The Qwertyrash Blogs

I wrote a reply to a piece on David Alison’s blog that I’d like to share the gist of. David was discussing how some people are resistant to technology.

This reminds me of 20 years ago when I was working for the police and we introduced computers to police stations. We made it optional to use them. So all the younger cops leapt onto them, but all the oldies stuck to safety of their typewriters.

In no time at all though, the oldies were using the computers too. Why? Because they saw how much easier it was to redo reports (that nearly always needed changes). A quick edit, and press the print button. Unlike the typewriter where the whole report had to be retyped.

This story tells you three things:

1) People resistant to technology will only change when they can clearly see a value to them.

2) That change is most likely when it’s their peers who demonstrate the advantage.

3) And not so obviously, there’s safety in having someone local - especially peers -to hold your hand. (In my story, the young police in the stations.)

So if you are trying to get a person or people onto a new technology, let their peers do the evangelizing.

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Just repeating what I wrote on The Google Cache about Adobe Flash and using it to make websites:
I used to hate Flash-based websites. Hmmm? Actually, I still do. I’d never seen a Flash-based site that made me want to make one. Instead, they all turned me off Flash. They all seem to be about showing […]

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A bit of a learning experience today.
As graphic design students, we submitted designs for a logo for a local organization. However, they didn’t really know what they were looking for, so needed us to lead, which we didn’t. So a fairly broad and open brief.
They’ve narrowed it down to three, but again, not knowing what […]

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You know, part of me still hesitates to recommend a Mac simply because so many websites are still developed by narrow-minded MS-bots who make their sites IE only.
It seems to be a problem more for Apple’s Safari than Firefox, so at least we can use FF to get around a few more. But there’s still […]

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Grand Theft Auto 4 (or GTA IV if you like) has barely had a chance to burn rubber across the game store shelves and the hottest search item on Google is for cheats! Give it a rest! Go play the game first. Man!
The New York Times said, “Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, […]

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Here’s another one I looked at and didn’t see the value of. But again, so wrong.
It’s quick add is sensational, it’s calendar sharing a breeze, it’s daily agenda emailled to you super helpful, but best of all is it SMSes you all your appointments beforehand.
Just fantastic!

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After much resistance, finally upgraded my Mac’s RAM from 1GB to 3GB. The difference is amazing.
I needed it because I run Windows (in Parallels), Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Safari and Firefox all at the same time. Plus a few others like Mail and Pastor. Not surprisingly that was killing my machine.
Now it flies! Well, it’s not […]

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Have finally seen the light and started using del.icio.us (although I hate the spelling). I kick myself for not using it years ago. So often I’ve visted pages and then nebver been able to find them again.
I’m using it now though because I want to access my bookmarks at home and school.
However, visually, it’s rather […]

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Valleywag’s Rumormonger has rumored MacBook Air could have AT&T wireless access built-in. Not an original idea with respondents on that column have pointing out Windows PCs have had that facility for a few years.
But what if Apple cut a deal with AT&T so iPhone users could share their data component of their iPhone plans with […]

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Like many others, I discovered web sharing not working in Leopard. It seems to be caused by using a Time Machine restored version of your system. That was my problem, and here’s a fix found on the Apple support forums that worked for me.

Maybe this will help you. The apache2 log file directory […]

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