You probably heard about Mojave, a fake new Windows operating system that turned out to be Vista in a experiment conducted by Microsoft with persons that didn't quite like it, so they could catch their reaction after saying how bad Vista was and how good Mojave was. I'm not really interested in talking about the Mojave Experiment itself in this post, so I will say only a few words about it.

First, I don't think it was fake has many bloggers do. It may be an ad, but that doesn't mean the experiment was all acted. I believe Microsoft is already in trouble because of Vista's bad reputation and doesn't really need more stuff that can be criticized at the same level. However, the way the experiment was conducted was far too wrong to get conclusions out of it (that is the meaning of the quotes in the word real in the title, I think it was, but not well conducted).

Second, the website is pretty bad designed. Without Silverlight I, on my Mac, wasn't able to see much (the videos didn't load for example), and with Silverlight the design shows a cloud of movies difficult to manage that will make a normal user see only the first and greater ones, which can also be the ones Microsoft wants us to see. In the videos of the sales guys from Microsoft showing what was showed to the people and how the experiment was conducted,  one can see that they showed them stuff like gadgets, instant search, backup utilities, flip 3d, and few more. If what they showed to people was in fact what one can view in those videos then the experiment is completely bullshit, for everyone can see that it is Vista and just someone that never used it can not see that. Also, they were only showing the cool features of Vista, the ones that everyone likes, and no product is used for the cool things it has, it is used because it can solve our everyday problems, because it can really do the simplest things simply, and also the advanced things easily, which is something largely criticized on Vista. This makes me think the people they choose were really below the normal computer user, or never caught a glimpse of Vista, or the video featured a pretty camouflaged version of it. Also, I don't think those HP Pavilions used for the test were really a normal desktop for Vista, since I don't think 2 GB of Ram and Core 2 Duos are that mainstream (they said it has a Windows Vista rank of 3.5/5. What kind of computer gets a 5 after all?).

Bottom line, there can really be no conclusive fact out of this test, but this not the main point I want to talk about so don't bother argue with me it was acted, I'm not that interested in it, but admit it could have been.

The truth is Mojave Experiment has a valid point behind it. The point is valid not only to Vista but to everything in this computer world. In it, there's a lot of people that know about something and give their opinion, people that don't know about something and remain quiet, and people that don't know but talk like they do. Unfortunately, these later ones are the majority and almost everyone commits this mistake several times in their life. With Vista the amount of persons judging it without even having used it exceed the line of what would be normal.

That could have many reasons but most of them result from the fact that a good part of our own knowledge comes from persons which we trust, if we trust someone its easier to take their word as the truth, and we don't bother having an opinion based on our own experience. We just act passive, receive info, accept, and pass it to more people but, and this is important, in the same way that we'd do if we've had in fact experience in the subject. This appeal to authority fallacy is one of the most common, being constantly committed in advertisement, but in this computer world, in the internet, this fallacy starts being equally common. Bloggers and respected users of online communities are great mind making agents, if they've succeeded proving us in the past their opinions about something were relevant, more probable is that in a future subject we will trust them. This is not bad, it's normal, but what if they start somehow judging something without proving to us their opinion or judging based on their own preferences, will we take the opinion as ours, or try to find the truth for ourselves?

This is mainly what happened with Vista, and what's constantly happening with other operating systems and products, people get into discussions and flamewars, people argue, but don't usually realize maybe none of the participants may in fact have experience in what is defending. There is almost a public belief that Vista sucks and there's a lot of people that never even used it thinking they have the obligation to convince others of how bad it is. I say everyone should either use Vista and see for itself, or search for valid reasons for not using it. If you don't have enough money for a Vista license, remain in XP and talk about Vista only to criticize about how expensive it is, which is the only truth you can claim.

This is the reason I think a good conducted Mojave Experiment could in fact have the type of results it had. People say a lot about Vista, but get some of them in a experiment where they have to use it for a month, working, trying to solve its everyday problems, and they may actually say in the end Vista is not that bad, or may say it's terrible. The difference lies in the experience factor and a ten minutes video is not experience. Microsoft launching this ad just committed the exact same fallacy as the users who say bad about Vista without using it, it is trying to convince everyone Vista is good based on person's thoughts not based on real experience.

Anyway, I hope the true idea behind it makes people realize they may be judging Vista unfairly.

There was a time in which information finding on the web was difficult, exhausting, frustrating, and indeed succeeding, a miracle. The most of us woke up to a web in which Google already existed, the search engine that made the world a smaller place, however, the information present on the web was far less than it is nowadays so, although there was a great tool to find exactly what we want, rarely that information was even present on this world wide system. Times changed, the information amount is not just more, is huge. If the users of the old times had to deal with frustration of not finding what they wanted because it just was not there, the users of today have information at a distance of a click, but there is just so much and it is all so easy they simply don't bother making the difference if what they get is really what they want.

 

This is something I noticed a while a go, but got reminded in a intro of a João Martin's post. In that intro he shows he's quite annoyed with the fact that a major part of the comments made to another of his blog posts about a portuguese project called Magalhães (which will deliver netbooks to 6 to 10 year olds kids in Portugal) where of people asking questions that should be rather asked on the (un)official website of the project or would there be successfully solved.  I and a couple of friends of mine suffered of exactly the same thing (even worse) in a joint blog where one day we publicize a portuguese project that built a platform that made easy the acquisition of used school books. The post was simple, just a brief note about the project (linking to the official website) and our votes for its successfulness. After roughly one year of existence, that blog post summed 24 comments in 28, from people asking about the availability of some books that they needed, some complaining about the site, and even some replying back to others saying they indeed had those books and could make a deal, this all in a blog that had nothing to do with the project, having a blog post that clearly pointed out this was not something of our own, and being the 3rd comment a message trying to clear that out for the users. While I was seeing the comments counter rise more and more with always the same kind of message, I could only wonder what was the matter with the users of the web, which, in that case, were behaving exactly like spam bots, with the difference that they just wanted that someone doesn't matter who, from somewhere doesn't matter where, could give them the answer to their problems the fastest possible and with the smallest effort from their part needed.

This is not really a problem of Internet literacy, it's just a problem of education, of people don't being used to read, don't being used to correctly understand a text's message, and a problem of the generation and of the society: nowadays it's all too easy. Kids, teenagers, the adults they will be and their parents, live and lived in a society were nothing really challenging is put to them as a barrier they have to cross. It's all immediate, fast, easy, and it's sad when we see even our portuguese government's education ministry aiming towards that same easiness that somewhat reflects itself in all these little details that nobody cares about, but say a great thing about who we are.