I’m an older zoomer but still a zoomer. Its a crazy dynamic seeing people my age and younger just not getting IT stuff. There’s a high ratio of older to younger people where I’ve worked in IT too.
The challenges thst existed to use technology no longer exist, so there is no longer a reason to look under the hood for most people. It’s like how a lot of generations after boomers don’t know about how to change a tyre or spark plugs etc, cars got more reliable and industries created services to stop you needing to worry about that stuff.
As a kid I remember WANTING to play games with a friend on PC, he knew we needed a null modem cable and we went to pc shop 2 towns over got one and tried to figure out how to play together using it. Then when the Internet came out and we had to fight against Internet connection sharing so one computer could share Internet with friends pc. Trying to use no-cd patches just so we didn’t need to keep grabbing cds to play games etc.
There were so many things you learnt back then but it was because we had no alternative, I get why tech knowledge has vanished and I don’t blame them, they have had no need to solve the same problems and haven’t grown with technology, it’s been already established and they have had no need to concern themselves with it.
Problem is the working world still heavily needs PC skills and basic analytical ability so there needs to be more focus on those old “computer driving license” style courses so people can certify they know how to find a file and end task when something hangs.
The paradigm has changed. The rift between PC and smart phone. Is it really a surprise? My 18yr step kid can at least type on a keyboard with proficiency. Beyond that and installing games in steam, he’s lost outside of that. Both I and his mom work in IT. We try to shore up the gaps, but it seems the ‘kid’ actively refuses to learn.
People are going to start asking AI to rotate PDFs for them, just like people started asking ChatGPT to do math; it’s a terrible idea but will probably work 80% of the time, and that’ll be good enough for most people.
Don’t blame the people, they often cant get a mobile and tablet and computer… blame the awful corporations who made everything an app and pushed locked down mobile and tablets environments
Then get a laptop and a phone. No one needs a tablet.
Then they get a chromium based laptop because those were the most affordable ones they can get.
Appification was generalized and its not ppls fault for growing up in that environment, especially if their parents were not big into computers and couldn’t tell the difference.
The key concept they’re missing a lot of the time is that software sits within the file system and not the other way around.
This is largely because apps hide this and data is generally stored in one place on your phone (the downloads folder).
Best way to fix it - have 1–2 lessons entirely devoted to finding shit on their computer. My favourite activity is “ok, save your word file, close word, you now have 10 mins to find that file without opening word”.
I’d at least start them with something simple like Paint or Notepad. Once they have that down, then you can throw the disaster that is the MS Office file save dialog at them.
Yep I’ve noticed that too. I get questions like “what is the difference between downloading and installing” from people that are over 18 years old and under 30.
My favorite:
“Where did you save the file?”
“I saved it in Excel”
I’m not a kid (see my other replies in this thread lol), but I’ve never had to use PDFs for much at all. The closest I’ve ever been to editing one is clicking a box to draw a signature or check a checkbox.
So I’ve gotta ask. Why would one need to rotate a PDF? They would be made on a computer, and naturally default to the correct orientation, no? I can’t imagine why one would ever be sideways.
Pdfs are not always made on computers. In most office environments you are going to run into scanned documents. Scanners like to do funny things and people dont always put all the pages in the correct orientation.
Scanners like to do funny things
I know it’s not very relevant, but that reminds me of a talk held during a CCC (Chaos Computer Club) convention.
It’s in German, but I’ll try to summarize it: Someone noticed the numbers on a scanned page didn’t match the original, so they hired an expert to find out what happened. Turns out that the printer they were using had a feature that would detect symbols that looked the same and basically copypasted ome cutout of the symbol onto the other to save space on the final PDF. Due to the print/copy quality, this substitution sometimes malfunctioned, substituting similar looking symbols, such as 8 and 0.
I see. I didn’t think I ever heard about that. I’m only familiar with them as in a digital version of paperwork, not a digital copy of a document.
I understand exactly how that happens then.
You can scan a document to PDF, sometimes the default orientation isn’t correct.
I learned that from the other reply
I see. I didn’t think I ever heard about that. I’m only familiar with them as in a digital version of paperwork, not a digital copy of a document.
I understand exactly how that happens then.
Farts unhappily
Is there a ghostscript way to rotate pdf?
Yes. (not sure if you wanted it actually posted the GS way is kinda long) there are a good 10+ different tools to do it on command line though. Even imagemagick’s “convert” command that does virtually every image format can also rotate a pdf. qpdf, pdftk are very popular too.
I actually found a thread that lists all the tools I did and even the “gs” command lol https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/394065/command-line-how-do-you-rotate-a-pdf-file-90-degrees
Can confirm, imagemagick is bad with PDF quality.
You have to set the quality to 100 and density to something high (150 or 300) because it’ll set it to 72ppi and it also has to become before the input file name. It’s like GS and wants virtually every parameter set by you and the defaults are like bare minimum it doesn’t take them from the actual file.
That being said just use qpdf or pdftk lmao
The difference is that aged people tend to forget their training more. I’m not worried about the youngins.
Xennials are fascinating to watch navigate through tech hurdles. They have a custom built toolbox built purely through trial and error.
I think you misspelled experience.
ouch.
As an autodidact xennial, I’ll take that as a compliment.
DOS, Windows, all the format C:'s in my time, it’s all been trial and error as you say, because there weren’t really anything on the line in the 90s and early 00s.
Absolutely a compliment. It took me many months of research to figure out what PC parts to buy in the late '90s. Now you can easily piece something together in a day.
Oh god I feel seen
anyone who has never experienced the joy of destroying hardware with a misplaced address access is, at best, translucent. magic blue smoke or bust.
