arstechnica.com— Researchers suggest that a cognitive lock-in occurs when users become familiar enough with a product's interface to not have to think about using it. Their tests suggest that people mistake this familiarity with product superiority.
Jun 6, 2007View in Crawl 4
hehe, my favorite thing on vista is when it warns me that i am about to do something that requires admin access (which is pointless because virtually all windows users use a superuser account), asks me if a want to continue, then asks for admin access. do i really need to be warned that im going to be warned? by far the most true of mac vs pc commercials
That's almost true. Thing is, learning feels like extra-hard work to most people. I'd go so far as to say that we are trained in school to think that learning is hard. This makes people vastly overestimate the cost of learning something new - and then encourages them to justify it by vastly underestimating any possible benefit.Given that, you're probably better off spending the time learning the second alternative *even if it doesn't end up actually being better*. It's much more likely to be better than you think it is - so this rule will let you catch massive productivity gains that you would otherwise have discounted. And, second, learning a second way of doing something frequently gives you enough perspective to evaluate the third and fourth option more accurately.If you do the math out, spending a week learning something for a 15 minute / day productivity increase actually pays itself back really fast.
...having to use the apple key to copy, paste (Im used to little finger on Ctrl + index finger to his the X,C,V)-It's funny how the exact opposite is true for me. Using the CTRL key for commands feels odd and unnatural whereas the Apple key makes more sense. I'm sure it's a familiarity thing, though it certainly does feel more comfortable using my thumb on a modifier than my pinky. ...Apple+tab only switching between programs instead of every instance of every program running (had to ask someone else to learn about the apple+~).-Ahh, yes. Though OS X, you really don't think of programs running as instances. That's more of a Windows-way of doing things - opening multiple copies of the same exe. Personally, I always found that methodology a bit weird. But again, it's what one's used to. If you really want the alt-tab functionality, though, install "Witch". Search for it in Google. It'll give you what you're looking for....and I was totally shocked not to find the print screen key when I was doing the documentation!-OS X's got some very, very powerful screenshot functionality. I'll just say that. I do have to agree that a Print Screen key is more intuitive, but once you actually look at what both XP and OS X have built-in for screenshot abilities, XP doesn't compare. Really, it's sort of like a retarded child. Here's some help on that front.Apple-Shift-3 Capture Full screen to file.Apple-Shift-4 Capture SelectionApple-Shift-4, then space capture screen element.Add CTRL to any of those commands and you can capture to the clipboard. Oh and if you go in System Preferences - Keyboard, last tab - you can customize those to something you find more familiar...Also whats up with backspace working like delete? Well it does say delete but especially in vi the damn thing never backspaces, it only deletes!! -A key labeled "Delete" should delete. If you want the other functionality, hold down the FN key and then the DELETE key...Lets not even talk about installing new programs.-Drag . . . drop. Usually one icon. I'm not entirely sure how this could be difficult. If it is, well - no offense - but you're more indoctrinated to one method of doing things than I would've thought. I, for one, personally HATE installers and wizards and step by step procedures. For me, whenever I can, I prefer to just get everything done at once. Drag file to install location. One step....Last thing, is there any hack available to put the menus in the respective window instead of just one up top? Because there was many times when i closed the program but it was still in the menu up top and when I hit apple+w to close some other program that was in the foreground, whatever was in the menu up top got closed, wtf?!-Ahh, familiarity again. One thing I can't stand about Windows is how if I accidentally close a window, it closes the entire app. To me, that's moronic and bothersome. I'd very much like to have some way of making applications Hide, like in OS X. Not just minimize, but hide. It's always been somewhat of a pain to me. But that'd require each app to run only as a single instance of itself rather than the multiple spawning instances that Windows allows...At the end of the day, I was happy to go back to my 4yr old laptop running XP. Sure its all beat up now and looks ugly compared to a shiny white Mac, but it feels like home!-I dual boot with Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro and, although Windows runs very well, I try as much as I can to make it like a Mac/forget that I'm using Windows. Mostly, I think of it as my Game Console OS. I wouldn't dream of doing anything terribly useful in Windows. It feels very, very crippled to me. It's sort of like when I switch between Qwerty and Dvorak. Qwerty just feels inherently wrong these days. It's the same kind of thing. You feel so used to something that anything else feels intuitively wrong....On a Mac, when I want to do something, I feel like there should be a faster and better way to do it, but I can't find it.-I'd really like an example of this point, both in how Windows offers multiple paths to accomplish a task and how the Mac fails to offer what you're looking for in that regard.
thedragon4453Jun 6, 2007
hehe, my favorite thing on vista is when it warns me that i am about to do something that requires admin access (which is pointless because virtually all windows users use a superuser account), asks me if a want to continue, then asks for admin access. do i really need to be warned that im going to be warned? by far the most true of mac vs pc commercials
chandonJun 7, 2007
That's almost true. Thing is, learning feels like extra-hard work to most people. I'd go so far as to say that we are trained in school to think that learning is hard. This makes people vastly overestimate the cost of learning something new - and then encourages them to justify it by vastly underestimating any possible benefit.Given that, you're probably better off spending the time learning the second alternative *even if it doesn't end up actually being better*. It's much more likely to be better than you think it is - so this rule will let you catch massive productivity gains that you would otherwise have discounted. And, second, learning a second way of doing something frequently gives you enough perspective to evaluate the third and fourth option more accurately.If you do the math out, spending a week learning something for a 15 minute / day productivity increase actually pays itself back really fast.
Closed AccountJun 7, 2007
Case and point ... Windows OS
Closed AccountJun 7, 2007
...having to use the apple key to copy, paste (Im used to little finger on Ctrl + index finger to his the X,C,V)-It's funny how the exact opposite is true for me. Using the CTRL key for commands feels odd and unnatural whereas the Apple key makes more sense. I'm sure it's a familiarity thing, though it certainly does feel more comfortable using my thumb on a modifier than my pinky. ...Apple+tab only switching between programs instead of every instance of every program running (had to ask someone else to learn about the apple+~).-Ahh, yes. Though OS X, you really don't think of programs running as instances. That's more of a Windows-way of doing things - opening multiple copies of the same exe. Personally, I always found that methodology a bit weird. But again, it's what one's used to. If you really want the alt-tab functionality, though, install "Witch". Search for it in Google. It'll give you what you're looking for....and I was totally shocked not to find the print screen key when I was doing the documentation!-OS X's got some very, very powerful screenshot functionality. I'll just say that. I do have to agree that a Print Screen key is more intuitive, but once you actually look at what both XP and OS X have built-in for screenshot abilities, XP doesn't compare. Really, it's sort of like a retarded child. Here's some help on that front.Apple-Shift-3 Capture Full screen to file.Apple-Shift-4 Capture SelectionApple-Shift-4, then space capture screen element.Add CTRL to any of those commands and you can capture to the clipboard. Oh and if you go in System Preferences - Keyboard, last tab - you can customize those to something you find more familiar...Also whats up with backspace working like delete? Well it does say delete but especially in vi the damn thing never backspaces, it only deletes!! -A key labeled "Delete" should delete. If you want the other functionality, hold down the FN key and then the DELETE key...Lets not even talk about installing new programs.-Drag . . . drop. Usually one icon. I'm not entirely sure how this could be difficult. If it is, well - no offense - but you're more indoctrinated to one method of doing things than I would've thought. I, for one, personally HATE installers and wizards and step by step procedures. For me, whenever I can, I prefer to just get everything done at once. Drag file to install location. One step....Last thing, is there any hack available to put the menus in the respective window instead of just one up top? Because there was many times when i closed the program but it was still in the menu up top and when I hit apple+w to close some other program that was in the foreground, whatever was in the menu up top got closed, wtf?!-Ahh, familiarity again. One thing I can't stand about Windows is how if I accidentally close a window, it closes the entire app. To me, that's moronic and bothersome. I'd very much like to have some way of making applications Hide, like in OS X. Not just minimize, but hide. It's always been somewhat of a pain to me. But that'd require each app to run only as a single instance of itself rather than the multiple spawning instances that Windows allows...At the end of the day, I was happy to go back to my 4yr old laptop running XP. Sure its all beat up now and looks ugly compared to a shiny white Mac, but it feels like home!-I dual boot with Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro and, although Windows runs very well, I try as much as I can to make it like a Mac/forget that I'm using Windows. Mostly, I think of it as my Game Console OS. I wouldn't dream of doing anything terribly useful in Windows. It feels very, very crippled to me. It's sort of like when I switch between Qwerty and Dvorak. Qwerty just feels inherently wrong these days. It's the same kind of thing. You feel so used to something that anything else feels intuitively wrong....On a Mac, when I want to do something, I feel like there should be a faster and better way to do it, but I can't find it.-I'd really like an example of this point, both in how Windows offers multiple paths to accomplish a task and how the Mac fails to offer what you're looking for in that regard.
zdigglerJun 7, 2007
new one got engine on the front now. they made it to confuse the hippies.
Closed AccountJun 7, 2007
Ipod Vs Meizu M6, the Meizu slaughters any ipod nano for 1/3 the price, the nano cant even do FM radio or xvid video. what a rip off
dstzJun 9, 2007
My dad is still the best one.
synthespianJun 9, 2007
I guess this helps to explains Microsoft and the success of the Windows operating system.