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Tech Support An E-Mail Virus Warning Virus Warnings
A Poem If Microsoft Built Cars... Computer Haiku

Customer: "I can't get my printer to print anything."

Tech Support: "Are you running it under Windows."

Customer: "No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his is working fine."

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Tech Support: "How much free space do you have on your hard drive?"

Customer: "Well, my wife likes to get up there on that Internet, and she downloaded ten hours of free space. Is that enough?"

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Customer in a computer store: "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?"

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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."

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Customer: "Can you copy the Internet for me on this diskette?"

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"I work for a local ISP. Frequently we receive phone calls that go something like this:"

Customer: "Hi. Is this the Internet?"

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Some people pay for their on-line services with checks made payable to 'The Internet.'"

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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: "Uh...yeah."

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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 file cabinet. Is 'little picture' OK?"

Customer: [click]

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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. Now it doesn't work."

It turned out, the user was playing Lunar Lander and had crashed his spaceship.

Tech Support: "Click on File, then New Game."

Customer: [pause] "Wow! How'd you learn to do that?"

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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!"

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"[Name withheld], 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? Aha! 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."

An E-Mail Virus Warning

The following was written at Iowa State University after a series of e-mail virus hoaxes had occurred.

"If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous e-mail virus yet.

"It will rewrite your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.

"It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over.

"It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic.

"Badtimes will make you fall in love with a hardened pedophile. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card.

"It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Badtimes. It reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.

"Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.

"It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will refill your skim milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold.

"It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

"These are just a few signs.

"Be afraid. Be very, very afraid."

Virus Warnings

Beware of the following viruses:

The U.N. virus is annoying but harmless. Every day, it displays a message saying you must let it inspect your computer's files for viruses, but then it gives you the options "OK, Cancel, Ignore." Even if you click OK, it doesn't do anything.

The Hans Blix virus is a derivative of the U.N. virus. It tells you it's going to inspect your computer for viruses, but then it just creates all sorts of text files filled with bureaucratic drivel, all the while displaying messages saying it needs more time. It never finds any viruses. The quickest cure for this virus is the George Bush virus.

The George Bush virus tells you it's going to eliminate all other viruses from your computer but that it may take a long time. Then it actually does scan your computer and eliminate viruses. It also scans for Programs of Mass Destruction (PMD), which are programs that destroy a lot of files if they are run. PMDs are caused by a number of other viruses, such as the Saddam Hussein virus. The only problems with the George Bush virus are that it uses up a lot of your computer's resources while it's scanning, it never seems to find any PMDs, and it keeps switching the background color on your computer screen back and forth between yellow and orange.

The Saddam Hussein virus created PMDs and spawned other viruses. PMDs are hard to find because they have the "hidden" attribute set. The Saddam Hussein virus hasn't been seen for a long time, and it is no longer considered a threat because of the rapid spread of the George Bush virus.

The Uday (aka Odai) and Qusay (aka Qusai) viruses were mutations of the Saddam Hussein virus. Both of these viruses destroyed files, but the Uday virus also displayed pornographic images. Both of these viruses have been completely eliminated since the spread of the George Bush virus.

The Baghdad Bob virus was a Microsoft Word virus derived from the Saddam Hussein virus and is now no longer in existence. It was widely ridiculed by some, and it was never considered to be a threat, but it was hilarious in an annoying way. Whenever you opened a Word document, the Baghdad Bob virus would display a message saying, "This document does not exist." If the document had embedded graphics, the virus would display a message saying, "The embedded graphics do not exist." Then it would display a message saying, "All your documents are being destroyed," even though that was not true. Like the Saddam Hussein virus and its mutations, the Baghdad Bob virus disappeared soon after the George Bush virus appeared.

The Bin Laden (aka Al Qaeda) virus displays threatening messages and spawns numerous smaller viruses that periodically destroy files. The Bin Laden virus and its spawned viruses are being seen less and less frequently and may be becoming extinct due to the spread of the George Bush virus.

The Russian virus displays a message saying it's going to work with you to improve your computer's performance, but then it doesn't. Instead, it scans your computer for the French virus.

The German virus displays messages calling you names. Then, like the Russian virus, it scans your computer for the French virus.

The French virus garbles some files and then displays a message asking you for help. If you click OK, it just garbles more files and asks for help again. If you click Cancel, it displays the message, "I surrender!" and shuts down your computer. If you click Ignore, it scans your computer for the German and Russian viruses. If the French, Russian, and German viruses find each other, they merge into a single virus that conflicts with the George Bush virus, slowing it down.

The Hollywood virus scans your computer for the George Bush virus, and if it finds it, it broadcasts messages to mainstream media computers protesting the existence of the George Bush virus and vowing to eradicate it. This virus has many mutations and has corrupted many programs in numerous news media computers. The only exception seems to be the Fox News Channel's computers, although they have had problems because of an infection by the Heraldo virus and, more recently, by a mutation of the Lewinsky virus.

The Heraldo virus has been an annoyance for a long time. It is seen most often in TV media computers. This virus displays long-winded messages purporting to give you momentous information about your computer that it and it alone can tell you, but the information it provides usually turns out to be rather ordinary or even common knowledge. One of the most annoying things about this virus is that every time you think it's been eradicated, it pops up again.

The Lewinsky virus brings your computer to its knees by sucking up all the free RAM. The Fox television network recently reported that its computers have been infected by a mutation of this virus known as the Lewinsky Host virus, which appears to be one of many mutations of the class of viruses known as Reality viruses.

Reality viruses are known by many names and have been increasing in number. They are relatively harmless and seem to infect only TV media computers, causing them to display a variety of messages that vary widely in character. The messages range from disgusting to cloying. Most are inane, but they can be entertaining to some people.

The Al Gore virus causes your computer to go into an endless loop searching for hidden files and counting and recounting the number of bytes in every file it can find, hidden or not.

The Bill Clinton virus automatically connects to every URL in your Internet browser's list of bookmarks, then it tells you emphatically that your computer never made any connections...to any URL...because since it didn't transmit and receive simultaneously, it wasn't really connected.

The Hillary Clinton virus sets the "hidden" attribute on all your accounting files and tells you your computer won't run in 2004 or 2008. Many experts believe this virus may become its most dangerous in 2008.

The Bob Dole (AKA Viagra) virus tells you your computer's old floppy drive has been temporarily turned into a hard drive and that it's wonderful.

The Ronald Reagan virus sends an e-mail to Microsoft ordering them to tear down all disk partitions.

The Jesse Jackson virus warns you repeatedly not to reproduce illegitimate files, but meanwhile, it's reproducing illegitimate files in the background. And if you don't have a color monitor displaying 32-bit true color, it floods your screen with icons and threatens to shut down your computer.

The Tom Daschle virus blocks your computer from doing anything right.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy virus leaves nothing left on your computer.

The Mike Tyson virus quits after erasing two bytes.

The Jack Kevorkian virus deletes all old files.

The Prozac virus totally screws up your RAM, but your processor doesn't care.

The Joey Buttafuoco virus only attacks minor files.

The Arnold Schwarzenegger virus terminates some files, then leaves, but will be back.

The Lorena Bobbitt virus reformats your hard drive into a 3 1/2" floppy, then discards it through Windows' Recycle Bin.

A Poem for Computer Users Over 40

A computer was something on TV from a science fiction show of note. A window was something you hated to clean, and ram, the father of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend, and gig was a job for the nights. Now they all mean different things, and that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment; a program was a TV show. A cursor used profanity, and a keyboard a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age; a CD was a bank account. And if you had a 3-inch floppy, you hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage, not something you did to a file. And if you unzipped anything in public, you'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire; hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse pad was where a mouse lived, and a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocketknife; paste you did with glue. A web was a spider's home, and a virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper and the memory in my head. I hear nobody gets killed in a computer crash, but when it happens, they wish they were dead.

If Microsoft Built Cars

At a 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 twenty-five dollar cars that got a thousand miles per gallon."

General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

The Top 10 Things That Would Be Different If Microsoft Built Cars:

10. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

9. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart, and drive on.

8. 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.

7. 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.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but it would only run on 5 percent of the roads.

5. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades for their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.

4. The oil, gas, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

3. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

2. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before activating.

And the number one thing that would be different if Microsoft built cars:

1. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

Computer Haiku

The following was attributed to "Ottenheimer, Davi" (David?) Imagine if instead of cryptic, geeky text strings, your computer produced error messages in haiku...

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 way 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.

The Tao that is seen
is not the true Tao, until
you bring fresh toner.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows 95 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 not been saved,
the document you're seeking
must now be rewritten.

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.