Helping the helper help you

[Jorge Lucas]

Hello,

When we answer some post in this forum, our primary purpose is to resolve the question posted by the topic starter (most of the posts are of “hows to do questions” type).

Other people can enrich our suggestions, or show us the weaknesses of them.
So the collateral aim is to change ideas with other people that go to that same post; we all learn from that.

So, it is very natural that we become curious about the results of our suggestion to the topic starter; we always want to hear the return:

“It worked.”

But, because sometimes we did not get the real need of the topic starter, or he/she did not understand our solution, or our version of AppleWorks differ, it is very common that the topic starter comes with:

“I did what you said to do but...”
or
“It worked well, but what if...?”

Then, the discussion forum occurs and, most of the times it provides a solution or
acknowledge that there is no solution at all.

The frustration occurs when the topic starter silence after our replies, because we learn nothing from he/she.
And we feel less propense in trying to help he/she again, specially if he/she comes with a related post, as it happened recently here.

Just to reflect. And to discuss.

Regards,

Lucas (The guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

[haumann]

::: snip :::
Just to reflect. And to discuss.

Regards,

Lucas (The guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

Hello Jorge,

You're being very reflective, my friend. School must be out?

John@was

[Jorge Lucas]

::: snip :::
Just to reflect. And to discuss.

Regards,

Lucas (The guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

Hello Jorge,

You're being very reflective, my friend. School must be out?

John@was

Hello John,

Kind of: although I am not from the Judiciary or the Legislative Power, I am in recess of work; unless you could consider vacation a week free of work.
When I was a teen, we use to have 1 month vacation in july; now that I am on my fifties (51) that period was reduced for a recess of 1 week (or 2) in the winter.

But I am not totally free: I am building a brick house, brazilian style, what it means it is a 1 year plus work. I build the first one in 1995, sold it last year and now I am again building a dream; it takes a lot of time but it is a wondeful period.

So, it comes to the reflections...

During the period that I am on this AppleWorks User Group, I asked for help several times and I got replies from a bunch of guys. I am grateful to each one that spent his/her time with my need.
Three of you were more frequently in those replies: you, John, Barry and Yvan .

Barry is a moderator of this forum; so, there is a very small chance that he can get some pay for this, since AWUG has some members that pays tuitions for the journal.

But, what about you, Yvan and the others? What move all of we* (us?) in spending time in someone other’s problem? Yvan wrote entire AppleScripts’ scripts for me; I am grateful to him, but I paid nothing for his time.

I am sure that each of us* (we?) feel pleasant in help each other and that is enough. But for a better help, I think that we need the topic starter’s feedback and I putted this idea for the forum’s appreciation.
I thought that more people would post reply to my topic and that it could, in some way, enhances the forum’s results.

Some people read the post, but decide not to get into it.

I will not complain because, at least ... “I got you, babe” (like the cosmonauts, aboard the shuttle Discovery, that could hear the Sonny and Cher’s song).
Thank for not let me alone, although you did not really post any opinion on that.

(*): I write by intuition, not by rules; when I do not know how to spell a word I use the OmniDictionary, that is always on my Dock. But the dictionary can not chooses the words I need to make myself clear.

Regards,

Lucas (the guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

[Barry]

::: snip :::
Just to reflect. And to discuss.

Regards,

Lucas (The guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

Hello Jorge,

You're being very reflective, my friend. School must be out?

John@was

But I am not totally free: I am building a brick house, brazilian style, what it means it is a 1 year plus work. I build the first one in 1995, sold it last year and now I am again building a dream; it takes a lot of time but it is a wonderful period.

So, it comes to the reflections...

During the period that I am on this AppleWorks User Group, I asked for help several times and I got replies from a bunch of guys. I am grateful to each one that spent his/her time with my need.
Three of you were more frequently in those replies: you, John, Barry and Yvan .

Barry is a moderator of this forum; so, there is a very small chance that he can get some pay for this, since AWUG has some members that pays tuitions for the journal.

But, what about you, Yvan and the others? What move all of we* (us?) in spending time in someone other’s problem? Yvan wrote entire AppleScripts’ scripts for me; I am grateful to him, but I paid nothing for his time.

I am sure that each of us* (we?) feel pleasant in help each other and that is enough. But for a better help, I think that we need the topic starter’s feedback and I putted this idea for the forum’s appreciation.
I thought that more people would post reply to my topic and that it could, in some way, enhances the forum’s results.


(*): I write by intuition, not by rules; when I do not know how to spell a word I use the OmniDictionary, that is always on my Dock. But the dictionary can not chooses the words I need to make myself clear.

Hi Jorge,

Happy to hear there's someone else building. We're currently adding to a house we built 10 years ago, but this time we're contracting more of the work to a builder. That had both advantages and disadvantages. I did keep my hand in for the electrical work, and renewed my acquaintance with the local electrical inspector. He's been very helpful.

I suspect the rest of the regulars here come for much the same reasons I do--we enjoy solving problems, and sharing knowledge. That's been true of much of the Mac community (and I only say 'Mac' community as most copies of AppleWorks are running on Macs--no insult intended to Terry Keelan's years of being the prime source here for AppleWorks on Windows questions) from the beginning.

I agree that feedback from those asking questions would be helpful. I can't speak for the rest of us, but my assumption has been that if someone has offered a solution and there's been no response, then either the poster had solved the problem himself and not checked back to the forum, or the solution had worked and the poster breathed a sigh of relief and carried on.

I did have one strange one recently--a user emailed me directly saying she was a 'new member of the forum' and asking an AppleWorks question. My reply, as it usually is to unsolicited initial enquiries, was that she should ask the question on the forum, as this would allow more chance of a good answer than asking a single person, and would allow more people to benefit from that answer (or answers). I got a reply that said 'Thanks,' but I never did see a post of her question here or on any or the fora to which I post.

And there's no need to apologize for your English, Jorge. The minor errors you make don't affect understanding what you're saying.

Regards,
Barry

[Jorge Lucas]

::: snip :::
Just to reflect. And to discuss.

Regards,

Lucas (The guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

Hello Jorge,

You're being very reflective, my friend. School must be out?

John@was

Hi Jorge,

Happy to hear there's someone else building. We're currently adding to a house we built 10 years ago, but this time we're contracting more of the work to a builder. That had both advantages and disadvantages. I did keep my hand in for the electrical work, and renewed my acquaintance with the local electrical inspector. He's been very helpful.

I suspect the rest of the regulars here come for much the same reasons I do--we enjoy solving problems, and sharing knowledge. That's been true of much of the Mac community (and I only say 'Mac' community as most copies of AppleWorks are running on Macs--no insult intended to Terry Keelan's years of being the prime source here for AppleWorks on Windows questions) from the beginning.

I agree that feedback from those asking questions would be helpful. I can't speak for the rest of us, but my assumption has been that if someone has offered a solution and there's been no response, then either the poster had solved the problem himself and not checked back to the forum, or the solution had worked and the poster breathed a sigh of relief and carried on.


And there's no need to apologize for your English, Jorge. The minor errors you make don't affect understanding what you're saying.

Regards,
Barry

Hello Barry,

Good to hear from you, stating your opinion.

Also good to know that you are building. I want to add that when one Brazilian says that he is building, that, in most cases, means that he hired some people to build for him.

In the first house that I built, the project and all the details came from my wife’s head and from mine (the engineer only putted the signature and appeared some times); I contracted the labors and supervisioned the construction.

Now, not even the project is ours: we got an architect to think for us (and got a bit disappointed with her); again, I contracted the labors and administer the construction. But I feel very satisfied in doing this.
And I use several AppleWorks files to control everything.

In this saturday morning, I was with my iBook where will be the bedrooms (over the garage and the office and under the sky, in a hot beautiful winter day (the temperature of the previous weeks were low, but today warmed a lot) putting data on a brand new AppleWorks SS file, to calculate how many cubic meters of concrete would be necessary to buy. The company that put the concrete, using trucks, gave me the amount and I want to know if I would use all that, or just pay for it. The SS showed me they were been correct.

I also use an AppleWorks DB to put all the expenses; another DB for all the labors weekly payments; another DB for the prices of different companies (of several products); others SS, when some calculation is needed. What an useful (despite been simple) application.

Although it looked I was apologising for my English, this time I was just been fair, explaing that I use the OmniDictionary and I showed that I was not sure about what word will be better. What a shame that you did not said which would be better.

This forum has helped me keep my English, since I do not have English speaking people to maintain it. The internet (I saw at the BBC an article defending the use of “Internet”, instead) do the rest, along with the iTunes radio (right now, sunday 01:28, I am listening “Losing my religion” in the Virgin Radio).

The last time I travelled was 1988 and now it looks very difficult to go overseas because I am not single (wife and 2 daughters, that is: 4 tickets) and the rich countries impose restrictions to not wealthy people.
It would not be easy to get a visa to the States.


So, good to have you aboard, in this topic; I noticed that we have less posts in his AWUG forum. Probably is because the iWork forum and Apple Discussion that pulverized the posts.
What a shame.

AT.Rex song just played and the temperature in London is 20 degrees (in Celsius).

This is our planet, Barry. Not so big today.

Regards,

Lucas (the guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

[Barry]

Now, not even the project is ours: we got an architect to think for us (and got a bit disappointed with her); again, I contracted the labors and administer the construction. But I feel very satisfied in doing this.
And I use several AppleWorks files to control everything.
...

Although it looked I was apologising for my English, this time I was just been fair, explaing that I use the OmniDictionary and I showed that I was not sure about what word will be better. What a shame that you did not said which would be better.
...

It would not be easy to get a visa to the States.

I did the general contracting (administering the onstruction) the first time around as well, but this time we left that all to the builder. More expensive, but he has a better idea of the material and scheduling problems, and a working relationship with the sub trades. All in all, I think it saved us a few headaches.

We did the basic planning in both instances, passing it through a designer the first time, and getting the drawings through our builder this time around. Actually, the first time we went to two designers. The first cost us a pile of money for what turned out to be a pile of scrap paper. He hadn't listened too well to what we said, and prduced preliminary drawings that reflected his own ideas of what would fit the space and our needs instead of somethig that fit our stated needs and ideas of what fit. We cut our losses and went to a second designer, who asked the right questions and produced working drawings (not just preliminaries) for 2/3 the price of the first one.

On English: I did say which was better, but perhaps I was too subtle. What I actually did was show the correct usage for we and us in a couple of places in my post. I guess I didn't put it in a prominent enough place. ;-)

On visas: I don't know what the visa requirements would be for your visiting the US. I do know you'd need one to visit Canada, and that you can find information on that here:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/index.html

Regards,
Barry

[Jorge Lucas]

We did the basic planning in both instances, passing it through a designer the first time, and getting the drawings through our builder this time around. Actually, the first time we went to two designers. The first cost us a pile of money for what turned out to be a pile of scrap paper. He hadn't listened too well to what we said, and prduced preliminary drawings that reflected his own ideas of what would fit the space and our needs instead of somethig that fit our stated needs and ideas of what fit. We cut our losses and went to a second designer, who asked the right questions and produced working drawings (not just preliminaries) for 2/3 the price of the first one.

On English: I did say which was better, but perhaps I was too subtle. What I actually did was show the correct usage for we and us in a couple of places in my post. I guess I didn't put it in a prominent enough place. ;-)

On visas: I don't know what the visa requirements would be for your visiting the US. I do know you'd need one to visit Canada, and that you can find information on that here:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/index.html

Regards,
Barry[/quote]

Hello Barry,
Only today I took a look in the Google Maps to see your directions and discovered that you live in Canada, beeing probably a Canadian (I do not have a globe at home).
This reinforces the idea of the global village; in 1978 I spend 3 or 4 hours in Canada (went in Winnipeg, for the lunch).

Would be nice if I could travel again, but now we are building and would be too expensive travel with all my family. My wife and my daughters never travelled.
But the older daughter is preparing herself for future trips: she will be 19 in november, is studying law at a Federal University (beginning the fourth semester now); studied Italian for several semesters, has a knowledge of English and now she is taking French classes. The younger, 15, is in High School and will probably take some foreign language classes.

On English: as I said, I write by intuition and I was in doubt twice at that post; you gave me samples of usage of “we” and of “us” and I did not notice because those samples did not show any doubt: “for the rest of us” is almost an idiomatic expression to me.

This time, I saw your points and could make an association with Portuguese (the problem is that even in my native language I write by intuition, trying to remember former readings).

On construction: you talked about designers for planning your house; is there is no legal obligation, in Canada, of having an architect or a civil engineer responsible for the construction?

On solving problems: when I was 6, my father introduced a math teacher saying that I was good in Math (I was not in the school at that time). The teacher gave me a problem to solve: “John has a bunch of cows; and so does Robert. If John gives a cow to Robert, both will have the same amount, but if Robert gives John a cow, John will have twice as much Robert. How many cows have each?”

At 6, knowing no algebra, I resolved my first Math problem by tryings; the taste remains at 51, in AWUG forum and outside. (It came to my mind “When I’m sixty-four”, that Paul will revisit next year)

Regards,

Lucas (the guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

[Barry]

On construction: you talked about designers for planning your house; is there is no legal obligation, in Canada, of having an architect or a civil engineer responsible for the construction?

On solving problems: when I was 6, my father introduced a math teacher saying that I was good in Math (I was not in the school at that time). The teacher gave me a problem to solve: “John has a bunch of cows; and so does Robert. If John gives a cow to Robert, both will have the same amount, but if Robert gives John a cow, John will have twice as much Robert. How many cows have each?”

There's a fairly extensive building code here, and plans must be submitted to the building inspector's office for approval. Provided the plans comply with the code, separate approval by an architect or engineer isn't needed. After approving the drawings, the inspectors view and approve the construction at a number of stages, and require corrections of any deficiencies before issuing an occupancy permit.

Your cow problem is one I regularly presented to my Grade 4 and 5 students. But in my version, the boys (Bob and Paul) had apples (much more portable). ow, smewhere along the way, some moderator is going to come along and say 'This is all very nice, but what's it got to do with AppleWorks?' Maybe if we're going to continue this conversation, we should move it out of the forum and into direct email.

Regards,
Barry

[Jorge Lucas]

Your cow problem is one I regularly presented to my Grade 4 and 5 students. But in my version, the boys (Bob and Paul) had apples (much more portable). ow, smewhere along the way, some moderator is going to come along and say 'This is all very nice, but what's it got to do with AppleWorks?' Maybe if we're going to continue this conversation, we should move it out of the forum and into direct email.

Regards,
Barry

Hello my AWUG fellows,

Well, I was born in Vacaria; "vaca" means "cow" and, then "vacaria is a field to put cattle". And so...

I noticed that I was going away of this forum purpose, but Barry was the one that left it completely in the message posted in Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:50 am.
It surprised me, but knowing that he is a moderator, permitted me to stay in the same route.

It was interesting to observe how this topic evolved: at first, no replies; then we went away and more people read it. That leave us to notice that in an international forum, the diversity of cultures arises beyond the planned borders.

My feeling is that until Apple completes the iWork Suite, AppleWorks’ sucessor, this forum needs some extra talks to maintain itself alive.
We do not know when this will happen and some of us do not expect anything, but Apple made a phrase in that direction.

Until then,it is useless post a message in AppleWorks Wish List, because it will be no improvement of this suite and the questions related to “word-processor” and “presentation” will be pulverized in two or three places (if you consider Apple Discussion as well).

So, the new topics and new replies will become rare, as they have been, since iWork’s release. And if this emptiness persists, all of us will be, gradually, retiring from this forum.

And the AWUG forum will ends.

So, let’s move; let’s start new topics, answer the existents ones.
Let’s put some wood to burn. From recycled forest.

Regards,

Lucas (the guy from Rio Grande do Sul)