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

The Microsoft tech then looked at his rifle and the target, checking several times. He then put his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand. The end of his finger was blown off. He yelled toward the target area, "It's leaving here just fine. The trouble must be at your end!"


 
• The Gates of Hell

Bill Gates dies in a car accident. He finds himself in purgatory, being sized up by St. Peter.

"Well, Bill, I'm really confused on this call; I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you enormously helped society by putting a computer in almost every home in America, yet you also created that ghastly Windows '95. I'm going to do something I've never done before in your case; I'm going to let you decide where you want to go."

Bill replied, "Well, what's the difference between the two?"

St. Peter said, "I'm willing to let you visit both places briefly, if it will help your decision."

"Fine, but where should I go first?"

"I'll leave that up to you."

"Okay then," said Bill, "Let's try Hell first."

So Bill went to Hell. It was a beautiful, clean, sandy beach with clear waters and lots of bikini-clad women running around, playing in the water, laughing and frolicking about. The sun was shining; the temperature perfect. He was very pleased. "This is great!" he told St. Peter. "If this is hell, I REALLY want to see heaven!"

"Fine," said St. Peter, and off they went. Heaven was a place high in the clouds, with angels drifting about, playing harps and singing. It was nice, but not as enticing as Hell.

Bill thought for a quick minute, and rendered his decision. "Hmmm. I think I'd prefer Hell," he told St. Peter.

"Fine," retorted St. Peter, "as you desire."

So Bill Gates went to Hell.

Two weeks later, St. Peter decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was doing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill, shackled to a wall, screaming amongst hot flames in dark caves, being burned and tortured by demons.

"How's everything going?" he asked Bill.

Bill responded, with his voice filled with anguish and disappointment, "This is awful! This is nothing like the Hell I visited two weeks ago! I can't believe this is happening! What happened to that other place, with the beautiful beaches, the scantily-clad women playing in the water?!???"

"That was a demo," replied St. Peter.


 
• New Windows 2000 Errors (G)
The following are new Windows messages that are under consideration for the updated Windows 2000:

1. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.

2. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.

3. Press any key to continue, or any other key to quit.

4. Press any key except--no, No, NO, NOT THAT ONE!

5. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del now for IQ test.

6. Close your eyes and press escape three times.

7. Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.

8. This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?

9. Windows message: "Error saving file! Format drive now? (Y/Y)"

10. This is a message from God Gates: "Rebooting the world. Please log off."

11. To "shut down" your system, type "WIN."

12. BREAKFAST.SYS halted: Cereal port not responding.

13. COFFEE.SYS missing: Insert cup in cup holder and press any key.

14. CONGRESS.SYS corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C? (Y/N)

15. File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)

16. Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat? (Y/N)

17. Runtime Error 6D at 417A:32CF: Incompetent User.

18. Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)

19. WinErr 16547: LPT1 not found. Use backup. (PENCIL & PAPER.SYS)

20. User Error: Replace user.

21. Windows VirusScan 1.0: "Windows found: Remove it? (Y/N)"

22. Welcome to Microsoft's World: Your Mortgage is Past Due....

23. If you are an artist, you should know that Bill Gates owns you and all your future creations. Doesn't it feel nice to have security?

24. Your hard drive has been scanned and all stolen software titles have been deleted. The police are on the way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If speed scares you, try Windows....


• Message Haiku (G)
Imagine if instead of cryptic, geeky text strings, your computer produced error messages in haiku. They might read like these:
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
•••••••
The Web site you seek
cannot be located, but
endless others exist.
•••••••
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
•••••••
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask far too much.
•••••••
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
•••••••
With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
•••••••
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams. 		 A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
•••••••
Yesterday, it worked.
Today, it is not working.
Windows is like that.
•••••••
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
•••••••
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
•••••••
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
•••••••
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
•••••••
Rather than a beep
Or a rude error message,
These words: "File not found."
•••••••
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.


 
• Happily Addicted to the Web (G)
(Sung to "Winter Wonderland")

Doorbell rings, I'm not list'nin',
From my mouth, drool is glist'nin',
I'm happy--although
My boss let me go--
Happily addicted to the Web.

All night long, I sit clicking,
Unaware time is ticking,
There's beard on my cheek,
Same clothes for a week,
Happily addicted to the Web.

Friends come by; they shake me,
Saying, "Yo, man!
Don't you know that life keeps moving on?"
With a listless shrug, I mutter, "No, man;
I just discovered letterman-dot-com!"

I don't phone, don't send faxes,
Don't go out, don't pay taxes,
Who cares if someday
They drag me away?
I'm happily addicted to the Web!


Ladies and Gentlemen, DOS Beatles! (G)
Old Music, New Words: Familiar tunes with updated lyrics
(If I knew who re-wrote these lyrics I would give them credit.)
Yesterday
Yesterday, All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone
Hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

 
Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?

Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
It takes a while...
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
Feels like a jerk.
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the crumbs off the keys as he types in the code;
Nothing will load.

All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Unix Man
He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX plans
For nobody.

Knows the blocksize from du(1)
Cares not where /dev/null goes to
Isn't he a bit like you
And me?

UNIX Man, please listen(2)
My lpd(8) is missin'
UNIX Man
The wo-o-o-orld is at(1) your command.

He's as wise as he can be
Uses lex and yacc and C
UNIX Man, can you help me At all?

UNIX Man, don't worry
Test with time(1), don't hurry
UNIX Man
The new kernel boots, just like you had planned.

He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX plans For nobody....
Making all his UNIX plans For nobody.

 
Write in C ("Let It Be")
When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."
As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."
Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you've just spent nearly 30 hours,
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
BASIC's not the answer.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.

 
Something
Something in the way it fails,
Defies the algorithm's logic!
Something in the way it coredumps--
I don't want to leave it now;
I'll fix this problem somehow.

Somewhere in the memory I know,
A pointer's got to be corrupted.
Stepping in the debugger will show me....
I don't want to leave it now;
I'm too close to leave it now.

You're asking me can this code go?
I don't know, I don't know....
What sequence causes it to blow?

 

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