Computer

Tales of computer woes
More tales of computer woes
HOW TO UNDERSTAND COMPUTER LINGO
Computer Industry Acronyms
COMPUTER SPECIFIC OXYMORONS
Funny Virus List
Y0K
Y1k
Y-to-K

Tales of computer woes

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a collection of weird computer
problems handled by technicians working telephone help lines.
In one case, a person having trouble reading a floppy disk was asked to put
the disk back in the drive and close the door. The technician on the other
end of the phone could hear the disk being slid into the drive, and the
computer nerd getting up, walking across the room, and closing the door.
Another technician swore he had a caller who complained her new computer
was plugged in but wouldn't work. She said she suspected the foot pedal was
flawed. Apparently she was trying to drive it like a car, and placed the
mouse on the floor like a gas pedal. (Snifty's note- or like a sewing
machine =0)
Another problem solver says he asked a caller, who was complaining about
the machine not working after it was plugged in, what happened after the
power switch was pressed. Came the reply: "Power switch?"
Another computer newcomer complained that the mouse didn't work properly
with the dust jacket on, and wanted to know if it would be damaged if the
jacket was removed. It hadn't been taken out of the plastic wrap it was
shipped in.
-Brown's Beat, The Ottawa Citizen

More tales of computer woes
The following excerpts came from an article by Jim Carlton in The Wall
Street Journal:

Compaq Computers may change the command which reads "Press Any Key" to
"Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key
is.

A man called a Compaq technician complaining that the system wouldn't read
word processing files from his old 5" diskettes. After trouble-shooting for
magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the
customer had labeled the diskettes and then rolled them into the typewriter
to type the labels.

Another 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 and crossing the room to close the door to
his office.

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.

Yet 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 invalid." The tech explained he
shouldn't take the responses personally.

This story comes from Novell: Caller: Hello, is this Tech Support? Tech:
Yes, it is. How may I help you? Caller: The cup holder on my PC is broken
and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?
Tech: I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder? Caller: Yes, it's attached
to the front of my computer. Tech: Please excuse me if I seem a bit
stumped; it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional
at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any
trademark on it? Caller: It came with my computer. I don't know anything
about a promotional. I just has "4X" on it. At this point, the tech had to
mute the caller because he couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the
load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and had snapped it off the
drive!

HOW TO UNDERSTAND COMPUTER LINGO
Common Computer Terminology

486 - Average IQ needed to understand a PC
State-of-the-art - Any computer you can't afford
Obsolete - Any computer you own
Microsecond - The time it take for your state-of-the-art computer to become
obsolete
Syntax Error - "Hi, I want to buy a computer and money is no object."
Computer Chip - Any starchy foodstuff consumed while programming
Keyboard - The standard way to generate computer errors
Mouse - An advanced input device to make computer errors easier top
generate
Floppy - The state of your wallet after buying a computer
Hard Drive - The sales technique employed by computer salespeople
Portable Computer - A device intended to force buisinesspersons to work at
home, on vacation, and on business trips
Disk Crash - A typical computer response to any critical deadline
Power User - Anyone who can format a disk from DOS
System Update - A quick method of trashing ALL your software

Computer Industry Acronyms

PCMIA - People Can't Memorize Industry Acronyms

SCSI - System Can't See It

PENTIUM - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorect Understanding of
Mathematics

WWW - World Wide Wait

CD-ROM - Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months

COBOL - Completely Outdated Because Of Length

MIPS - Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed

WINDOWS - Will Install Needless Data On Whole System

OS/2 - Obsolete Soon, Too

MICROSOFT - Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools
Teenagers

LISP - Lots of Infuriating, Silly Parentheses

RISC - Reduced Into Silly Code

DOS - Defective Operating System

IBM - I Blame Microsoft

DEC - Do Expect Cuts

COMPUTER SPECIFIC OXYMORONS

Advanced BASIC
Software Documentation
Computer Jock
Web Security
Microsoft Works

Funny Virus List

{Should you receive a document with any of the following viruses, you must
immediately open the window and throw your computer out. I repeat, do not
ever again use your computer should it be infected with ANY of these
horrible viruses. Here are some "terrifying" new viruses on the prowl.}

Freudian Virus - Your computer becomes obsessed with its own motherboard,
or becomes very jealous of the size of your friend's hard disk.

Tonya Harding Virus - turns your .BAT files into lethal weapons.

Paul Revere Virus - warns of an impending virus infection:
1 if by LAN, 2 if by C:\

Ollie North Virus - plays a patriotic .WAV while it shreds your files.

Joey Buttafucco Virus - only attacks minor files.

Ronald Reagan Virus - saves your data, but forgets where it's stored.

Jane Fonda Virus - attacks your hard drive's FAT.

AT&T Virus - Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are
getting.

MCI Virus - Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much
for the AT&T virus.

Politically Correct Virus - Never calls itself a "virus," but instead
refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism".

Ross Perot Virus - Activates every component in your system, just before the
whole darn thing quits.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus - Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.

Government Economist Virus - Nothing works, but all your diagnostic
software says everything is fine.

Federal Bureaucrat Virus - Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little
units, each of which does practically nothing,
but all of which claim to be the most important
part of your computer.

Adam and Eve Virus - Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple computer.

Congressional Virus #1 - The computer locks up, and the screen splits
erratically with a message appearing on each half
blaming the other side for the problem.

Congressional Virus #2 - Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously,
but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything.

Airline Virus - You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

PBS Virus - Your computer stops every few minutes to ask for money.

Jimmy Hoffa Virus - Your programs can never be found again.

L.A.P.D. Virus - It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your
PC and erases them in self-defense.

O.J. Virus - It claims that it did not, could not and would not delete two
of your files and vows to find the virus that did it.

Titanic virus - Makes your whole computer go down

Disney virus - Everything in the computer goes Goofy

Mike Tyson virus - Quits after one byte

Tim Allen virus - Appears helpful, only to destroy your hard drive upon contact

X-files virus - All your Icons start shape shifting

Spice Girl virus - Has no real function, but makes a pretty desktop

Dr. Jack Kevorkian virus - Searches your hard drive for old files and deletes them

Martha Stewart virus - Takes all your files, sorts them by category and folds them
into cute little doilies to be displayed on your desktop

Y0K

Translated from Latin scroll dated 2 BC
Dear Cassius:

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of
headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the
wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking
upwards.

You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it
all out at this last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it
when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called
in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work and as
usual charged fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely we will not have to throw out all our
hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.

The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usury rates will invert
and they will have to pay their clients to takeout loans.

Its an ill wind ......

As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that
there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately
they won't arrive until it's all over. I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses
at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run
backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life.

Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition.

Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem. I will send a
parchment to you if anything further develops. If you have any ideas please let me know,

Plutonius

Y1k
An Article from a London Newspaper (circa 999 A.D.)

Canterbury, England. A.D. 999.

An atmosphere close to panic prevails today throughout Europe as the millennial year 1000
approaches, bringing with it the so-called "Y1K Bug," a menace which, until recently, hardly
anyone had ever heard of. Prophets of doom are warning that the entire fabric of Western
Civilization, based as it now is upon monastic computations, could collapse, and that there is
simply not enough time left to fix the problem.

Just how did this disaster-in-the-making ever arise? Why did no one anticipate that a change
from a three-digit to a four-digit year would throw into total disarray all liturgical chants
and all metrical verse in which any date is mentioned? Every formulaic hymn, prayer, ceremony
and incantation dealing with dated events will have to be re-written to accommodate three extra
syllables. All tabular chronologies with three-space year columns, maintained for generations
by scribes using carefully hand-ruled lines on vellum sheets, will now have to be converted to
four-space columns, at enormous cost. In the meantime, the validity of every official event,
from baptisms to burials, from confirmations to coronations, may be called into question.

"We should have seen it coming ," says Brother Cedric of St. Michael Abbey, here in Canterbury.
"What worries me most is that THOUSAND contains the word THOU, which occurs in nearly all our
prayers, and of course always refers to God. Using it now in the name of the year will seem
almost blasphemous, and is bound to cause terrible confusion. Of course, we could always use
Latin, but that might be even worse -- The Latin word for Thousand is Mille which is the same as
the Latin for mile. We won't know whether we are talking about time or distance!"

Stonemasons are already reported threatening to demand a proportional pay increase for having
to carve an extra numeral in all dates on tombstones, cornerstones and monuments. Together with
its inevitable ripple effects, this alone could plunge the hitherto-stable medieval economy
into chaos.

A conference of clerics has been called at Winchester to discuss the entire issue, but
doomsayers are convinced that the matter is now one of personal survival. Many families, in
expectation of the worst, are stocking up on holy water and indulgences.

Y-to-K

Y-to-K Date Change Project Status

Our staff has completed the 18 months of work on time and on budget. We have gone through every
line of code in every program in every system. We have analyzed all databases, all data files,
including backups and historic archives, and modified all data to reflect the change. We are
proud to report that we have completed the "Y-to-K" date change mission, and have now
implemented all changes to all programs and all data to reflect your new standards:

Januark, Februark, March, April, Mak, June, Julk, August, September, October, November,
December

As well as:

Sundak, Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, Saturdak

I trust that this is satisfactory, because to be honest, none of this Y-to-K problem has made
any sense to me. But I understand it is a global problem, and our team is glad to help in any
way possible.

And what does the year 2000 have to do with it? Speaking of which, what do you think we ought
to do next year when the two digit year rolls over from 99 to 00?

We'll await your direction.

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