User read the manual, followed instructions, still couldn't make 'Excel' work
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Anyway, one day at work, my team lead comes over and tries to use my mouse to show me something. It's not moving. They do a double take, pick up the mouse, and realize it's an orange that was sitting to the right side of my keyboard.
He looks at me, my hand on his, on his mouse, and just says, “this isn’t pottery.”
Takes a few seconds to work out what is going on, every time:)
When typing, I can accept the rows of letter keys being shifted horizontally, but it just feels weird using that part of the keyboard for games.
Asking because while I am not a lefty, I created my own standard 3D game layout way before games made wasd standard. The very first thing in every single game is to go to settings and reconfigure.
If you are wondering, it's basically just one to the right. ESDF, which is superior to wasd because it gives more keys to access without having to reach very far. In particular it avoids having to use caps lock, which in some games doesn't even work or it is at the very least very annoying when turning the game off or alt+tabbing out (say coz you died and want to do something other than watch while you wait).
As a lefty it seems very conceivable to me that something like uhjk would work comparably?
Also, just my 2 cents worth - no matter how much better your capabilities are - users hate changes
Some clusters of keys were simply better than others when it came to being able to press bunches of them at once--and have the program actually notice--and the modifier keys (control, shift, alt) were especially privileged.
I don't get the rest though. Of course it's not just WASD you gotta remap. I literally, for each game, go through the entirety of the controls and remap every key around my ESDF as per perceived usefulness of the command. Before I've ever played the game. Then as I start playing I might find that a certain key is more useful or less useful than I thought and I remap them. It always takes a minute or two until my muscle memory adjusts but that's about it.
I also agree with the standards thing, which is why I do the ESDF thing. That's what I am used to. And of course there were no cloud persistence and I still don't and won't use Cloud persistence. Why would I do or need that and what does that have to do with anything?
I do agree w/ my sibling post that shift, ctrl, alt had some advantage, if you needed a three key combo for something. Like I crouch with Z, so crouched strafing while also moving forward or backwards might have been a problem sometimes. Not nowadays though.
I think your issue is at least 50% absolutely not a lefty issue, but a willingness one. You mention you're still not as good when using the mouse w/ your right hand. I think it's totally worth it to "get over that hump" and try the mouse in the left hand and just do that remapping. If I was able to do it consistently throughout the years before Cloud was even a thing, you can do it too! ;)
That's because while he was having lunch, I took a screenshot of his desktop, set that screenshot as the desktop background, and then hid the dock and deleted all his real icons :) (Well, put them in a folder for easy recovery).
He just kept clicking and clicking on that screenshot for way too long. Best 15 minutes of my life...
He went to the bathroom right before heading out for lunch. I had my window. I did it quickly, and then joined him for lunch, keeping a straight face the whole time. When we came back I nonchalantly asked about some code for him to review but he was like hold on...
Didn't suspect me until way too late :D
But then after that, every time some random error popped up, he was like... "solardev, what did you do this time!" Fool him once...
Everything else you've described is amusing but if your recovery had failed, that's close to a fireable offense.
Of course, on windows, you’ll have to disable bing search for this to be reliable.
I still use desktop icons for some things, but the windows key for launching is just much better/easier.
Windows key + 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 will also launch / bring to focus the matching icon on your taskbar.
I don’t know the Mac equivalents. I believe Gnome and KDE work similarly to windows.
Thanks, I didn’t know that!
for windows, keyboard shotcuts, hotkeys, and win + search are far far more effective than a bunch of shortcuts on the desktop,
I can not remember the last time I even looked at the wallpaper of my system.
Also I find clicking on an icon faster than typing, especially when your mind is too busy to recall the exact name but the muscle memory knows where it is, or when the interface of a program assumes using mouse anyway. (Although I have to admit that most of my “desktop icons” are actually start menu tiles.)
So while I understand and agree that different workflows exist and you have yours, I still don’t get why you should be disappointed by someone else using another one or having desktop/icons at all.
Windows 98/XP pre-YouTube was a really fun time for “you’ve got tech but you still have to make your own fun.”
It was a great way to train someone to follow SOC2 requirements.
Ianal but I don't think it's a valid defense to walk in to a bank, find an unlocked safe and take all the money to make a 'point'.
Further, you're just normalising messing with other people's accounts which doesn't seem to be a good thing from a security pov.
I can see an argument that I shouldn't be a "vigilante" about making sure people follow security practices they agreed to when taking the job, but we are all responsible for the security of the business. A repeat offender coworker who doesn't care about the security consequences of leaving their PC unlocked is a security risk which needs addressed. This isn't just a case of messing with a friend.
Further, the PC is company property and subject to acceptable use policies. It's not "my computer" so I have no reasonable expectation that it is a sacred object other people won't mess with. Assuming others won't mess with your things is a terrible reason not to lock your door at night. Getting angry at a burglar for entering because you failed basic security misses the point of your failure.
My repeat offender coworker got over his indignation that I touched his computer and then started doing what he was required to do the entire time and locked his computer every time he got up. I stopped touching his computer. He didn't get written up or fired for repeat security failures, and all was well.
The idea is that users are trained and regularly reminded to always lock their computers when they step away for cybersecurity. So, if they forget, their computer is relatively harmlessly messed with (like with changing the desktop background).
The consequences are then trivial, in contrast to potentially severe if a person left their computer unlocked with unvetted people coming in and out of the office during an event, or if they left their laptop unattended in a public area.
Some people still leave their computers unlocked somewhat frequently, but overall I think it works.
I even noticed this locking behavior a few weeks ago and chuckled at myself. That Windows+L motion as I get up is just so ingrained.
If I'm not actively in front of my PC it is always locked.
I think it's probably a good technique, though it needs to be done with a bit of care to not seem too hostile or humiliating. Changing the desktop background seems like a good idea, since it's harmless, obvious to the user, easily fixed, and doesn't impede actual work.
You learn a lesson, and the team gets a treat.
Of course there was etiquitte. You only ever emailed smaller groups (your team, your floor, rtc) - never all staff. You always explained to a newbie so they didn't feel too embarassed or singled out - and they always got a heads up during training.
Our small team of 15 got pretty crazy though. Rebinding keys, replacing all the icons with My Little Pony or Hello Kitty custom sets, etc. It became a good competition and a great way to blow off steam in a high output role, and as a byproduct built in good physical security.
0. https://securityintelligence.com/dont-get-pantsed-embrace-a-...
Now, by "web presence", it's true they had a website. And it was made with HTML. Lots and lots of HTML, in fact, as in thousands upon thousands of hand-edited, non-version-controlled files on disk that they'd manually curated over the years.
We didn't exactly have a cybersecurity team or defined best practices. But we were treated well and worked together well. (Still friends with that dev a decade later!).
It was also a really small town. We all hung out after work, went to the lake, climbing, whatever. Lived a few houses apart from each other (or sometimes in the same house, lol). We trusted each other. Had to. It's the kind of environment where relationships took precedence over rules.
Looking back, it was definitely an uncommonly intimate situation, but it was awesome!
Damn! I'm glad I don't work with people riding on the edge of being violent like that.
- The guy was always making fun of everybody else
- I did it while talking with him in his desk so the others could see what I was doing
- I just loosened it, not unplugged it, so the keyboard stopped working after a while, when I was already back on my seat
- Everybody was LOL and he had no idea why, just complaining the damn computer hanged
1. Unplug the mouse, 2. Cover the mouse sensor with tape, 3. Replace the desktop with a screenshot, 4. Flip the screen 180 degrees, 5. Print out the screen, and tack it in front of the monitor…
Just read the message dude. How many times have we been over this.
The British-sounding phrase "uppity know-it-all whose seniority level was substantially above their competency level"* is a nice one to put in the memory banks for future use.
This reminds me of the classic web-comedy 'The Website Is Down', the first episode of which has a version of the error path in question as a plot point.
* To be clear to those who didn't read the article, the user in question was not in that category
Her grandson had taken a screenshot of the phone’s home screen, set it as the wallpaper and removed everything except the bottom row icons.
So please, when you're including screenshots, put a border around it, or an overlay, or a caption, anything that helps make it clear this is just a still image and not an active control!
Be doing website mock-ups with Photoshop before coding them (which was the style at the time), different mock-ups, send different JPEGs, even some PSD to toggle stuff.
Client says "Anon, site is broken, clicking links don't work !".
back and forth on the phone
Turns out client is clicking on links in the PSD.
Did I mention client was running their own 2 person design agency at the time ?
I stepped away for something, and when I came back, clicked in my code to place the cursor where I thought I had left, and to my surprise the editor started to write the code by itself while also reading it out loud. It was of course the video, but I was pretty tired and it took me a bit to realize. A very confusing experience.
TL;DR Your mom
> one of his colleagues had written a Word document with instructions on how to use Excel. To help the account managers get the message, that document included lots of illustrative screenshots.
> Jeremy realized his user had clicked on a screenshot, which had grown to a size at which it was easily mistaken for Excel itself. This also explained why it would not accept input.
Also, for context, this happened in "late 1990s".