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We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

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Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#181

Post by hiq »

smallerdemon wrote: post #148

As dumb as it always comes across, telling people to reboot their systems after nearly 25 years in IT support is something we're still doing to this day. And we're still doing it because it works more often than not when someone is calling about performance problems. Why? It's not unusual to see uptime numbers in the 300s or longer for some people. We all have that story. One was someone I work with telling my his la…

> It's not unusual to see uptime numbers in the 300s or longer for some people.

Do you mean 300 days? Which consumer OS allows you to skip any reboot for that long?

In practice IIRC macOS and Windows basically force you to do it regularly, with users frequently complaining about this (although they got better at saving and restoring state I think?). Some Linux distributions also ask you to reboot into an updated kernel once it's available, for security reasons.

So I'm a bit surprised that a user would end up with such a long uptime without doing it on purpose.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#182

Post by Dylan16807 »

kortilla wrote: post #174
jeroenhd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. > Then I bought macs for everyone I bet you would've gotten similar results if you spent the same amount of money on Windows computers. For example, my dad is using an 8 year old Windows computer that he got second hand. It works absolutely fine because it wasn't underspecced at the time it was produced. People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware make…

This is incorrect. I had the same issue supporting my family members on good hardware with windows. It was just too common that software updates broke things, random adware would get installed when they clicked on things, etc. This was windows vista/7 era and when I made them switch to macOS the problems just went away. I think apple seems to be better about making it so non power users can’t accidentally mess things…

>I had the same issue supporting my family members on good hardware with windows. It was just too common that software updates broke things, random adware would get installed when they clicked on things, etc.

Those weren't the issues that needed money. The issue that needed money was "sometimes their machines just needed to be upgraded because they were running the new office, and the new skype and the new chrome, antivirus, etc, and the 3yo system could barely keep up".

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#183

Post by justsomehnguy »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #132
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% of the time spent on construction is moving materials from one place to another

Is that why whenever I see some roadwork or construction getting done in a big city, all the workers are just standing around, chatting? They're waiting for the construction materials to arrive?

These guys are too cheap to bother with JIT logistics.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#184

Post by Dylan16807 »

Etheryte wrote: post #170
jeroenhd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. > Then I bought macs for everyone I bet you would've gotten similar results if you spent the same amount of money on Windows computers. For example, my dad is using an 8 year old Windows computer that he got second hand. It works absolutely fine because it wasn't underspecced at the time it was produced. People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware make…

The question in my opinion is not really about specs — no matter how much you spend on your hardware, you can't, pardon my French, take the shitbox out of Windows. Device manager and registry still being a thing, reboots to install software, ads in the start menu, etc are a good example of how Windows is not a system for human users. It's amazing how much backwards compatibility they've offered over the decades, yes,…

How often do you have to touch the device manager?

Registry is fine.

It's not a very big fraction of software that needs a reboot. It's much more common to have an OS update need one, and that's pretty universal across desktop OSes.

The ads are bad. Though interestingly those are relatively new, not baggage.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#185

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

sempron64 wrote: post #31
IshKebab wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I have to really fight people when I try to write robust software. "Why are you writing a proper parser when a hacky regex that I thought about for 2 seconds worked the one time I tested it? You're wasting time." They don't understand that I'm not wasting time, I'm just choosing to spend a little bit of time earlier, because I don't like spending a lot of time later when debugging why everything broke.

The problem with a careful but non-methodical approach is that it requires the programmer to correctly determine the stability value of their design. We often overestimate the importance of architecture on stability, or worse, architect something that is harder to maintain than the naive solution. With buggy ship-it-now software you have a known bounded risk - bugs will occur in some cases but the software will ship…

The bugs can be fixed later but won't and also the person who has the most context to fix them will likely have quit by then.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#186

Post by _dain_ »

tivert wrote: post #133
globalreset wrote: post #9

Isn't that expected and natural? As performance of a system is being optimized, the relative size of un-optimizable parts goes up. Sure, your banking app crashes sometimes and annoys you. How about you delete it and instead take a bus to a postal office to pay your bills this way - no annoying apps involved, it will just take 1h instead of 1m.

> Sure, your banking app crashes sometimes and annoys you. How about you delete it and instead take a bus to a postal office to pay your bills this way - no annoying apps involved, it will just take 1h instead of 1m. Huh? Have ever actually paid a bill without using a computer? It doesn't work like you describe at all (unless you live in a really rural area or you're deliberately trying to make it difficult for yours…

Oh you mean like Erlang

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#187

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

mrweasel wrote: post #66
samsquire wrote: post #8

Finally, a chance to say what I really think about computers! I feel that the majority of time working with computers is not actually computing numbers (addition, subtraction, multiplication) but LOGISTICS. Logging into systems, Moving data around in memory and between servers, into registers for a function call, to and from a REST API, installing packages, finding dependencies, chaining together library functions.

Your thinking reminds me of the work of a friend of mine. He's an AWS consultant and builds thing like AWS thinks you should. Some of the things he comes up with, chaining services together, with a sprinkle of lambda functions, it's Rube Goldberg machines all the way down. A user logs in to a javascript app, hosted in an S3 bucket, authentication is handled by Cognito, the user gets a upload form, once their files is…

Many developers have this Rube Goldberg syndrome and carry this as a badge of honor.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#188

Post by hiq »

jeroenhd wrote: post #135
deathanatos wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My MBP is currently running at ~800 MHz; it will be until about October or November, when I feel the coming chill of winter upon my skin. macOS thermally throttles the chip down, even if the chip is not actually that hot: the CPU is only ~65℃. But the surface temp on the keyboard is 109℉. All I can guess is that even though there's plenty of thermal headroom at the chip, you'd roast the user's hands if you attempted…

Macbooks had absolutely atrocious performance once the CPU heated up, masked by turboing extremely quickly to make short bursts of performance feel responsive. This was made worse by Apple's absolutely terrible cooling design. Their user-hostile form-over-function designs are also typically Apple. They made great devices for quick demos, but terrible professional workstations. I actually suspect Apple sabotaged their…

> What I don't understand is why even people working in the office all day every day end up with laptops hooked up to docks and dongles.

I just need to connect one USB-C cable to get all the devices when I'm at my desk, and I still have my main machine with me in meetings or anywhere else. I also have a dev machine I can ssh into for any heavy process. That does mean I can't work without internet (well at least I can't program), but in practice it's not a problem, and I actually like this setup, at least more than the alternatives I can think of.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#189

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

manicennui wrote: post #177
jeroenhd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. > Then I bought macs for everyone I bet you would've gotten similar results if you spent the same amount of money on Windows computers. For example, my dad is using an 8 year old Windows computer that he got second hand. It works absolutely fine because it wasn't underspecced at the time it was produced. People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware make…

Who exactly sells Windows machines with good hardware?

You can get ok hardware for a reasonable price. My LG 'gram' seems fine. $800, very lightweight. Came with Windows home. Upgraded to pro for $6.

If you want 'good' some of the Alienware laptops will be more beefy.

Or the $5000 desktop PC I got off Newegg had top of the line specs and came with Windows..

Not sure what you're talking about really. You can get crap, medium or best with Windows.

Re: We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study

#190

Post by aequitas »

figassis wrote: post #81

I know this will get some downvotes, but I'm the IT person in my close family. Used to get calls all the time to fix slow laptops, CD drives not working, keyboard not working, system not booting, popups everywhere, apps crashing, you name it. Each would take insane amounts of time to troubleshoot. And then sometimes their machines just needed to be upgraded because they were running the new office, and the new skype…

Can’t recommend this enough. I recently “invested” in some second hand iMacs for my partner and kids. And by invested I mean I spend ~€100 on two 2011 iMacs each. No top of the line specs, just the basic model i5s with SSD. They run great for 10 year old machines. Have a decent enough screen resolution. Still an up to date enough OS though not the latest. When I use them occasionally I don’t notice a difference in normal browsing or usage. Migration from the small MacBook (also 2011) was a breeze with assistant. They all run time machine to my Linux NAS so no worries there. I’m considering doing this for my parent as well but it’s hard to get them away from their old & trusted Office apps.
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