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Computers are hard

Want to feel like an idiot, try to learn to use a new software program, or switch from Mac to PC or vice versa. Try setting up a new wireless hub in your home without calling tech support at least three times.

Want to feel like an idiot, try to learn to use a new software program, or switch from Mac to PC or vice versa. Try setting up a new wireless hub in your home without calling tech support at least three times. Try to format a long, complicated document or presentation without having to constantly retrace your steps to change formatting and make it consistent – things change and move around, and you never have any idea why.

I have yet to see a set of instructions that made any logical sense. I had to go to the online tech support website for my digital video camera to find out how to transfer footage to my computer – half the 90 page guide explained how to transfer photos to your computer, when the photos suck anyway, but there was nothing about transferring video.

There’s a reason they make "___ for Dummies" books, and "A Complete Idiot’s Guide To___".

Take Microsoft Word, a program that millions of Canadians use every day of their lives. It’s great, and relatively simple to use providing you’re only doing something relatively simple with it. When you start to put together more complex documents, there are 11 menus tabs with over 135 commands. You can have up to 18 different toolbar menus on the screen at once.

I once tried to collate and organize a complex 120-word document for a former employer using pagination, cover pages, chapter headers, charts, images, indexes, footnotes, pullout text boxes, and more, and after two weeks of having formats spontaneously disappear on us we gave up and laid out the whole thing in Quark Xpress in under two days.

If you’re tech challenged, take comfort – you’re not alone. In fact, according to a survey of 500 workers and 300 managers by City and Guilds, the average worker spends a month out of every year, or over 10 per cent of every day, just trying to figure out how to do various things on their computers.

The lofty predictions that computers would save time, increase individual productivity and save paper have already been discredited in study after study. There are benefits, no question – the world runs on e-mail and Internet – but the idea that technology is user-friendly and makes life easier is still just an idea.

The lesson of the study is that employees need regular training to keep their skills up date, and whenever a program is new or upgraded. The cost of training should be more than compensated by gains in productivity.

There are a few websites you can go to for help.

The first two, and I’ve recommended them before, are Web-o-pedia ( www.webopedia.com ), which will explain any computer term or concept, and Wikipedia ( www.wikipedia.org ), which has encyclopedia entries covering just about everything.

Another good resource is About.com ( www.about.com ) – type in a few key words related to your problem and hit "Go".

If you can’t find answers there, Google ( www.google.ca ) is your last and maybe your best hope. Depending on how effectively you can word your search, this can connect you to dozens of web pages with insight on how to solve your problems. There’s more info to sift through, but the answer is always out there. Somewhere. In terms we idiots and morons can easily understand.

What Sony did, and why you should be PO’d

Music piracy, all allusions to peg-legs and parrots aside, is not a good thing. I think most of us, even those of us who are currently flying the Jolly Roger over our computers, can probably agree, however reluctantly, that stealing things is wrong.

Hundreds of people have already been successfully sued for their scurvy deeds, and won’t want to walk that plank again any time soon. And the companies that wrote those peer-to-peer programs that allow us to plunder all that precious media booty? They’re running scared from an armada of industry lawyers, intent on keel-haulin’ the lot of them.

But what Sony did, well that takes the cake.

If you don’t know already, Sony has been embedding hidden anti-piracy DRM (Digital Rights Management) software in its CDs to prevent people from illegally making copies – which according to tests by Jupiter Media doesn’t even work.

First issued on a selection of 20 CDs, Sony’s DRM software embeds itself on a PC’s hard drive. Because the software is hidden, unlike most forms of spyware, it’s impossible to find and remove.

When people found out there was a huge outcry from the general public, prompting Sony to release another specialized program to remove the files – nothing else would work.

Some angry users have even started a class action suit against Sony, claiming that the DRM software has effectively damaged their computers.

The real problem is that Sony, dumbly, created the perfect vehicle for computer worms and viruses – undetectable programs that can only be removed without another specialized program. Hackers lost no time figuring this one out, and at press time there were reports of at least three Trojan horse viruses out there using Sony’s XCP2 technology.

Tightening the dunce cap one extra notch, you need Windows Media Player to play songs protected by Sony’s DRM, which means iPod users – easily the bulk of the market – are S.O.L. As a result, some industry watchers believe huge numbers of people may steer away from Sony artists. How bad do you want that new Usher CD anyway?

Sony certainly stepped over the line. Pirates are bad, no question, but ships carrying the plague are infinitely worse.