Something I’ve only recently noticed….
If you’ve bought any type of gadgetry recently, you may have found like I have, that there is a lack of a manual located in the box of your new favourite toy. There’s bound to be a few pieces of one page documentation in there, some health and safety declaration and a warranty card. For everything else, you’ll be directed either to the vendor’s website or to the online manual located on the accompanying CD.
I can’t quite remember when this change occurred and it’s only now that I’ve come to realise that the manuals (which I usually ignore, except in times of crisis or lack of logical sense to figure out how it works myself), are no longer there. The problem is who wants to start loading discs and searching for PDF based manuals when something has gone wrong, especially when out and about and no where near your computer. By the same token, I often find that vendor’s websites are overly complicated to find exactly what your looking for and often have to search through a maze of forums (with many opinionated people), and Q&A pages to find what your looking for.
With the projects Google and Amazon and others are working on to digitise books, I wonder just how long it will take for the with drawl of the dependable paperback (or for those with a bit more cash, the hardback). Whilst screens are not quite there for bedtime reading just yet – I still prefer my printed word books and can’t see that changing just yet.
I don’t have a point to these ponderings, except that digital and printed formats need to be carefully considered and where appropriate provisions for both need to be made – unless the next big thing is reading is just around the corner.
If you’ve bought any type of gadgetry recently, you may have found like I have, that there is a lack of a manual located in the box of your new favourite toy. There’s bound to be a few pieces of one page documentation in there, some health and safety declaration and a warranty card. For everything else, you’ll be directed either to the vendor’s website or to the online manual located on the accompanying CD.
I can’t quite remember when this change occurred and it’s only now that I’ve come to realise that the manuals (which I usually ignore, except in times of crisis or lack of logical sense to figure out how it works myself), are no longer there. The problem is who wants to start loading discs and searching for PDF based manuals when something has gone wrong, especially when out and about and no where near your computer. By the same token, I often find that vendor’s websites are overly complicated to find exactly what your looking for and often have to search through a maze of forums (with many opinionated people), and Q&A pages to find what your looking for.
With the projects Google and Amazon and others are working on to digitise books, I wonder just how long it will take for the with drawl of the dependable paperback (or for those with a bit more cash, the hardback). Whilst screens are not quite there for bedtime reading just yet – I still prefer my printed word books and can’t see that changing just yet.
I don’t have a point to these ponderings, except that digital and printed formats need to be carefully considered and where appropriate provisions for both need to be made – unless the next big thing is reading is just around the corner.
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