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| File not found - Please tell me this is a joke... |
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| xrunner:
--- Quote from: Red Squirrel on October 01, 2021, 01:38:25 am ---Reminds me of my dad, he has no clue about directory structures and no matter how much I try to explain it to him he just can't figure it out. The whole concept of "where did the file go" is a mystery to him. --- End quote --- Yep my neighbor is the same. I help him as much as I can with PC issues but there are concepts he hasn't grasped for years as I've kept explaining it over and over. Like when he got a new PC, he wanted to know how we'd get his gmail over to the new PC. He was really worried about it. I said we don't have to move the messages because they are .. well ... look just trust me on this OK? I wasn't about to try to explain it because it would have been to no avail. He grew up in a different time and just can't grasp many things about computers and files. Some of the questions he asks me make me shudder, because I am here to answer them but I think about all the other people who don't have a trusted person to help them. This is how scammers succeed I guess. |
| Red Squirrel:
Lol that reminds me of panicked calls I've had before working help desk. "I accidentally deleted Google!" :-DD |
| sleemanj:
To be fair, particularly with any user generated files (documents, photos, videos, whatever), a directory structure isn't necessarily the best way of doing things if your OS/filesystem can keep an indexed database of all the contents and you could assign tags and search it rapidly using the powerful computers we have at our disposal now. A directory structure offloads the work of searching and categorising to the user, but is necessarily restrictive in terms of classification (unless you get into symlinking a lot). But documents can be usefully classified in many ways. Do you put Joe Blogg's Fishing Licence Application into the Bloggs folder, the Fishing Licence folder, or the Pending Applications folder. Most people only create documents where dumping them all in the same place and just searching for them is a perfectly useful, less work, and more flexible solution in the modern world. |
| rsjsouza:
--- Quote from: sleemanj on October 01, 2021, 02:06:35 am ---To be fair, particularly with any user generated files (documents, photos, videos, whatever), a directory structure isn't necessarily the best way of doing things if your OS/filesystem can keep an indexed database of all the contents and you could assign tags and search it rapidly using the powerful computers we have at our disposal now. --- End quote --- Indeed. The files and programs tend to be found via the "search" button in your device (with the appropriate tracking being sent to the mothership, of course!) --- Quote from: sleemanj on October 01, 2021, 02:06:35 am ---A directory structure offloads the work of searching and categorising to the user, but is necessarily restrictive in terms of classification (unless you get into symlinking a lot). But documents can be usefully classified in many ways. Do you put Joe Blogg's Fishing Licence Application into the Bloggs folder, the Fishing Licence folder, or the Pending Applications folder. --- End quote --- I don't think it is very restrictive, but it surely requires one to think about an organizational system that works for him/her. My mother, for example, absolutely despised computers up to a very late stage in her life (early 60's) but had to cave in so she could get on with her interests. Despite being a user for about ten years now, she still has no concept of the physical location of files and directories on a disk but learned how to move her e-mails (together with the attachments) to different folders in Thunderbird. Although this abstraction works for her while within the Thunderbird application, she has a mental disconnect to remember or understand what happened when an attachment was saved to the disk, regardless of how many times I explained (and yes, I am a very thorough and patient teacher). A younger user has the same disconnect happening. Even the naming convention brings you back to a time where people actually used physical File cabinets and directory reference books to find things. --- Quote from: sleemanj on October 01, 2021, 02:06:35 am ---Most people only create documents where dumping them all in the same place and just searching for them is a perfectly useful, less work, and more flexible solution in the modern world. --- End quote --- And not only that, but documents, photos, etc. tend to be very ephemeral as they usually need to last on a device just enough to be "shared" with another app (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc.) |
| CatalinaWOW:
I find structured directories very useful. My file system is large enough that a search through all of it is not fast. The structure allows me to narrow the range before using search functions. But I also recognize that the organization is idiosyncratic and would not help others. I had this concept forcibly demonstrated to me when I inherited a project contained on a Unix workstation. The originator was no longer accessible without divine help, and he had a complex structure made more obscure by massive use of aliases. There were a huge number of paths through the tree. I never did fully understand his intent, or find everything that would have been useful. |
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