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The Hard Drive Is Inside the Computer
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon May 18, 2009 08:21 AM
from the overdriven-pet-peeves dept.
from the overdriven-pet-peeves dept.
davidmwilliams writes "Those of us who work in technology have a jargon all of our very own. We know the difference between CPUs and GPUs, between SSD and HD, let alone HD and SDTV! Yet, our users are flat out calling everything 'the hard drive.' Why is it so?" As much as I hate to admit it, this particular thing drives me nuts. You don't call the auto shop and tell them that your engine is broken when your radio breaks!
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Modem Box (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Modem Box (Score:5, Informative)
No, no it's not solely digital. It's modulated on much higher frequency analog than voice (hence the microfilter can split them), but it is most certainly not a digital technology.
Be informed before ranting.
Parent
Re:Modem Box (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention ADSL modem, there's no such fucking thing. Modem = Modulator/Demodulator, a simple AD-converter. There's no AD-converting in ADSL. ADSL is solely digital.
Um, almost, but not quite correct. Actually, not even close, but it's a nice day out today. ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line) modems do, in fact, exist. Lots of them. Every single ADSL drop is going to have a modem. Now a modem is indeed a modulator / demodulator, but that's a general-purpose term. And, in DSL signalling, there is, in fact, an analog carrier. The digital signals are being modulated into carrier tones. DSL does not create a baseband digital line sending low and high digital voltages between your computer and the remote processing (DSLAM) -- it sends a modulated signal pushed up out of baseband. It is most definitely analog, and there is most definitely mod/demod activity. So despite modem being something you might think of as being only an old-school term, it really still applies. (Even to cable TV/internet interfaces; those are also very highly analog devices at the front end.)
See, eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_Digital_Subscriber_Line [wikipedia.org] for a decent overview.
But, more to the point here, a mod/demod pair is not a simple A-to-D converter. And there most certainly is a ton of analog-to-digital conversion going on in ADSL, in both directions.
When it comes down to it, the only place there are strictly digital signals are in strictly local communications (with some exceptions like RS-232 and related and derived standards like RS-242, USB, SATA, that can run over longer distances) that exist primarily as point-to-point connections between individual ICs. And even then, when you actually look at what's being signalled on the line, the distinction between digital and analog gets harder and harder to make over the years.
Parent
That will never be as aggravating as memory vs... (Score:5, Informative)
That will never be as aggravating as memory vs. storage. "I need more memory for my program" is more likely to mean "I'm out of disk space" than "I need more RAM". And the error messages specifically say they need more disk space, but they heard once that a computer stores things in its "memory" and they stopped learning right then and there. Just turned off their fucking brains, and went to sleep.
Re:While supporting Mac SE... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you remember those boxes with 8" screens....
The MAC OS would throw up a message that said something to the effect you were running out of memory (we had 2meg installed instead of max 4). I believe the message said please close some applications (Multi-finder).
Anyway, the natural step was for the user to start deleting icons (ie programs) from the desktop.
Then they would reboot. Then they would notice that some documents couldn't be opened and perhaps notice the icon has changed.
The trouble ticket would be "Can't open a document that I could open yesterday".
Why did they remove MS Word? Because they created all their documents with Word Perfect and only used MS Word to read docs from others (so they never clicked on the icon itself).
This happened so often that we had a server with an 'image' of the standard licensed software that we could drag over at moments notice. At the speed of Appletalk. Probably should have just turned off multi-finder... Oh well.
Parent
Re:That will never be as aggravating as memory vs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Try the "computer as kitchen" analogy.
System memory = counter top; where stuff that's being worked on now is
Hard drive = refrigerator and cabinets; stuff you want to keep/use, but aren't using now
CPU = oven
Programs = food processor, blender, etc.
I've found it to work surprisingly well.
Parent
Re:That will never be as aggravating as memory vs. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That will never be as aggravating as memory vs. (Score:5, Informative)
Nice. I usually use the "computer as office" analogy.
Hard drive = filing cabinet, where you store your files.
System memory = Desktop; where you take out files and work (you only have so much desk space before things back up).
CPU = you/others in the office
Programs = tasks you're doing
Its usually simple enough that people can grasp it, and you can usually expand things pretty easily.
"you want to add more RAM? that's like getting a bigger desktop so you can have more projects open on it at once"
"you want a faster CPU? that's like you being able to work faster"
"multiple cores? Okay, imagine it wasn't just you sitting in the office, but there were four people"
Other hardware becomes office equipment (depending on what it is and how its used), but that starts to push the analogy a bit. :)
Parent
Servers... (Score:5, Interesting)
Known terms (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one of the few components they routinely hear about which is usually referred to with words rather than letters and is therefore easier to remember. Since it becomes the only known (though not understood) technical term, a certain class of users will invoke it at every opportunity they get to make themselves sound as if they know what they're talking about and thereby deserve some preferential treatment.
This is not something specific to computing. The same type of people will constantly refer their mechanic to their "carburetor" or their plumber to their "ball cock" ;-)
IT Crowd (Score:5, Funny)
BOSS - What do you know about computers?
- Well, receiving emails, sending emails, clicking, double clicking, the internet... The list goes on...
BOSS - What is that under my table?
- The... hard... drive(?)...
BOSS - Of course! You got the job!
Re:IT Crowd (Score:5, Funny)
BOSS - What do you know about computers?
- Well, receiving emails, sending emails, clicking, double clicking, the internet... The list goes on...
BOSS - What is that under my table?
- Your ... secretary?
BOSS - Now you know what you need to do to get a job around here!
Parent
Re:IT Crowd (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC it was more like
"I could go on" ... double clicking... the mouse... mice ... the thing under the table"
"Clicking
"The hard drive!"
"Correct".
The fun (or not so fun, IMO) part of our profession is that you can BS anyone into believing anything, as long as you stay ahead just an inch. Sadly, this also means that imposters can easily become your boss if they can pull off a better show than you, despite not knowing anything about Komputars.
Parent
Re:IT Crowd (Score:5, Funny)
The fun (or not so fun, IMO) part of our profession is that you can BS anyone into believing anything, as long as you stay ahead just an inch.
I used to work with a guy who, while working help desk, would convince people that it helped to rub their computers. They'd call with some problem, and he'd say, "Uh huh, ok. Have you tried rebooting it yet? Yes. Ok. Have you tried rubbing it?" If they asked why, he had some answer about how the friction would add a little heat to help things work, or else something about discharging static electricity. Really, he just liked the idea of someone rubbing their computer case to try to get it to work.
Parent
Just hard drive? (Score:5, Funny)
For my customers in a very rural, very southern town, it's a toss up between hard drive and: 'There's something wrong with the modem' "You mean you can't dial out?" "What?" "Dial out. You can't dial into your internet provider" "No. We got DSL. There's something wrong with the whole modem" "..."
Be thankful
The Good Old Days (Score:5, Funny)
I used to work at an ISP in the dirty dirty, back in the days when all we had were 8 external modems on a card table.
There was a cable cut that took out our T1 connection, and soon frantic calls from end users were coming in. For whatever reason, people just didn't accept that the "whole internet" could be inaccessible because our connection to it was severed.
We just started telling people that the internet was on fire. And for some reason, they would say "Oh, okay" and hang up.
That doesn't beat the time when a customer told me that the "computer inside his computer" was making funny noises. Looking back though, it sort of makes sense.
Parent
Re:Just hard drive? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if I hear the phrase "now, I am computer illiterate..." one more fucking time....
The best therapy for that one though, is to mentally change illiterate to ignorant.
Trust me, those people are fine. It's the ones who pretend to know what they're talking about, that cause the headaches.
Parent
When you work with it daily..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely understand. If our users had a better grasp of technology, they would be making all the numb skull mistakes. The same mistakes that are ranked Level 1 importance, when in fact every else on my plate is actually more important.
If they used the proper terms, I wouldn't have to carry around a mini shop in a bag.
What I am have a problem with, is when they get offended by you asking them questions that could help me fix it right now, over the phone. Saving them time and, most of the time, money.
Priority (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the issue from the point of view of someone who has no interest in the technical aspects of a computer. They see the entire desktop amalgamation--display, keyboard, mouse, and box of chips--as the computer. Now consider the first time that the computer, as a whole, caused them anxiety or stress: for most people when a document was lost, or when the system failed to boot, or when the system began malfunctioning. That anxiety was not caused, most frequently, by the CPU, or the motherboard, or by the memory, or the monitor, or the mouse. The source of the anxiety was something that happened with the hard drive. In their struggle to appear to know more about the computer they have managed to identify that there is a significant component called the hard drive. It's a default setting. If the word they are looking for is not the entire computer then, by default, it must be the hard drive.
People do know the difference between the radio and the engine of a car because, for many people, the radio is every bit as important as the engine and, should the radio go out, it would cause them just as much anxiety as the engine going out.
Another poster mentioned 'modem box'. Those people, obviously, have had their largest and most stressful experience with the computer when the modem was no longer working properly. Blame that one on AOL.
Re:Priority (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't that they don't know- it's that they just go ahead and use random words that they don't know. If I don't know the problem, or anything related to it- I describe the symptoms, and don't pretend to know more than I do. I certainly don't suggest that the solenoid on the belts is causing a gas leak.
Parent
Linksys (Score:5, Funny)
To call the kettle black... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, sometimes IT professionals refer to people by their component parts too. For example:
"That dick from accounting just fubared the laser printer by feeding regular transparancies into it."
It's our fault... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is actually that the computer field didn't come up with a proper term themselves. I remember way back-in-the-day some computer enthusiasts calling it "the CPU" which is also highly misleading. Nowadays, computer people will call it, "the tower", "the machine", "the box", or something like that. But let's face it--these are actually not very good terms. We don't actually have a precise and universal term that refer to it. The situation was muddled by the fact that there is no standard form-factor for a computer (we went from big servers, to boxes laying down, to boxes standing up like towers, to all-in-ones like iMacs, with all kinds of variations in between...).
Now this isn't a problem for computer people. We know what "power cycle the system" means and we can be precise by saying "press the button on the front of the case". But because amongst ourselves we don't consistently use a precise term, other people just picked-up on whatever term sounded right. We kept referring to "the hard drive" while pointing at (actually inside) the box, so people thought the box was "the hard drive". It's understandable.
The whole situation is funny, but not the end of the world. You just have to keep in mind that when someone uses precise terminology (like "hard drive" or "operating system" or "internet") they could very well be using it wrong.
Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
But outside of nerddom, computers are all software. People make the distinction between the motor and the radio because they interact with the stereo and the motor separately. And really, most people would identify the alternator, water pump, and headders as "motor". Most people have never opened the case to their pc and only know it as the thing they have to turn on to get at the internet.
I think it's mostly an issue of people having been trained for years that the relevant part is the hard drive and that everything else is just nerd jargon for the crap that supports the drive.
Frankly, they're right.
Everything lives on the hard drive, and when some part fucks up, it's their data that gets screwed up and the software that they interact with that tells them or quits working. The particular component that failed is pretty much irrelevant. The data on the drive is inaccessible or corrupt.
In a similar but related argument that pops up once in a while... nerds talk about hardening the Linux OS and say things like "the only thing rogue software could destroy is user data, the OS proper remains unharmed". Neglecting the fact that the whole fucking purpose is the data.
Users call it the hard drive because that's the only part that actually matters.
Sure, but which web browser do you use? (Score:5, Funny)
So, I asked the group around the conference table, "Just so we know how to approach some of this, which web browser do you folks use here in the office?" The public relations director raised her hand and said, "Oh, that's me!"
She was the Official Web Browser in the office, and was the one to talk to about all such matters. What do you say at that point? So I said, "Excellent... it's helpful to have a designated contact point on the
The process is called "metonymy". (Score:5, Informative)
At least that is the name that rhetoricians use for it: referring to a thing by something associated with it.
When we call soldiers "boots on the ground" that is metonymy. A special case is synecdoche, using the part for the whole ("blade" for "sword").
In any case, its wired into human language and thought. If you look in a dictionary, you'll find words with three or more definitions. Usually there is a process of metonymy going on. "Justice" entered the English language meaning something to mete punishment or reward according to the right of the recipient. It has come to mean a lot of other things: fairness, righteousness, the law, a judge or other legal official, etc.
not everyone is a computer expert (Score:5, Funny)
I don't fault people for not knowing what the blinky bits are. What I fault is when they ask for advice and then don't fucking listen.
I shit you not, I actually had this conversation --
"Why did you buy Vista? We had this discussion last week and I told you you didn't need it, your computer couldn't run it, and you aren't missing anything."
"But I thought I needed Vista to be legal on my computer."
"No, for the fuck of Christ, no. Just make sure you don't open the box and you should be able to return it."
The next day.
"My little one opened the Vista and tried installing it. Now I don't have my stuff where I had my stuff."
"You never made backups of anything, did you?"
"No. The computer is as far back on the desk as it can go. How much further should I push it?"
As a CFO once told me (Score:5, Insightful)
A CFO at a local community bank once told me (I was the manager of network services for the bank):
"I don't want to know how the watch works, I just want to know what time it is."
That put my job into perspective.
-ted
It is not just computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Not long before he died, my grandfather and I were able to bond over this.
Now, he did not know the first damn thing about computers. Given that he spent most of the first two decades of his life without electricity, I really could not blame him. However, he was a furniture salesman from the 50s through the 70s. I was relating to him some of the frustration of front line tech support, and he told me about some of the things he dealt with back then. Like people calling in because they bought ironing boards, and the ironing board was not ironing their clothes. Or those newfangled microwaves. People would buy them, put the food in, and not understand why the food was not cooking even though they had not turned any dials or pressed any buttons. We shared quite a few laughs over people misunderstanding technologies that are so elementary today a child can use them.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
People that use the equipment every day should show a level of professionalism that suggests they at least care enough about their jobs to learn the proper name for the equipment. If a truck driver wasn't able to use the correct name for the parts in their rig, whilst asking the mechanic for help, wouldn't the mechanic have the right to judge their ignorance with concern?
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone knew what was going on the need for technicians would vanish. It's time to get over it and be professional and do your job which is helping people do their jobs by supporting their technology.
Used to work in the far North as a network programmer for remote, fly-in tribes. When a chief calls the monitor in his broken English a t.v., is he really wrong?
In cree the word for monitor I have found is teevee. The word for computer is hard drive. Who am I to say they are wrong? I just have to make it's still working for them when I am 500 miles away back home.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone knew what was going on the need for technicians would vanish. It's time to get over it and be professional and do your job which is helping people do their jobs by supporting their technology.
I know what you mean, and I don't think anyone sees it as a major problem, but the reason that it annoys me is that (in my experience) the customers who do things like calling the computer a hard drive are the ones who are under the deluded impression that they know what they're talking about. I have no issue with a pleasant customer who puts a computer on my desk and says "Err, it's not working."; as you said, it's my job to know how to diagnose and fix the computer, not theirs. I find it irritating when someone with the same level of knowledge tells me "My hard drive is broken, does it need more RAM?" or some equally nonsensical statement. If you don't know what you're talking about there's no harm in admitting it, you look a lot worse stringing together random 'tech' words in the hope that you sound smart.
In cree the word for monitor I have found is teevee. The word for computer is hard drive. Who am I to say they are wrong? I just have to make it's still working for them when I am 500 miles away back home.
Separate issue, in my opinion. In the context of the article we're communicating in fluent English. In English, hard drive and computer are not synonyms.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well how about this. You, as an IT knowing guy, tell your friend, the retard, that his hard drive is broken. Instead of buying a new hard drive, he buys a new PC, on your recommendation. Language is language and it's important that we are all synced.
Well, if you tell him the hard drive is broken, and he buys a new computer, then logically he _had_ to buy a new computer because that person would have never, ever been able to buy a new hard drive and to get his old computer with the new hard drive to work. The guy's only choices were to buy a new computer or to pay someone to fix it.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
What are friends for?
Seriously, if I tell my friend to buy a new hard drive, I expect him to buy a hard drive. If he needs my help connecting it or installing the OS, sure, I can do that, but I like to avoid buying things for other people (because if I take exactly the amount of money I paid for the drive, I will lose some money that I paid for the gas (but I don't know the exact amount), if I take more money then I should better know exactly how much I paid for the gas, so that I don't take too much). Luckily all my friends know how a hard drive looks like. On the other hand, if he didn't know how a particular component looks like, but I have the old one, I can always give it to him and say "go to the store and buy one of this".
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
You fuckers, always working for cheap!
Looking at someone's computer is a 6-pack of _good_ beer for me. Fixing it is negotiable, but usually involves a couple of nights with their wife!
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Dinner? Talk about inflation...
Friend-Geek service used to only cost you a beer!
Inflation!
Have you seen the economy? It's driven me to drink, so due the my increasing tolerances, the price of "friendly" tech work has risen to bringing me a nice bottle of Vodka (though if she is cute, I might accept head).
I will share the vodka though.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
You get bonus points if you know his interests well enough to formulate a good analogy, such as "a part inside your computer needs to be replaced or fixed, kind of like if your Mustang won't start because it needs a new distributor cap."
Communication is 90% knowing your audience.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
If you know that, in your friend's jargon, "hard drive" and "CPU" are both terms used to refer to the entire computer other than external peripherals, you should tell him "a part inside your computer is broken but it can be fixed or even replaced without you having to buy a new computer."
That's why our shop has developed the crazy idea of "informing our clients". We drag 'em to the back, 'n' SHOW 'em their hard drive. We then show them an open hard drive, and even our older clients get the "record player" analogy once they've seen the guts. We've found that the clients walk away more informed, and happier that we actually took a few minutes to describe the problem. Otherwise, all they hear is "the framjabulator snonked on the whooziwhats, so pay us money to make your computer work again..." and just look at the dollar signs. On the extreme cases, we plunk their rears down for the install itself.
Informed clients are generally happy ones.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
"In short, it's an unreliable mechanical device which will crack and take water in or just wear out or foul up at the worst possible time."
I know what a mustang is, I was asking about the distributor cap.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Offer him $20. for the computer as scrap knowing that you can easily fix it and sell it. Then sell him one you just happen to have on the shelf for 30 times what you paid for it. This is America!
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this friend knows so little about computers that they're going to end up asking the Geek Squad [geeksquad.com], or a similar outfit, to do it for them. They're going to need their hard drive swapped out ($100 for the part, $50 for the labor), data mirrored ($160), they'll probably get convinced they need their operating system reinstalled ($130), primary office suite reinstalled ($50), and antivirus software ($30). Of course, all these numbers are presuming they still hold the disks and license keys the various software started with. At a cost of $520 for a machine that's probably at least 2 years old, they might notice in the store that they could just get a brand new system [bestbuy.com] for less than that.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
What's wrong about getting a load of spare parts when you offer him to get rid of his broken hard drive for free?
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't understand. I was using my computer and The Windows broke."
"The Windows keeps restarting every time I turn it on."
"I think I have a virus, The Windows is running slower."
"I think there is something wrong with The WIndows. It keeps beeping and the TV won't turn on."
Works for me.
Parent
Re:Talk about jargon (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't twig just what she meant at the time.
Trying to use a cutting-edge word definition which only a select few know makes you look, and sound, elitist as well as trying too hard (which also applies to this common sense blurb called an article).
You, sir, are an arse. Someone using decades-old British colloquialisms does not warrant such a ridiculous diatribe.
Parent
Re:cutting-edge word definition? (Score:5, Insightful)
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