computers

Techno Toasters

Author Unknown

If IBM made toasters…
They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Xerox made toasters…
You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.

If Radio Shack made toasters…
The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could buy all the parts to build your own toaster.

If Oracle made toasters…
They’d claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you’d discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away, and that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If Sun made toasters…
The toast would burn often, but you could get a really good cuppa Java.

Does DEC still make toasters?…
They made good toasters in the ’80s, didn’t they?

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters…
They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.

If Tandem made toasters…
You could make toast 24 hours a day, and if a piece got burned the toaster would automatically toast you a new one.

If Thinking Machines made toasters…
You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Cray made toasters…
They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.

If SGI made toasters…
It would make the bread look like it was toasted. It could also transform rye to wheat and add whatever kind of spread you could imagine, and it would slyly imply credit for making the loaf of bread in the first place.

If Sony made toasters…
The ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

If CostCo made toasters…
They’d be really cheap, as long as you bought a six-pack of ’em.

And, of course:
If Microsoft made toasters…
Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn’t have to take the toaster, but you’d still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster ’95 would weigh 15,000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

Continue ReadingTechno Toasters

Watch Out For These Computer Viruses

Author Unknown

Adam and Eve Virus: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.

Airline Luggage Virus: You’re in Chicago, but your data is in Singapore.

Woody Allen virus: Bypasses the motherboard and turns on a daughter card.

AT&T Virus: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you’re getting with them as your phone company.

MCI Virus: Every three minutes it reminds you that you’re paying too much for the AT&T Virus.

Lorena Bobbit virus: Turns your hard disk into a 3.5 inch floppy.

Pat Buchanan Virus: Your system works fine, but it complains loudly about foreign software.

Joey Buttafuoco virus: Only attacks minor files.

Hillary Clinton Virus: Files disappear, only to reappear mysteriously a year later, in another directory.

Congressional Virus: The computer locks up, and the screen splits in half with the same message appearing on each side of the screen. The message says that the blame for the gridlock is caused by the other side.

Disney virus: Everything in the computer goes Goofy.

Federal Bureaucrat Virus: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the mostimportant part of your computer.

Steve Forbes Virus: All files are reported as the same size.

Freudian Virus: Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own motherboard.

GALLUP Poll Virus: Sixty percent of the PC’s infected will lose 30 percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error).

Government Economist Virus: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

Health Care Virus: Tests your system once a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500.

Jimmy Hoffa Virus: Your programs can never be found again.

Dr. Kevorkian Virus: Helps your computer shut down as an act of mercy.

Dr. Kevorkian Virus #2: Searches your hard drive for old files and deletes them.

Los Angeles Police Department Virus: It claims it feels threatened by other files on your PC and erases them in "self defense."

Imelda Marcos Virus: Sings you a song (slightly off key) on boot up, then subtracts money from your Quicken account and spends it all on expensive shoes it purchases through Home Shopping Network.

New World Order Virus: Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of peoplereally mad just thinking about it.

NIKE Virus: Just does it.

Richard Nixon Virus: Says, "I am not a virus!"

Ollie North Virus: Causes your printer to become a paper shredder.

PBS Virus: Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money.

Ross Perot Virus: Activates every component in your system, just before the whole thing quits.

Politcally Correct Virus: Never identifies itself as a "virus,"but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism."

Colin Powell Virus: Makes its presence known, but doesn’t do anything.Secretly, you wish it would.

Elvis Presley Virus: Your computer gets fat, slow, and lazy, then self destructs, only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across ruralAmerica.

Prozac virus: Screws up your RAM but your processor doesn’t care.

Dan Quayle Virus: Their is sumthing rong with your komputer, but ewe cantfigyour outt watt!

Ronald Reagan virus: Saves your data, but forgets where it is stored.

Paul Revere Virus: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack: Once, if by LAN; twice if by C.

Right to Life Virus: Won’t allow you to delete a file, regardless of how old it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives.

Oral Roberts Virus: Claims that if you don’t send it a million dollars, its programmer will take it back.

Sears Virus: Your data won’t appear unless you buy new cables, power supply, and a set of shocks.

O.J. Simpson Virus: You know it’s guilty of trashing your system, but you just can’t prove it.

Spice Girl virus: Has no real function, but makes a pretty desktop.

Star Trek Virus: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus: Terminates and stays resident. It’ll be back.

Texas Virus: Makes sure that it’s bigger than any other file.

Titanic virus: Makes your whole computer go down.

Ted Turner Virus: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.

Mike Tyson virus: Quits after one byte.

Viagra virus: Expands your hard drive while putting too much pressure on your zip drive.

Oprah Winfrey Virus: Your 200mb hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80mb and then slowly expands back to 200mb.

Continue ReadingWatch Out For These Computer Viruses

New Y2K Software

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Author Unknown

This memo is to announce the development of a new database software system which will be Year 2000 compliant. This program is known as "Millennia Year Application Software System" (MYASS).

Next Monday there will be a meeting in which I will show MYASS to everyone. We will hold demonstrations throughout the month so that all employees will have an opportunity to get a good look at MYASS.

We have not addressed networking aspects yet, so currently only one person at a time can use MYASS. This restriction will be removed after MYASS expands.

Some employees have begun using the program already. This morning I walked into a subordinate’s office and was not surprised to find that he had his nose buried in MYASS. Some of the less technical people may be somewhat afraid of MYASS.

Last week my secretary said to me, "I’m a little nervous, I never put anything in MYASS before." I helped her through the first time and afterward she admitted that it was relatively painless and she was actually looking forward to doing it again, and was even ready to kiss MYASS.

There have been concerns over the virus that was found in MYASS upon initial installation, but the virus has been eliminated and we were able to save MYASS. In the future, however, protection will be required prior to entering MYASS.

This database will encompass all information associated with the business. As you begin using the program, feel free to put anything you want in MYASS.

As MYASS grows larger, we envision a time when it will be commonplace for a supervisor to hand work to an employee and say, "here, stick this in MYASS." It will be a great day when we need data quickly and our employees can respond, "Here it is, I just pulled it out of MYASS."

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Solving The Y0K Problem

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Author Unknown

While browsing through material in the recesses of the Roman Section of the British Museum, a researcher recently came across a tattered bit of parchment. After some effort he translated it and found it was a letter from a man called Plutonius with the title of "magister factorium," or keeper of the calendar, to one Cassius. It was dated, strangely enough, 2 BC, December 3 — about 2,000 years ago. The text of the message follows:

Dear Cassius:

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven’t much time left. I don’t know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last Minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn’t done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won’t work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely, we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.

The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. Its an ill wind….

As for myself, I just can’t see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won’t arrive until it’s all over.

I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition. Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem.

I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops. If you have any ideas please let me know,

Plutonius

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How To Solve The Y2K Problem

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Author Unknown

The Corporate Office has defined a lower cost alternative for Desktop conversions that also addresses the Y2K (Year 2000) issue:

The goal is to remove all computers from the desktop by Jan, 1999. Instead, everyone will be provided with an Etch-A-Sketch.

There are many sound reasons for doing this:

1. No Y2K problems
2. No technical glitches, keeping work from being done.
3. No more wasted time reading and writing emails.
4. Substantial hardware cost savings.

Frequently Asked Questions from the Etch-A-Sketch Help Desk:

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen. What do I do?
A: Pick it up and shake it

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What’s the shortcut for Undo?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Don’t shake it.

Continue ReadingHow To Solve The Y2K Problem

Two Digits for a Date

Author Unknown

(sung to the tune of "Gilligan’s Island", more or less)

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
Of the doom that is our fate.
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date… two digits for a date.

Main memory was much smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let’s get by with two….Get by with just the two."

"This works through 1999,"
The programmers did say.
"Unless we rewrite before that
It all will go away… it all will go away."

But Management had not a clue:
"It works fine now, you bet!
A rewrite is a straight expense;
We won’t do it just yet… we won’t do it just yet."

Now when 2000 rolls around
It all goes straight to Hell,
For zero’s less than ninety-nine,
As anyone can tell… as anyone can tell.

The mail won’t bring your pension check.
It won’t be sent to you.
When you’re no longer sixty-eight,
But minus thirty-two… but minus thirty-two.

The problems we’re about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of code’s
The only certain cure… the only certain cure.

There’s not much time,
There’s too much code.
(And Cobol-coders, few)
When the century is finished with,
We may be finished, too… we may be finished, too.

The way to get the time we need
I now propose to you:
A Daylight Savings decade,
Or maybe even two… or maybe even two.

Eight thousand years from now I hope
That things weren’t left too late,
And people aren’t lamenting
Four digits for a date… four digits for a date.

Continue ReadingTwo Digits for a Date

If Restaurants Functioned Like Microsoft

Author Unknown

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 . . . . . . . . . . $10.00

Editors Note: Bug in the soup included at no extra charge (will be fixed with Tomorrow’s soup of the day)

Continue ReadingIf Restaurants Functioned Like Microsoft

Things That Would Be Different if Microsoft Built Cars

Author Unknown

A particular model year of car wouldn’t be available until AFTER that year, instead of before it.

Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you’d have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would die, for no apparent reason, and you’d have to restart it. For some strange reason, you’d accept this.

You could have only one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car95 or CarNT. But then you’d be required to purchase extra seats.

Apple Automotive would make a car that was powered by the sun, self-repairing, twice as reliable, and three times as fast- but it would only run on 10% of roads.

The oil, engine, gas, and alternator warning light would be replaced by a single “General Car Fault” warning light.

People would get excited about “new” features in Microsoft Cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars like Conklin Buick GMC Hutchinson ks for years. If you are searching for the best cars then you will get redirected here.

We’d all have to switch to Microsoft Gas.

The U.S. government would be getting subsidies from an automaker, instead of giving them.

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

After you bought your flashy new Winfire 95 sports car and found you couldn’t drive it out of the showroom because it had square wheels, they wouldn’t tell you how to change to round ones until you had gone home to fill out your new Winfire driver registration card.

Having finally changed to round wheels and got on the road, one day the round wheels fell off and the Microsoft Car Co. wanted you to pay a big bag of money up front before they would take your phone call to find out if wheel-falling-off problems were covered under warranty.

Continue ReadingThings That Would Be Different if Microsoft Built Cars

If Airplanes Ran On Operating Systems

DOS:
Everybody pushes it till it glides, then jumps on and lets it coast till it skids, then jumps off, pushes, jumps back on, etc.

DOS with QEMM:
Same as DOS, but with more leg room for pushing.

Macintosh:
All the flight attendants, captains and baggage handlers look the same, act the same and talk the same. Every time you ask a question, you are told you don’t need to know, don’t want to know and everything will be done for you without your knowing, so just shut up.

OS/2:
To get on board, you have to have your ticket stamped 10 different times by standing in 10 different lines. Then you fill out a form asking how you want your seating arranged–with the look and feel of an ocean liner, a passenger train or a bus. If you get on board and off the ground, you will have a wonderful trip, except when the rudder and flaps freeze, in which case you have time to say your prayers before you crash.

Unix:
Everyone brings one piece of the plane. Then they go on the runway and piece it together, all the while arguing about what kind of plane they’re building.

Windows 95:
Colorful airport terminal, friendly flight attendants, easy access to a plane, uneventful takeoff. Then: BOOM! You blow up without any warning whatsoever.

Windows NT:
The terminal and flight attendants all look like those the Windows plane uses, but the process of checking in and going through security is a nightmare. Once aboard, those passengers with first class tickets can go anywhere they want and arrive in half the time, while the vast majority of passengers with coach tickets can’t even get aboard.

Windows 98:
The airplane is distributed among 47 different hangars in 13 airports scattered over 8 states, 4 Canadian provinces, and a remote mountain hideaway in Nicaragua. But you don’t need to know where the airplane is or who it belongs to in order to fly it. Actually, you don’t fly the airplane itself; you fly a simulation that behaves just like the real thing except that you don’t go anywhere. But that’s okay, because when the world is at your fingertips you never need to leave home.

Continue ReadingIf Airplanes Ran On Operating Systems

How Things Would Be Different If Microsoft Headquarters Was In Alabama

Author Unknown

Their #1 product would be "Microsoft Winders"

Instead of an hourglass icon you’d get an empty beer bottle.

Occasionally you’d bring up a winder that was covered with a Hefty bag and some duct tape.

Dialog boxes would give you the choice of "Ahh-right", "Naw", or "Git"instead of "Yes", "No", or "Cancel".

Instead of "Ta-Da!", the opening sound would be Dueling Banjos.

The "Recycle Bin" in Winders 95 would be an outhouse.

Whenever you pulled up the Sound Player you’d hear a digitized drunk redneck yelling "Freebird!" and "Roll Tide".

Instead of "Start Me Up", the Winders 95 theme song would be "Sweet Home Alabama" followed by an introduction from Hank Williams (Senior), Elvis Presley, and Paul "Bear" Bryant.

PowerPoint would be named "ParPawnt".

Microsoft’s programming tools would be "Vishul Basic" and "Vishul D-".

Winders 95 Logo would incorporate the Confederate Flag.

Instead of "VP", Microsoft big shots would be called "Cuz".

Hardware could be repaired using parts from an old Trans Am.

Four words: Daisy Duke Screen Saver.

"Well, the first thing you know ole Bill’s a billionaire…"

Flight Simulator replaced by Tractor-Pull Simulator.

Microsoft CEO: Billy-Bob (a.k.a. "Bubba") Gates — 18. Direct link to the WWW (World Wide Wrestling) Home Page.

"Where’s Waldo?" would be replaced with "Where’s Elvis?".

Continue ReadingHow Things Would Be Different If Microsoft Headquarters Was In Alabama