TECH

ID: 9617

Tech

Disk Care

By following the instructions below, you should have error-free, long-lasting floppy disks.

1. Never leave diskettes in the disk drive, as data can leak out of the disk and corrode the inner mechanics of the drive. Diskettes should be rolled up and stored in pencil holders.

2. Diskettes should be cleaned and waxed once a week. Microscopic metal particles can be removed by waving a powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn metallic shavings can be removed with scouring powder and soap. When waxing the diskettes, make sure the surface is even. This will allow the diskette to spin faster, resulting in better access time.

3. Do not fold diskettes unless they do not fit into the drive. "Big" diskettes may be folded and used in "little" disk drives.

4. Never insert a diskette into the drive upside down. The data can fall off the surface of the disk and jam the intricate mechanics of the drive.

5. Diskettes cannot be backed up by running them through the xerox machine. If your data is going to need to be backed up, simply insert two diskettes into the drive. Whenever you update a document, the data will be written on both diskettes.

6. Diskettes should not be inserted or removed from the drive while the red light is flashing. Doing so could result in smeared or possibly unreadable text. Occasionally the red light remains flashing in what is known as a "hung" or "hooked" state. If your system is "hooking" you will probably need to insert a few coins before being allowed access to the slot.

7. If your diskette is full and you need more storage space, remove the disk from the drive and shake vigorously for 2 minutes. This will pack the data enough (Data Compression) to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all the openings with scotch tape to prevent loss data.

8. Access time can be greatly improved by cutting more holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more simultaneous access points to the disk.

9. Diskettes may be used as coasters for beverage glasses, provided that they are properly waxed beforehand. Be sure to wipe the diskettes dry before using. (see item 2 above)

10. Never use scissors and glue to manually edit documents. The data is stored much too small for the naked eye, and you may end up with data from some other document stuck in the middle of your document. Razor blades and scotch tape may be used, however, provided the user is equipped with an electron microscope.

11. Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent system bugs from spreading.

ID: 9005

Tech

Email and Internet

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.
The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address or internet access you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than two hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly. Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck. At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is purchasing the tomatoes he resells, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard. Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars. Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance.

Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of that five years ago!"

"Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail and the internet five years ago, I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour."

Which brings us to the moral of the story: Since you got this story by e-mail, you're probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire.

Sadly, I received it also.

ID: 9674

Tech

Girlfriend 1.0

Dear Bob in Tech Support,

I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been having some problems lately. I've been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever, as my primary application, and all the GirlFriend releases I've
tried have always conflicted with it.

I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background mode and the sound is turned off, but I'm embarrassed to say I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and it works
okay. GirlFriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Leisure 3.1 and QuietTime programs, often trying to abort them with some sort of timing incompatibility.

I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right - as soon as I purged my cache, it uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while to re-check my hardware.

I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while, until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I
tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a "feature" I didn't know about that automatically detects the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in the background in some way, which results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts, which is very expensive. And I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented", as that interface is sometimes cumbersome and even counter-intuitive.

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.1, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. To his dismay, however, he discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.1 expires within a year of the upgrade, if you don't upgrade AGAIN to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade YET AGAIN to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a HUGE resource hog.

It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. In fact, it has even automatically deleted several of his other programs to make room for itself, not the least of which was DrinkingBuddies 1.0, which used to be one of his favorite applications, as well. This is particularly disturbing to me, as we used to run DrinkingBuddies 1.0 on a network with several of our mutual friends, and now he can't even connect any more!

He told me that one of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it came bundled with FreeSexPlus, which sounded great. Well, it turns out the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes inexplicably
prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly when he starts the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. Also, for no apparent reason, the OralSex 1.0 module that worked fine in his previous versions of GirlFriendPlus and Fiancee, stopped working the instant the upgrade to Wife 1.0 finished
installing.

On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything with the FreeSexPlus module. This warming up process requires him to run an antiquated version of ForePlay Beta, which has an
agonizingly slow interface, and which has an unfortunate tendency to crash, requiring a cold reboot to his system. The real insult to injury however, is that even though he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came embedded with MotherInLaw 2.0, which has an irritating automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off.

I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0 (which I had heard works great in such situations), but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete all of your MSMoney files before doing an uninstall of itself; then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.

Please help me Bob, I don't know what to do. Since the initial release, I have had nothing but problems.

I've heard that I would really like the CoolGirlFriend 1.0 Deluxe Upgrade (which is supposed to come bundled with a completely functioning version of FreeSexDeluxe), but that release is no where to be found - not even the Beta version! That release is also supposed to come with its own resource management module seamlessly layered in, so it won't conflict with any of my other programs (barring previous versions of GirlFriend, which I would happily delete!).

Please advise.

ID: 7765

Tech

Windows

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) were out driving, when their car broke down, and they couldn't get it started.
The mechanical engineer suggested that it was a failure somewhere in the drive train, but after checking it out he found that the engine and transmission were fine.
The electrical engineer thought it might be the ignition system; lifted the hood, checked for a spark, and found that everything was OK.
The MCSE was driving, and suddenly gets out of the car, slams the door, opens the hood and looks inside, slams that, gets back into the car, opens and closes all the windows and looks at his passengers and says, "There, it should start right up now..."

ID: 121

Tech

WordPerfect Assistant

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."

ID: 12132

Tech

Answering Machine Message 214

I'm only here in spirit at the moment, but if you'll leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as I'm here in person.

ID: 3347

Tech

Computer Humor

1. Home is where you hang your @
2. The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks.
5. Great groups from little icons grow.
6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.
7. C: is the root of all directories.
8. Don't put all your hypes in one home page.
9. Pentium wise - pen and paper foolish.
10. The modem is the message.
11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.
12. The geek shall inherit the earth.
13. A chat has nine lives.
14. Don't byte off more than you can view.
15. Fax is stranger than fiction.
16. What boots up must come down.
17. Windows will never cease.
18. In Gates we trust.
19. Virtual reality is its own reward.
20. Modulation in all things.
21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted.
22. There's no place like home.com.
23. Know what to expect before you connect.
24. Oh, what a tangled web site we weave when first we practice.
25. Speed thrills.
26. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks

ID: 9866

Tech

Help!!

Last week my wife and I purchased a new computer. We ran into some difficulties while setting it up so we called the customer support phone number we found in the manual.

I picked up the phone and called the number. A man answered the phone and I explained the problem to him.

He began rattling off computer jargon. This confused us even more.

"Sir," I said politely, "Can you explain what I should do as if I were a small child?"

"Okay," the computer support guy said, "Son, could you please put your mommy on the phone?"

ID: 14211

Tech

A Chatroom Poem

I was sitting in chat room,
Feeling mildly amused,
When I saw something strange,
That left me all confused.

Someone typed a word,
(As far as I could tell)
But I had never seen it.
What is an LOL?

Then the plot got thicker,
More words I didn't know,
A person started typing,
The word LMAO.

I sat there in amazement,
I felt like a dumb toad.
Could it be, these people,
Were speaking in a code?

That's when I looked closer.
And found the subtle clue.
I figured out this code
And I'll share it now, with you.

LOL is three little words,
That seem, to me, quite shady.
Why would someone ever write
The words, "Lean Over Lady"?

LMAO, was more obscure,
It made me sweat my socks!
LMAO is a command,
Meaning, "Leave Me Alone, Ox!"

ROFL was harder still,
I found it rather sickening.
It's a discreet way to say,
"Ready Only For Licking!"

I can't believe that AOL,
Would let this code exist!
To them I say, YOMSL
Meaning, "You're On My Shit List!"

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