News: 1619520331

This is absolutely splendid news. Can we ensure we have a register of names, telephone numbers and email addresses of these experts? Hence when they call me - I can share my outstanding list of 'issues' and redirect incoming calls from the other 80%.

Ha, what could possibly go wrong with my plans for a much more relaxed support desk?

The real news here is that it's so easy to be snarky about this and we all laugh along.

This year will be the 40th anniversary of the IBM PC and the 45th of the Apple 1. In any rational world, using a computer and going online should as routine as driving your own car, and calling for help something that happens almost never, and even then only because you didn't do routine maintenance. Imagine what computers would be like if "ease of ownership" had kept pace with memory, CPU power, or network bandwidth.

Of course, if that happened, we wouldn't have "dumb users" to kick around, and where would the fun be in that? And I know all you IT admins, jealously hoarding your hard-won knowledge like dragons sitting on your treasure, will snipe at me for this, but ultimately wouldn't you rather live in a world where you didn't have to deal with all that crap and could focus on challenging, interesting, and high-value stuff instead (or just have a lot more free time for play, whatever)?

I have met the enemy 'digital experts' and most of them are recipients of the Dunning-Kruger award! In fact I’ve started more than one new job only to find that the first six months involves clearing up the fsck ups that they’ve put in place!

I don't disagree with any of your well made argument, but if you consider the car analogy and the increase in complexity of software, networks,etc over the past 40 years, modern cars would now have about 17 million seperate components and would grind to a halt regularly because the cheap offshore guy who built a tiny piece of one of them didn't tighten a screw correctly.

The difference is that car manufacturers have spent many years concentrating on refining their products to make sure cars just work. The IT industry has spent years adding more an more complexity so that computers all too often continue to only just work. However, with encouraging the motor industry with aspirations to self-driving cars they seem to have found a way to close the disparity.

Using a computer and going online *is* as routine as driving your own car, it's several orders of magnitude easier than it was in the 1980s.

If your real question is either :

why are applications a bit crap?

why do device drivers for your printer/other device suck?

The answer is

1) Users don't want to pay for one that's any good

2) The business isn't willing to pay to produce something decent

3) The number of people willing to fight for things such as right to repair is too low, allowing unscrupulous companies (hey Apple!) to abuse their position.

In the early 80 to early nineties :

Computers were expensive

Connectivity was pricey and difficult to configure, regardless of if it was a modem or network

Word processors suitable for business were five hundred quid a copy

Printers were also expensive

Early operating systems were generally a real pain to use

None of that is true now.

I see this over and over 'why doesn't work with ?' 'Well if you pay 3-4 times the price you'll have something that works much better and keeps going for years' 'I only want to spend $not_much on '.

> 1) Users don't want to pay for one that's any good

That's easy to say. Almost always users don't really have the choice, either because nobody asked them (you don't chose the drivers for your otherwise excellent hardware), they have no means to make an informed choice (except "likes" and "trending" lists), or simply because there isn't any alternative having the precise specs they're looking for.

Your point #2 is definitely the right one: Companies prefer creating shiny crap which sounds great on the marketing blurb, but is barely fit for service. Unlike car makers, they don't face expensive lawsuits if their product breaks down for no apparent reason, so they always go for the cheapest solution.

The price only depends on "coolness" and "street cred", not on quality. Smartphones are an excellent example.

If the 'excellent hardware' has poor drivers, it is not excellent hardware, the two are inextricably linked for the vast majority of purchasers.

Yes, sometimes this means compromising on what you want or paying more to be able to have a reliable product. It also means doing the same as users of minority operating systems have done for ages if they want a working system : don't buy on spec assuming products will 'just work', look at the company's history with support, be prepared to pay for more than the cheapest options.

Much though I'd like to trash companies for selling an image rather than quality, there is a non linear relationship between price and quality. If you pay more for a smartphone you'll receive higher quality components up to a certain point. Beyond that there are also issues with economies of scale and company size. Especially in the mobile world, the smaller manufacturers simply don't have access to the same components as the major players as all the supply is funneled to the largest market.

Which I well know, as a Pro-1 X backer :/

> If the 'excellent hardware' has poor drivers, it is not excellent hardware

That might be true from a general point of view, but since the spec sheets rarely mention "crap drivers" as a feature, the buyer doesn't know before trying. All right, you say one should rely on company history, but that's also a mixed bag. Most companies have varying quality; Let's take one big Korean company for instance: Their phone I have is excellent, their Blu-Ray player I have is substandard at best (yet expensive). Might be that another model of that brand is much better, but as I said, I can't really know unless I try.

.

> there is a non linear relationship between price and quality

Yes, usually expensive means better quality, but the key word here is "usually". Example: A well-known German car manufacturer who was known for the quality of their cars, and I can confirm since I've had two of them, some 30-40 years ago. Except that somewhere around the turn of the century their previously rock solid and reliable cars became fragile crap constantly breaking down. Their price didn't go down though, they are still expensive, but now unreliable.

Unfortunately it's complicated. It would be so much easier if you could know for sure what to chose.

One who thought using a word processor meant she was "programming" the computer.

Another who managed to wreck 3 computers in one year. One of the three was where that "reset" switch on the back certainly reset the computer from (nearly) working to a heap of smoking junk when the PSU was unexpectedly switched from 220/240 to 110 volts! I managed to rescue some of the data from the hard disk.

The guy (back in the mid 1990s) who, despite being told not to, upgraded Internet Explorer 3 to an early version of IE4 (with that new-fangled and decidedly shonky Active Desktop stuff fully enabled), requiring his PC to be rebuilt... TWICE!

Those 240/110V switches were a stroke of genius. Not the good kind of genius, but still genius.

"Hi, here's your new piece of company-owned kit that cost more than your month's salary. Don't move that switch or you'll destroy it. Bye!"

"Wait, which switch?"

"The one round the back next to the power switch. Bye!"

"What do you mean next to the power switch. Won't I need to press the power switch a lot?"

"Not at all. Only when it crashes and you need to restart it."

"How often will it crash?"

"Not often. Maybe once or twice a day. Don't press the other switch, and you'll be fine."

"Which switch?! I can't move the PC tower, as the lead for the keyboard is too short. Is it this one? Hey, he's gone."

...include Gartner?

They are forever making tech claims that turn out to nothing more than marketing bullshit they churn out year after year for the technological illiterate elite.

.... to really fsck it up you have to be a 'digital expert'!

Just glad that I'm no longer in the 1st/2nd/3rd line support chain.

Which causes me the most stress?

1. The self taught expert who feels he knows more than me

or

2. The person who feels superior because "all that c4ap is for grunts" because he got O Level Latin and is therefore classically educated.

Oi! I have O-Level Latin AND I know which end to hold a soldering iron (after the first time)

I learnt (some) Greek as well and I know not to try to catch a falling soldering iron (after a few times).

I have one here, who has a husband who sells.... not exactly black market, shall we say greymarket?, iPads.

Digital Expert:

Boss man to me: "Why not?"

Me:

Boss Man: "Ah ok. It's a no then."

Digital Expert: "Why won't you buy my husbands iPads"

Me: "Becasue they have to be managed. If they are already managed they can't be used on our network. If the original owner hasn't released them from their management system we can't manage them here."

Digital Expert: "I don't understand why they have to be managed. Why can't you buy my husband's iPads?"

Me: "Becasue they aren't from Apple or an Apple aprroved reseller"

Digital Expert:

Boss: "DE is getting one to see if you can make it work on our network"

FFS!

And that is only the most recent Digital Expert problem...

* excuses not business requirements; everything listed was an "I Want!" and at the end of the list was an implied "or I will thcweam and thcweam and thcweam until I am thick!"

"until I am thick"

That should curtail the length of screaming.

Actually, the best way to kill this particular issue would have been to murmur something about auditors.

Everyone's an IT expert until Google goes down.

This will surely pur "digital expert" into the same bucket of resume euphemusms as "proficient in Microsoft Office" = "can type".

We had some intern resumes recently that listed "navigated the internet with ease", "Skilled at navigate[sic] the internet" and "Ability to use social media such as LinkedIn".

Under normal circumstances that would be bad. We are a high technology company hiring SE and CS students. Yeah, you had better be able to use the internet. And given that this is a writing position, you shouldn't have typos in your resume.

If by "digital technology expert" you mean "knows how to apply their digit correctly to the on switch on some piece of technology", then I'd guess that yes, maybe one in five can get it right (on a good day).

They're probably very proficient indeed in the digital technology that they use every day. Step outside of that comfort zone though...

Tells you all you need to know.

Unless the div was thinking of a collection of predicated events.

cat $article |sed "s/Digital Expert/Outsourcing Vendor/g"

Now that is all very funny when viewed from the admins and IT bosses' point of view, but there is also the users' one. Let me tell you a short tale:

Back in the start of the century my department needed to move huge amounts of data from strange, non-PC devices, around a rather big building. Our CIO clearly didn't want us on his shiny Netware network and dragged his feet as much as possible. After having waited in vain for a year, we eventually used our own budget to build a parallel TCP/IP network (including pulling our own cables around the building). The two networks were completely and totally separate, and we promised to never requested IT's help for our network (and we indeed didn't - not that we've ever had any problems).

Do I consider myself a "digital expert"? Definitely not! (That title only says "I'm full of male cattle's excrement" anyway.) But I can claim to be an expert level user . This allows me first and foremost to know my limits, and while I can make vaguely informed choices, to implement those correctly I still need and request the experts (or at least their input). It just happens they can't pull the wool over my eyes that easily...

How long did the CIO lag before moving the "official" network to TCP/IP - or just to yours?

Never did, at least not before I left, couple years later. Note we had chosen TCP/IP because it was something all our devices could handle, but IPX/SPX was still the go-to LAN network protocol at that time, and it worked just fine for all the others.

And no, our network was too important to let the pencil pushers at it. The total separation wasn't as much so we don't contaminate the "official" network, it was also to avoid the official network contaminating us .

(That title only says "I'm full of adult, uncastrated male cattle's excrement" anyway.)

Completed it for you ;)

The news will delight IT administrators charged with supporting them

So it should: "You're an expert now. You fix it."

Having to deal with outsourced support, I would be glad if one in five would be a digital expert