Students Learn Life Lesson As Power Goes Out In Computer Lab

[DMark]

I was teaching my Desktop Publishing class last night - students all busy creating ads using InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator...suddenly (maybe due to the high winds) the power went out for about a minute.

I haven't heard a collective moan and groan and loudly muttered swear words like that in a long time - (and 15 minutes prior, I had suggested people continue to save their work as they go along). A few of them lost everything they had been working on for the past hour.

I think I no longer need to impress upon that class the value of saving your work often.

[zelie zelerton]

Maybe you should just engineer inexplicable power-cuts as part of the teaching process?

[tdn]

When I did tech support you wouldn't believe the calls I would get. Usually a million-dollar proposal was starting in 10 minutes, and the user had spent the past 3 days working on a document for it, when Word crashed. Without fail, when I asked them when the last time they saved it was, they'd go into a tirade about how Word is unstable, and if it were more stable, things like this wouldn't happen.

"What am I supposed to do now?!?"

[MostlyClueless]

Best they learn it now.

[alt-tab]
[ctrl-s]
[alt-tab]

Yeah, that'll be all.

[Anne Neville]

When I did tech support you wouldn't believe the calls I would get. Usually a million-dollar proposal was starting in 10 minutes, and the user had spent the past 3 days working on a document for it, when Word crashed. Without fail, when I asked them when the last time they saved it was, they'd go into a tirade about how Word is unstable, and if it were more stable, things like this wouldn't happen.

"What am I supposed to do now?!?"

And then there are gems like these from Computer Stupidities (http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/):

Customer: "There are smoke and flames coming from my computer."
Tech Support: "Uh, hang up, unplug the computer from the wall, and call the local fire department."
Customer: "That's not the problem. I need to know how to do a backup. Fastest possible method."

Customer: "Hi. I have a Macintosh. I had a disk that I wanted to put in the computer, but it wouldn't go, so I pushed harder, and it wouldn't go, so I pushed REALLY hard, and now it's making funny noises. I think there was a disk in there already."
Tech Support: "Unplug the computer, now."
Customer: "I don't want to lose my paper!"
Tech Support: "Unplug the computer right now. Your paper is lost. Your floppy drive is lost. If you're lucky the Mac will be OK. Unplug it now."
Customer: "But I don't want to lose my paper!"

After a few more repetitions of this, I heard someone, presumably the client's roommate, scream. Then I heard the dorm fire alarm go off in the background. Those things are awful loud, but she didn't seem interested in unplugging the computer, fleeing the fire in her room, or anything else other than arguing with me. Figuring I was doing her a favor, I hung up.

[Scarlett67]

Back when a friend of mine was a total computer noob (and frankly, I have no idea how far she's progressed, but she's definitely not the techie type), she somehow got the idea that saving a file works like this: Open blank file, give it a name, start typing, close file. So in her mind, the computer just saves every change she makes.

You can see it coming. She lost an entire research paper, maybe 10-15 pages. Called me up in a panic. I tried everything I could think of, thinking maybe she'd accidentally saved at some point, or autosave was on, or something. Nope. Gone.

That was a hard lesson, but I think it was well learned. And after she stopped crying and calmed down, she admitted that since it was fresh in her mind and she still had all her notes, she could probably re-create a fairly close facsimile.

[whiterabbit]

When I was in fourth grade -- this would be 1986 or so -- my school's "computer lab" was, seemingly, a converted closet. Veeeeeeeeeery cramped.

One day we were all in there typing up reports. Mine was on manatees. I'd typed four pages, which was a lot for me back then! Suddenly all the computers went down. It turned out that somebody had stepped on the master power switch for them all! Don't ask me why they had them hooked up that way, but computers in schools were still pretty new at that point. We're talking Apple IIEs here. I think a couple of them had -- gasp! -- color monitors!

I still remember the pain.

[ChrisBooth12]

I do a CTRL-S pretty much every sentence. I mean its not that hard and its in my opinion the eaisest hotkey to use

[Wolfian]

Best they learn it now.

[alt-tab]

Whoa. My computering skills just leveled up.

[Mama Tiger]

I not only do a deliberate save every few sentences, but I have auto backup timed for 60 seconds. It's saved my ass on many occasions.

Paranoia really is a good thing when they're watching you...

[qubed]

Back when a friend of mine was a total computer noob (and frankly, I have no idea how far she's progressed, but she's definitely not the techie type), she somehow got the idea that saving a file works like this: Open blank file, give it a name, start typing, close file. So in her mind, the computer just saves every change she makes.

To be fair, this is the way things should be. And it makes for a much better interface and is far more intuitive that "saving" a file. I should be able to open up Word, choose from a list files that I've been working on (or a new one), edit it, and close Word. Why should a typical user care what a file is, or how to save, and all that blahness?

Yeah, I know, it gets a little more complicated when sharing files and so forth, but really, it's not a problem that can't be solved. Hell, I have this fantastic note-taking app for the Mac called xPad that already does that. No saving, no files.