Are You Affected?

You are working hard to finish off some urgent work and

your computer hangs. Annoyed, you restart the computer, only to see it hanging within

minutes. You try restarting, shutting down and starting afresh and try all that you know

to make your PC work. It fails to yield. You bang your hands on the table and decides to

walk to your system administrator to request help.

The system administrator happens to be busy reinstalling Windows on a computer that

he's just cleared viruses on. Is he chanting something? Listen! No, he's cursing the

person who sent the virus as an attachment punctuating the diatribe by scolding the user

of the system who ran the attached file and got the virus on his PC. The user takes it as

he's just waiting to grab the PC as soon as it is ready to work.

You tell the system administrator about your problem, but he couldn't care less. That's

the limit. You repeat the problem, but now in a rougher voice. He turns and shouts

"Can’t you see that I am doing some work? All of you have problems and I am the

only one to look after everything. Don’t you realize that I am a human being

too?"You feel disgusted and a war of words follows. You come back to the table and

restart the computer and surprisingly, now it works. Within a second, the power goes off

and you are again in the dark. Now you have no more courage to withstand. You bang the

keyboard and two of your keys fly off into the air.

The reality





Have you ever felt that you feel so angry, agitated and frustrated when you cannot work peacefully with your system? If yes, you are suffering from a serious problem. You are the victims of "technology related anxiety" according to a latest research report that has come out of Britain (Compaq-sponsored survey from London research firm MORI).

We have become so dependent on computers so that whenever we cannot use it, we feel so

frustrated. We feel so angry and we feel like hitting the computer or throwing it away.

"Often my stupid computer gives problems when I am working against a tight

deadline", says Rita, a reporter. "This is a nasty machine that cannot be

trusted. I feel like smashing it most often", she adds. It is good for her to be

reminded that a computer will do what you tell it to do, but rarely the way you want it to

do and never when you want it to be done.

In the work place





Today, computers dictate terms in the workplace. Isn't it ironical that the man who

invented computers is forced to be idle in front of one just because it has chosen to go

on strike? You lose valuable working days, hear unwanted words from your boss for not

meeting the deadline and you do lose orders as you can't give a proposal on time.

The worst thing about computers is the way they react when some error occurs. Most

error messages are full of technical jargon that users can't make the head or tail of.

"Why should these machines be so technical?" Usha asks. Unfortunately, designers

of software have failed to understand that an error situation needs to be handled

gracefully with meaningful error messages that tell the user something about what's gone

wrong and more importantly what they can do to fix that error.

Widening rift





Vinu is a systems manager in a leading software development firm. He says he is so used to

quarrelling now a days that without that he cannot sleep at night. Why? Everyday some

system in his office gets a problem and people come running to him. They are not concerned

about whether he is busy or not, each wants their problem to be solved first. So he always

ends up quarreling. "Some users behave like fools", he says. "Once the UPS

goes down after hours of power failure some do not realize why it has happened. They come

running to me saying, we don’t want to hear any of our excuses, we somehow need to

work on the computer". He says, these people are driving him crazy.

While, the administrators says that users make no attempt to study and understand

things in spite of repeatedly reminding, the users say that the system administrators when

asked to solve a problem, behave as if you are a real fool disturbing them for silly

matters. The MORI report also hints on the fact that that there is growing hatred between

the systems department and computer users. So its up to SysAdmins to teach users that

operating systems and business applications can be unreliable.

Technology is at man's command





Many say, technology has always given, only to take away. A new technology can destroy

almost in the same way it creates, they believe. But, is it fair to blame technology? We

created it and it became our slave. It is like the huge elephant with two tiny eyes. It

cannot see its potential. Even if it sees, man will not let it  go its way. So, is it

not for us to keep technology devoid of all its handicaps. Let us not get frustrated and

turn crazy. It is better to see what can be done to overcome the loopholes.