Re: Forged mail addresses

On Nov 2, 11:19 am, Phil <Phil....@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 10:06:24 -0400, sanjian wrote:

I'm not sure if you're thinking the IT guys can snap their fingers
and make stubborn software work with Vista.

We can. We just won't. *smirk* There are lots of ways to get
incompatible software working with Vista, but none of them are
terribly elegant. (Virtual Machines, Emulators, etc.)

Which comes down to the same issue as with Phil's suggestion (except that
you're not actually suggesting it as a good idea). Not everyone in

I love to upgrade my personal stuff. If an individual user is willing
to take the risk, and isn't working on business critical work, then
I'm all for it. Please, please, upgrade, fight with the system, find
the bugs, crash the hell out of it, and report back to me with what
works and what doesn't.

OTOH I **HATE** to upgrade the organization. Productivity is reduced
in the short term. My workload shoots through the roof. Work doesn't
get done.

engineering is a compsci major.

And not every comp-sci major is qualified to support users.

As a civil engineer or a mining engineer
(yes, we have that major), I REALLY don't want to have to reach backwards
through my sphincter to use my software. I'm concerned about sheering
forces, compressive loads, and moments of inertia, not emulators and virtual
machines. A virtual excavator can't dig a hole for me.

Your virtual excavator is obviously not TONKA TOUGH! :-)

http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/early/3/tonkacon/merge.shtml

It seems as if you're arguing my position. I maintain the student should
not have to worry about technical configurations and that the IT
underpinnings should be transparent to the user.

Correct!

The IT support staff, in
contrast, seems to be saying that if your setup is outside their comfort
zone you're in trouble.

You ARE in trouble if you do that! If you step past our "comfort
zone", then it becomes incredibly difficult to support you.

The correct "comfort zone" for a properly run IT department is one
where it's possible to support as many users as possible, and keep
them working as efficiently as possible. If you step past that
comfort zone in order to achieve more features and more efficient
work, then it's time for the department to adjust their comfort zone.
But if your stepping past that has a negative effect on work, then
we'll squash you like a bug then send the remains back to the salt
mines with the old version intact.

IMHO, in a non-IT shop, IT shouldn't be the ones driving the
upgrades. User needs for features, and vendor compatibility should be
the driving forces. I should never be the one telling the engineers
that its time for the new version of AutoCAD unless the version we're
using is making things more difficult for other users and
applications. OTOH, planning should be taking place. When that
engineer comes to me and says, "I have a legitimate need for the new
version of AutoCAD" my reply should really be "We've looked into
that. This is how it's done, this is what it will cost us, this is
how it affects everything else, now let me know when you're ready to
pay the price and we'll do it."

I won't argue that lots of IT departments tend to react badly to
iconoclasts who threaten their favorite platforms. And I'm inclined
to agree with the idea that in as much as its possible, the experience
should be simple and transparent to the user.

But in general, doing upgrades tends to do the exact opposite of
this. Changing the OS is almost always a somewhat traumatic
experience for a non-technical user. More so for the applications.
(I mean look at the shift in interface from Office 2K3 to 2K7!)

Like everything else it's a delicate balance, with tradeoffs. The
longer you wait to change major systems, the more you miss out on, and
the more difficult it becomes to get vendor support. But upgrades
ALWAYS have at the minimum a large short-term negative effect on user
productivity. What we try to do is make sure that when we take the
pain, that it's worth the trouble.

All that said, I'd be lying if I said that this is how we always make
decisions. I've met plenty of organizations where IT is a fossilized
department, having stuck with outdated applications for far too long,
and finding out all of a sudden that the pain involved in moving is
insurmountable. And in a university environment where academic
politics can quash even the best of plans, this might even be more
likely. I can't speak to VT's specific situation, but the email-to-
usenet gateway doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. :-)

.

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