John Bobbit Virus–

Removes a vital part of your hard disk and then re-attaches it. (But it will never work again.)

•Oprah Winfrey Virus–

Your 850 MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 200 MB, and then slowly expands back to 850 MB.

•Politically Correct Virus–

Never calls itself a “virus”, but instead refers to itself as an “electronic micro-organism”.

•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.

•Government Economist Virus–

Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

•Federal Bureaucrat Virus–

Divides your hard disk into thousands of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.

•AT&T Virus–

Every 3 minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

•MCI Virus– Every 3 minutes it reminds you that you are paying too much for the AT&T Virus.

•Sprint Virus–

Every 3 minutes it tells you that it’s better than the AT&T and MCI Virus.

•PBS Virus–

Your computer stops every few minutes to ask for money.

•Health Care Virus–

Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong with it, and sends you a bill for $4,500.

•New York Jets Virus–

Makes your Pentium II 266 MHz computer perform like a 12 MHz 286 computer.

•LAPD Virus–

It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in “self-defense”.

•O.J. Virus–

Claims that it did not, could not, and would not delete two of your most important files and vows to find the virus that did it.

•Ross Perot Virus–

Activates every component in your system, just before the whole damn thing quits.

•Ted Turner Virus–

Colorizes your monochrome monitor.

•Dan Quayle Virus–

Their is sumthing rong wit your’re komputer, we jsut can’t figyour out watt.

A Programmer and an Engineer were sitting next to each other…

A Programmer and an Engineer were sitting next to each other on an airplane. The Programmer leans over to the Engineer and asks if he wants to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to sleep so he politely declines, turns away and tries to sleep.

The Programmer persists and explains that it’s a real easy game. He explains,”I ask a question and if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5. Then you ask a question and if I don’t know the answer I’ll pay you $5.” Again the Engineer politely declines and tries to sleep.

The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, “O.K., if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5 and if I don’t know the answer I pay you $50! ” Now, that got the Engineer’s attention, so he agrees to the game. The Programmer asks the first question, “What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?” Then Engineer doesn’t say a word and just hands the Programmer $5.

Now, its the Engineer’s turn. He asks the Programmer, “What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?” The Programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the Engineer and hands the Engineer $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 turns away and tries to return to sleep.

The Programmer, a little miffed, asks, “Well what’s the answer to the question?” Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the Programmer, turns away and returns to sleep.

Top 10 reasons computers must be male:

1. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.

2. A better model is always just around the corner.

3. They look nice and shiny until you bring them home.

4. It is always necessary to have a backup.

5. They’ll do whatever you say if you push the right buttons.

6. Big power surges knock them out for the night.

7. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

8. The lights are on but nobody’s home.

9. The best part of having either one is the games you can play.

10. Size does matter.

Tech Support hotlines are not easy work, you get calls from all sorts of idiotic users that apparently can’t read a manual, or lack common sense. Here is a transcript of just one such case:

Caller “Hello is this Packard Bell Tech support?”

Tech “Yes how can I help you?”

Caller “The cup holder on front of my computer broke off and it is still under warranty, how do I go about getting it fixed?”

Tech “Excuse, you’ve stumped me. How did you get this cup holder, was it part of some promotion?”

Caller “It came with the computer, I don’t know of any promotion.”

Tech “Does it have any markings on it, any names, any symbols?”

Caller “Yes, it says 4X!”

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a joint press conference in St. Peter’s Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.

With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company’s new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.

“We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years,” said Gates. “The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people.”

Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company’s new on-line service, “we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time” and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. “You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution — even reduce your time in Purgatory — all without leaving your home.”

A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.

An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter’s Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello — in character as Father Guido Sarducci — hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide.

Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, “Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats,” the crowd roared, but the pontiff’s smile seemed strained.

The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican’s prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors’ access to these key intellectual properties.

“The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures,” said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. “You take the parting of the Red Sea — we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene.”

But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. “The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience,” notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.

Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it.

Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church’s mission is to reach “the four corners of the earth,” echoing MICROSOFT’s vision of “a computer on every desktop and in every home”.

Gates described MICROSOFT’s long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired — “One religion, a couple of different implementations,” said Gates.

The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.

Bill gates has been 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 where to send you. After all, you helped society enormously 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 whether you want to go to Heaven or Hell.”

Bill replied, “Well, what’s the difference between the two?”

St. Peter: “I’m willing to let you visit both places briefly, if it will help your decision.”

Bill: “Fine, but where should I go first?”

St. Peter: “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 was perfect. Bill 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 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.

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty’s address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can’t because there isn’t one typewriter in your house — only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as “friends,” but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers — and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers’ questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase “digital compression” in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase “digital compression.” Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don’t have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates’ e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying “phone number” and replace it with “voice number,” since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot’s phrase “electronic town hall” makes more sense than the term “information superhighway,” but you don’t because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it’s okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an “intriguing” fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say “I don’t know” when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better — the track ball or the track *pad*.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don’t use a laptop.

Difference Between A Computer And A Woman:

A computer will not laugh at a three-and-a-half-inch floppy.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated that:

“If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a news release stating:

“If GM had developed technology like Microsoft we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day

Every time you painted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car

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

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

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

MacIntosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only work on 5 per cent of the roads

The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light

Now seats would force everyone to have the same size butt

The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off

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

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 them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the cars performance to diminish by 50% or more (Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department)

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

You’d press the start button to shut off the engine”

In order to streamline the handling of problems within the system. Please fill out the following questionnaire before sending it in for Help. With your co-operation we should be able to provide faster and more efficient fault resolution.

COMPUTER PROBLEM REPORT FORM

1. Describe your problem:

______________________________________________________

2. Now, describe the problem accurately:

______________________________________________________

3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem:

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

____________________________-_________________________

4. Problem Severity:

A. Minor__

B. Minor__

C. Minor__

D. Trivial__

5. Nature of the problem:

A. Locked Up__

B. Frozen__

C. Hung__

D. Shot__

6. Is your computer plugged in? Yes__ No__

7. Is it turned on? Yes__ No__

8. Have you tried to fix it yourself? Yes__ No__

9. Have you made it worse? Yes__

10. Have you read the manual? Yes__ No__

11. Are you sure you’ve read the manual? Yes__ No__

12. Are you absolutely certain you’ve read the manual? No__

13. Do you think you understood it? Yes__ No__

14. If ‘Yes’ then why can’t you fix the problem yourself?

______________________________________________________

15. How tall are you? Are you above this line?

______________________________________________________

16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem

occurred?

______________________________________________________

17. If ‘nothing’ explain why you were logged in.

______________________________________________________

18. Are you sure you aren’t imagining the problem? Yes__ No__

19. How does this problem make you feel?

_____________________________________________________

20. Tell me about your childhood.

_____________________________________________________

21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem? Yes__ No__

22. Can’t you do something else, instead of bothering me? Yes__