

Hope it gets easier for you..... it's been two years now for my hubby learning the computer and I still have to speak to him in K-I-S-S.

Leigh

lol, dad in law is a moron, and for that, apple sucks?!? hahahahaha.

do me a favor, try and fix that same issue on windows. delete your mail icon and then walk him through it on windows. he still won't be able to fix it.

...someone sucks, but it ain't apple....

i bought an i mac the other day and it was soooo dumb it wouldn't even let me search google for porn, i swear to god thats the dumbest thing ever i swear it is man. and when i tried to play fun games like pinball and solitaire they weren't there WTF?

I use both a Mac G5 and a PC at work.

Been a PC user for about thirteen or fourteen years.

Been a Mac user since I started my job here a year ago.

The final verdict: Macs are for people who don't want to delve too deeply into their computer and just feel like using it. PCs are for people who want a greater degree of control over their computer. I myself am a geek and I like having the degree of control over a computer that I have with my machine. Not only that, but I will never feel totally comfortable using a computer that I did not build myself from components.

It boils down to personal preference. But one thing I have a huge problem with Macs is the monstrous degree to which Macs mismanage RAM. It's totally obscene. I have two gigs in the PC and four in the Mac. The Mac can't even keep two or three design programs at once, whereas the PC can have open Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Flash without a single hiccup. I personally think it has something to do with the fact that Macs use too much memory looking pretty and doing neat little visual tricks than running shit. Granted, out of the box, Windows has some crazy GUI shit going on (especially with Vista) but at least I can dumb it waaaay down so it's back down to barebones Windows. It may not be pretty, but it's super functional and easy on my RAM.

haha, u idiot