On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 10:57:40AM +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> On 5/9/05, Tzafrir Cohen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > But my mother won't appreciate command-line at all (and so would I, if
> > > I'll have
> > > to explain to her what to do with it over the phone).
> >
> > Slightly OT:
> >
> > Actually some commands are quite useful for phone support. The problem
> > is to get exactly the right information with the user having to type as
> > little as possible.
> >
> > Consider the remote user as your interface to the system you're trying
> > to fix. It is a sort of "interactive" terminal with a very long delay.
> > So you need a set of scripts that already do most of the filtering.
>
> My mome gets stressed and confused from reading financial material
> in Hebrew, or even deciding what I mean by "window title" - "that blue
> line?" or "oh, I closed the Internet now... (apparently after de-minimizing
> the IE window) ah! here it is, suddenly it's here again!"
>
> And you expect her to be able to type shell commands (even simple
> script names) and read me their output?
Yes, because it's very simple. You have to teach her once how to get to
the shell ("double click on that icon of the square in the toolbar").
She can have some extra open and it won't be a problem.
Simple interaction on the terminal is very predictable. And thus you can
easily guide her through the phone. What I meant is practically to use
her as a terminal (albeit a slow one). But for that you have to prepare
in advance soe useful diagnostics scripts.
>
> I don't.
>
> (my mom is over 70 and practically used a computer in earnest for the
> last 6 or so months, just to give perspective).
What I mean is how much information do you need to pass through a phone
line?
She can type short commands (and make typos. Thus tab completion is
important, not just short commands). She can also get confused with a
big window full of information from which you ask a very specific piece
of text.
For instance: how do you get the "IP address of the system"? (you'll
have to know which of theexisting ip addresses the system has that you
want, of course).
You can write a one-liner shell script to get that from your mom's
computer. But when she calls for help that one-liner is still not there.
>
> >
> > > Yes, that's expose. And these are not just screen-shots but live, "zoomed
> > > out"
> > > application windows. Extremly neat and easy to stay oriented.
> > > There is skippy for X11 which tries to simulate it, works so-so.
> >
> > Rant:
> >
> > But for that to work well with Linux you currently need non-free display
> > drivers. Non-free: not part of the common codebase easily customized by
> > distros.
>
> It worked ok on my pure-debian Sarge X11 (when I tested it a month ago),
> and its docs say that with the later Xorg extensions it can also simulate
> the "live" part of the "zoomed out" windows. I admit that I'm not deep into
> the latest state of X11 technology, but what am I missing?
Works, but generally a CPU hog, unless you have proper 3d acceleration,
right?
--
Tzafrir Cohen | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | VIM is
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