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Computer Diagnosis
One day Bill complained to his friend that his elbow really hurt. His friend
suggested that he go to a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything
quicker and cheaper than a doctor.
''Simply put in a sample of your urine and the computer will diagnose your
problem and tell you what you can do about it. It only costs $10." Bill figured
he had nothing to lose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the
drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10.
The computer started making some noise and various lights started flashing.
After a brief pause out popped a small slip of paper on which was printed: "You
have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water. Avoid heavy lifting. It will be
better in two weeks."
Later that evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it
would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this machine could
be fooled. He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog and
urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the
concoction. He went back to the drug store, located the machine, poured in the
sample and deposited the $10. The computer again made the usual noise and
printed out the following message:
"Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. Your dog has worms. Get him
vitamins. Your daughter is using cocaine. Put her in a rehabilitation clinic.
Your wife is pregnant with twin girls. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer. And if
you don't stop jerking off, your tennis elbow will never get better."
From the WordPerfect Help Desk
This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say, the help
desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the Word Perfect
organization for "Termination without Cause."
Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:
"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a
little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes
into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
".......Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables
plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
".......Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your
computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the
window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Ah, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have
the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when
you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."
Real Stories of the
Non-Technical
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 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.
"Do you know anything about this fax-machine?"
"A little. What's wrong?"
"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."
"How did you load the sheet?"
"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 could open it and read it."
I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some
help?" I asked.
"I knew I should have replaced the battery in this remote control door unlocker.
Now I can't get into my car. Do you think that store would have a battery for
this?"
"Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked.
"No, just this remote," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me.
As I took the keys and manually unlocked the door, I said, "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?
Caller: It says 'Hit ENTER when ready.'
Tech Support: Well?
Caller: How do I know when it's ready?
A man moved to New Mexico and called his credit company to change his address.
When he told the girl where he was moving, she told him that she couldn't help
him since they didn't issue cards outside of the United States!
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, but 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.
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!"
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 it had been an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager
what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the cruise control, and
then went in back to make a sandwich.
Tech Glossary
486: The 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 takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become
obsolete.
G3: Apple's new Macs that make you say 'Gee, three times faster than the
computer I bought for the same price a Microsecond ago.'
Syntax Error: Walking into a computer store and saying, "Hi, I want to buy a
computer and money is no object."
Hard Drive: The sales technique employed by computer salesmen, esp. after a
Syntax Error.
GUI: What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it. (pronounced
'gooey')
Keyboard: The standard way to generate computer errors.
Mouse: An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.
Floppy: The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.
Portable Computer: A device invented to force businessmen 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 of your software.
Tech Support
Just in case you think you are TC (technologically challenged). The following is
an excerpt taken from a Wall Street Journal article:
1.Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return
Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2.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.
3.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 had labeled the diskettes, then rolled them into the
typewriter to type the labels.
4.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 photocopies of the
floppies.
5.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.
6.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.
7.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.
8.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.
9.A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told the
technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer". The user had
also tried turning the computer screen to face the printer - but that his
computer still couldn't "see" the printer.
10.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.
11.Another 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?"
12.True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
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. It
just has '4X' on it." At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because
he couldn't stand it. He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the
load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!
13.Another IBM customer had troubles installing software and rang for support.
"I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk,
and had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk - I
couldn't even fit it in..." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" meant
to remove Disk 1 first.
14.In a similar incident, a customer had followed the instructions for
installing software. The instructions said to remove the disk from it's cover
and insert into the drive. The user had physically removed the casing of the
disk and wondered why there were problems.
As Ripley would say, believe it or not!
Helisoft
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle 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. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a
handwritten sign that said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall
building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it 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 copilot
asked the pilot how he had done it.
"I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building, because they gave me a technically
correct but completely useless answer."
Computer vs. Air Conditioner
How is a computer like an air conditioner?
When you open Windows it won't work!
WINDERS 98
MICROSOFT NEWS RELEASE:
It has come to our attention that a few copies of the Georgia edition of Windows
98 may have accidentally been shipped outside Georgia. If you have one of the
Georgia editions you may need some help understanding the commands.
The Georgia edition may be recognized by looking at the opening screen.
It reads WINDERS 98 with a background picture of the General Lee super imposed
on a Confederate flag. It is shipped with a Daisy Duke screen saver.
Also note:
Recycle Bin is labeled Outhouse
My Computer is called This Infernal Contraption
Dialup Networking is called Good Ol' Boys
Control Panel is known as the Dern Dashboard
Hard Drive is referred to as 4 wheel drive
Floppies are them little ole plastic disc thangs.
Other features:
Instead of an error message you get a winder covered with a garbage bag and duct
tape.
OK = ats aww-right
cancel = hail no
reset = awa shoot
yes = shore
no = Naaaa
find = hunt-fer it
go to = over yonder
back = back yonder
help = hep me out here
stop = ternit off
start = crank it up
settings = sittins
programs = stuff that does stuff
documents = stuff I done done
Also note that winders 98 does not recognize capital letters or punctuation
marks.
Some programs that are exclusive to winders 98:
tiperiter................A word processor
colering book............a graphics program
addin mershene...........calculator
scratch paper ...........notepad
jupe-box ................CD Player
inner-net................Microsoft Explorer
pichers..................A graphics viewer
IRS......................M/S accounting software
IRS2.....................M/S accounting software with hidden files
coon dog.................American kennel club records
fishin...................Bass Anglers Sportsman Society records.
NRA......................National Rifle Association
shot gun ................Remington Arms price list
riffel...................Winchester price list
pisstel..................Smith & Wesson price list
truck....................Ford & Chevrolet dealers in GA. by zip code
house....................Nearest Mobil home repair service by zip code
car .....................same as truck, just need two lists in Texas
cuzzins..................family history usually a 3 meg file
tax records..............usually an empty file
shells...................ammunition inventory, another 3 meg file
bud......................list of Budwiser dealers by zip code
racin....................NASCAR racing schedule includes list of TV stations
that carry the race car n' truck
Parts.......nearest Junk yard by zip code
doc .....................veterinarians by zip code
We regret any inconvenience it may have caused if you received a copy of the
Georgia edition. You may return it to Microsoft for a replacement version.
Jesus and Satan are having a
conversation...
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his
computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all
of the bickering.
Finally God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours
and I will judge who does the better job."
So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They
did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mail. They
sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy
reports. They made cards. They did every known job. But ten minutes before their
time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain
poured and, of course, the electricity went off.
Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the
underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally flickered back on and
each of them restarted their computers.
Satan started searching frantically, screaming "It's gone! It's all gone! I lost
everything when the power went out!"
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two
hours. Satan observed this and became irate.
"Wait! He cheated, how did he do it?"
God shrugged and said, "Jesus saves."
Computer Gender
Women claim that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender
because:
1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the
problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little
longer you could have had a better model.
Men concluded that computers should be referred to in the feminine gender
because:
1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your
paycheck on accessories for it.
Bring Your Daughter to Work Day
A man comes home with his little daughter, whom he has just taken to work. The
little girl asks, "I saw you in your office with your secretary. Why do you call
her a doll?"
Feeling his wife's gaze upon him, the man explains, "Well, honey, my secretary
is a very hard-working girl. She types like you wouldn't believe, she knows the
computer system and is very efficient."
"Oh," says the little girl, "I thought it was because she closed her eyes when
you lay her down on the couch."
Blonde's Computer Freeze
What does a blonde do when her computer freezes?
She sticks it in the microwave.
Dr. Seuss as Technical Writer
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
and your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
but your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM
Quicky turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!
Microsoft in Detroit?
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer
industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology
like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000
mi/gal." Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the
statement "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?" and also
noted the following consequences of GM imitating Microsoft:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new
car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would
just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and
you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would
accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT". But, then you would have to buy more seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five
times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but 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 run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single
"general car fault" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
Husbands' Performance
Three women were sitting around talking about their husbands' performance as
lovers. The first woman says ''My husband works as a marriage counsellor. He
always buys me flowers and candy before we make love. I like that.''
The second woman says, ''My husband is a motorcycle mechanic. He likes to play
rough and slaps me around sometimes. I kinda like that.''
The third woman just shakes her head and says, ''My husband works for Microsoft.
He just sits on the edge of the bed and tells me how great it's going to be when
I get it.''
Girlfriend 1.0 -> Wife 1.0
MEMORANDUM RE: Computer Software Warning
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that
it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications.
He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are
further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena
was included in the productbrochure 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 PokerNight 8.3, BeerBash
2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing
the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At
installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired
Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system
performance seems to diminish with each passing day.
Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0. - A 'Don't remind me
again' button - Minimize button - An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0
to be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of
cache and other system resources. - An option to run the network driver in
promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much
more useful.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by
sticking with 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 long standing 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 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 thing that sucks - all versions of GirlFriend continually pop up
little 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 MSMoney
files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to
install, claiming insufficient resources.
*** BUG WORK-AROUNDS *************** To avoid the above bug, try installing
Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications
such as LapLink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have
beenknown to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be
to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again,
beware of the viruses which can accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.
Bill Gates' Honeymoon
After Bill Gates wedding night, his wife finally knew why he called his company
Microsoft.
Mr. or Mrs. Computer
Is your computer male or female? As you are aware, ships have long been
characterized as being female (e.g., "Steady as she goes", or "She's listing to
starboard, Captain!"). Recently, a group of computer scientists (all males)
announced that computers should also be referred to as being female. Their
reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:
1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative as, "If you
don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going totell you".
4. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later
retrieval.
5. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your
paycheck on accessories for it. However, another group of computer scientists
(all female) think that computers should be referred to as if they were male.
Their reasonsfollow:
1. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the
problem.
3. As soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had waited a little
longer, you could have obtained a better model.
4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
5. Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.
Microsoftie
What did Bill Gates' wife say to him on their wedding night?
"Now I know why you named your company Microsoft!"