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Problems between chair and keyboard

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Consider a come-on routinely recycled by tech reviewers - 'intuitive interface'. It has of late been applied to Novell's XML language for building Web services, Apple's iLife '04 multimedia suite and Mr Picassohead (a program which allows you to paint like the titan).

To you and me, the phrase means one thing: 'Even I can use it'. Klutzes rejoice because software designers are doing their best to make computers as easy to use as the telephone. Actually, telephones are becoming increasingly feature-ridden and complex, but you take the point. Simplicity is king - just click the icons.

Could it be that one day, in the realm of personal computing at least, no technical support will be required?

I doubt it because, all too often, the problem exists between chair and keyboard - that is the user - a predicament brutally summarised as 'PEBCAK'. On one hand, PEBCAK is bad news for tech support gurus since it immediately invalidates all their hard-won wisdom even when it is coupled with electrifying communication skills. On the other hand, happily, the Web is brimming with tech dunce tales about users so splendidly clueless that they deserve a collective online shrine.

My favourite is the lady who rang a line one night to complain that she had 'just bought this thing' and already it was not working. In the picture on the box, she continued, the screen was 'all nice 'n sharp lookin'', but in reality she couldn't see anything. Her purchase looked more like a bell than a computer. The reason? Her monitor was face-down.

Another unimpressed PEBCAK-afflicted lady complained that she could not turn on her new computer. After ensuring that it was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response: 'I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happened.' The 'foot pedal', it transpired, was the mouse.

Even those rather passe but pretty plastic squares on which some mice roll can trigger episodes. 'I don't see the point in a mouse pad - your mouse moves off it in a few seconds anyway,' a PEBCAK pragmatist is quoted as saying.

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