My Life With IT

“Who’s the Skype expert?” Someone asked. I don’t think there can really be experts in every software that we use in the company. I hear “Who’s the Word expert?”, “Who’s the Excel expert?”, “Who’s the PowerPoint expert?, “Who’s the Lotus Notes expert?”, “Who’s the <insert software/hardware name> expert?” most of the time. Sometimes, I cringe at the question.

There are times problems stump the experts too. That’s why Experts Exchange came about. Experts exchange information and resolutions. As users, we’d always assume that since this company has produced this software, the consultants working inside, no matter how new, they would should be experts in the area. We’d go asking “Who’s the expert?”

On why this came about was a user asking a Skype question. There was a message saying that the message was not delivered and she wanted to know why. The logical answer was that the recipient was not logged on and thus, the message would not get through. I do know that MSN Windows Live does support sending messages to offline contacts. Now, can the Skype expert enlighten me on whether messages can still be sent to offline contacts?

The next question was that why the recipient was not logged on when the user was logged on. The logical answer is that the user had saved the login settings and upon startup, Skype would log in automatically. The recipient may have set it to manual. The user suggested that everyone should do the same, login automatically at every startup. Now, isn’t that a waste of precious resources and if I’m not in the mood to use Skype, why the heck should I do it automatically?

Oh by the way, I put in busy mode and I don’t add strangers. It’s unnerving to receive requests from total strangers on my Skype. 2 are rude, they just said “Hello, please add me to your contact list.” I don’t know you, so I won’t add you. And the shortest of them all that I used to see before I migrated from mIRC is “Hi, care to chat” No punctuation at the end, mind you. So is that a question or demand?

I was rather tempted to post something about having the best job but I realise that in my hunt for it, I have never landed in one, so this post shall be someting about tech. What I have though is my hunt for the best job, I have encountered people who have sometimes made my day while there are others who did not. With that, I shall post this to participate in Engtech’s Contest the winner gets 15 Wordpress credits. Woohoo!

I never started out in programming. I started out doing IT support, the irony was that I only knew how to turn on the computer and make use of whatever software that it comes with. I learnt how to use the scanner, save as RTF file, design web pages, make use of JavaScript (actually, copy after asking for help in forums and dump the chunk of code and pray it works was more like it), assemble computer, differentiate the types of RAMs available (praying that the computer won’t blow up, unfortunately, it did, I mean the capacitor), sending out emails as confirmation, and many other things not related to IT too.

The most request is for more email space. I’m sure any administrator will tell you that 100MB of mailbox size is actually enough, provided that you delete those friendly emails from friends to your office mailbox account. It would be better if Yahoo!, Hotmail or GMail is used. At least 1GB of space, who can complain? I’m sure my mailbox will increase in mail accumulated size when it’s more than a year. I don’t understand why the mails don’t get deleted. It’s the law of email, once you delete that email, you will need to find it again 3 weeks or less after the deletion. I could have tore my hair out of my head if not for the fact that I have thin covering of hair. I don’t want to scare anyone with my bald head either. I still want hair.

Upgrades are the next commonly encountered. Every software has an upgrade and Domino and Microsoft are the most commonly upgraded versions. In my case anyway since I deal with both software. I have used Lotus Notes R4.6, R5, R6, R6.5 and R7. I’ve also used DOS (you know, that black screen with white text), Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. I’ve used Office 95, 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 (otherwise known as XP). It doesn’t make me the expert because I have never used them for more than 2 years. I have never fully explored the software to discover any quirks until I receive them in emails that I can do something in Excel and a flight simulation will appear or was it in Word? That said, I have never known that there were bugs in the old versions because I have never needed to use the so-called functions that had bugs.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be the expert on something. In this case, I have progressed from just IT support to Domino Developer. I shall have to progress to be able to analyse besides being able to develop. It is such a value-add because I would be able to develop better systems with time. With so many programmes being released, there is no need for me to start from scratch. I just have to make use of the current model and modify according to the needs. It’s so much faster that the method has always been in used, it’s called Prototyping.

Even though IT has integrated into our lives, it’s the human touch that still needs to be there. You can’t negotiate a deal with the customer if you don’t know what the customer need in the system. You can’t clinch the deal if you don’t know the customer’s boss (ah, the powers of networking). Even blogging needs some human touch, you have to have your unique voice in it. Humour, it seems, is still needed, even here.

A quick look at the UI of the USD100 laptop by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror. I was wondering what sort of UI that Mr Negroponte had in mind and Jeff has kindly provided the screenshot of the UI. I have read about this being mass built for the kids in Libya, if my memory serves me correct.

The one thing that sticks to my mind is that Mr Negroponte stated in the article the following:

“In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. “I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.”

Which I didn’t realise until he stated his main objective behind making the One Laptop campaign. The kids are being taught Word, Excel and PowerPoint, software that we are using now. The kids are only 7 to 10 and they are being trained to be office workers 10 years ahead.

I wonder if there are any kids being taught to learn Java or JavaScript from age 7 onwards. I wonder if we’re moving towards a society of nothing but office automation humans who don’t know how to enjoy the simple life any more.