Post AqWe9uyLM7OuZaLEIq by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AqWSgTBIVKNAUF9jUW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-27T23:24:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I'm generally inclined to tell most everyone to check the "show file name extensions" box. However, I will ask, filled with skepticism, if there is any cortex where *not* being able to see file name extensions is good or useful?
(DIR) Post #AqWSnRjGImEC0gMxPM by martin_piper@mastodon.social
2025-01-27T23:25:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I always show extensions.
(DIR) Post #AqWSr3e1mz8cTJdwLg by j_j@muenchen.social
2025-01-27T23:26:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebirdMarketing. Look less 'technical'.
(DIR) Post #AqWT99vBBvWx9QITr6 by whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz
2025-01-27T23:29:16Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird An edge case, but my understanding is that file name *extensions* and file *types* can still be entirely different, so seeing a .JPEG file extension could create a false sense of confidence in what one is going to get.
(DIR) Post #AqWTAHqJE1EA0aYZyy by bovil@wandering.shop
2025-01-27T23:29:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird showing file extensions solves so many problems. Whether it's fixing program associations or avoiding trojan horse executables masqueradeing as jpegs...
(DIR) Post #AqWTHzPZdTrRA5iyfo by wonofone@mastodon.world
2025-01-27T23:30:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird when you just want to be dumb
(DIR) Post #AqWTKxmIALMYxplid6 by jericevans@mastodon.online
2025-01-27T23:31:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I prefer to see them, but if I were to play devil's advocate: It's an anachronistic way of encoding file type? Better ways have arisen (and are often necessary at this point).
(DIR) Post #AqWTZUlOK707JxHDoe by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-01-27T23:34:03Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I have never and will never understand why there wasn't a giant outcry at this. Microsoft literally did this in freaking Windows 95. Literally 1995 -- 30 years ago -- and in all this time no one has felt a single desire to inform MS that this causes immense harm and confusion to people.There is NO valid reason to have extensions off. MS did it because they thought hiding extensions might make things less confusing to people. (Kind of an Apple way of thinking. Take away anything that might scare the ignorant.) Unfortunately it has far-reaching consequences beyond just causing confusion. For example, if you use a text editor and need to save a file as .conf, by default it will save as .conf.txt if you have extensions hidden with the .txt hidden from your view...
(DIR) Post #AqWTeJ5DB5vCXiqG5A by KF7RHB@mastodon.hams.social
2025-01-27T23:34:54Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Mmmmmmmmmmmmm…Nope!
(DIR) Post #AqWTurXipCMI3G4Vxw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-27T23:37:55Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
We have this "tech tips" news letter for faculty and I'm writing a thing about what file extensions are and how to see them.Also, the difference between a file on your computer and one "in the cloud"And why converting between word and google docs is such a huge mess. We have a bunch of faculty who use word and have done so since the 90s. When I first started working here I was going to teach all the math faculty LaTeX ... I have uh... adjusted my goals. Lordy.
(DIR) Post #AqWU7Mh4pfKi8hPQe0 by douglasvb@mastodon.social
2025-01-27T23:40:07Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird how on earth does a math faculty function without LaTeX?!
(DIR) Post #AqWUA7QK3yXJeFsxlo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-27T23:40:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@douglasvb It's a high school. I don't think any HS uses LaTeX. I'm the only one.
(DIR) Post #AqWUH5mEaEkaZJSYts by tantramar@mastodon.social
2025-01-27T23:41:53Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird One of my favourite* things is organizations that insist on standardizing on, say, Microsoft Word when literally none of their staff have the foggiest idea how word processing works.*extreme sarcasm alert
(DIR) Post #AqWUTpp3DIPKqoqxyC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-27T23:44:15Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Writing these tech tips is much harder than you'd think! I do not have a patient or friendly audience and they are very crabby and critical unlike my students. However, I have gotten some positive feedback "no one ever explains these things." ... I mean... I do all the time. But, I will take it.
(DIR) Post #AqWUWACQQIfQd0tfOa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-27T23:44:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AlsoPaisleyCat It's a HS. Not a college.
(DIR) Post #AqWUXPigClDh3La0rQ by cobalt123@beige.party
2025-01-27T23:44:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I learned the hard way years ago that it is shockingly worrisome so very many adult “professionals” have so little knowledge of what I believe are basic tech skills, intermediate experience in common word processing and communication software and hardware, and even backup/redundant strategies are. And yes I taught basic computer skills and separately Internet skills several times via community colleges and libraries. So that was when I began to realize how problematic this is.
(DIR) Post #AqWUmCBknMkPQmEALo by douglasvb@mastodon.social
2025-01-27T23:47:33Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird maybe you can get them slowly onto LaTeX via the word equation editor that can accept LaTeX syntax. It's a start at least!
(DIR) Post #AqWUyx4KJznyInpu5o by mjibrower@mastodon.social
2025-01-27T23:49:50Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird @douglasvb I made a little video demonstrating how to use the Equation Editor in Word to create an equation that you could then copy as LaTeX and paste into H5P to create accessible equations! But afaict, I was the only one who was excited about this, except my direct report (who might have been humoring me).
(DIR) Post #AqWYSGnEMkSxjiVktE by markh@friendica.world
2025-01-27T23:48:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The discarded LaTeX aspiration made me laugh! Thanks for sharing that.
(DIR) Post #AqWYSI4HcphVgtUt6m by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-28T00:28:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@markh I was so young.
(DIR) Post #AqWZhaVxQN9zCPIeXY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-28T00:42:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@diedofheartbreak If you try to change them on a mac, it has a "uh oh don't do that" warning message (which I turn off, but I leave it on for most people)So... the one bad thing isn't going to happen.
(DIR) Post #AqWZytFl0Wl8EsyMl6 by bovil@wandering.shop
2025-01-28T00:45:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird "I don't do this documentation for my health!"No, that's not fair. I totally do this documentation for my health. It's the faculty who think they're too smart to learn from me about my areas of expertise that get my blood pressure up.
(DIR) Post #AqWe9uyLM7OuZaLEIq by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-01-28T01:32:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Yes, clearly! I always show extensions of course, and so would 99% of the people on Mastodon, but there is a significant group of people for whom showing the extension means they can *edit* the extension, so they can accidentally change the file type, it will no longer work as whatever kind of file it's supposed to be, and they will not be able to figure out what they did or how to fix it.
(DIR) Post #AqWeGNcvjPXVBIPI6C by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-28T01:33:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@richpuchalsky macs have a warning for this.
(DIR) Post #AqWeLohWUwS8b89DXs by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-01-28T01:34:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Cat sat on the keyboard and blew past the warning. "Oh no what do I do"
(DIR) Post #AqWeTCCVWbmLVZ9umu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-28T01:36:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@richpuchalsky any cat doing all that is also deleting files and randomly changing system settings.
(DIR) Post #AqWexoHmURkuJYDvW4 by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-01-28T01:41:38Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird I make sure that every Mac in my company has extensions visible. Having the off is a security issue. When macOS X adopted extensions I was sad but understand the need for multiplatform interoperability. But some peo0le had trouble adjusting because they previously used the extension space for metadata such as the version of a file. I also had to explain to some people that changing an extension from .tiff to .jpeg doesn’t convert the file contents into a jpeg.
(DIR) Post #AqWfOHSUeINUJyr9Xc by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-01-28T01:46:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird People are more often in the middle of renaming something. I'm confident that with a large group of people who you have to tell this stuff to, you will regret revealing the secret extension capabilities because they will call you when they break it. But it's not a big deal.
(DIR) Post #AqWwi9KQHiaq7P8paC by crypticcelery@chaos.social
2025-01-28T05:00:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird out of curiosity, what have you adjusted your goals to? What have you tried and discarded?Teaching basics about “tech” really is crucial, and we all suffer from keeping a lot of it inaccessible to many people.I was immediately thinking of the many other things that exist in this space and which could be easier to use *once set up* (which is usually the crux if the matter). I do not want to replyguy here, so please ask if you want to have a list.
(DIR) Post #AqWzA8sbkJv4kAbgbg by intransitivelie@beige.party
2025-01-28T05:28:00Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird If you have to do a lot of renaming and you don't use powertools or some other, better solution? Or, I suppose, if you're a user who has no idea what they're doing and doesn't understand file extensions, so you would constantly be rendering your files unopenable while renaming them? In other words, the vast majority of Windows users, and I say this with love.
(DIR) Post #AqX1Am4UETfaCcamOm by bogosity@im-in.space
2025-01-28T05:50:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Developing tech tips appropriate for a target audience is a lot of work! Even tech professionals struggle to do it well. If you actually get compliments, yours must be awesome!
(DIR) Post #AqX80EUSvk7MpufErQ by grant_h@mastodon.social
2025-01-28T07:07:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird this does allow people to change extensions. There is a warning, but those are generally not read, so...But in CS? They should be visible, understood, and used.
(DIR) Post #AqXAWXB3BjoHy374Xw by kritischelezer@mastodon.social
2025-01-28T07:35:19Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I feel your pain... still have colleagues who use backslashes, question marks, ampersand symbols etc. in their filenames...
(DIR) Post #AqXAxUhQVbaS6M71VI by Scmbradley@mathstodon.xyz
2025-01-28T07:40:10Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I say this as someone who has a fondness for LaTeX, but yeah it really feels like a tool written by a computer scientist. I haven't explored it, but I've heard people talking about Typst as a modern alternative. I wonder if its user experience is any better...
(DIR) Post #AqXCuPEEanp2Ap74LY by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-01-28T08:01:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird By the way, would you have a simple and good tutorial to learn LaTeX ?Last time I tried I got stymied at the "here are the bazillion combinations of editors and plugins that you can use to do LaTeX, please choose one" phase...
(DIR) Post #AqXE3DIyOS4dkn5qDY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-28T08:14:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@lienrag What do you mostly want to use it for? I'd just grab the most popular package for your OS and then get some example *.tex documents similar to what you want to make and try editing them and generating them again. It's a lot like HTML in some ways.
(DIR) Post #AqXECaMy0fULtQQjbc by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-01-28T08:16:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Not sure, just getting that skill under my belt.Presentations for now, mostly, I guess ?