Some People Shouldn't Be Allowed to Use a Computer
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
Teach them that the PDF can be OCR'ed :)
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
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That really annoys me. Just send me the image, that way I can make it big enough to read, and if you could learn to crop... A screen shot of two large, widescreen monitors reduced to the size of a portrait word doc is impossible to read.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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You're lucky it was a screenshot. I've had error messages sent through where the user's taken a picture of the screen with their phone. X|
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
The explanation is obvious: the guy has no network access and can only send mail from the neighboring cybercafé, using Papernet for transfers.
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I've had tickets like that before. I had one where someone took a screenshot, then pasted it into Word, then (mystifyingly) took a screenshot of Word and attached that to the ticket. By that point, the original screenshot was shrunk to the point of uselessness. One wonders the thought process behind something like that.
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
It's because people know that us nerdy types go all round Robin Hood's barn to achieve simple things (I mean, even sort algorithms look ridiculously complex and difficult, to the un-nerdified), so they think they have to emulate that complexity when they communicate with us. So it's a courtesy, and you should be more appreciative.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Hmm, I just ignore such reports.... I'm blind and my screen reader cannot read graphics! ;P
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Richard Deeming wrote:
user's taken a picture of the screen with their phone
Don't knock it. One of the most useful error reports I've received in recent memory included a two minute video taken with the service engineer's phone that demonstrated what the customer was doing to cause the problem. Without the video I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. With it, it was straightforward to find and fix.
Software Zen:
delete this;Video sounds cool. As long as they don't try to print it that is ;)
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:laugh: That is funny! At least my customers have figured out the 'Print Screen' key and how to paste into a word doc. It's actually not a bad way to report an error, as the context is usually revealed in the image.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Weeeeell, I remember a project where I ran the calculation of a ray tracing image on one computer (the one with the high performance), copied the results to another (the one with lots of space), stored this on a tape, physically brought that tape over to a reader in the next room, then read it into the memory of a workstation (the one with the fancy screen and graphics). At least, when viewing the image you couldn't see any signs of the individual travel stages. Also, I did have access to a terminal for typing the program, I didn't need to print it onto punch cards :cool: Ok, that was 30 years ago - I really hope no customer of yours is required to work like that anymore...
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That really annoys me. Just send me the image, that way I can make it big enough to read, and if you could learn to crop... A screen shot of two large, widescreen monitors reduced to the size of a portrait word doc is impossible to read.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
I'll let you know that yesterday i received a print on a e-mail that showed paint with a print of paint showing a print of paint showing 1/4 of the systems screen, not the 1/4 that had the error in it. you're luck if you just receive a doc with a print inside.
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p) "Given the chance I'd rather work smart than work hard." - PHS241 "'Sophisticated platform' typically means 'I have no idea how it works.'"
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
Most of my users at least know to use a PrtScn. It's real annoying for those who have dual monitors. Many seem to have difficulty with the Alt-PrtScn. I also have a copyable error message that has not yet been used. But I have another avenue that works most of the time. I log the error in a database.
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Video sounds cool. As long as they don't try to print it that is ;)
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
The first idea that comes to mind is that it went through many different people in different services. It's not that any individual was retarded beyond all hope, it's that it got passed around between many people, for different distances. One of the intermediaries has a problem with Outlook so they can't open e-mails at the moment. Therefore, the most straightforward way to show them something is to print it out. Then they forward it to someone else who can't be arsed to walk to the other building 2 miles away so they scan it and send it. If the original user wasn't aware that the text box was copyable, he immediately thought of making a screenshot. Or maybe he had prepared his screen so that it was a fullscreen screenshot with useful context, but someone in the middle decided to do you a service a cropped the image. I can totally imagine that error report going through a Rube-Goldberg-worthy adventure into your inbox. Tell me, how many people were involved in the routing of that error report?
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra
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We just received an email, with an attached PDF, containing a black & white scan, of a printout, of a screenshot of an error message that was in a copyable text box. W. T. E. :doh: :confused:
Yeaaaaah... we're a satellite ISP and have definitely received network diagrams drawn (literally) with crayons before.
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I've had tickets like that before. I had one where someone took a screenshot, then pasted it into Word, then (mystifyingly) took a screenshot of Word and attached that to the ticket. By that point, the original screenshot was shrunk to the point of uselessness. One wonders the thought process behind something like that.
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Yeaaaaah... we're a satellite ISP and have definitely received network diagrams drawn (literally) with crayons before.
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The first idea that comes to mind is that it went through many different people in different services. It's not that any individual was retarded beyond all hope, it's that it got passed around between many people, for different distances. One of the intermediaries has a problem with Outlook so they can't open e-mails at the moment. Therefore, the most straightforward way to show them something is to print it out. Then they forward it to someone else who can't be arsed to walk to the other building 2 miles away so they scan it and send it. If the original user wasn't aware that the text box was copyable, he immediately thought of making a screenshot. Or maybe he had prepared his screen so that it was a fullscreen screenshot with useful context, but someone in the middle decided to do you a service a cropped the image. I can totally imagine that error report going through a Rube-Goldberg-worthy adventure into your inbox. Tell me, how many people were involved in the routing of that error report?
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra
Donkey Master wrote:
Tell me, how many people were involved in the routing of that error report?
To my knowledge, just 2: the customer and the support person who forwarded the email to us. However, there is generally a person at each customer site who acts as a point of contact with us, so passing through at least 2 people on that end isn't impossible. It would be interesting to know if your hypothesis is correct though, it does make a lot more sense.
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Most of my users at least know to use a PrtScn. It's real annoying for those who have dual monitors. Many seem to have difficulty with the Alt-PrtScn. I also have a copyable error message that has not yet been used. But I have another avenue that works most of the time. I log the error in a database.
BruceMIII wrote:
But I have another avenue that works most of the time. I log the error in a database.
Our main application does that. It's harder for a web application if it's having difficulty communicating with the server though. ;P (Not to say it couldn't use a little more robust solution for logging however.)
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Teach them that the PDF can be OCR'ed :)
