Don't be scared of 'Advanced Settings'

A recent article in the New York Times focused on the new, feature-poor gadgets that people are buying. I've written about all the features we have, but don't use.

I think it's a bad sign that people are regressing in their love of features. It is an unfortunate situation that ignorance about technology is acceptable. Our whole world is becoming much more reliant on technology every day. If you don't make a modest effort to keep up, you will only get yourself into more trouble later. Think about what would have happened if 50% of the population refused to learn how to use a car. And if 85% of those who learned to use a car didn't learn to use the headlights or the windshield wipers. We'd have a pretty bad situation on the roads.

The article stands in stark contrast to some great new Sprint commercials (embedded below). The CEO, Dan Hesse, promises that they will teach you how to use all the cool features of your new Sprint phone. Just come in to one of their stores. To me, this is a brilliant and wonderful marketing campaign. Sprint hasn't been doing well. Hopefully, this will help them turn it around.



The point is: Don't be scared of the advanced settings and features on your devices! Computers are amazing. They are also very flexible. Programmers go through a lot of stress to give the end user as much customization as possible. They work hard to also provide a clean, usable interface

People are so scared of technology. It's yours! There is no way to permanently ruin your computer by messing with the advanced settings. This is especially true in software that you have installed (as compared with the drivers that make your hardware work).

Make some changes. Tinker with the settings. You can change a lot of things that will make your computer (and cell phone) interactions more pleasant and productive. If you don't like the way a change worked out, change it back. You can always reset a phone or computer to factory settings if you get flustered.

A few ideas:

• In your Blackberry internet browser, set it to enable HTML tables. Many mobile websites will be much better. (You get there by pressing the Menu key and then going to options)
  
• In Microsoft Excel, set the default for a new workbook to only have one worksheet (Under Tools > Options)
  
• In Microsoft Outlook, set messages not to automatically mark as read. (Can you figure out where this setting might be?)

There are so many changes you can make to your computer and cell phone to make it easier to use, more productive. These devices are there to make your life easier. Learn to use them!