On the drive into work today I thought I hurt my car. I have a 2003 Nissan Altima SE, V6 245 Horsepower with a 5-Speed Manual transmission. I love the manual transmission because it makes the car feel sporty. However, sometimes I day dream while I'm driving and it gets me into trouble. I like to blaze up the on ramp and hit my peak horsepower through 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear before settling down to my cruising altitude for the hour commute to the office. Sometimes I get forgetful, maybe wishful, and try to shift into 6th gear (I know, I'm an idiot). So, I'm doing 85 MPH (135 KPH), and all of a sudden I'm in 4th gear and my tachometer says "good one dummy". After I hear the engine WHINE and I correct my mistake I curse myself and immidiatly check my dashboard gauges.
I know absouletely nothing about cars (except simple things like changing a tire, tire pressure, changing oil...). I rely on three little lights and a few guages to tell me when it's time to go to the mechanic. The ominious "Check Engine" light, the oil pressure, temperature gauge, and tachometer. In addition to that, I rely on how the car feels. Does it sound funny? Is it pulling left/right? Sluggish off the line? Does it smell weird? This is all the information I as a car-stupid person have to go on. If the car feels off or one of the lights come on I go to the mechanic. I hate going to the mechanic because I have no idea how badly I'm being screwed. If the mechanic comes out and says "Oh, yeah, we're going to have to replace your Foo gasket, that'll be $$$$", the only thing I can say is "Does that come with a reach-around?". I can only assume this is how non-computer folks feel when they take their computer down to be fixed.
Where am I going with this? How does Jane Computer User know when her PC needs some professional attention? Most of the time my mother-in-law only calls me when the comptuer becomes unusable (doesn't boot, doesn't launch IE, crashes etc.) She doesn't see any warning signes or does not understand the ones she does see. I propose two things that would help Jane to know when her computer is behaving differently.
- A visual "tachometer" for your processor and physical memory (Vista Sidebar Gadget?)
- A force feedback mouse tied to your processor and phyiscal memory. (Patent pending, all rights reserved)
The most important thing for these two items is to keep it simple! The dashboard in my car doesn't have an LCD screen telling my I have a bad Foo gasket. It has a simple light that comes on. I don't know what a foo gasket is and frankly, I'm not sure I want to know. Giving me that information just confuses me and makes me feel stupid. The computer gauge shouldn't say pagefile.sys is corrupt or failed to load object '{8ecaaed5-eb5a-4249-8d78-4b4850938414}'. It should have a big red light with a link to contact information for local pc folks. Or even better, a button to request a Copilot session with a PC Tech.
The force feedback mouse tells Jane how the computer feels during normal operation. When you launch word, you know what it feels like. When your comptuer is sitting idle, you know what it feels like. If you turn on your computer and it appears to be idle but your mouse is giving you the good vibration, you know something is wrong. You don't get a confusing Firewall outbound access request prompt, you don't see a screen telling you you might have a virus do you want to quarantine? You know something is wrong and you know who to call.
Of course this is not foolproof. There is nothing stopping a smart virus from disabling your dashboard or your force feedback, but it allows Jane to connect with her PC in a way that lends itself to simpler acknowledgement that a problem exists.
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troubleshooting
posted @ Monday, March 05, 2007 9:43 AM