Re: list o' importants

[EAMorical@aol.com]

 Information overload. Forgot Pete's suggestions. Sorry. Now included.

 Rank the following in terms of importance (low, moderately low,
 moderately high, high):
 
 * local networking (connecting to other computers at my office, home,
   or other location)
 * being able to auto-setup local ethernet connection
 * wide area networking (connecting two or more locations)
 * being able to connect to the machine remotely 
 * being able to run graphics remotely 
 * being able to run servers for email, web pages, file access, telnet, file
transfer, etc.
 * running servers (mail, httpd, samba, telnetd, ftpd, etc) 

 * internet connection (direct)
 * internet connection (dialin)
 * internet connection (auto-dialin)
 * support, internet [could use rewording. I can't tell if this is
   'newsgroups' or 'ISP']

 * telephony

 * multimedia

 * being able to use (read/write/both) industry standard word/graphics file
formats
 * being able to convert from one word/graphics file format to another

 * being able to read the os/application source 
 * being able to modify/redistribute the os/application source

 * cost, hardware
 * cost, software
 * cost, upgrades

 * security C2
 * encryption
 * secure banking and commercial transactions
 * security (ability to prevent unauthorized people from using my
   system(s).
 * privacy (ability to keep other users from reading my files)
 * automatic virus protection (the system takes care of it for you)
 * manual virus protection (you run a program to scan or detect)
 * able to obtain up-to-date virus information
 * using a system which protects the user from making potentially dangerous 
   changes to system configuration 
 * being able to make a backup of your system
 * being able to make backup copies of large data files
 * being able to undelete files 
 * stability (computer and applications run without crashing or
   requiring restart)
 * prompt bugfixes (or hey, bugfixes at all) 

 * adding/removing software in an easy and familiar way
 * upgrades, ease of installation
 * upgrades, ease of finding/getting
 * having the installation stage for a program verify that all necessary
   components are present and functional

 * PnP support in hardware 
 * I2O support
 * multiterminal support
 * multiprocessor support

 * speed of overall machine
 * speed of graphics rendering

 * compatibility with existing systems [hardware]
 * compatibility with prior versions [software]

 * being able to switch between running applications easily 
 * having many large applications open at once [easier than asking
   "supporting >64 megs ram"]

 * able to run disk compression program 
 * automatic hard drive defragmenting (the system takes care of it for you)
 * manual hard drive defragmenting (you run a program to defrag)
 
 * being able to automate certain administrative tasks (backups, defrags,
virus scans,
    send/receive email via ISP after hours, update software database)
 * being able to rapidly obtain a list of resources used by the system and
hardware
   (IRQ's, DMA's, I/O ports, device names, chip type, speed, RAM present,
amount
   used by system, by processes, free, current VRAM, max VRAM, average VRAM
   used)
 * getting a good measure of performance of the system (don't know if this is
possible
   since all marks are relative to some extent) 
 * getting a list of all installed software, fixes, patches, version numbers,
etc.

 * multiple-users (several people can use machine at different times)
 * multi-user (several people can use machine simultaneously)
 
 * applications (I need to run specific applications on my computer)
 * uses (I need to use my computer for specific tasks.  Specific
   applications don't matter as long as they fill the need).
 * availability of a wide variety of apps (commercial, freeware?) 
 * support, applications [this needs more thought]
 * application stability 

 * consistent user interface (things behave the same way even comparing 
   between two separate applications) 
 * consistent graphical and/or textual user interfaces, and the ability to
exploit both to
    the user's advantage
 * dumping error messages to a text file as well as to the screen
 * having a program which explains error messages
 * being able to access context-sensitive help information
 
 * having a graphical interface to applications and system
 * having a command-line interface to applications and system

 * multiple-languages (support for several languages)
 * multi-language (support for several languages simultaneously)
 * Unicode support

 * printed docs from distribution
 * printed docs from the internet (and a directory of said docs)
 * printed docs available at book stores
 * having the os send each new user an email containing 'how to use MAN,
   APROPOS; where to find docs, how to read docs etc.'

 * support, vendor [what is a 'vendor' for an end-user, anyway?] 
 * corporate reputation (vague -- good or bad reputation is
   important.)
   Note that responses here scale differently from most of above.  Maybe
   "importance of vendor satisfaction, ..." would fit better.
   I still don't know what a 'vendor' is for our audience. I don't like
   that word -- the computer might come from a different place than the
   support, and the OS from a still different place.

  Bob