Power Users

[cariboo]

What actually is a power user, I see many people refer to them, but I'm a bit confused, as the Wikipedia definition of a power user looks like this:


A power user is a user of a personal computer who has the ability to use advanced features of programs which are beyond the abilities of "normal" users, but is not necessarily capable of programming and system administration.

So is a power user just someone that knows everything there is to know about a couple of programs?

[jjex22]

Personally, When I hear/read power user, it means to me high level pc enthusiast - non professional, but with professional level knowledge of their operating system and it's core programs.

I can't imagine a situation where you'd describe yourself as a power user though... maybe it's title of respect for someone with a higher level of knowledge?

[odiseo77]

Well, I guess it's something like this: I installed Ubuntu on my sister's laptop to her request. She's happy with it and is a competent user; she knows how to navigate the web, use office applications, search for videos on youtube, stuff like that, and she rarely needs help with that, but she wouldn't be able to do stuff like install programs (even though it's quite easy through synaptic or add/remove software) configure her sources.list, configure the firewall, install firefox extensions, save/restore the firefox bookmarks, mess with config files, etc. (I guess all this is what a power user would do, without getting too deep into system administration or more complex things like programming).

[inobe]

the wiki definition is wrong.


a computer user who needs the fastest and most powerful computers available

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/power+user

i agree with that interpretation.

edit example: newer tabs and cell phones will have nvidia's tegra 3 chipset, i will wait for those devices before buying another!

[Copper Bezel]

So is a power user just someone that knows everything there is to know about a couple of programs?

inobe is right that we misuse it, but yeah, that seems to describe the sense used on UF fairly accurately. It's not normally a pejorative - that kind of user has invested in sorting how an application works and how to make it work best for him- or herself and probably describes most of the folks who help out in the support forums here, because they can pass that advice on to others with specific questions.

But because these aren't the obvious features and often depend on the way the software works under the hood, they're the most vulnerable to change. At the moment, that means a lot of folks are angry about new software that's unquestionably better than the prior versions at first blush, but means a lot of relearning to get back to the same level of capability they'd built up with the old software.

I experienced a lot of this in the switch to Gnome 3. A lot of favorite features of mine just weren't there anymore, a number of them were moved or reworked, and so on, which made it a rather unpleasant transition on the whole, and I certainly let some of that unpleasantness spill out on these forums. (Now that I'm getting used to it, of course, I have fewer complaints.)

So I'd prefer "invested user" over "power user" for what's being described, particularly in the pejorative sense. An example (one that Gnome 3 didn't break) would be that I tend to create copies of browser and text editor .desktop entries in ~/.local/share/applications to make them always load in new windows - a necessity, to my mind, for using multiple workspaces. I'd pass a brick if that feature was no longer available, despite the fact that it was only ever useful to a tiny percentage of users who both (a) knew about it and (b) found it more useful than the default behavior.

[vasa1]

... So I'd prefer "invested user" over "power user" for what's being described, ...
What's wrong with "advanced"? "Invested" jumps out and could, possibly just be distracting.

[Copper Bezel]

Okay, I'll buy that. I'm being overly situation-specific in my choice there, and your term is far more descriptive as well as objective.

[3Miro]

Most people out there need to use a browser, media player and document editor every now and then. What I consider power-users, I call people that want or need to do things more efficiently, in a faster way, want/need to multi-task, want/need to work with a large number of applications. I take power-user as a >= as opposed to == test, i.e. professionals are power-users (Linus Torvalds is a power-user). You can distinguish between power-user and professional, but for the purpose of Unity and Gnome 2/3, there is no need to make the distinction. The Unity discussions seem to bring up the "power-user" term most often, although this may be due to the fact that most discussions these days are about Unity.

[jjex22]

professionals are power-users (Linus Torvalds is a power-user

Good catch 3Mirow, didn't think my definition through! I think I was trying to draw a distinction between somone with highly elevated knowledge of the software and a developer of it. However with a hint of hindsight the word "user" in the title pretty much has that covered doesn't it!:oops:

That's what I love about this forum, always learning new things!

You are quite right tho - trying to think of a better way to express my new, updated understanding - say you had two educators in a large office block ,both of them assigned the task of getting everyone in the building to effortlessly switch between gnomes 2 and 3 (let's say by way of relaying the information).

Both of them go on a course and learn all the relevant features of the new DE for the end user, but user 2 goes on from there and chooses to familiarise their self with things like extra settings or a bit more seeing how it works - both are professionals ( ;) )but I would see user 2 as a power user, and user 1 as a sort of go-to person?

[drascus]

I think that this is a self proclaimed title. However in general a power user is a step above an end user. This also leads to several levels of power users. types of things end users do: Read email, surf the web, play games, occasionally install software. Things that power users do: Administer systems, install software, install hardware, setup networks, recompile kernels, compile custom packages, edit configuration files, over-clock, write scripts, Write some software, Be able to troubleshoot most aspects of a system. Many people that use linux fall under the power user category. basically a power user is someone that knows how to squeeze the most power possible out of a system. end users rarely would actually tax their computer.

[Copper Bezel]

basically a power user is someone that knows how to squeeze the most power possible out of a system. end users rarely would actually tax their computer.
I don't think it really has anything to do with "power" in the sense of computing power in the way the term is ordinarily used. Technically, maybe, but not in practice.

[philinux]

In the past when I was in IT admin the term was used to describe a pc user who needed the most computing power because of the nature of the programs they were using. There was no net access then. These were stand alone machines too mainly but some were networked together.

e.g extremely large and complex spreadsheets and databases.

[inobe]

something many couldn't begin to fathom.

[Gremlinzzz]

Turn computer on your a power user:popcorn:

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

What actually is a power user, I see many people refer to them, but I'm a bit confused, as the Wikipedia definition of a power user looks like this:

A power user is a user of a personal computer who has the ability to use advanced features of programs which are beyond the abilities of "normal" users, but is not necessarily capable of programming and system administration.

So is a power user just someone that knows everything there is to know about a couple of programs?

I have seen people refer to themselves as Windows "Power User"; however, they don't know anything about Linux based operating systems. I have also seen people refer to themselves as Linux "Power User"; however, they admit that they no longer know how to administer a Windows system after using Linux based operating systems exclusively for several years.

I think your interpretation of "Power User" is close to what many people mean when they say "Power User"; however, I don't think they mean "someone that knows everything there is to know" as very few people actually know everything.

I don't like the term "Power User". It is just a self evaluation of how you view your abilities.

I may have higher requirements for "Power User" as a system administrator than what a home computer user would consider a "Power User". As a system administrator, I would expect the so called "Power User" to know about setting up SAMBA, DNS, DHCP, Active Directory, SAN/NAS/RAID, LDAP, NTP, LAMP/WAMP stacks, etc.

As far as I am concerned, "Power User" is a meaningless term. In today's environment the tern "User" is ambiguous as well. A user of what? Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and so on. In those cases, the "User" of the service could be a system administrator.