yeah I do get the point....... to me someone that is so upset because they have to acutally perform the strenuous task of unchecking a box and getting hysterical about it is beyond me....

like i said before.....its a waste of boiled rage.......whats next on this persons agenda? crying about how no one makes toast soldiers for him/her anymore to dip in their soft boiled runny egg?.......please, give me strength...........


uncheck it and moove on....i do , i got no grief.

oh and by the way dr, me and John said exactly the same thing, just differently worded.. grasshopper?

you bloody kiss ass.....

I get kittymalone's and vStyler's point.   

I do have to admit the title of the original post starts off RANT:.   

Yea. Some dont read that.

The thing is....after about 700 or more...how in the hell do they even get anything else installed? I mean seriously....it must take at least a day or 2.

Here's another one of similar nature. Apps that, by default have an automatic update feature turned on. Java in particular is a classic example. Do you have any idea how fickle apps that use java can be? Quite a few software companies tend to be way behind on the latest and greatest version of java, and will cease to function properly is java is updated. Yes, it's easy to turn off the auto update function, but when you have rolled out jave to about 700 pc's in an organization it can be hell to disable this. Back on your examples, Google toolbar. I've found a way to block it on a network by just creating a google folder under program files and denying permission to everyone but domain admins. I've seen the dam thing work around that and install in the users documents and settings folder. I just feel violated.

That's a big peeve for me too as we have issues with this sort of stuff at work on a network that is NOT connected to the internet.  I get dinged by the network engineers for not keeping away unnecessary network traffic -- such as these stupid automatic update attempts, as noted, for things like Java, Acrobat reader, and other things.  While I am happy to have the auto-updates enabled and working on the systems that are connected to the internet and can get 'em with no problems, I'm not happy about the disconnected systems that are wasting bandwidth on their isolated network trying to get to motherships that they can't connect to at all.

The bad thing is some of these apps are nearly impossible to find the options to disable the auto-update features in.  If it's an option that I can answer during the installation that's fine, but to hide it and make it difficult to change later is just ignorant.

Finally, there's also stupid applications that automatically enable 'user experience/feedback' options that will gather up information to send back when the apps encounter difficulty, or just to tell the developers how the apps are regularly used, whatever.  Sorry, but I don't need those running either and from my point of view, the developers don't really need that information either -- most likely that information is going back to marketing types that review the data and offer stupid suggestions back to the developers on what customers seem to be asking for.  If they really want to know that information and get accurate answers, they should try asking customers for their opinions directly.

I miss my Grandma!!!   

........are you serious?.....why dont you just click no, install the program and move on with your life?...what a waste of boiled rage...........

Because I'm the systems admin for many systems, not just my own, and because the users that use those systems many times have absolutely no clue what they should accept and install and what they shouldn't.

They've been told time and again that they have to keep their systems updated, and we (myself and my co-workers) do our best to configure the systems so that the systems will automatically update.  But then we have tools and applications like Sun's Java, or Apple's Quicktime which now seems to insist that iTunes needs to be on the system too, and a host of other tools and apps that work the same.

In the case of Java, an update comes out, a small icon shows in the notification area, and if I'm very lucky the users will actually pay heed to the notice that says "AN IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR JAVA IS AVAILABLE.  IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU UPDATE IMMEDIATELY.  Click here to do that now" (or similar notice).  Some do, some don't.  But, the ones that do click through the setup for the update and don't KNOW to click NO.  They see it saying 'Google toolbar' and figure hey I like Google, that should be ok.  Or 'Yahoo! toolbar', or 'Windows Live Toolbar' etc.  They go on and install the update, miss the NO option that should have been checked and *bang* one more toolbar/browser helper object/plug-in/applet installed on their system robbing CPU cycles. 

Repeat that process through updates to Adobe Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Quicktime, iTunes, etc., and eventually you sit down at a computer that has 3 toolbars running on it competing to see which one blocks the pops-up for a site that the user has to go to for training or to enter their timesheet data, etc.  Then the user contacts the support staff, has us spend half the day removing toolbars and other crap that by-passed the toolbars, firewalls, and anti-virus applications and is also making the system 'run slow' (their words, not mine.  Mine are much worse and begin with F-ed up by the user....)

So while this should be something that doesn't need to be RANTED about, it is because the developers and producers of the installation packages for this software and their partners have conspired to release the crap in a way that makes people OPT OUT rather than making them opt-in.  If the default was opt out, I'd be happy.  As is, things are a mess and are well worth complaining about a bit in the hopes that somewhere there's some people at Sun, Microsoft, Google, etc., that are reading the words and considering the problems they are causing in the IT world.

like i said before.....its a waste of boiled rage.......whats next on this persons agenda? crying about how no one makes toast soldiers for him/her anymore to dip in their soft boiled runny egg?.......please, give me strength...........

No, it's RANTING about people that don't read the titles of threads and skip the ones that are clearly labelled RANTS.  {raspberry!}

I could offer similarly worthless feedback to you that you should simply skip articles that are rants... it's not like it's that tough to do right?  It's not like you didn't have to OPT-IN to the discussion here, right?  No one forced you to accept this article as a requirement of getting another article or product from any JU affiliated site, no?  Oooops, irony is beautiful isn't it?? 

Philly0381 said:

I get kittymalone's and vStyler's point. I do have to admit the title of the original post starts off RANT:.

I get their points too, and understand them though vStyler was perhaps a little nicer in making theirs, but...

there's no rant at all if this stuff is done in a way that makes people opt-in rather than opt-out.  Clicking No seems so easy, until you read my comments above pointing out that I don't have the option, or the control in many cases, to keep the Yes click from being effected on the systems I'm working with.  I could educate the users until I'm very, very, very blue in the face and it wouldn't help.  They'll still screw up just as they screw up by opening messages that are, to an average 5th grader, obvious attempts at using social engineering to get the user to allow a virus to be installed on their systems.  You can educate over and over again, but users get e-mails from someone in their address book that says 'Congratulations.  Thanks for the hard work' and miss the fact that there is an attachment with the message.  They miss the fact that the message came from someone that wouldn't recognize them if they bumped into them in their office.  They see that it came from someone supposedly important and *bam* open it and then realize that they just got a virus on their system.  From there, my day goes down hill quickly.

I've seen company VP's (previous job) fall for this stuff, I've seen brilliant engineers fall for this stuff, and I've seen enough people that seem to be computer illiterate keep me gainfully employed repairing their self-inflicted wounds.  Not that I don't like my job, and not that I expect it to be brain dead easy, but I would like it if my job was as easy as the hackers seem to be (or at least I'd like it if achieving results were as easy for me as it seems to be for the virus writers, spy-ware writers, etc.)

vStyler said:

Have the serenity to not stress so much on something you have no control over and know everyone else deals with it too. Uncheck the boxes and move on.

Didn't want to pass this comment up without again saying I understand the sentiment and yeah, I know everyone deals with it, but we shouldn't have to, and oh, yeah, we don't always get the chance to just uncheck the box and move on.  I wish it was that easy, but perhaps you (vStyler) and kittymalone would love to come around my office and spend a few weeks removing this sort of stuff and then rinse and repeat and start all over again at the end of the month that it would take to deal with the first time.  By the end of the month I can about guarantee that some of the systems you just fixed are going to need toolbars removed again as the users have gone back and added stuff back in.

You (or others) may ask why the users have the rights to install applications and toolbars and such and though that is a valid question, the answer lies in the fact that the users are engineers, advanced users, and people that run a host of open source software and other applications that are frequently updated.  They communicate with many outside areas (customers and collaborators) and get applications that are used for their work that come with requirements to have Java, or Acrobat Reader, or QuickTime on their system so that they can see some embedded content, read some manuals, etc.   If we restrict the application installation priviledges too much, we spend all of our time installing applications that are needed for the users to do their jobs and we get screamed at by their bosses for not making the user's lives easier.

Happy balance is there somewhere, and for now the balance has been to let users install applications as they need to, with us cleaning up behind them over time.

From well up above there are group policies that are going into effect that will prevent some of these toolbars and applications from being installed.  I appreciate the efforts that the people doing that work are putting in, but I shudder to think of how much money is being spent on those efforts, especially when I know that the money is coming from somewhere many people don't like to think about.  (i.e., tax-payers).  Even if it's not tax-payers, it's still coming from corporate IT management efforts in many places, adding to the costs that those corporations have, which get added back into the costs consumers pay for the stuff that the coporations sell.

I'd pull some numbers outta my butt on the amount of time wasted on this sort of stuff, but I don't much care for bogus statistics and unprovable facts, so I won't.  Suffice it to say that whatever the amount is, it's too much and needn't be that way if more people actually took the time to COMPLAIN until changes were made on everyone's behalf.

I remember Catz game that installed AOL setup and shortcuts to install on desktop when user uses OPT-OUT choice on installing AOL itself.

You will never see me making that crapware.

Well, your arguements are well founded and I wont disagree however until you can singlehandedly change the implementation of these toolbars by the corporate bastards that push them on us than I would suggest better training in this area for those employees that keep installing toolbars with a section on how to clean up after yourself if you do screw up. Perhaps.. a fine?   I can promise ya they will be more vigilant next time. Also.. I mean come on.. only so many installers include toolbars.. surely the software needed by the employees should already be on their machines for the most part.. how many apps are they having to install on their own ?  

A script that autoblocks installation of any kind of third party toolbar extension might be a wise idea....and a moneymaker   

Isn't this the kind of stuff that keeps you working terpfan?? If it was easy, you could be out of work.

It's part of your job...you deal with it, and you move on to the next problem.

Realize what's out there and what and who you are working for and take care of it. It's all part of being an adult and doing the job you were hired for.

Just because you may know what you are doing doesn't mean everybody else does...

Sounds like you need a job change.....either that or suffer from ulcers...........

Sounds like you need a job change.....either that or suffer from ulcers...........

I don't get ulcers, I give 'em

terpfan, I feel your pain. You just can't educate some people to uncheck that damn button.
By policy all our end users are supposed to be in the users group, but then developers write apps that won't functions unless the user has administrator privileges.
Adobe fucking sucks with their almost daily updates to their bloated reader. Is that 20MB download the update or the crap toolbar? I've started installing Foxit reader on all new builds. Extremely fast, small an NO TOOLBARS. WWW Link
Add proprietary software that breaks with every other MS or Java update, oblivious users with admin rights, and malware that takes advantage of unpatched systems and you get a little frustrated.

Why not? If penalties are imposed I'd venture people might learn quicker than u think.   

vstyler,

You would think.

However, when you work with end users who can't figure out the difference between a local and a domain logon after several years, well, I'd think unchecking toolbars would be a tall order.

Amen to that. Try to explain that one and you just get back a blank stare of total non-comprehension.

The end users who don't pay attention is aggravating, but I still hold Adobe/Google/Yahoo/Java mostly responsible for forcing users to opt out of an add-on when they know full well that the average person is just trying to get their update and get back to work.

Terpfan,surely then,this is not a software box checking/unchecking problem.I mean even my 10 year old nephew knows how to check/uncheck boxes to stop things installing which he doesn't want or isn't supposed to install.
Sounds more like a staff problem to me.If they don't know what is wrong or right after being told time after time as you say you have done,then maybe they should be pursuing different careers,maybe counting traffic or sheep herding;anything where they don't have to make a choice as to which box to check/uncheck.Jeez they sound thick.    
I feel your frustration though.  

It's not that simple, bobby.

While I'm finishing up school, I provide support for the college instructors. In my "day job" I provide tech support for an ISP. In both jobs, the level of expertise of my end users varies greatly.

A Sociology instructor shouldn't abandon his career simply because he's not sophisticated enough to use a computer (although I DO wish we could come up with a simpler way of delivering his email!) and an 80 some odd year old grandmother shouldn't have to dump her computer because she can't figure out how to use it. In both of those cases, the end users are not even CLOSE to being sophisticated enough to uncheck the boxes...which is why it would be better if they were unchecked by default.

In other words, the problem isn't with the techs who HAVE the expertise. It's with the fact we have to SUPPORT those who DON'T.

Hi Gideon,hope Monday finds you well.  
I understand what you mean about the varying degrees of peoples expertise,but what has gone so wrong in the workplace that some people(including Sociology instructors ) just can't seem to follow instructions anymore,either from yourself (in your capacity as tech.support) or from the on-screen instructions provided by the software manufacturers in question.
It's all about taking responsibility if you ask me,but then that does seem to be a problem with society in general these days.
Can't you have one of them shot as an example to the others?     



Obviously joking about the shooting bit,but maybe a swift beating instead?    

When your Refridgerator breaks, those users are who you call to get it fixed. They don't show up at your house calling you inadequate because you can't fix your own appliances.

sheesh, You probably call AAA to come and change your tire when it blows.

It's your job. It is what you are trained for. If you were trained well then you know this will never stop and you cannot do anything about it. Do it. Shutup, or move on. The stress attahced to the rage is not worth the effort. Only you will suffer.

Oh dear....please do not confuse the 'ability to use a computer' with 'sophistication'.

Your 'Sociology instructor' can actually teach you a hell of a lot more about the actual world you are entering than any number of beige boxes of bits and bytes.

They [computers] are an utter piece of inert junk and plastic were it not for the odd 5/12 volt spark.

However...

Your elder, armed with education AND experience will be of more use....if only there are TWO brains involved in the education process.....

It is NOT my job to support every single piece of software ever made over the phone, sorry. As for the network support, well, if I routinely flush dishrags, you can bet I WILL be hearing from my plumber.

If IT meant standing over the shoulder of every end user on the network, 1) there would be no networks; 2) the cost would be prohibitive.



OK, "tech savvy" would be a better phrase.

At any rate, you reinforce my point. He's quite an intelligent Sociology teacher. VERY good in his field.

His field, however, is NOT computers. AND my point is, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It's not my concern personally if they install a gazillion toolbars. As was pointed out, troubleshooting's what I get paid for. What I was refuting was the assertion that a computer user should know enough to uncheck the boxes. There are literally millions of computer users who do not.