Computer
Jokes
Wife 1.0
Last year a friend of mine upgraded Girlfriend 6.0 to Wife 1.0 and found
that its a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other
applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 is also spawning Child-Processes
which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular
phenomena was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though
other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of
the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always
launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system
activity.
He's finding that some applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Beer Bash 2.5 and
Pub Night 7.0 are no longer able to run, crashing the system when selected
(even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0
automatically installs undesired Plug-Ins such as Mother-In-Law 55.8 and
Brother-In-Law Beta release. As a consequence, system performance seems to
diminish with each passing day.
Some features he would like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0;
* A "Don't remind me again" button.
* A minimize button.
* An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the
option to uninstall at any time without the loss of cache and other system
resources.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by
sticking to Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems.
Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You must
uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a longstanding bug
which I should have been aware of.
Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O
port. You think that they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now.
To make matters worse, the uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work
very well, leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system.
Another annoying problem: all versions of Girlfriend continually pop up
annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0.
BUG WARNING
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug.
If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will
delete MS Money files before executing a self-uninstallation .
Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient system
resources.
BUG WORK-AROUNDS
To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and
never run any file trasfer applications such as Laplink 6.0. Also, beware of
similar shareware applications that have been known to carry viruses that may
affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.1 via a UseNet
provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can
accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.
P.S. Most women prefer men with a large RAM and CACHE availability.
......................................................................................................
LOVE LETTER
Dear Ms.
I've seen you yesterday while surfing on local bus stand and realized that you
are the only site I was browsing for. For long time, I have been lonely, trying
to find a bug in my life and you can be a real debugger for me now. My life is
just an un-compiled program without you, which never produces an executable
code and hence is useless. You are not only beautiful by face but all your
ActiveX controls are attractive as well. Your smile is so delightful, which
encourages me and gives power to me equal to thousands of mainframes processing
power. When you looked at me last evening, I felt like all my program modules
were running smoothly and giving expected results. /* Which I never experienced
before */. With this letter, I just want to convey to you that, if we linked
together, I'll provide you all objects & libraries necessary for a human
being to live an error free life. Also don't bother about the firewall, which
may be created by our parents as I've strong hacking capabilities by which I'll
ultimately break their security passwords and make them agree for our marriage.
I anticipate that nobody is already logged in to your database so that my
connect script will fail. And it's all certain that if this happened to me, I
will crash my system beyond recovery. Kindly interpret this letter properly and
grant me all privileges of your inbox.
Only yours,
s/w pro
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Helicopters and Microsoft
A helicopter was flying around Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction
disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications
equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the
helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a tall
building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the
helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large
letters.
People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large
sign, and held in a building window. Their sign 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 co-pilot 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, similar to their
help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless
answer."
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struct Indian_Bachelor_software_professional
{
double standards;
short sighted;
long time_between_visits_to_India;
float horoscope;
void girlfriend;
char desperate;
};
struct Married_Indian_Software_Professional
{
double trouble;
short changed;
long sighs;
float hopes;
void independence;
char philosophical;
};
struct Indian_Engaged_software_professional
{
double time_at_work; // to get long vacation to India
short attention_span;
long phone_calls_to_India;
float on_cloud_nine;
void bank_balance;
char edgy;
};
struct Indian_Newly_Married_software_professional
{
double dinner_invitations;
short time_at_work;
long lunch_breaks;
float wife_resumes;
void bank_balance;
char hen_pecked;
......................................................................................................
Awkward's Humour
and Sillies
A Lay Persons Guide To Programming Languages
C: You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."
Fortran: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you ccontinue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.
Modula-2: After realizing that you can't accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
COBOL: USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE, THEN return HANDGUN to HOLDSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.
LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds ...
BASIC: Shoot yourself in foot with water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.
APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.
Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.
Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of the gun into the left of leg of you. Answer the result.
Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
Unix: % Is foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm *.o rm: .o: No such file or directory % is %
DOS: You can't get to either foot from here.
OS/2: Point to Body and click, point to leg and click, point to lower leg and click, point to foot and gun goes click.
Xbase: Shooting yourself is no problem. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, you'll have to use Clipper.
Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.
Revelation: You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.
Visual Basic: You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you don't care.
Prolog: You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.
370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.
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Acronyms
PCMCIA People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN It Still Does Nothing
APPLE Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
SCSI System Can't See It
DOS Defective Operating System
BASIC Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control
IBM I Blame Microsoft
DEC Do Expect Cuts
CD-ROM Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
OS/2 Obsolete Soon, Too.
WWW World Wide Wait
MACINTOSH Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
PENTIUM Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics
COBOL Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
AMIGA A Merely Insignificant Game Addiction
LISP Lots of Infuriating & Silly Parenthesis
MIPS Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
WINDOWS Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
GIRO Garbage In Rubbish Out
MICROSOFT Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
......................................................................................................
When I went to college in the
1980's, I heard a lot of words like "data input" and "beta
version." They confused me. I wanted
desperately to know what people were talking about, what Big Secret resided in
the computer industry.
Now that I've worked in a computer
company for the last few years, I've gained an insider's perspective. I decided
to share my knowledge
with the uninitiated by creating the following brief, handy glossary:
Alpha. Software undergoes alpha
testing as a first step in getting user feedback. Alpha is Latin for
"doesn't work."
Beta. Software undergoes beta
testing shortly before it's released.
Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."
Computer. Instrument of torture. The
first computer was invented by Roger "Duffy" Billingsly, a British
scientist. In a plot to overthrow
Adolf Hitler, Duffy disguised himself as a German ally and offered his
invention as a gift to the surly dictator. The plot worked.
On April 8, 1945, Adolf became so enraged at the "Bad Command or File
Name" error message that he shot himself. The war ended soon after
Hitler's death, and Duffy began working for IBM.
CPU. Central propulsion unit. The
CPU is the computer's engine. It consists of a hard drive, an interface card
and a tiny spinning wheel that's powered by a running rodent - a gerbil if the
machine is a 286, a ferret if it's a 386 and a ferret on speed if it's a 486.
Default Directory. Black hole.
Default directory is where all files that you need disappear to. And, by
default, its your fault.
Error message. Terse, baffling
remark used by programmers to place blame on users for the program's
shortcomings.
File. A document that has been saved
with an unidentifiable name. It helps to think of a file as something stored in
a file cabinet -
except when you try to remove the file, the cabinet gives you an electric shock
and tells you the file format is unknown.
Hardware. Collective term for any
computer-related object that can be kicked or battered. If you can kick it, its
hardware.
Help. The feature that assists in
generating more questions. When the help feature is used correctly, users are
able to navigate through a series of Help screens and end up where they started
from without learning anything.
Input/Output. Information is input
from the keyboard as intelligible data and output to the printer as
unrecognizable junk.
Interim Release. A programmer's
feeble attempt at repentance.
Memory. Of computer components, the
most generous in terms of variety, and the skimpiest in terms of quantity.
Printer. A joke in poor taste. A
printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the
blinking red light.
Programmers. Computer avengers. Once
members of that group of high school nerds who wore tape on their glasses,
played Dungeons and Dragons, and memorized Star Trek episodes; now millionaires
who create "user-friendly" software to get revenge on whoever gave
them noogies.
Reference Manual. Object that raises
the monitor to eye level. Also used to compensate for that short table leg.
Scheduled Release Date. A carefully
calculated date determined by estimating the actual shipping date and
subtracting six months from it.
Software. Something you can't describe,
see or kick.
User-Friendly. Of or pertaining to
any feature, device or concept that makes perfect sense to a programmer.
Users. Collective term for those who
stare vacantly at a monitor. Users are divided into three types: novice,
intermediate and expert.
- Novice Users. People who are afraid that simply pressing a key might break
their computer.
- Intermediate Users. People who don't know how to fix their computer after
they've just pressed a key that broke it
- Expert Users. People who press keys on other people's computers and break
'em.
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E-mail Errors
It's wise to remember how easily this wonderful technology can be misused, sometimes unintentionally, with serious consequences.
Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quicke-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory.
Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.
At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:
Dearest Wife,
Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
Your Loving Husband
PS. Sure is hot down here.
......................................................................................................
Hi,we all know those cute little computer symbols called
"emoticons," where :) means a smile and :( is a frown. Sometimes
these are represented by :-) and :-( respectively. Well, how about some
"assicons"?
Here goes:
(_!_) a
regular ass
(__!__) a fat
ass
(!) a
tight ass
(_._) a
flat ass
(_^_) a
bubble ass
(_*_) a
sore ass
(_!__) a
lop-sided ass
{_!_} a
swishy ass
(_o_) An
ass that's been around
(_O_) An
ass that's been around even more
(_x_) kiss
my ass
(_X_) leave
my ass alone
(_zzz_) a
tired ass
(_o^o_) a wise
ass
(_13_) An
unlucky ass
(_$_) Money
coming out of his ass
(_?_) Dumb
Ass
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Important Theological Questions that are Answered When we understand God as essentially a Programmer....
Q: Did God
really create the world in seven days?
A: He did
it in six days and nights while living on Jolt and candy bars.
On the seventh day He went home and found out His girlfriend had left Him.
Q: Does God
control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could
if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all those variables.
Q: Why does
God allow evil to happen?
A: God
thought He eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.
Q: Does God
know everything?
A: He likes
to think so, but He is often amazed to find out what goes on in the operating
system kernel.
Q: What
causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If a
critical error occurs, the system pages Him automatically and He logs on from
home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow.
Q: How come
the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was
the development phase of the project; now we are in the maintenance phase.
Q: Will
there be another Universe after the Big Bang?
A: A lot of
people are drawing things on the white board, but personally, God doubts that
it will ever be implemented.
Q: Who is
Satan?
A: Satan is
an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so
nontechnical people are scared of him.
God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.
Q: What is
the role of sinners?
A: Sinners
are the people who find new and imaginative ways to mess up the system when God
has made it idiot-proof. As soon as God has made it idiot-proof again, there's
Satan building a better idiot.
Q: Where
will I go after I die?
A: Onto a
DAT tape and into off-line storage.
Q: Will I
be reincarnated?
A: Not
unless there is a special need to restore you to on-line accessibility. And
searching those .tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you,
God will probably just say that the tape has been lost.
Q: Am I
unique and special in the universe?
A: No.
There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates
of you in the present release version.
Q: What is
the purpose of the universe?
A: God
created it because He values elegance and simplicity. But then the users and
managers demanded He tack all this other senseless crap onto it, and now everything
is more complicated and expensive than ever.
Q: If I
pray to God, will He listen?
A: You can
waste His time telling Him what to do, or you can just get off His back and let
Him write code in peace.
Q: What is
the one true religion?
A: All systems
have their advantages and disadvantages. So you just have to pick the one that
best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down.
Q: Is God
angry that Jesus was crucified?
A: Let's
just say He's not going to any more meetings if He can help it, because that
last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out to be murder.
Q: How can
I protect myself from evil?
A: Change
your password every month and don't make it a name, a common word, your phone
number, or a date than can be easily associated with you, like your birth date.
Q: Some
people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are
much more likely to receive e-mail.
Q: How can
we interpret the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?
A: A
manifestation of our machine's precision limit.
Q: What was
Aramaic?
A: The
original Higher Order MACRO Language.
Q: What
does that make Ancient Hebrew?
A: Aramaic++
Q: Why
don't we see God at work?
A: God works
at interrupt level, His Wonders to perform. When He wants to do something, He
suspends our processes, saves our registers and status, and swaps us out. Then
He works His will on the world. Finally, He executes a RFS instruction (Return
From Subroutine), then He swaps us back in, restores our registers and status,
and resumes our execution. To us, of course, things just appear to change by
magic.
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Warning: This list may be offensive to ardent feminists (ducking)
There are so many programming languages available that it can be very difficult
to get to know them all well enough to pick the right one for you. On the other
hand most men know what kind of woman appeals to them. So here is a handy guide
for many of the popular programming languages that describes what kind of women
they would be if programming languages were women.
Assembler A
female track star who holds all the world speed records. She is hard and bumpy,
and so is not that pleasant to embrace. She can cook up any meal, but needs a
complete and detailed recipe. She is not beautiful or educated, and speaks in
monosyllables like "MOV, JUMP, INC." She has a fierce and violent
temper that makes her the choice of last resort.
FORTRAN Your grey-haired
grandmother. People make fun of her just because she is old, but if you take
the time to listen, you can learn from her experiences and her mistakes. During
her lifetime she has acquired many useful skills in sewing and cooking
(subroutine libraries). That no younger women can match, so be thankful she is
still around. She has a notoriously bad temper and when angered will start
yelling and throwing dishes. It was mostly her bad temper that made grandad
search for another wife.
COBOL A
plump secretary. She talks far too much, and most of what she says can be
ignored. She works hard and long hours, but can't handle really complicated
jobs. She has a short and unpredictable temper, so no one really likes working
with her. She can cook meals for a huge family, but only knows bland recipes.
BASIC The
horny divorcee that lives next door. Her specialty is seducing young boys and
it seems she is always readily available for them. She teaches them many
amazing things, or at least they seem amazing because it is their first
experience. She is not that young herself, but because she was their first
lover the boys always remember her fondly. Her cooking and sewing skills are
mediocre, but largely irrelevant, it's the frolicking that the boys like. The
opinion that adults have of Mrs. BASIC is varied. Shockingly, some fathers
actually introduce their own sons to this immoral woman! But generally the more
righteous adults try to correct the badly influenced young men by introducing
them to well behaved women like Miss Pascal.
PL/I A
bordello madam. She wears silk dresses, diamonds, furs and red high heels. At
one time she seemed very attractive, but now she just seems overweight and
tacky. Tastes change.
C A
lady executive. An avid jogger, very healthy, and not too talkative. Is an good
cook if you like spicy food. Unless you double check everything you say
(through LINT) you can unleash her fierce temper. Her daughter C++ is still
quite young and prone to tantrums, but it seems that she will grow up into a fine
young woman of milder temper and more sophisticated character.
ALGOL 60 Your
father's wartime sweetheart, petite, well proportioned, and sweet tempered. She
disappeared mysteriously during the war, but your dad still talks about her
shapely form and their steamy romance. He never actually tasted much of her
cooking.
Pascal A
grammar school teacher, and Algol 60's younger sister. Like her sister she is
petite and attractive, but very bossy. She is a good cook but only if the
recipe requires no more than one pot (module).
Modula II A
high-school teacher and Pascal's daughter. Very much like her mother, but she
has learned to cook with more than one pot.
ALGOL 68 Algol
60's niece. A high-society woman, well educated and terse. Few men can fully understand
her when she talks, and her former lovers still discuss her mysterious
personality. She is very choosy about her romances and won't take just any man
as her lover. She hasn't been seen lately, and rumor has it that she died in a
fall from an ivory tower.
LISP She
is an aging beatnik, who lives in a rural commune with her hippie cousins
SMALLTALK and FORTH. Many men (mostly college students) who have visited the
farmhouse enthusiastically praise the natural food, and perpetual love-ins that
take place there. Others criticize the long cooking times, and the abnormal
sexual postures (prefix and postfix). Although these women seldom have
full-time jobs, when they do work, their employers praise them for their
imagination, but usually not for their efficiency.
APL A
fancy caterer specializing in Greek food. She can cook delicious meals for rows
and rows of tables with dozens of people at each table. She doesn't talk much,
as that would just slow her work down. Few people can understand her recipes,
since they are in a foreign language, and are all recorded in mirror writing.
LOGO A
grade-school art teacher. She is just the kind of teacher that you wish you had
when you were young. She is shapely and patient, but not an interesting
conversationalist.
LUCID
&
PROLOG These
clever teenagers show a new kind of cooking skill. They can cook-up fine meals
without the use of recipes, working solely from a description of the desired
meal (declarative cooking). Many men are fascinated by this and have already proposed
marriage. Others complain that the girls work very slowly, and that often the
description of the meal must be just as long as a recipe would be. It is hard
to predict what these girls will be like when they are fully mature.
Ada A
WAC colonel built like an amazon. She is always setting strict rules, but if
you follow them, she keeps her temper. She is quite talkative, always spouting
army regulations, and using obscure military talk. You gotta love her though,
because the army says so.
......................................................................................................
Computer Stories #2
(user) I'm having trouble with this
editor
(admin) Which one are you using ?
(user) Um, I dunno.
(admin) Emacs? Which version are you
running ?
(user) Umm, I'm running version vi,
and having heaps of
trouble. Is vii out?
(admin) (mental grind) *duh*
(user) Have they done anything new?
(admin) Well, yeah, they're up to xv
now, but that needs a special
graphical interface.
(user) Oh, well, thanks anyway.
(admin) *shudder*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tech support guy once told me that
he got a call from someone saying
that the computer screen just went black and the computer wouldn't
respond at all. The tech guy (starting with the obvious) asked the
guy if the computer was still plugged in that maybe his foot had
knocked the plug out of the socket. The guy on the other end of the
phone said to hold on that he would be back in a minute with a
flashlight because the electricity had just gone out in his building
and he couldn't see under the desk without the lights....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The start of the new school term
always brings out the most
interesting questions for computer consultants on campus. The
predominant questions this term pertain to "getting into" E-mail and
how to access the "Information Highway".
An obviously distraught student came into the consulting office
yesterday complaining that his E-mail wasn't working; his attempts to
get tickets for an on-campus concert kept resulting in returned mail.
He showed me the mail address he was attempting to reach- I asked him
where he obtained such an unusual mail address.
He replied, "The sign told me, 'begins@7:30 P.M.'"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was trying to teach this sales
person (for automated entrance system
[they made gates]) how to enter his letters into Word Perfect. I told
him to select Word Perfect from his menu and when he did it gave him
the opening screen which said, "Press any key to continue..." He
looked at the keyboard for awhile then asked me, "Where is the 'any'
key?".
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is the classic one (which I
hope is an urban myth) of the
secretary working in an accounting firm who is told to make back up
copies of the discs every night.
Every night she carfully collected together all the discs and took
them away to copy them. After six months the hard disc crashed but
no-one was worried because they had backups, until the secretary
brought in the huge pile of paper with a nice photocopied disc on
each!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A user called the PC Support line of
the university having trouble with
her Mac. It was handed off to one of the Mac guys...
"What seems to be the
problem?"
"It's not working."
Eyes roll. "What's not
working?"
"My Mac."
<- Five minutes of drawing the problem
out of the woman deleted ->
"Okay, to access the files on
the disk click the mouse on the picture
of the disk."
Pause. "Nothing happened. I
told you, I've already tried this."
Support guy makes as if he is
strangling the phone.
"Okay, do it again. Is the
mouse moving?"
"Yep."
"On the screen?"
"Yep."
"Now click twice on the picture
of the disk."
Pause and the consultant hears the
two clicks again. "Nothing."
"Maam, double-click once more
for me."
Clink-clink.
"Maam, are you hitting the
screen with your mouse?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A secretary who had gotten a PC for
word processing had periodic
failures. The disks would work for days, but after a couple of weeks
would fail. They would be recovered by IBM (to an extent) but after a
couple of weeks the cycle would repeat.
At one point a service tech came out to the site to repair it,
suspecting damage in transit.
He recovered what he could, cleaned and aligned the drive (for the
400th time) and gave it a clean bill of health at about 5:00...
and the secretary in question put the disk in the envelope, stuck it
to her wall with her magnet, and went home.
Of course this sounds stupid to us, but how many secretaries are
familiar with mass storage techniques? A friend of mine fixed his
mother's TV by connecting the antenna. After explaining the problem,
she asked:
"How far away is the TV
station?"
"From here? About 20
miles."
"You mean that picture can
travel 20 miles to get to the antenna, but
it can't go another 3 inches to get
to the TV?"
How do you explain that (in less
than four years)?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These remind me of another story I
heard (or probably read on
rec.humor. It was told by an instructor who taught programming in
BASIC language.
He had given them step-by-step instructions on how to write a short
program that would let you enter two numbers and the computer would
return the sum of the two numbers.
When each student had all their program steps keyed in, he told the
class to type RUN and enter. A lady in the back of the class said,
"It didn't work." The instructor once again told her to simply type
RUN and enter. Still didn't work. So the instructor walked back to
see what the problem was. It was obvious. He had been spelling out
"R" "U" "N"....she had typed "are you
in".
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A user came up and wanted to know
why their 3.5" disk wouldn't go into
the Mac's floppy drive. I check out the disk, noted that it was okay,
and then walked over to the offending machine, suspecting a hardware
problem with the disk mechanism.
As I moved to insert the disk into the drive to test things out, the
user interrupted me:
"No! Not that drive...*this*
one."
"This" drive, of course,
turned out to be a CD-ROM.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every now and then, when users work
on documents on multiple disks,
the Mac's will tell them to insert their other disk. And sometimes,
you get to catch people trying to put two disks in the same drive at
the same time. :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was at the local computer shop and
I happened to be in the tech area
talking to one of my friends there and I overheard this woman say to
another technician the following:
"I am running WinFax to receive
my faxes. I want to know if I have to
leave the computer running in order to do this."
It was all I could do to from
bursting out loud and rolling on the
floor laughing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At my first real world programming
position, we sent out updates on 8"
floppy disks. To save time/energy, we put the following on the disk
labels:
1) Insert disk in drive
2) Press ^C (control-C)
3) type A:INSTALL
We got a call from one of our users
(um, "customers"). She said
"I don't know what to do. I inserted the disk in the drive, but then
I forgot what the next step
was."
This was the turning point for me. I
finally realized just how
foolproof things needed to be. (We sent out paper copies with
instructions after that.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I was working in a placement
office at the University, we helped
students write their resumes on the computer. A student came up to me
and said he had problems reading the disk. I asked him to show it to
me so I could see if I could recover the files, "sure." he said, and
took the disk (5 1/4" floppy) out of his pocket and unfolded it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another time, while working at a
computer store, somebody who bought
his computer from us was having trouble with one of his disks. The
man was living in another city, so I asked him to send me a copy of
the disk, and I would take a look at it. A few days later, an
envelope arrived for me, it contained a "photocopy" of the front and
back side of the disk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I overheard a nice conversation one
day in a computer shop:
customer: I'd like a mouse mat please.
assistant: certainly sir,we've got a large variety.
customer while looking at said mats then asked:
"But will they be compatible with my computer?"
All i could do to keep a straight face was walk out of the shop.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A friend of mine works at Word
Perfect in Orem UT. He had a lady call
up and tell him she couldn't figure out how to install the program.
He told her "Insert Disk1 into the disk drive and type "INSTALL
WP".
He then proceeded to have her insert disk 2 through 4 in sequential
order. She then stop him to ask if it would be alright to remove the
previous four disks because the fifth wouldn't fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The best protection against
computer viruses is to keep the cover on the
> floppy disk when you insert it into the drive :-)
Don't laugh. At the store in which I used to work we actually had
people come in with disks stuck in their Macs and on the disks the
plastic disk cover. One of the downsides of being "easiest to use" is
that you do get a lot of bonehead customers. To paraphrase John
Dvorak, the only interfaces which are truly intuitive are rocks and
mud.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone complained he couldn't get
his disk out. I said, "Type
Command-E (Eject) when you're in the Finder." He came back. It
didn't work. I said, "Type Command-Shift-1." He came back. It
didn't work. I then said, "Reboot the Mac while holding the mouse
button pressed until the disk ejects." He came back. It didn't work.
So I decided I'd have a look at it myself. He had succeeded in
cramming 2 disks in the same disk drive. Any guess what.... they were
stuck!!!! ............ computers!!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Man comes in, in a panic. He had
typed a document the day before, and
now it was all gone. "Have you saved it properly?" was of course my
first question. Yes, he said, it was saved properly. But all the
text had mysteriously disappeared. On his disk, I found a completely
empty document. Indeed it was saved, apparently, and indeed it did
not contain text. Of course, he had saved the document right BEFORE
he started typing. When it was finished, he took out his disk and
shut down the computer. And now all that text was gone, even though
he had SAVED!!! ....... To top it all off, he got mad at ME when I
told him the only thing he could do was retype the whole thing. Was I
fucking nuts or something???
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone comes in and asks me how to
print a document. I explain about
the Page Setup (making sure the user selected "A4 Letter" as his
document size, the one for our LaserWriter) and then selecting the
Print command in the File menu. Happy, the user walks away. Comes
back in two minutes. Still no document with his name on our spooler.
"Make sure you have selected the Info-Groep Laser Spooler, I said. He
had checked. It WAS selected. "Have you issued the Print command
yet?" Of course, what did I think he was, a fucking dummy? So I went
over to have a look. The "Print" dialog box was still on his screen.
I clicked on the "Print" button.... "Oooooooh, you have to click
on
Print!!!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our computer center has both PCs and
Macs, and the most frequent
stupid error is people who create a file on a Mac, and try to edit it
later on a PC. When I tell them that they have to use a Mac to edit
their Mac files, they look at me and say, "But all the Macs are being
used." Most of them eventually accept that they have to stick with
one type of computer, but I have gotten into some extended arguments
with a couple of stubborn users.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, there are people that try
to retrieve a file from the A:
drive, when their disk is in the B: drive. The first time I can see,
but after the little light comes on in the wrong drive, you'd think
they'd figure it out.......
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here where I work (research clinic)
one of the secretaries recently
complained to me that she just saved a file on a disk but now it
wouldn't read it. Apparently, she had put the 5.25" floppy sideways
(with the slot on one side) into the drive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another incident I remember froma a
few years ago when I worked at
the computer center of the University: a student came in a complained
that she saved a file (Mac) earlier that day, but now she can't find it.
Computer assistant: And which Mac did you use earlier when you saved
it?
Student: Oh, this same one.
Computer assistant: Perhaps it's on
the harddrive...
Student: No, some other assistant
saved it on my disk for
me.
Computer assistant: (Looks for disk
icon, looks in drive, can't find
the disk) Where's the disk?
Student: In my bag...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I personally love the reaction of
some people to the screen savers on
the Macintoshes in our computer lab. I was sitting next to a blonde
(at that point I didn't place any significance on this fact) who was
typing a paper, and by the way she was doing it, it was clear that
this was just about her first time. Well, a friend of hers sat at the
computer across from hers, and they started chatting... and yup, the
screensaver kicked in.
The scream was heard, I was told, around two corners in the hallway.
But there's more... after she'd nearly passed out, her friend just
told her to move the mouse to get back to what she was doing, that she
didn't lose anything, in fact.
She didn't count on the fact that when her friend jumped up in
hysteria she'd bumped the keyboard/mouse connector out of the
socket...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I also heard a story of a guy doing
tech support for a small company.
A lady called in telling him the company's software wouldn't work. He
went through a bunch of questions about how the software was acting,
and came to discover that the lady was having troubles getting her
computer to turn on.
He asked her, "What happens when you turn the computer on?".
She replied, "The screen just
stays black".
He then asked, "Is the computer
plugged in?".
She replied, "I took it to a
repair shop last week and they apparently
fixed it so it doesn't need a power cord anymore."
He asked, "Is the computer a
laptop computer?".
She replied, "No, but they
never gave me back the power cord so they
must have fixed it so it didn't need it."
He said, "Go back to the repair
store and get back your power cord.
They just forgot to give it to you."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
cartoon seen in an old computer
magazine:
little boy sitting in a pile of diskettes, he's holding a horseshoe
magnet. Father is in the adjoining room doing some take-home work.
"Dad, you've been jipped. None of these are magnetic"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A salesperson hoping to demonstrate
to a skeptical corp. how easy it
is to use windows.
Just point and click" he says. "Just point to the application you
want
and click on the mouse button."
So the exec take the mouse, lifts it, hefts it like a tv.remote points
at the screen and clicks the button.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A foreign gentleman came in needing help
using a word processor to
write a letter. I took him over to a Mac and gave him a brief
overview of its capabilities and commands and left him at a point
where he could just start typing. He looked at me, puzzled. See, he
didn't know how to type. Not just that he didn't know how to type
well, but it was like he didn't understand the concept of typing (the
's' key puts an s on the screen). Eventually I ended up typing it for
him bacause it was easier than arguing with him.
Another gentleman came to us frantic. The day before he had saved a
very important document on the hard drive of one of our Macs and he
could not find it. He was yelling at me that our lab employees must
have deleted it and we need to have more respect for users, etc. (We
have a policy of allowing documents to remain in the hard drives for 7
days before being erased by the staff.) I helped him look for his
paper, but when I couldn't find it, I explained our policy and the
fact that we can't control what other users might do with a document
left on a computer. He was *not* happy. Then in a sudden flash of
genius I asked him, "You were using *this* particular Mac, weren't
you?" to which he responded, "No, I was using one in the other
room."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We once had an elderly female end
user (the type that technology
passed by) who would get very angry with the machine, generally when
it would do EXACTLY what she had instructed it to do. Her usual
response was to bang the mouse down on the desk. Obviously, it didn't
take long for the mouse to break. We analysts knew what she was doing,
but she always denied it when the tech came to replace the
mouse. Finally, one of the techs, took a mouse apart on her desk as
part of the replacement process. Says he, "You hit this mouse pretty
hard." The reply, "Oh, no. I never did anything. It just broke."
To
which the tech said, "Well Ma'am, as you can see by the value on the
impact capacitor here, this mouse has been subjected to a very bad
force. Probably caused when someone picked up the mouse and dropped it
or banged it on the desk."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another case, I had gone to a
customer site with one of the
hardware guys to install a machine. The new sysop, a true novice,
asked a number of questions about the care and feeding of the
machine. At one point, being funny, I told her that for best
performance she should dust and wax the boards occasionally to keep
them clean. She looked at me a bit askance, as we knew each other
previously and she knew of my penchant for practical jokes. At that
point the hardware tech looks up and says, "Be sure to get a good
polish like Pledge or something. And don't get anything with lemon
scent. It messes up the contacts." She believed.
We later called her boss to gently suggest that her leg might have
been pulled.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was an big, athletic-looking
guy fooling with one of our brother
(IBM) printers. He was opening it up, shaking it a little, and trying
to jam a paper into the manual paper feed. When I asked him what the
problem was, he said, "Your copier isn't working."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
meet the man who asked which was the
laser printer. i asked him which
machine he was printing on; we have different laser printers. he
gives me this nice sarcastic response, ''this is a *mac* lab, right?''
so i pointed him to the mac laser printer.
the trouble is, (1) maclab is the *old* name; and (2) he was on an ibm
pc.
of course, this didn't occur to him for the (i swear to bill) 35
minutes he stood at the wrong printer waiting for his printout, until
he asked me how long the print queue was (it was empty, had been for
most of the 35 minutes.)
very patient man, if nothing else...
i mean, come on, even *i* know that an empty queue doesn't take 35
minutes to print, except when my assignment is due.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hey, can you help me? my program
doesn't work...
- What is the problem, are you using
Turbo Pascal??
- Yes, the program just blocks the
machine...
- Well, does it compile?
- I don't know, it just doesn't
run...
I went to his computer and he told
me:
- You see? there's the .EXE file, if
you run it it blocks the
machine...
- And where is your source, the .PAS
file???
- I wrote it and renamed it to .EXE
so it could run...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Remove the sleve, and insert
the floppy disk into the drive."
[hours of technical support later]
"You know -- these vinyl covers
they put on disks are really hard
to get off..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[45 minutues of trying to fix a
terminal -- including a process kill
and a full shutdown (UNIX)] "Oh -- wait a second..... Oops, the
intensity was just down. I have a login prompt now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A bank clerk friend told me this the
other day:
An elderly customer came into the bank complaining the ATM wasn't
working. She had been waiting for half an hour after "requesting a
new cheque book" and it still hadn't come out yet!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A customer (wife of an obnoxious
history professor, none the less)
comes into the store with a Macintosh which I had just replaced a bad
drive in a few days previously. She complained that it wasn't working
again, implying that I didn't fix it right the first time. So, I get
out the diagnotic tools, but can't find a thing wrong with it. I then
checked some of the diskettes she brought in with it, and find that
they are loaded with viruses. After cleaning up the diskettes, I
explained to her that her computer probably got the virus by trading
diskettes with someone whose computer was also infected. She then got
a very sullen expression on her face and asked me, "Can a person catch
this virus from their computer?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another occasion, a lady came
into the store, apparently interested
in buying a home computer. After surveying the models on display, she
walks over to one and points the the monitor and keyboard saying, "I
think I need one of these, and one of those, ..." She then points to
the CPU and continues, "... but I don't think I need one of those.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This one just happened.
User walks into the office. "This disk doesn't work."
Computer literate non-staff: "You have covered the disk slot with the
label."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess it's my turn to contribute
to this thread, so here goes: One
of our lusers called me about a problem she was having with her PC,
she was using a vt220 emulator to connect to one of our UNIX-boxes,
and "half of her prompts were missing". Two days earlier I had set up
the emulation software for her, and had checked that everything was
ok, so I tried to get her to be a bit more specific (fat
chance!). Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turned out that the
screen on this particular PC was one of those fancy things where you
can adjust the height, width vertical and horizontal placement of the
screen image......she had accidentally shifted the whole image to the
left, so the first half of her prompts were off-screen. :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
On my previous job a user needed a
program but didn't have a modem, so
I told him I'd overnight him a diskette. He then asked me if i could
*fax* the diskette to him! If I didn't need my job I would have told
him I would, but dominos was faxing me a pizza and he'd have to
wait a bit. :)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Customer: Where can I get a BIOS
upgrade for by 286 computer?
Tech: The unit should have been
shipped with the latest bios.
Customer: Well I upgraded the
processor myself, and my computer
doesn't seem to work.
Tech: What did you upgrade the
processor to?
Customer: I upgraded it to a
486DX-50.
Tech: Sir... The 286 chip is
soldered on the motherboard!
Customer: I know, I took out my handy
soldering iron and took it out and
put the 486 on myself.
Tech: Sir, the 486 is bigger than
the 286.
Customer: I know, I had to use quite
a bit of solder to solder the
extra pins together.
Tech: Sir I have to put you on hold
for a second.
the Tech laughed so hard he almost
fell out of his chair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my first *real* job, I was not
only responsible for programming but
I also did customer support and training. Our company used to sell
time on our computers so very small companies that couldn't afford
computers at the time could do their bookkeeping, etc. One day, a new
woman came in to use the trash-... i mean TRS-80 (boy I'm really
dating myself ;-) She fumbled about for about 10 minutes but I paid no
attention to her. Finally she came out & grumbled something about how
the computer wouldn't turn on. I grilled her with the usual obvious
questions: Did you turn the switch on? Did you plug it in? Did you
turn on the switch on the power strip? She was sure she had done
everything right. I was sure she neglected to plug one of the power
cords into the power strip.
So, I went to investigate and she was *RIGHT*, she *HAD* plugged
everything in to the power strip... including the power strip's own
power cord - talk about a ground loop!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A woman called the shop where she
had bought a PC and complained that it
didn't work properly: Every time she switched it on the screen was
filled with characters.
Two technicians were sent out and were met by a woman with tits about
twice the size of Dolly Parton's and glasses about two centimeters
thick. They asked her to switch on the computer. This she did, and then
leaned over the keyboard to read what was on the screen...
The problem was quickly solved.
......................................................................................................
Alpha - Software undergoes alpha testing as a first step in getting user feedback. Alpha is Latin for "doesn't work."
Beta - Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."
CPU - Central propulsion unit. The CPU is the computer's engine. It consists of a hard drive, an interface card and a tiny spinning wheel that's powered by a running rodent - a gerbil if the machine is a 286, a ferret if it's a 386 and a ferret on speed if it's a 486.
Default Directory - Black hole. Default directory is where all files that you need disappear to.
Error message - Terse, baffling remark used by programmers to place blame on users for the program's shortcomings.
File - A document that has been saved with an unidentifiable name. It helps to think of a file as something stored in a file cabinet - except when you try to remove the file, the cabinet gives you an electric shock and tells you the file format is unknown.
Hardware - Collective term for any computer-related object that can be kicked or battered.
Help - The feature that assists in generating more questions. When the help feature is used correctly, users are able to navigate through a series of Help screens and end up where they started from without learning anything.
Input/Output - Information is input from the keyboard as intelligible data and output to the printer as unrecognizable junk.
Interim Release - A programmer's feeble attempt at repentance.
Memory - Of computer components, the most generous in terms of variety, and the skimpiest in terms of quantity.
Printer - A joke in poor taste. A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.
Programmers - Computer avengers. Once members of that group of high school nerds who wore tape on their glasses, played Dungeons and Dragons, and memorised Star Trek episodes; now millionaires who create "user-friendly" software to get revenge on whoever gave them noogies.
Reference Manual - Object that raises the monitor to eye level. Also used to compensate for that short table leg.
Scheduled Release Date - A carefully calculated date determined by estimating the actual shipping date and subtracting six months from it.
User-Friendly - Of or pertaining to any feature, device or concept that makes perfect sense to a programmer.
Users - Collective term for those who stare vacantly at a monitor.
Users are divided into three types: Novice, Intermediate and Expert.
- Novice Users. People who are afraid that
simply pressing a key might break their computer.
- Intermediate Users. People who don't know how to fix their computer
after they've just pressed a key that broke it.
- Expert Users. People who break other people's computers.
......................................................................................................
1. ACCELERATOR: Microwave
2. ACCESS DENIED: Diet Time
3. ALT: As in "alt and pepper to taste"
4. ASCII: Callii Tech Support
5. AUTOEXEC.BAT: Cookies in your boss' car
6. BACKSLASH: Do to piecrust before cooking
7. BACKUP: Leftovers
8. BASIC: PBJ Sandwich
9. BATCH: Mess o'
10. BINARY: Buy nary, eat nary
11. BLOCK: Cake baked with no eggs
12. BOOT: Heat your oven
13. CACHE: Do when egg is rolling off counter
14. CAD: Someone who promises to cook, then doesn't
15. CD: When you don't core apples before baking
16. CLUSTER: Kitchen advisors
17. COMMAND: Tell someone else to cook
18. COMPRESS: Knead
19. CONFIG.SYS: Have your sister figure it out
20. COPY: Double recipe
21. CRASH: Drop main course at big dinner party
22. CTRL: What you lose after crashing
23. CURSOR: Who you are after crashing
24. CUSTOMIZE: Add sprinkles
25. DATA: Sort-a like-a fig-a
26. DEBUG: Check the flour before using
27. DIP-SWITCH: What you do when you're out of salsa
28. DIRECTORY: De place where de priest lives
29. DOCUMENT: Small, after-dinner candy
30. DOS: Dine Or Starve
31. DOT MATRIX: Dorothy's mother
32. DOWNLOAD: Pour batter into pan
33. DOWNTIME: Time while brownies are baking
34. DRAG: Time while brownies are baking
......................................................................................................
Ever wanted to know what all those
brilliant lines that make us buy
things we don't want or need REALLY mean?
NEW - Different color from previous
design
ALL NEW - Parts not interchangable
with previous design
EXCLUSIVE - Imported product
UNMATCHED - Almost as good as the
competition
DESIGNED SIMPLICITY - Manufacturer's
cost cut to the bone
FOOLPROOF OPERATION - No provision
for adjustments
ADVANCED DESIGN - The advertising
agency doesn't understand it
IT'S HERE AT LAST! - Rush job;
Nobody knew it was coming
FIELD-TESTED - Manufacturer lacks
test equipment
HIGH ACCURACY - Unit on which all parts
fit
DIRECT SALES ONLY - Factory had big
argument with distributor
YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT - We finally
got one that works
REVOLUTIONARY - It's different from
our competitiors
BREAKTHROUGH - We finally figured
out a way to sell it
FUTURISTIC - No other reason why it
looks the way it does
DISTINCTIVE - A different shape and
color than the others
MAINTENANCE-FREE - Impossible to fix
RE-DESIGNED - Previous faults
corrected, we hope...
HAND-CRAFTED - Assembly machines
operated without gloves on
PERFORMANCE PROVEN - Will operate
through the warranty period
MEETS ALL STANDARDS - Ours, not
yours
ALL SOLID-STATE - Heavy as Hell!
BROADCAST QUALITY - Gives a picture
and produces noise
HIGH RELIABILITY - We made it work
long enough to ship it
SMPTE BUS COMPATABILE - When
completed, will be shipped by Greyhound
NEW GENERATION - Old design failed,
mabey this one will work
MIL-SPEC COMPONENTS - We got a good
deal at a government auction
CUSTOMER SERVICE ACROSS THE COUNTRY
- You can return it from most airports
UNPRECEDENTED PERFORMANCE - Nothing
we ever had before worked THIS way
BUILT TO PRECISION TOLERANCES - We
finally got it to fit together
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED -
Manufacturer's, upon cashing your check
MICROPROCESSOR CONTROLLED - Does
things we can't explain
LATEST AREOSPACE TECHNOLOGY - One of
our techs was laid off by Boeing
......................................................................................................
No, Windows is not a virus. Here's
what viruses (viri?) do:
1. They replicate quickly -- okay,
Windows does that.
2. Viruses use up valuable system
resources, slowing down the system as they do so -- okay, Windows does that.
3. Viruses will, from time to time,
trash your hard disk -- okay, Windows does that, too.
4. Viruses are usually carried,
unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows
does that, too.
5. Viruses will occasionally make the
user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new
hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.
6. Viruses do unknown tasks in the
background...so does windows.
Until now it seems Windows is a
virus but there are fundamental differences: Viruses are well supported by
their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact
and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.
So, Windows is not a virus.
......................................................................................................
A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem
with her printer. The tech asked her if she was "running it under
Windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But
that's a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a
window, and his is working fine."
Tech Support: "OK Bob, let's press the
control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the
middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager."
Customer: "I don't have a 'P'."
Tech Support: "On your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Tech Support: "'P' on your keyboard, Bob."
Customer: "I'm not going to do that!"
Overheard in a computer shop:
Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."
Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety."
Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?"
I once received a fax with a note on the bottom
to fax the document back to the sender when I was finished with it, because he
needed to keep it.
Customer in computer shop: "Can you copy the
Internet onto this disk for me?"
Customer: "So that'll get me connected to
the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Yeah."
Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."
Tech Support: "All right...now double-click
on the File Manager icon."
Customer: "That's why I hate this Windows - because of the icons - I'm a
Protestant, and I don't believe in icons."
Tech Support: "Well, that's just an industry term sir. I don't believe it
was meant to-"
Customer: "I don't care about any 'Industry Terms'. I don't believe in
icons."
Tech Support: "Well...why don't you click on the 'little picture' of a
filing cabinet...is 'little picture' OK?"
Customer: {click}
Customer: "My computer crashed!"
Tech Support: "It crashed?"
Customer: "Yeah, it won't let me play my game."
Tech Support: "All right, hit Control-Alt-Delete to reboot."
Customer: "No, it didn't crash-it crashed."
Tech Support: "Huh?"
Customer: "I crashed my game. That's what I said before. I crashed my
spaceship and now it doesn't work."
Tech Support: "Click on 'File,' then 'New Game'."
Customer: {pause} "Wow! How'd you learn how to do that?"
A man attempting to set up his new printer called
the printer's tech support number, complaining about the error message:
"Can't find the printer."
On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the screen,
but the computer still couldn't find it.
Another user was all confused about why the
cursor always moved in the opposite direction from the movement of the mouse.
She also complained that the buttons were difficult to depress. She was very
embarrassed when she was asked to rotate the mouse so the tail pointed away
from her.
This guy calls in to complain that he gets an
"Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was
typing his username and password in capital letters.
Tech Support: "Ok, let's try once more, but use lower case letters."
Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."
Email from a friend:
"CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"
My friend was on duty in the main lab on a quiet
afternoon. He noticed a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations
with her arms crossed across her chest, staring at the screen. After about 15
minutes he noticed that she was still in the same position, only now she was
impatiently tapping her foot. He asked if she needed help and she replied
"It's about time! I pressed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"
Customer: "I just shut down Windows 95, and
it says, 'It is NOT safe for me to turn off my computer.'"
Tech Support: "Um...are you sure?"
Customer: (terrified) "Yes!"
Tech Support: "Sir, read me the screen letter for letter."
Customer: "Ok. I, t, i, s, n, o, w--"
Tech Support: "There! It says 'now', not 'not'. Is there anything else I
can help you with today, sir?"
Tech Support: "Ok, so your monitor is not
working, the screen is blank, and no matter what you do it stays blank? Do you
see that button on the bottom right hand side of the screen? Press it. . .
."
Customer: "Great, talk to you next time!"
Customer: "Hello? My computer's power just
died." Tech Support: "Ok. Is everyone else's computer in that room
working?" Customer: "Yes." Tech Support: "What were you
doing right before it went out?" Customer: "I plugged my curling iron
into the power strip." Tech Support: "Really? What else is plugged
into there?" Customer: "Well, my radio, my space heater, my cup
warmer, my printer, my monitor, and my computer." Tech Support: "Did
you unplug anything to plug your curling iron in?" Customer: "Yes, my
space heater." Tech Support: "Well, unplug the curling iron and plug
the space heater back in." Customer: "Hey! My computer is working
now! Is there something wrong with the power strip?"
A customer telephoned us. His PC had been struck by a power surge caused by lightning. We asked him why he didn't switch off the computer when the storm started. He replied, "I was going to, but it said, 'Please wait while Windows shuts down.'" Some people, eh?
......................................................................................................
Computer Jokes 1
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces
height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts,
"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an
hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man below says, "Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering
approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North
latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude."
"You must be a programmer," says the balloonist.
"I am," replies the man.
"How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is
technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and
the fact is I am still lost."
The man below says, "You must be a project manager
"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where
you are going.
You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect
me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you
were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."
......................................................................................................
Computer Jokes 2
Go tru this and pass to all Java proff.and Aspirants... Prepare well for the
Intw .
Q. What is the diffrence between an Abstract class and Interface?
A. terms are different nothing more
Q. What do you know about the garbage collector ?
A. person who clean the dust bin.
Q. Explain RMI Architecture?
A. I am a computer professional not an architect student.
Q. How do you communicate in between Applets & Servlets ?
A. If they are reachable by walk ,I will go in person,else I will use phone.
Q. What is the use of Servlets ?
A. In hotels ,they can replace servers
Q. What is the difference between Process and Threads ?
A. Threads are small ropes.Make a rope from threads is an example for
process
Q. What is the order of method invocation in an Applet ?
A. Either ascending or desending.
Q. When is update method called ?
A. Who is update method?
Q. Have you ever used HashTable and Dictionary ?
A. There is a Dictionary named Hash in my table.
Q. What is JAR file ?
A. file that can be kept inside a jar.
Q. What is JNI ? A.
A ghost which was Aladdin's friend.
Q. What is the base class for all swing components ?
A. A glass that can be beneath all and which is very rigid.
Q. What is JFC ?
A. Jilebi,Fanta&Coffee
Q. What is Difference between AWT and Swing ?
A. AWT is an acronym .Swing is a word.
Q. How will you call an Applet from a Java Script?
A. I will give invitation.
Q. Why do you Canvas ?
A. To get victory in election.
Q. How you can know about drivers and database information ?
A. I will go and enquire in the bus depot.
Q. What is serialization ?
A. Arranging one after ther other from left to right.
Q. What is bean ? Where it can be used ?
A. A kind of vegetable. In kitchens for cooking they can be used.
Q. How to communicate 2 threads each other ?
A. Non living things cant communicate.
Q. Can I modify an object in CORBA ?
A. As you wish ,I do not have any objections.
Q. What are virtual functions ?
A. Functions about which we are dreaming.
Q. Write down how will you create a binary Tree ?
A. When we sow a binary seed,a binary tree will grow.
Q. What is the exact difference in between Unicast and Multicast object ?
A. If in a society ,if there is only one caste ,then it is Unicast,Else it is
multicast.
Q. I want to store more than 10 objects in a remote server ?Which
methodology will follow ?
A. Send it through courier.
Q. What is meant by flickering ?
A. Closing and opening of eyes at girls.
Q. What is meant by distributed Application ?
A. Distributing application forms
Q. Explain 2 tier and 3 -tier Architecture ?
A. Two wheelers like scooters will have 2 tyres and autorickshaws will have
3 tyres.
......................................................................................................
DOS One Liners
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key (I'd like to know where the key labelled "Any" is.)
Buy a Pentium 166 so you can reboot faster.
2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.
* C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL * C:\DOS C:\DOS\RUN RUN\DOS\RUN
<-------- The information went data way -------->
Best file compression around: "DEL *.*" = 100% compression
BREAKFAST.COM Halted...Cereal Port Not Responding
BUFFERS=20 FILES=15 2nd down, 4th quarter, 5 yards to go!
C:\> Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
Bad command. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaay..
Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope)
Backups? We don' *NEED* no steenking backups.
... File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
Ethernet (n): something used to catch the etherbunny
A mainframe: The biggest PC peripheral available.
An error? Impossible! My modem is error correcting.
CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C (Y/n)?
Does fuzzy logic tickle?
A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.
Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.
SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . .
Who's General Failure & why's he reading my disk?.
RAM disk is *not* an installation procedure.
Shell to DOS...Come in DOS, do you copy? Shell to DOS...
All computers wait at the same speed.
DEFINITION: Computer - A device designed to speed and automate errors.
Press -- to continue ...
Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.....
Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI!
E-mail returned to sender -- insufficient voltage.
All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
Press any key... no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE!
Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...
Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven.
......................................................................................................
A
Fable: The Headlights and the Tunnel
Once upon a time there was a highway department testing a new safety proposal.
They asked motorists to turn on their headlights as they drove through a
tunnel. However, shortly after exiting the tunnel the motorists encountered a
scenic-view overlook.
Many of them pulled off the road to look at the reflections of wildflowers in
pristine mountain streams and snow-covered mountain peaks 50 miles away. When
the motorists returned to their cars, they found that their car batteries were
dead, because they had left their headlights on. So, the highway department
decided to erect signs to get the drivers to turn off their head-lights.
[Based on Gause and Weinberg, 1990]
First they tried: TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF
But someone said that not everyone would heed the request to turn their
headlights on, and they couldn't turn their headlights off.
So they tried: IF YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE ON TURN THEM OFF
But someone objected that would be inappropriate if it were night time.
So
they tried: IF IT IS DAYTIME AND YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE ON, THEN TURN THEM OFF
But someone objected that would be inappropriate if it were overcast and
visibility was greatly reduced.
So they tried: IF YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE ON AND THEY ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR
VISIBILITY, THEN TURN THEM OFF
But someone objected that many new cars are built so that their headlights are
on whenever the motor is running, so they couldn't be turned off.
So they tried: IF YOUR HEADLIGHTS ARE ON AND THEY ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR
VISIBILITY, AND YOU CAN TURN THEM OFF, THEN TURN THEM OFF
But someone objected....
They decided to stop trying to identify applicable states - just alert the
drivers and let them take appropriate action
ARE YOUR LIGHTS ON?
Morals of that Fable for Requirements
"Simple" situations can lead to complex requirements
* The final sign might work, but it is not a precise specification of behavior
- In fact, it is merely identifying a situation that might trigger behaviors
(exiting a tunnel)
* "Common sense" is not so common after all, and often not simple.
You have to sufficiently understand the domain to understand the requirements
* "Turn headlights on when appropriate" might be a good starting
point to tell an engineer...
* ... but not a good ending point for detailed behavioral specifications.
* ... and probably isn't useful when trying to communicate with a synthesis
tool!
Perennial tradeoffs:
* Complexity vs. coverage
* Specification brevity vs. domain expertise required for understanding