My experience tells me that most computer users simply have no idea of how complicated their hardware and software is. Not a clue. They think things just happen because it’s “natural”. Computers are not “natural”. Users don’t appreciate that things happen because someone has broken down the “natural” expectations of the user into minute steps, analysised exactly what’s happening and then reproduced it. It doesn’t just happen that way, someone made it happen that way.
I sometimes get users showing me a nice little trick they’ve discovered in the software. “Look what I’ve found. Isn’t that clever? Did you know that’s what happens?” Well duh!? Who did you think made it happen that way???
So all these words computer people use are actually shorthand for very involved and very complicated processes or concepts. If we didn’t have words that encompassed them into neat packages our job would be 100 times harder. If I was to give you a complete ENGLISH explanation of svchost.exe it would run to an entire book and you still wouldn’t be interested.
Okay. I have a simple trick that might work for you.
It’s pretty simple. When the virus kicks in, it tells your computer to restart in sixty seconds from NOW.
Therefore, as soon as you log on, go down to the clock… you see it, in the lower right corner? Double click on it. A clock and calendar will pop up. Click on the digital time readout under the clock. Let’s say it says 10:52:11 AM. Change the leftmost number, the 10, to one hour earlier. Then click OK. Wait two minutes to see if it works. If it works, do it again, but this time, set it back two more hours. This will give you about three hours to fix the computer.
Do you understand this operation as I have explained it to you? It’s the simplest way to defang it that I can think of… there are other, more complicated ways. We can try them if this doesn’t work.
Actually, VAXes used to attempt to speak English.
Why would I want to “Rename” a file when I can “mv” it? Drove me nuts. (I actually aliased Rename to mv, back in the day. Yes, I’m hopeless.)
Oooh, I liiiike that idea, E-Sabbath: trick the evil computer! I will have to wear my Emma Peel leathers when I do this, and make sure the appropriately tense background music is on.
I supported our software for years on the Mac and hardly ever had to resort to geek-speak. We finally offered it on the Windows platform and I clearly recall a the first call I got. Someone said they had something or other “remmed out in autoexec.bat.” I passed the call along to the developer, got myself a cup of coffee and wept.
. . . although I have the horrible feeling that when I get home tonight, my computer will be waiting for me behind the door with a knife, like that Zuni devil doll in Trilogy of Terror . . .
A side note: I knew this was going to happen. This is why I suggested in the Eve Gets A Computer Thread that I come down and set it up right for her. I have no problem spending an hour or two for any Doper doing a cleanup of their computer if I have the time and they’re in the NY area. (More complicated work would cost… but that’s beside the point.) I think of it as the equivalent of keeping our highways beautiful.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
A: Buy an appropriate Antivirus suite. Update weekly. I suggest Symantec/Norton.
B: Download Spybot Search and Destroy.
Just remember, there’s more than one way to do it. I’m assuming you’re running Windows XP? The green and blue everywhere candy-colored look? If the clock trick doesn’t work, there’s another way. It’s also simple.
Click on START. The button to the bottom left of the screen? Click on RUN, which should be the second or third button from the bottom of the list that pops up when you choose START. Type in exactly the following words;
shutdown -a
Press enter.
That should stop the shutdown. It may be
shutdown /a
but I think the first is more correct. Oh… and we can get rid of the green and blue candy colored bulging look if you want. Entirely up to you.
Print this thread out BEFORE you leave work, so you have it to refer to at home.
Because entity relationship modelling indicates the principle use cases for the computer professional extend relationships with operating systems and/or other computer professionals preferentially to end users. So the end-user compatible interface is deprecated as a communications protocol in favour of specialized data exchange terminology with a higher information density, therefore optimizing for bandwidth resourcing issues.
If that doesn’t help, I have a UML diagram somewhere which explains it.
Doctor: “Have you ever had a biopsy?”
Eve: “A biopsy? What’s that? Speak ENGLIGH!”
Complicated systems like cars, tax codes, human bodies (and computers) are composed of a great many different parts. Specialists need names for these parts and for the procedures that they can perform on them. In most cases there is no English equivalent. If you don’t know the names, of course it sounds like gibberish.
What’s really fun is when a person (like myself) constantly switches back and forth between speaking geek and speaking non-geek. My friends snicker when they hear me say things like “My interweb is broken. I powercycled the cable modem but the routermajig isn’t receiving an IP.”
That’s right, folks, a person as geeky as myself, a person who is studying for A+ certification (“The Associate’s Degree of tech certifications”), gleefully uses the word “interweb.”
Pochacco, that’s not quite fair. Most of those professions have developed layman-understandable explanations for their jargon.
A mechanic could reply “A carburator mixes air with gasoline so the gasoline can burn. Things can’t burn without air”
An accountant could reply “Part of your income comes from interest the banks pay you on your account. The 1099 is a form which helps the IRS identify which portion of your earnings is from interest.”
A doctor could say “A biopsy is when a doctor takes a very small sample of [whatever] and tests it to see if there is anything unusual about it. Biopsies are often done to test for cancer, for example.”
I’m a tech guy, and I’m pretty well known as being able to translate technical info into layman’s terms, but the best I can do for SVCHOST.exe off the top of my head is “It’s like a bookmark. It holds some resources open for other programs to use so they can start faster and not go through the pain of finding resources of their own.” That isn’t terribly helpful because a book doesn’t crash if the bookmark slips out of place, so even that analogy fails.
The Tech field is relatively very young and specific things like SVCHOST.exe are even younger. It will get easier as time goes by. Not much help for you right now though.
