[X Newbies] adding fonts

[Vincent Cayenne]

At 1:07 AM -0400 7/25/03, TheMacintoshLady wrote:
>I do see how the general public who are not computer buffs such as 
>on these lists,
>do not necessarily absorb the information.

So what's to absorb (I ask facetiously <g>)? Try opening a brand new 
iMac or iBook in front of two eight-year-old children. Sit back. One 
hour later, ask the kids to write you a letter. Then hand them a 
digital camera or DV camcorder. Give them a current Epson printer and 
a USB cable. Plug in an already-paid-for cablemodem. Hand 'em a 
couple of music CDs (remember those?). Do not, repeat, do not succumb 
to any requests to buy from the iTunes Music Store whenever they 
stumble across it. Watch closely. Learn something new about Macs and 
the OS X way.

Apple seems to haven't taken even further one of the basic 
underpinnings of the Mac advantage - transparency. The "general 
public" wants a computer and its advantages. They just don't want to 
learn a new profession just to use the thing. The 
unpack-to-real-usage interval on a current Mac is great. My 
experience has been that the very young and the very old "get it". 
Self-professed Luddites and the gadget-phobic don't find it daunting. 
I suspect that these are those who bring an empty cup, so to speak.

Non-IT Windows users "get it" and want it but often resent the price 
and the inability to use their accumulated software "as is".

UNIX and Linux users "get it" and desire it but often balk at the 
price of high-end desktop performance and single vendor lock-in.

"Expert" GUI users take longest to appreciate it and resent each of 
the ways in which it resembles anything else (that they thought 
they'd escaped?)- UNIX, XP, DOS. And lament each of the ways that it 
is NOT OS 9 (or XP, W98 or whichever is their formative/definitive 
GUI candidate).

IT professionals are alternately fascinated, amused or 
beard-strokingly curious about it. And increasingly seem to get one 
into their budget. For evaluation, a special project, whatever. A 
laptop yet.

>This evening I had a call from a woman who is NOT elderly, is
>professional, and who works. She could not understand why she was not
>printing...she just could not wait for a page of what looked like text
>but was really graphics to spool to the printer and so she
>canceled...

That's not an OS X problem. And it's curable surely by getting her a 
faster printer or a dollop of patience?

>.......when she attempted to print again, of course the queue
>was giving her trouble and no one ever has the common sense to STOP the
>printer, delete the file and start over again. It's one of the MOST asked
>questions I get, over and over again. These folks have been using
>computers for 6 or more years. This is why

What does needing to stop, delete a file and start have to do with 
adding the printer?

>I dread having to deal with
>the X system of adding a printer the Windows way.......it just seems so
>old fashioned.

Quite the opposite in my case - I keep taking laptops into new 
environments and having the printers there automagically showing up, 
ready for use.
-- 
'tis as said. [Reality is defined by being described]