"True Story -- When a technician enters the office of especially clueless managers, he gives them this computing advice: 'Once in a while, you have to stretch the computer cables out straight. That's because the data is digital, which means it's all ones and zeroes. The zeroes can make it through the bent cable okay, because they have smooth edges, but the ones can get stuck.'"

***********************************************************

Computer Terms:

BIT: A word used to describe computers, as in "Our son's computer cost quite a bit."

CHIPS: The fattening, non-nutritional food computer users eat to avoid having to leave their keyboards for meals.

ERROR: What you made the first time you walked into a computer showroom to "just look."

HARDWARE: Tools, such as lawnmowers, rakes and other heavy equipment you haven't laid a finger on since getting your computer.

***********************************************************

There was a knock on the door. It was the man from Microsoft.

"Not you again," I said.

"Sorry," he said, a little sheepishly. "I guess you know why I'm here."

Indeed I did. Microsoft's $300 million campaign to promote the Windows 95 operating system was meant to be universally effective, to convince every human being on the planet that Windows 95 was an essential, some would say integral, part of living. Problem was, not everyone had bought it. Specifically, I hadn't bought it. I was The Last Human Being Without Windows 95. And now this little man from Microsoft was at my door, and he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"No," I said.

"You know I can't take that," he said, pulling out a copy of Windows 95 from a briefcase. "Come on. Just one copy. That's all we ask."

"Not interested." I said. "Look, isn't there someone else you can go bother for a while? There's got to be someone else on the planet who doesn't have a copy."

"Well, no," the Microsoft man said. "You're the only one."

"You can't be serious. Not everyone on the planet has a computer,"

I said. "Hell, not everyone on the planet has a PC! Some people own Macintoshes, which run their own operating system. And some people who have PC's run OS/2, though I hear that's just a rumor. In short, there are some people who just have no use for Windows 95."

The Microsoft man looked perplexed. "I'm missing your point," he said.

"Use!" I screamed. "Use! Use! Use! Why BUY it, if you can't USE it?"

"Well, I don't know anything about this 'use' thing you're going on about," the Microsoft man said. "All I know is that according to our records, everyone else on the planet has a copy."

"People without computers?"

"Got 'em."

"Amazonian Indians?"

"We had to get some malaria shots to go in, but yes."

"The Amish?"

"Check."

"Oh, come on!" I said. "They don't even wear BUTTONS. How did you get them to buy a computer operating system?"

"We told them there were actually 95 very small windows in the box," the Microsoft man admitted. "We sort of lied. Which means we are all going to Hell, every single employee of Microsoft." He was somber for a minute, but then perked right up. "But that's not the point!" he said. "The point is, EVERYONE has a copy. Except you."

"So what?" I said. "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you expect me to do it, too?"

"If we spent $300 million advertising it? Absolutely."

"No."

"Jeez, back to that again," the Microsoft man said. "Hey, I'll tell you what. I'll GIVE you a copy. For free. Just take it and install it on your computer." He waved the box in front of me.

"No," I said again. "No offense, pal. But I don't need it. And frankly, your whole advertising blitz has sort of offended me. I mean, it's a computer operating system! Great. Fine. Swell. Whatever. But you guys are advertising it like it creates world peace or something."

"It did."

"Pardon?"

"World peace. It was part of the original design. Really. One button access. Click on it, poof, end to strife and hunger. Simple."

"So what happened?"

"Well, you know," he said. "It took up a lot of space on the hard drive. We had to decide between it or the Microsoft Network. Anyway, we couldn't figure out how to make a profit off of world peace."

"Go away," I said.

"I can't," he said. "I'll be killed if I fail."

"You have got to be kidding," I said.

"Look," the Microsoft man said. "We sold this to the AMISH. The Amish! Right now, they're opening the boxes and figuring out they've been had. We'll be pitchforked if we ever step into Western Pennsylvania again. But we did it. So to have YOU holding out, well, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to the company. It's embarrassing to the product. It's embarrassing to BILL."

"Bill Gates does not care about me," I said.

"He's watching right now." the Microsoft man said. "Borrowed one of those military spy satellites just for the purpose. It's also got one of those high-powered lasers. You close that door on me, zip, I'm a pile of gray ash."

"He wouldn't do that," I said. "He might hit that copy of Windows 95 by accident."

"Oh, Bill's gotten pretty good with that laser," the Microsoft man said nervously. "Okay. I wasn't supposed to do this, but you leave me no choice. If you take this copy of Windows 95, we will reward you handsomely. In fact, we'll give you your own Caribbean island! How does Montserrat sound?"

"Terrible. There's an active volcano there."

"It's only a small one," the Microsoft man said.

"Look," I said. "Even if you DID convince me to take that copy of Windows 95, what would you do then? You'd have totally saturated the market. That would be it. No new worlds to conquer. What would you do then?"

The Microsoft man held up another box and gave it to me. "Windows 98?!?!?"

"There's a LOT more where Windows 95 came from," he said, " Here, I also have Windows 2000, XP, Vista and a beta copy of the next Windows version!"

I shut the door quickly. There was a surprised yelp, the sound of a laser, and then nothing.

***********************************************************

A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and says, "The parrot on the left costs $500.00".

"Why does the parrot cost so much?" the customer asks.

The owner says, "Well, he understands the IBM operating system."

The customer asks about the next parrot and is told, "That one costs $1,000.00 because she not only understands IBM, but also knows the UNIX operating system inside out."

Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the third parrot and is told, "That one costs $2,000.00."

Needless to say, this prompts the question, "What can HE do?"

To this, the owner replies, "To be honest with you, I have never seen him do a thing, but the other two call him 'Boss'."

***********************************************************

******* WARNING DANGEROUS VIRUS***********************

If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the MOST DANGEROUS Email virus yet.

It will re-write your hard drive.

Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer.

It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles.

It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank.

It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over.

It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic.

It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card.

Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.

It will wantontly remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows and refill your skim milk with whole.

It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold.

It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

These are just a few signs.

Be very, very afraid.

***********************************************************

A Customer calls a UNIX consultant with a question:

Customer: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program ?

UNIX consul: Yes, that's correct.

Customer: No, what is it ?

UNIX consul: Yes.

Customer: So, which is the one ?

UNIX consul: No. 'which' is used to find the program.

Customer: Stop this. Who are you ?

UNIX consul: Use 'who am i' not 'who r yoo'. You can also 'finger yoo' to get information about yoo'.

Customer: All I want to know is what finds the revision code ?

UNIX consul: Use 'what'.

Customer: That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true ?

UNIX consul: No. 'true' gives you 0.

Customer: Which one ?

UNIX consul: 'true' gives you 0. 'which programname'

Customer: Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

UNIX consul: Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program' to get the revision code.

Customer: I want to find the revision code.

UNIX consul: You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

Customer: Which command will do what I need?

UNIX consul: No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

Customer: I think I understand. Let me write that.

UNIX consul: You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

Customer: Write what?

UNIX consul: No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

Customer: Cut that out!

UNIX consul: Yes. those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the options.

Customer: Do you always do this ?

UNIX consul: 'du' will give you disk usage.

Customer: HELP!

UNIX consul: 'help' is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).

Customer: You make me angry.

UNIX consul: No, I don't 'make me' angry but I did 'make programname' when I was upset once.

Customer: I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

UNIX consul: No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system has 'more'.

Customer: Nice help! I'm confused more now!

UNIX consul: Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is better not to 'nice help'. and 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is. Unless of course 'now' is a file name.

Customer: This is almost as confusing as my PC.

UNIX consul: I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me get you to the Pascal Compiler team.

***********************************************************

Three Engineers

There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred.

The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work!?"

***********************************************************

One of Microsoft's tech support reps was drafted and sent to boot camp. At the rifle range, he was given some instruction, a rifle, and bullets. He fired several shots at the target. The report came from the target area that all attempts had completely missed the target.

The Microsoft tech rep looked at his rifle and then at the target again. He looked at the rifle again, and then at the target again. He put his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand. The end of his finger was blown off, whereupon he yelled toward the target area:

"It's leaving here just fine. The trouble must be at your end!"

***********************************************************

You can't be cool if you're using outdated lingo. Here's the latest from the corporate and Silicon Valley jungles.

"batmobiling"

putting up emotional shields; from the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in "she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling"

"beepilepsy"

aflicts those with vibrating pagers characterized by sudden spasms, goofy facial expressions and loss of speech

"betamaxed"

when a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in "Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market"

"blowing your buffer"

losing your train of thought

"cobweb"

a WWW site that never changes

"elvis year"

the peak year of popularity as in "1993 was Barney the dinosaur's elvis year"

"generica"

fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in "we were so lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was"

"going postal"

totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages

"high dome"

egghead, scientist, PhD

"irritainment"

annoying but you can't stop watching i.e; the O.J. trial

"meatspace"

the physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also "carbon community" "facetime" "F2F" "RL"

"percussive maintenance"

the fine art of whacking a device to get it working

"prairie dogging"

in companies where everyone has a cubicle something happens and everyone pops up to look

"ribs 'n' dick"

a budget with no fat as in "we've got ribs 'n' dick and we're supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades"

"salmon day"

swimming upstream all day to get screwed in the end

"siliwood"

the coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers also "hollywired"

"square headed girlfriend" (boyfriend)

computer

"treeware"

manuals and documentation

"umfriend"

sexual relationship "this is Dale, my...um...friend"

"world wide wait"

WWW

"yuppie food coupons"

twenty dollar bills from an ATM

***********************************************************

I worked with an individual who plugged their power strip back into itself and for the life of them could not understand why their computer would not turn on.

***********************************************************

1st Person: "Do you know anything about this fax-machine?"

2nd Person: "A little. What's wrong?"

1st Person: "Well, I sent a fax, and the recipient called back to say all she received was a cover-sheet and a blank page. I tried it again, and the same thing happened."

2nd Person: "How did you load the sheet?"

1st Person: "It's a pretty sensitive memo, and I didn't want anyone else to read it by accident, so I folded it so only the recipient would open it and read it."

***********************************************************

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery in this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery for this?"

"Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked. "No, just this remote 'thingy,'" she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries... it's a long walk."

***********************************************************

Tech Support: "What does the screen say now."

Person: "It says, 'Hit ENTER when ready'."

Tech Support: "Well?"

Person: "How do I know when it's ready?"

***********************************************************

My friend called his car insurance company to tell them to change his address from Texas to Vermont. The woman who took the call asked where Vermont was. As he tried to explain, she interrupted and said, "Look, I'm not stupid or anything, just what state is it in?"

***********************************************************

Several years ago we had an intern who was none too swift. One day he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," she told him. With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies.

***********************************************************

I was working the help desk. One day one of the computer operators called me and asked if anything "bad" would happen if she dropped coins into the openings of her PC. I asked her if this was something she was thinking of doing. She said, "never mind" and hung up. So I got out my trusty tool kit and paid her a visit. I opened her CPU case and sure enough, there was 40 cents.

***********************************************************

One of our servers crashed. I was watching our new system administrator trying to restore it. He inserted a CD and needed to type a path name to a directory named "i386." He started to type it and paused, asking me, "Where's the key for that line thing?" I asked what he was talking about, and he said, "You know, that one that looks like an upside-down exclamation mark." I replied, "You mean the letter "i"?" and he said, "Yeah, that's it!"

***********************************************************

This person had a broken lamp which he wanted to discard. Unfortunately, the power cord ran under his refrigerator, making it impossible to move the lamp while the cord was attached. He decided to cut the cord, since the lamp was unusable anyway. He didn't remember to unplug it first.

I found him in the hallway rolling back and forth.

***********************************************************

I was in a car dealership a while ago when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the cruise control, then went in back to make a sandwich.

***********************************************************

I called a company and asked to speak to Bob. The person who answered said, "Bob is on vacation. Would you like to hold?"

***********************************************************

I rented a movie from Blockbuster. Before the movie begins a message comes on the screen saying, "This movie has been altered to fit your television screen." Comment from person: "How do they know what size screen I have?"

***********************************************************

If MICROSOFT BUILT CARS

1.Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.

2.Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.

3.Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.

4.You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.

5.Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

6.The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.

7.The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.

8.People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.

9.We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.

10.New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

11.The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

12.If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

13.They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.

14.There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.

15.Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.

16.Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!

17.If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!

18.If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.

19.Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition for a few days before it worked.

20.You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.

***********************************************************

A helicopter was flying around Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's navigation and communications equipment. Due to clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a large building, flew around it, circled, drew a handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign said, "WHERE AM I?"

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign and held it in a building window.

It said, "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position.

The pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because they gave me a technically correct, but completely useless answer."

***********************************************************

Recently an Internet Service Provider conducted an audit of the Tech Support logs. Some personal entries were found. Here is one.

"Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the"loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to:

M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc.
Hackettstown, NJ
17840-1503 U.S.A.

along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one."

***********************************************************

Real engineers wear jewelry made from discarded motherboards.

Real Engineers fix the runs in their pantyhose with duct tape.

Real engineers cinch their biking skirts with cable ties.

Real Engineers figure out algorithms to minimize thread usage when doing counted cross stitch.

Contrary to popular belief, real engineers do put on nail polish; they just never remove it.

Real engineers buy their husbands matching screwdrivers for Christmas, but use them more than he does.

Real Engineers also carry a set of matched screwdrivers in their purses.

Real engineers don't shave their legs above the hemline, in the interest of efficiency.

Also in the interest of efficiency, real engineers buy convertibles so they can blow-dry their hair on the way to work in the morning.

Real engineers carry 2 cans of soup, yogurt (and a spoon), a box of Triscuits and a package of light Hostess Cupcakes in their purses at all times, in case they pull an all nighter.

Real engineers only buy purses big enough to fit their laptops in.

Real engineers only wear slip-on shoes (with or without heels) so she can take them off to sit cross legged in her chair while programming.

Real engineers keep getting thrown out of Victoria's Secret because they insist on knowing the exact tensile strength of their bras before buying them.

Real Engineers look on having a baby as an opportunity to brush up on biomedical and structural engineering in preparation for taking the PE exam.

Real engineers keep their key chains and pen pocket protectors on even during labor.

Real engineers examine the inner workings of the fetal monitor between contractions.

Real engineers get narcotics during labor, not for the pain, but to stop them from taking the monitor apart.

Real Engineers figure out how to nurse and fix the toaster at the same time.

Real engineers not only nurse and program at the same time, but they lull their babies to sleep by the clacking of the keyboard.

Real engineers make cantilevered birthday cakes (but never provide documentation on how to cut them!)

Real engineers never spell in front of the kids; they'd like to, but they can't!

***********************************************************

***********************************************************

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the butt.

Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.

You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."

Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.

To err is human, to forgive is not our policy.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he/she is supposed to be doing.

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

No matter how much you do, you never do enough.

***********************************************************

Watch out for these computer viruses:

PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack: Once, if by LAN; twice if by C.

POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never identifies itself as a "virus," but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism."

AIRLINE LUGGAGE VIRUS: You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

STAR TREK VIRUS: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

***********************************************************

A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers.

Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?"

Computer: 186,282 miles per second.

Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?"

Computer: George Washington.

President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?"

Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia.

President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!"

Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass.

***********************************************************

Computer Lingo

LOG ON: Makin' the wood stove hotter.
LOG OFF: Don't add wood.
MONITOR: Keep an eye on the wood stove.
DOWNLOAD: Gettin' the firewood off the pickup.
MEGA HERTZ: When yer' not carful downloadin' (watch those toes!)
FLOPPY DISK: What you get from pilin' too much firewood.
RAM: That hydrolic thingy that makes the woodsplitter work.
HARD DRIVE: Gettin' home in mud season.
PROMPT: What you wish the mail was in mud season.
WINDOWS: What to shut when it's 30 below.
SCREEN: What you need for black fly season.
BYTE: What black flies do.
CHIP: What to munch on.
MICRO CHIP: What's left in the bag when the chips are gone.
MODEM: What you did to the hay fields.
DOT MATRIX: Farmer Matrix's wife.
LAP TOP: Where the little kids feel comfy.
KEYBOARD: Where you hang your keys.
SOFTWARE: Them plastic eatin' utensils.
MOUSE: What eats the horses' grain in the barn.
MAIN FRAME: The part of the roof that holds the roof up.
PORT: Fancy wine.
ENTER: C'mon in!

***********************************************************

The Computer Hillbillies
Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed,
A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed,
But then one day he was talking to a recruiter,
Who said, "they pay big bucks if ya work on a computer..."

Windows, that is... PC's... Workstations...

Well, the first thing ya know ol' Jed's an Engineer.

The kinfold said "Jed, move away from here".
They said "California is the place ya oughta be",
So he bought some donuts and he moved to Silicon Valley...

Intel, that is... Pentium... big amusement park...

On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube.
Fed him more donuts and sat him at a tube.
They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do.
Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!"

OT, that is... unpaid... mandatory...

The weeks rolled by and things were looking bad.
Schedules started slipping and some managers were mad.
They called another meeting and decided on a fix.
The answer was simple... "We'll work him sixty-six!"

Tired, that is... stressed out... no social life...

Months turned to years and his hair was turning grey.
Jed worked very hard while his life slipped away.
Waiting to retire when he turned 64,
Instead he got a call and escorted out the door.

Laid off, that is... de-briefed... unemployed...

Now the moral of the story is listen to what you're told,
Companies will use you and discard you when you're old.
So gather up your friends and start your own firm,
Beat the competition, watch the bosses squirm.

Millionaires, that is... Bill Gates... Larry Ellison...

Y'all come back now... ya hear'

***********************************************************

Q: How do you know that a computer is Windows-compatible?
A: It has an extra big reset button.

Q: What are the world's most devastating disasters?
A: Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows '95, Windows '98

Windows '95 - Every function is a new "reset" function...

Windows NT - Nice Try? Not Today? Never Tested?

Windows NT - Insert your wallet into the A: drive and press any key to empty.

Windows - Turn your Pentium to a Gameboy!

Windows NT - A virus with mouse support.

If Windows is user-friendly, why does it have a manual with 678 pages?

Hit your computer on the left side to restart Windows NT.

Microsoft virus scan has detected Merlin! Remove? Y,Y

I'll never forget when I ran Windows for the first time... but I try.

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What the "95" in Windows 95 really stands for:
The number of disks that it is delivered on.
Percentage of people who must buy a faster computer after Windows 95 installation.
Number of megabytes Windows will need for its minimum installation.
Number of pages you must read in the user handbook to perform the installation.
Percentage of your programs that won't work with Windows.
Number of minutes the Windows installation takes.
Number of times you must call Microsoft support to get the OS to work.
Number of seconds Win 95 will run until it crashes.

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New functionality in Windows NT

Multitasking - You can crash several programs at the same time.

Built-in networking system - You can crash several computers at the same time.

Microsoft Network - Chat with other people about your system crash experiences.

PNP - Plug and Pray.

Multimedia - Experience a PC crash with great graphics and sounds.

Compatible with your other programs - it crashes them, too.

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I need to copy a power point presentation (soon) to a disc and my disc holds 1.44 and the presentatin is 1.78 -

getting error msg "insert higher capacity disk" -

does anyone have one i can have/buy/borrow???

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A customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"

An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.

An AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.

A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.

Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends, "the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."

A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

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Once you start playing with software you quickly become aware that each software package has a revision code attached to it. It is obvious that this revision code gives the sequence of changes to the product, but in reality there's substantially more information available through the rev-code than that. This article provides a guide for interpreting the meaning of the revision codes and what they actually signify.

1.0:

Also known as "one point uh-oh", or "barely out of beta". We had to release because the lab guys had reached a point of exhaustion and the marketing guys were in a cold sweat of terror. We're praying that you'll find it more functional than, say, a computer virus and that its operation has some resemblance to that specified in the marketing copy.

1.1:

We fixed all the killer bugs ...

1.2:

Uh, we introduced a few new bugs fixing the killer bugs and so we had to fix them, too.

2.0:

We did the product we really wanted to do to begin with. Mind you, it's really not what the customer needs yet, but we're working on it.

2.1:

Well, not surprisingly, we broke some things in making major changes so we had to fix them. But we did a really good job of testing this time, so we don't think we introduced any new bugs while we were fixing these bugs.

2.2:

Uh, sorry, one slipped through. One lousy typo error and you won't believe how much trouble it caused!

2.3:

Some jerk found a deep-seated bug that's been there since 1.0 and wouldn't stop nagging until we fixed it!!

3.0:

Hey, we finally think we've got it right! Most of the customers are really happy with this.

3.1:

Of course, we did break a few little things.

4.0:

More features. It's doubled in size now, by the way, and you'll need to get more memory and a faster processor ...

4.1:

Just one or two bugs this time... Honest!

5.0:

We really need to go on to a new product, but we have an installed base out there to protect. We're cutting the staffing after this.

6.0:

We had to fix a few things we broke in 5.0. Not very many, but it's been so long since we looked at this thing we might as well call it a major upgrade. Oh, yeah, we added a few flashy cosmetic features so we could justify the major upgrade number.

6.1:

Since I'm leaving the company and I'm the last guy left in the lab who works on the product, I wanted to make sure that all the changes I've made are incorporated before I go. I added some cute demos, too, since I was getting pretty bored back here in my dark little corner (I kept complaining about the lighting but they wouldn't do anything). They're talking about obsolescence planning but they'll try to keep selling it for as long as there's a buck or two to be made. I'm leaving the bits in as good a shape as I can in case somebody has to tweak them, but it'll be sheer luck if no one loses them.

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