Bill Gates is hanging out with the chairman of General Motors.

"If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades," boasts Gates, "you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour. Or, you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50."

"Sure," says the GM chairman. "But would you really want to drive a car that crashes four times a day?"

You know you're a computer nerd when you know more IP addresses than phone numbers!

Last year a friend of mine upgraded Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight 8.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired Plug-Ins such as Mother-In-Law 55.8 and Brother-In-Law Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.

Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0. - A 'Don't remind me again' button - Minimize button - An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of cache and other system resources. - An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much more useful.

I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a long standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse, The uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system. Another thing that sucks - all versions of Girlfriend continually pop up little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0

BUG WARNING: Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources.

BUG WORK-AROUND: To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications such as LapLink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have been known to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.

One day a Florist goes for a haircut. After the cut, he goes to pay the Barber and the barber replies: 'I am Sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I am doing a Community Service'. The Florist is happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning the Barber goes to open his shop, there is a Thank you Card and a dozen roses waiting at his door.

A Cop goes for a haircut and he also goes to pay the Barber and the barber replies: 'I am Sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I am doing a Community Service'. The Cop is happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the Barber goes to open his shop, there is a Thank you Card and a dozen Doughnuts waiting at his door.

A Software Engineer goes for a haircut and he also goes to pay the Barber and barber replies; 'I'm Sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I am doing a Community Service'. The next morning when the Barber goes to open his shop, What does he find there?

A Dozen of software engineers waiting for a free haircut......

• You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com
• You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
• Your start introducing yourself as "Jon at I-I-Net dot com"
• Your wife drapes a blond wig over your monitor to remind you of what she looks like.
• All of your friends have an @ in their name.
• You can't call your mother..... she doesn't have a modem.
• Your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box.
• You move into a new house and decide to Netscape before you landscape.
• You tell the cab driver you live at: http://23.elm.street/house/bluetrim.html
• Your spouse makes a new rule: "The computer cannot come to bed."
• You ask a plumber how much it would cost to replace the chair in front of your computer with a commode.
• You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
• You turn on your computer and turn off your spouse.
• Your spouse says communication is important in a marriage..... so you buy another computer and install a second phone line so the two of you can chat.
• You begin to wonder how on earth your service provider is allowed to call 200 hours per month "unlimited."
.....AND THE #1 CLUE THAT YOUR ARE ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET IS........
• Your dog has its own home page. :-)

There were an engineer, a manager and a programmer driving down a steep mountain road. The brakes failed and the car careened down the road out of control until it came to a halt by running against a cliff. They all got out, shaken by their narrow escape from death, but otherwise unharmed. The manager said, "to fix this problem we need to organize a committee, have meetings, and develop a solution along with a mission statement." The engineer said, "no, that would take too long, and besides that method never worked before.

I have my pen knife here and will take apart the brake system, isolate the problem, and correct it." The programmer said, "no, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."

• 486 : The average IQ needed to understand a PC.
• State of the Art : Any computer you can't afford.
• Obsolete : Any computer you own.
• Microsecond : he time it takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.
• G3 : Apple's new Macs that make you say "Gee, three times   faster than the computer I  bought for the same price a   Microsecond ago."
• Syntax Error :  Walking into a computer store and saying "Hi, I want to 
• buy a computer and money is no object."
• Keyboard : The standard way to generate computer errors.
• Mouse : An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.
• Floppy : The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.
• Laptop : A device invented to force businessmen to work at home, on vacation, and on business trips.
• Disk Crash : A typical computer response to any critical deadline. 
• Power User : Anyone who can format a disk from DOS. 
• System Update : A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.

1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete.
3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.
5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
6. To err is human . . . to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.
7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
8. If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.
9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
10. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
11. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.

I once got an especially helpful reply to a question I asked on Microsoft's on-line tech support service. I wrote back to thank them for a complete and concise reply, and said how much I appreciated it.

The next day I had a response:

"We are looking into the problem and will contact you with a solution as soon as possible."

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."

So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day, God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way." I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

How many IBM employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?

10,000: one to hold up the light bulb, and 9,999 to turn the building around.

1. Uh-oh...
2. Oh S***!
3. What the heck?!?
4. Go get your backup tape. (You DO have a backup tape?)
5. That's SOOOOO bizarre.
6. Wow!! Look at this...
7. Hey!! The Suns don't do this.
8. Terminated?!?
9. What software license?
10. Well, it's doing SOMETHING...
11. Wow...that seemed fast...
12. I got a better job at Lockheed...
13. Management says...
14. Sorry, the new equipment didn't get budgeted.
15. What do you mean that wasn't a copy?
16. It didn't do that a minute ago...
17. Where's the GUI on this thing?
18. Damn, and I just bought that Coke...
19. Where's the DIR command?
20. The drive ate the tape but that's OK, I brought my screwdriver.
21. I cleaned up the root partition and now there's LOTS of free space.
22. what's this "any" key I'm supposed to press?
23. Do you smell something?
24. What's that grinding sound?
25. I have never seen it do THAT before...
26. I don't think it should be doing that...
27. I remember the last time I saw it do that...
28. You might as well all go home early today...
29. My leave starts tomorrow.
30. Oops! (said in a quiet, almost surprised voice)
31. Hmm, maybe if I do this...
32. Why is my "rm -r *" taking so long?"
33. Hmmm, curious...
34. Well, MY files were backed up.
35. What do you mean you needed that directory?
36. What do you mean /home was on that disk/lvol? I umounted it!
37. Do you really need your home directory to do any work?
38. I didn't think anybody would be doing any work at 2am, so I killed your job.
39. Yes, I chowned all the files to belong to pvcs. Is that a problem to you?
40. We're standardizing on AIX.
41. Wonder what THIS command does?
42. What did you say your (1)user name was...?

• Calling me with a stupid quest
• Calling me with a question --- $10
• ion -- $20
• Calling me with a stupid question you can't quite articulate - $30
• Implying I'm incompetent because I can't interpret your inarticulate problem description - $1000+punitive damages
• Questions received via phone without first trying help desk - $10.00
• Questions where answer is in TFM - $10.00 (this should have been higher :-)
• Questions during Xpilot session - $20.00
• Calling me back with the same problem *after* I fix it once - $100
• Insisting that you're not breaking the software, the problem is on my end somehow - $200
• Asking me to walk over to your building to fix the problem - $5/step
• Asking me to drive to another town to fix your problem - $50/mile+gas
• If you interrupt me while I was reading news - $25/hr
• If you interrupt me while I was trying to count all the xroaches on my screen - $35/hr
• If you interrupt me while I was trying to actually fix somebody else's problem - $45/hr
• If you try to hang around and get me to fix it now - $50/hr
• If you expect me to tell you how I fixed it - $60/hr
• If you've come to ask me why something isn't working that I'm currently working on - $70/hr
• If you're asking me to fix something I fixed for you yesterday - $75/hr
• If you're asking me to fix something I told you I fixed yesterday, but never did fix - $85/hr
• If you're asking me to fix a quick patch that I made that didn't work - $95/hr
• If you're bugging me while there's another admin in the room who could have done it for you - $150/hr
• Making me trek to your office to fix your problem then leaving immediately after hanging up the phone - $1500.00
• Calling up with a problem which "everybody" in the office is having and which is "stopping all work." Not being there when I rush over to look at it and nobody else in the office knows anything about it. - $1700.00
• Explaining a problem for 1/2 hour over the phone BEFORE mentioning it's your personal machine at home - $500.00
• Self-diagnosing your problem and informing me what to do - $150.00
• Having me bail you out when you perform your own repairs I told you not to do - $300.00
• Not telling all of your co-workers about it - $850.00
• Explaining that you can't log in to some server because you don't have an account there - $10
• Explaining that you don't have an account on the machine you used to have an account on because you used it to try to break into the above server - $500
• Forgetting your password after it was tattooed on your index finger - $25
• Changing memory partitions without informing me first - $50
• Each time you call and start out by saying "I was fooling around on my computer when ..." - $50 + $ 10 /hr to fix the problem + $ 30 /hr to clean up after you.
• Installing programs without informing me /getting permission first -$100 per program
• Technical support for the above programs - $150 per hour (regardless of whether I know the program or not :))
• Calling me to tell me that none of the users in your group can log on without telling me that you placed an order to remove applications for those users $25
• After I find out that you placed the order to DELETE all of your users $1,000 (including $4,000 discount for the hilarity factor)
• Leaving files on desktop - $5 per file, $10 per day the file is left unclaimed
• Bringing in your own copy of the original Norton Utilities v1.0 to fix a brand new machine - $200
• Putting feet up next to workstation after ten mile jog through NYC streets - $50
• Spending 30 minutes trying to figure out what your problem is, and another 5 explaining how to verify and fix it, only to hear you say... "So that's what the little box that popped up on my screen was telling me to do!" - $40
• Dealing with tech support requests for obviously pirated software - $25
• Dealing with "How can I get another copy of [obviously pirated software]? Mine just died." requests - $45
• Having to use the "We're really not the best people to talk to about that; why don't you try calling the number on the box in which you bought it?" line - $55
• Actually needing to explain copyright law to you after you failed to get the hint in the previous response - $95 (includes instructions for getting freeware replacements from the public file server)
• Having to point out anything that's on the wall in a typeface larger than 18 points - $15
• If I wrote the sign - $45
• If it's in a 144 point font and taped to the side of the monitor facing the door - $75
• Reporting slow connection by passenger pigeon packets to MPEG archive in Outer Slobavia as a Mosaic/Netscape/Gopher/FTP client problem - $25.00
• Reporting it more than once - $50.00
• Reporting it more than once and implying slothfulness on tech support's inability to solve problem - $200.00

How many Microsoft technicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None, they would just declare darkness the new standard TM

Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are helping out on a project. About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says "Normally I would grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you each one wish."

The hardware engineer went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.

The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.

Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn. "And what would your wish be?" asked the genie.

"I want them both back after lunch" replied the project manager.