Microsoft Corporation has just announced a new PC keyboard designed specifically for Windows. {Sources say a Macintosh variant is in the works.} In addition to the keys found on the standard keyboard, Microsoft's new design adds several new keys which will make your Windows computing even more fun! The final specs are not yet set, so please feel free to make suggestions. The keys proposed so far are:

1) GPF key-This key will instantly generate a General Protection Fault when pressed. Microsoft representatives state that the purpose of the GPF key is to save Windows users time by eliminating the need to run an application in order to produce a General Protection Fault.

2) $$ key-When this key is pressed, money is transferred automatically from your bank account to Microsoft without the need for further action or third party intervention.

3) ZD key-This key was developed specifically for reviewers of Microsoft products. When pressed it inserts random superlative adjectives in any text which contains the words Microsoft or Windows within the file being edited.

4) MS key-This key runs a Microsoft commercial entitled "Computing for Mindless Drones" in a 1" x 1" window.

5) FUD key-Some thing to do with the display ... self explanatory.

6) Chicago key-Generates do nothing loops for months at a time.

7) IBM key-Searches your hard disk for operating systems or applications by vendors other than Microsoft and deletes them. (Is very effective at removing Netscape).

8) MSN Key-With a single keystroke you will install and setup the world's second slowest web access (AOL takes first place). And you thought it was tough deleting all of the SetupMSN files from Win 98!

9) RW95 Key-Stands for Re-install Windows 98. Because it's usually a weekly ritual for most Win 98 users, why not make it easier?

10) FDISK Key-Microsoft's new compression utility gives you 100% data compression guaranteed. Could stand for Format Disk, but we all know what it really stands for.

BILL GATES BUYS A HOUSE

Bill: "There are a few issues we need to discuss."

Contractor: "Ah, you have our basic support option. Calls are free for the first 90 days and $75 a call thereafter. Okay?"

Bill: "Uh, yeah... the first issue is the living room. We think it's a little smaller than we anticipated."

Contractor: "Yeah. Some compromises were made to have it out by the release date."

Bill: "We won't be able to fit all our furniture in there."

Contractor: "Well, you have two options. You can purchase a new, larger living room; or you can use a Stacker."

Bill: "Stacker?"

Contractor: "Yeah, it allows you to fit twice as much furniture into the room. By stacking it, of course, you put the entertainment center on the couch... the chairs on the table... etc. You leave an empty spot, so when you want to use some furniture you can unstack what you need and then put it back when you're done."

Bill: "Uh... I dunno... issue two. The second issue is the light fixtures. The bulbs we brought with us from our old home won't fit. The threads run the wrong way."

Contractor: "Oh! That's easy. Those bulbs aren't plug and play. You'll have to upgrade to the new bulbs."

Bill: "And the electrical outlets? The holes are round, not rectangular. How do I fix that?"

Contractor: "Just uninstall and reinstall the electrical system."

Bill: "You're kidding!?"

Contractor: "Nope. Its the only way."

Bill: " Well... I have one last problem. Sometimes, when I have guests over, someone will flush the toilet and it won't stop. The water pressure drops so low that the showers don't work."

Contractor: "That's a resource leakage problem. One fixture is failing to terminate and is hogging the resources preventing access from other fixtures."

Bill: "And how do I fix that?"

Contractor: "Well, after each flush, you all need to exit the house, turn off the water at the street, turn it back on, reenter the house and then you can get back to work."

Bill: "That's the last straw. What kind of product are you selling me?"

Contractor: "Hey, nobody's making you buy it."

Bill: "And when will this be fixed?"

Contractor: "Oh, in your next house -- which will be ready to release sometime near the end of next year. It was due out this year, but we've had some delays..."

General Motors vs. Microsoft

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 twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Mr. Gates' comments, General Motors issued the following press release (by Mr. Welch himself, the GM CEO) "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice daily.

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

3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver, such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

4. Only one person at a time could use the car, 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, reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive.

6. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by one "general car default" warning light.

7. New seats would force everyone to have the same size bottom.

8. The airbag system would say ("Are you sure?" before going off).

9. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

10. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice department.

11. Every time GM introduced a new model car, buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

12. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. Things like 'chalk' or 'pencil,' she described, would have a gender association although in English, these words were of neutral gender.

Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?"

The teacher wasn't certain which it was, and so divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. One group was composed of the women in the class, and the other of men Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded 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 your 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.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender because:

1. No one but their 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 later retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

You may be a geek if...

You've ever used a computer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend.

You find yourself interrupting computer store salesman to correct something he said.

The first thing you notice when walking in a business is their computer system. ...and offer advice on how you would change it.

You've ever mounted a magnetic tape reel.

You own any shareware.

You know more IP addresses than phone numbers.

You've ever accidentally dialed an IP address.

Your friends use you as tech support.

You've ever named a computer.

You have your local computer store on speed dial.

You can't carry on a conversation without talking about computers.

Co-workers have to E-mail you about the fire alarm to get you out of the building.

You've ever found "stray" diskettes when doing laundry.

Your computer has it's own phone line - but your teenager doesn't.

You check the national weather service web page for current weather conditions (rather than look out the window).

You know more URLs than street addresses.

Your pet has a web page.

You get really excited when Yahoo adds your link.

Leave it to Microsoft....

From an ex-field sales/support survivor:

I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. The service rep was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep: Sir, something has burned within your power supply.

Customer: I bet that there is some command that I can put into the AUTOEXEC.BAT that will take care of this.

Service Rep: There is nothing that software can do to help you with this problem.

Customer: I know that there is something that I can put in...some command... maybe it should go into the CONFIG.SYS.

[After a few minutes of going round and round] Service Rep: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:\DOS\NOSMOKE and reboot your computer.

[Customer does this] Customer: It is still smoking.

Service Rep: I guess you'll need to call Microsoft and ask them for a patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE.

[The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy but NO... he calls back four hours later]

Service Rep: Hello Sir, how is your computer?

Customer: I called Microsoft and they said that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new one. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will cost.

If Restaurants Operated Like Microsoft

Patron: Waiter!

Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support Waiter. What seems to be the problem?

Patron: There's a fly in my soup!

Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time.

Patron: No, it's still there.

Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup; try eating it with a fork instead.

Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there.

Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; what kind of bowl are you using?

Patron: A SOUP bowl!

Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration problem; how was the bowl set up?

Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to do with the fly in my soup?

Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the fly in your soup?

Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day!

Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the Day?

Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day??

Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour.

Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now?

Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato.

Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. I'm running late now.

(waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check)

Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check.

Patron: This is potato soup.

Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet.

Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything.

(waiter leaves)

Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup!

The check: Soup of the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00

Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . . . . . . .$2.50

Access to support . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$1.00

Murphy's Laws............

*As soon as you delete a worthless file, you'll need it.

*Installing a new program will always screw up at least one old one.

*The computer will work perfectly at the repair shop.

*The first place to look for a lost file is the last place you would expect to find it.

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

*Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors on the way to the printer.

*Regardless of the program, you won't have enough hard disk space to install it.

*The easier it is to get into a program, the harder it will be to get out.

*Every machine will eventually fall apart.

*In a computer manual, any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

*If you hit two keys on the keyboard simultaneously, the one that you don't want will appear on the screen.

*The probability of anything going wrong is in inverse proportion to its desirability.

*No matter how long you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale cheaper the next day.

*The computer only crashes when printing a document you haven't saved.

*If you make a copy of your system configuration nine out of ten times, the tenth time is the only time you'll need it.

*The more pounds the package weighs, the harder it will be to find the installation instructions.

*The need for space on a disk will always exceed the available space by ten percent.

*The likelihood of a hard disk crash is in direct proportion to the value of the material that hasn't been backed up.

*There are only two kinds of computer users: Those whose hard disks have crashed, and those whose hard disks haven't crashed - yet.

*Before you do something, you have to do something else first.

*Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it. If you fiddle with something long enough, you'll break it.

*If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a fool about it.

*You can't win them all, but you sure can lose them all.

*Don't let any mechanical device know that you're in a hurry.

*If it's worth doing, it's worth hiring someone who knows how to do it.

*The one piece of data you're absolutely sure is correct, isn't.

*Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.

*The writer will find the typos after the letter is mailed.

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING GLOSSARY OF PRODUCT TERMINOLOGY

NEW: Different colors from previous version.

ALL NEW: Software is not compatible with previous version.

UNMATCHED: Almost as good as the competition.

ADVANCED DESIGN: Upper management doesn't understand it.

NO MAINTENANCE: Impossible to fix.

BREAKTHROUGH: It finally booted on the first try.

DESIGN SIMPLICITY: Developed on a shoestring budget.

UPGRADED: Did not work the first time.

UPGRADED AND IMPROVED: Did not work the second time.