Likemike said:
I do partitially agree with you and see your position. But from my own experience I must say that I really, really understand the user silizium. You talk about reading thru the most relevant threads, but how do you know which info is essentiall? There is no sticky or subforum with essential information and all of the really relevant threads dissapear to the depths of this forum after some time of inactivity. So how should a noob know which threads to read?
I don't know what can be done about that other than this subforum having its own sticky threads in addition to the Announcements section.
I tend to go by the fact that a lot of the most current and relevant info will probably be in threads from the last month or so, if not, then referenced in those threads to earlier posts. So just skimming through posts from the last month or so, one is easily able to find all the latest relevant information- both from reading guide threads and from reading troubleshooting threads. It's always a good idea to read troubleshooting threads in case one finds themselves in the same predicament as someone else. (Highly likely with a laptop Hack.)
So noobs will tend to be diggng through the threads anyway to figure out what goes wrong, or clouding up the forum with posts and (worse) more new threads shouting "Something went wrong!" and just pushing all the info down that much farther. What if every day 3 or 4 new people create new "Something went wrong!" threads with the same problems repeated over and over again? How much more to sift through does that create?
I'm not disagreeing with you at all that things could be easier to find, I'm definitely not against information being easier to find and more widely available. But I also don't consider a laptop hack to be the best 'noob' project for anyone that's never dealt with Hackintosh issues before, thinks that it's always going to be one-click simple as with an actual MacBook, and is the type that will create a new thread every time they encounter the slightest hiccup, rather than at least attempt to seek out and find the answers for their own problems first.
Also I disagree with the statement that they shall read theirselfes thru the whoule threads to understand all about the process. If the whole world would think this way, there wouldn´t be any books, schools or other tools/institutions which share essential knowledge. The knowledge about some topic has always to be taken together to save time and only tell the really relevant information (background info optional).
I get what you're saying, but disagree strongly with the comparisons. My position doesn't ask anyone to re-invent the wheel, or figure out how to make fire from scratch all over again. Just to take a little more effort to seek out the information that's already there.
One can easily look at dates here, and updates to posts to know that something posting in 2011 is probably not as relevant as something posted in June 2012, as far as all the knowledge that's been learned since. Still, people come here (I did) and use the guide first written in 2011 to set up a ProBook in 2012- plus additional information from throughout the thread. (It's also not that hard to find the latest info in a long thread and discount the steps between- just read the first page guide, skip to the end, and backtrack through problems and solutions with the latest methods.) And now one can start with the new 4.0 guide.
Do you have to know every troubleshooting development that's happened in between? No, but then what if you run smack into one of the known problems and you haven't even bothered to read up on the possibility of it? I had my wifi not working- I had read this was a potential problem already and knew to get the right wifi chip. I also couldn't boot the initial installer on my Probook for 10.7.3 until I found a trail of others having the same problem, and backtracked through this thread until I found it solved. Others will likely encounter the graphic glitch problems, and problems with 8GB of RAM, with 10.7.4, with certain BIOS revs and models, etc. How to solve? Start a new thread and complain... or do some reading?
Hey great, if you or others want to make threads that should be stickys collecting the most up to date info making things easier, I'm all for it and will appreciate it. Just saying that I still don't believe this is something noobs should run out and by a ProBook before they read these new threads, or sift through the old ones, so they know what to expect and a few pitfalls to avoid.
however i have to reformat it again if i want to reload the original win 7 it came with,,,,
). If you would have to read 20 threads with wide spread information in forum to know how to make it, trust me you would give up or ask already asked questions. Thats the status the newbies have here.
