Lars Pind

internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship

Lars Pind - internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship
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Pind's rule of tech support...

November 27, 2005 · 5 comments

Computers behave better when a computer scientist is watching.

Seriously! How many of you have experienced the same? Some member of your family is having problems with their computer. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. But then when they want to show you, it suddenly works. And they’re completely bewildered. “But I promise. It didn’t work before. Honest to God.”

Are computers really better behaved when they’re being watched by someone they know they can’t fool? What’s your experience?

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5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Jeroen // Nov 28, 2005 at 06:22 PM

    I agree Lars. It happens to me all the time. Mother, neighbours and colleagues. It is nice though ;).

  • 2 Mark Aufflick // Dec 10, 2005 at 03:40 AM

    Totally. Just ask anyone on a tech support desk! I call it problem solving by walking - simply by walking to the end users desk you solve the problem :) A similar wierd 6th sense thing that IT people seem to have is knowing when the phone is going to ring. I know I am not the only one who often absent mindedly pulls my cell phone from my pocket seconds before it starts to ring. Are we tuned to the EMF?

  • 3 Mark Aufflick // Dec 10, 2005 at 03:43 AM

    Ooops - here's a place where AJAX is not so nice. My firefox browser didn't show that the comment had been submitted, so I clicked Submit again. And again. Since this code doesn't do a normal reload I didn't see that my comment had in fact been posted.

  • 4 Lars Pind // Dec 10, 2005 at 01:30 PM

    Yeah, there are some issues with this Typo beast. They may have been fixed, but I haven't had the time to upgrade. The good thing about AJAX comments is that so far it's keeping the spammers out.

  • 5 Lars Pind // Dec 10, 2005 at 01:31 PM

    Or could it be that it's some of the stats javascript I've thown in that conflicts? I think it did used to work better.