How Computer Savvy Are You?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

the scale is wrong, it should be from 1-1000 to offer enough differentiation for Poly accuracy standards

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
Is this a test on knowledge or aptitude?

Savviness.

However you define it.

It's fine not to know everything, but to be able to figure it our or discover it in short order is what's key.

To "know where it's written" is the same as "knowlegde" IMO. Nobody in his right mind would expect that you are able to remember everything. This includes the cases where you didn't know it in the first place, but are able to gain that knowledge in short order, because you have a basic understanding of the matter in question and, well, know where it's written.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Omni Rex Draconis
As someone who has to evaluate the computer savvy of dozens of strangers every workday, I thought I would post my scale and how I determine ranking.

If you are lazy, you can try reading my sample questions until you get one you cannot answer. That is your skill level.

RANK MY COMPUTER SAVVY!
4. What does this error message mean?

The average computer user. Can do all the things they want to on the computer, and most of the things that they should be doing. But when the little box only has gibberish like 0x800CCC0F, they are done.


5. What kind of memory is in my computer?

Knowing that the kind of memory in your computer is of critical importance when upgrading is the mark that puts you above the level 4's. That you have no clue how to find out that information or what it means, denies you access to level 6.


6. The internet is down and the ISP says everything is ok on their end - its the computer. What do I do?

A competent technical support agent. Has the ability to define most computer problems experienced by the average PC user, design tests to establish the specific cause, and then apply a solution.

Either these are confusing, or it doesnt really sequence that way, or Im just confused, or all three.

On the one hand, I certainly know that the kind of memory is important to upgrading, esp as I actually HAVE upgraded memory on my kids laptop, and HAD to check out what kind it was, and had no particular trouble finding out what kind it was. Id say that at least puts me at 6 on your scale, or maybe 6.1, cause I can occassionally get lucky and manage to diagnose and solve a PC problem myself. But I still dont know what most of the gobbledygook error messages mean.

[Cort Haus]

You don't NEED to know what kind of bleeding memory your machine uses until you decide to go out and get an upgrade - then you just look it up.

Someone can be, for example, a brilliant and highly experienced data analyst, making tons of money for the company they work for and be far more valuable than an 18 year old kid who's up on the latest hardware buzzwords and can easily be replaced by another cheap 18 year old. The analyst doesn't need to know what memory his PC uses because he only needs that knowledge a couple of times in the lifetime of the PC's existance. If it's his work machine he gets the kid to do it for him while he gets on with the serious business of using his knowledge to do his job. Division of labour. No-one needs to know everything.

I can't believe how someone's arbitrary and meaningless scale can be taken seriously here. Really.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
It has upsides? I'd be interested to hear what that would be in today's circumstances.

I've been fond of Linux throughout the 90's, and during this time, Linux did have upsides without any doubt. It was lean and functional, could be made secure with little effort (if you read and understand the ****ing manual, that is) and it did have the charm of the new. At the same time Windows was the clumsy and insecure dinosaur, bloated with fluff that nobody needs.

Today Linux has nearly completely caught up. The modern distributions are clumsy and bloated resource-hogs just as Windows is, however without being as pretty and as functional. It is still reasonably secure, true, but so is Windows if it is handled competent. If not handled competent, both OSes are insecure - no upsides for Linux here.

Under today's considerations I would never think to use Linux. Give me XP or Vista on the desktop any day (the latter not for gaming, though). For a lean and functional server there's always one of the BSDs and does its work better than Linux ever could.

Sorry, but Linux is pretty much out. It's sooo 90's that it's not even funny. Some people love to live in the past, though...

That sounds fairly off to me. My opinion is almost exactly the opposite, I think Linux has made great progress lately and has, a desktop OS, caught up with Windows in most aspects and surpassed it in some. It's had time - XP is 6 years old and Vista adds minimum user functionality as far as I'm concerned.

Remember Linux in 2000? You had to compile most software from source, you'd often run into dependency problem with rpm/deb packages and there was a minimum amount of GUI tools available for configuration. For all of its upsides then, Linux was damn hard to use for non-geeks. It quite can be used now, I've moved a few very average users to Linux myself - no problems there, of course I did the initial setup.

Recently I've been using Linux without worrying about any of its system problems. The latest version of Ubuntu actually doesn't need me to install a single driver now that they have proprietary nVidia modules. It also performs better than XP for me, though that wouldn't be the case on any PC.

I'm surprised at some of the simple things Linux lacks usability-wise, though. On both biggest desktop environments (KDE and Gnome) it's still impossible to use drag-and-drop to move entries into or within the application menus. That's something Win95 added in a service pack - the feature has been there for over 10 years. There are a few outright silly problems like that. But overall, seriously, I do prefer Linux in its current state.

[Asher]

That sounds fairly off to me. My opinion is almost exactly the opposite, I think Linux has made great progress lately and has, a desktop OS, caught up with Windows in most aspects and surpassed it in some. It's had time - XP is 6 years old and Vista adds minimum user functionality as far as I'm concerned.

Start a thread in the tech forum and I'll be happy to tear this argument apart.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by jkp1187


I give myself a 3.1415

3.1416

Or use extra digits (3.14159...)

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by snoopy369


3.1416

Or use extra digits (3.14159...)

Noooo! You beat me!

[Solver]

Originally posted by Asher
Start a thread in the tech forum and I'll be happy to tear this argument apart.

Not you. Linux hardware support is still poor, Vista is a good upgrade over XP and using Linux on a production desktop is a sign of masochism - I know your opinion already

[Asher]

I'm referring to your UI arguments in particular.

[Solver]

You don't agree that Linux UIs have matured a lot since 2000 or so? Particularly as far as configuration frontends go?

[Asher]

I agree that they've matured since 2000, I don't agree that they're better than the UIs for Windows in any sense. It doesn't matter if they mature and are still ugly inconsistent messes.

[Solver]

It's a question of taste and preferences. There are nifty features that I like. For example, being able to move taskbar buttons and the pretty wide usage of the mousewheel. And yes, there are parts where the Linux UIs suck - as I said in that post, they're for some reason missing a piece of basic functionality that Windows has had for 10+ years.

[VetLegion]

Do Linux GUIs offer full copy/paste functionality yet? Last I tried, they didn't. Clipboard was something of a mysterious concept. I hope they fixed that, I'm planning on installing Ubuntu soon to see what that is all about.

[Solver]

Works as expected for me.