February 09, 2011
To Get The Right Answer...
Ask the right question.
Or
To get the right response when doing an internet search...
Search for the right thing.
Of course it helps if you have some idea of what that thing is.
I have spent a week searching for the solution to a problem we were having with some servers. I found the answer by accident yesterday when something I read finally got me asking the right question.
One problem down - on to the next. Yes, I'm now searching for the answer to yet another irritating problem on our work servers. I keep poking at these search engines hoping I will find something worthwhile.
What I find are a myriad of people with the same problem along with a whole bunch of "helper people" who have no clue, but are throwing out all kinds of weirdass suggestions to solve things.
Reading all this crap reminds me of a time years ago when I stumbled across a forum where someone was trying to get rid of a file left by a virus (back when viruses were more benign than they are now). The file attributes were set so it couldn't be deleted using windows explorer.
The helpful "tech" guy went through a long involved explanation to get rid of said file involving rebooting in to safe mode among other things. As I sat reading it, I was shaking my head wondering if the kid (had to be a kid) giving the tech advice even knew what a Command prompt was. And that all the person had to do was open such a prompt, change the attribute on the file to +w and they could then delete it - all within about 10 seconds. No booting into safe mode or any other time intensive idiocy.
It's a jungle full of muck out on the net. At technical meetings too... Many people full of self importance and "good advice" most of which is to spend money for some software we don't need. There is a very high testosterone level in this field. All these guys marking out their territory of "this is the way to do things - this way and only this way will do!"
Everyone thinks they are 1000% right and everyone else is wrong. Not to mention the software they like is 1000% better than anything else out there and everything else is complete crap.
All this cruft takes up search engine result space and must be waded through to find the one answer I'm looking for.
That's what I've been doing and it makes me tired.
Or
To get the right response when doing an internet search...
Search for the right thing.
Of course it helps if you have some idea of what that thing is.
I have spent a week searching for the solution to a problem we were having with some servers. I found the answer by accident yesterday when something I read finally got me asking the right question.
One problem down - on to the next. Yes, I'm now searching for the answer to yet another irritating problem on our work servers. I keep poking at these search engines hoping I will find something worthwhile.
What I find are a myriad of people with the same problem along with a whole bunch of "helper people" who have no clue, but are throwing out all kinds of weirdass suggestions to solve things.
Reading all this crap reminds me of a time years ago when I stumbled across a forum where someone was trying to get rid of a file left by a virus (back when viruses were more benign than they are now). The file attributes were set so it couldn't be deleted using windows explorer.
The helpful "tech" guy went through a long involved explanation to get rid of said file involving rebooting in to safe mode among other things. As I sat reading it, I was shaking my head wondering if the kid (had to be a kid) giving the tech advice even knew what a Command prompt was. And that all the person had to do was open such a prompt, change the attribute on the file to +w and they could then delete it - all within about 10 seconds. No booting into safe mode or any other time intensive idiocy.
It's a jungle full of muck out on the net. At technical meetings too... Many people full of self importance and "good advice" most of which is to spend money for some software we don't need. There is a very high testosterone level in this field. All these guys marking out their territory of "this is the way to do things - this way and only this way will do!"
Everyone thinks they are 1000% right and everyone else is wrong. Not to mention the software they like is 1000% better than anything else out there and everything else is complete crap.
All this cruft takes up search engine result space and must be waded through to find the one answer I'm looking for.
That's what I've been doing and it makes me tired.
Posted by: Teresa in
Ho-Hum
at
12:36 AM
| Comments (5)
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Post contains 435 words, total size 3 kb.
1
I have also experienced the wearying search for an answer which should be simple ... if only you knew what it was called. And it's usually a link from a link from another link, before you stumble across the answer - by accident - in an article about something else.
I feel your pain, T. Hang in there!
I feel your pain, T. Hang in there!
Posted by: Rev. Paul at February 09, 2011 01:44 AM (9mybz)
2
I see that happening in my future soon...
Posted by: vwbug at February 09, 2011 05:35 AM (FPOeI)
3
Ditto what the Rev. Paul says. Where I really get irritated is when I find a forum where someone asks the same question, only to find out that nobody replied. Or even more irritating, when all the replies are from people looking for help with the same problem, but have no answer of their own. And the one that makes me want to reach through my monitor and strangle someone: the unhelpful reply from someone suggesting a totally impractical solution, like when you're having Windows XP problems decides to chime in: "dump it and install Linux/ get a Mac" or something else totally useless to the current situation. Okay, I'm looking for answers as to how to work with what I got, not with what I don't have, twit.
Posted by: diamond dave at February 10, 2011 09:07 PM (9AqBo)
4
Dave - LOL - yes I run across that all the time. It's soooo frustrating. I want a search engine that would let me drop all that crap. There should be some checkbox that says "solved" or "unsolved" so we don't have to waste our time reading the same questions over and over again.
Posted by: Teresa at February 13, 2011 05:29 PM (xE2iU)
5
New word: grustration
The frustration of being unable find what you're looking for with a Google search.
The frustration of being unable find what you're looking for with a Google search.
Posted by: Harvey at February 16, 2011 04:58 PM (pTueD)
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