I have been working with Computers since for about 30 of my 35 years. I had the fortunate circumstance to grow up on the Stanford University campus near the heart of what was to become the Silicon Valley. I currently specialize in Personal Computers although I am not unfamiliar with `big iron'. I am a former member of Usenix (I let my membership expire) and the inclusion of an NT oriented Workshop is of great interest to me. I am currently engaged in a Masters program in Management of Technology at Golden Gate University.

I have a keen interest in the way the people and computers interact. I have professionally supported computers for over 8 years and I understand that the interaction between people and computers is a two-way street. Initially, computers were something that only Computer Scientists used and they were beyond the reach of `normal' people because of cost and complexity. Since that time the knowledge about computers has spread and the knowledge required to use them has decreased.

It seems that there is a large push in the technology industry to make computers easier to use. This is evident by the emergence of Solaris's DCE interface and way that the Windows 95 interface has been applied to Windows NT 4.0. Another good indicator is the shift in Marketshare that Windows 95 gained over Apple's Macintosh. While many businesses had previously been in a quandry as to whether to buy easy to use computers (Apple's Macintosh) or computers that most people in business were using (Microsoft Windows), with the emergance of Windows 95 I middle ground was available as people decided that the interface was "good enough".

During the same time period the internet was taking off and more educational systems began working on curning out computer literate graduates. But as we all know, the technology has been changing at an incredible pace. This pace makes it nearly impossible for our educational system to keep up on it's own. Text books are out of date by the time they are distributed and a computer scientist can't afford to devide his or her time between research and instruction.

At any rate, I am studying and implementing various solutions that allow for both flexibility and usability in computing. Such aspects need to address various situational environments, from a Personal Computer in a private environment to "Enterprise" environments where administrators need access to "Lab/Campus" environments where a pool of computers are accessed by multiple individuals.

Jeffrey J. Hoover
Cisco Systems, Inc.
jjh@cisco.com

170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
(408) 526-5157 (voice)
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