Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest !

If you think you're dumb when it comes to computers, read this and you'll feel better. This is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "Send" key.

4. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his bathtub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

5. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "Bad and an invalid." The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

6. A confused caller to IBM was having trouble printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer." The user had also tried turning the computer screen to face the printer-but that his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.

7. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happened." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse...

8. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

9. Another IBM customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. "I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, and had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk, I couldn't even fit it in..." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" implied removing Disk 1 first.

10. A story from a Novell NetWare SysOp:

CALLER: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
TECH: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
CALLER: "The cup holder on my PC is broken -and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
TECH: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
CALLER: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
TECH: "Please excuse me. If I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"
CALLER: "It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it." At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller because he couldn't stand it. He was laughing too hard.The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and it had snapped it off the drive.

11. A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
The tech asked her if she was "running it under windows."
The woman responded, "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 printer is working fine."

12. And last but not least:
TECH SUPPORT: "O.K. 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!"

Dedicated to my bro who thinks that he is a noob in computers---Emkay.

Wife 1.0

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 10.3, 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 MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.

The features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0 include:

• 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 any time 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-AROUNDS

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.

Fuck this world

Fuck You All!

Running out of ways to run,
i can't see,
i can't be,
over and over and under my skin,
all this attention is doing me in!

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
Don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, don't ever judge me.

Picking throught the parts exposed,
taking shape, taking shag,
over and over and under my skin,
all this momentum is doing me in!

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
Don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, don't ever judge me.

And don't you fucking judge me!

I gave you all my love, livin' in your own hate,
Drippin' hole man, lost step, no fate,
Show you nothin'but i ain't holdin' back,
Every damn word i say is a sneak attack,
When i get my hands on you,
Ain't a fucking thing you can do,
Get this coz you're never gonna get me,
I am the very disease you pretend to be!

I am the push that makes you move x4

Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,
don't belong, don't exist,
don't give a shit, dont ever judge me. x2

Credit: SlipKnoT

Geek Jokes

After writing serious stuff for 7 continuous days, I feel like writing the funny side of IT today. Let me start with a real conversation that happened between a Netscape technical support guy and a female customer.

Tech: Internet Technical Support this is so-and-so speaking. May I have your username please?
Female Customer: Yes I want to speak to the person in charge immediately!
Tech: Speaking. What can I do for you?
Female Customer: I want to complain about the pornographic bookmarks your company put in my web browser!
Tech: We didn't put any pornographic bookmarks in your web browser.
Female Customer: Oh yes you did! I'm looking at them right now!
(Tech remembers the Netscape history list and grins to himself)
Tech: Where exactly are these "bookmarks" located?
Female Customer: In Netscape!
Tech: And where exactly in Netscape would that be?
Female: In that little list that comes down when you click the little down arrow!
Tech: The one right above the Net Search button?
Female Customer: Yes that one!
Tech: Miss, that's the Netscape history list. Netscape keeps the past ten links you typed in that box. The only way to put an address in that box is for someone to physically sit at your computer and type in a web address.
Female Customer: Well I certainly didn't type in those X rated web addresses!
Tech: Well somebody did. Who else has access to your computer, and uses the Internet?
Female Customer: Just me and my husband!
(Several seconds of silence pass ... Hey! I wasn't going to say it!)
Female Customer: ........ oh ............. OOOH! ... Thank you.
(She quickly hung up)

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Microsoft to sell ad space in error messages:
This is another dig at my favorite software company, Microsoft. The following news is definitely not true.

Microsoft announced that it is selling advertising space in the error messages that appear in Windows. Acknowledging for the first time that the average user of their operating system encounters error messages at least several times a day, Microsoft is trying to take financial advantage of the unavoidable opportunity to make an ad impression.

"We estimate that throughout the world at any given moment several million people are getting a 'general protection fault' or 'illegal operation' warning. We will be able to generate significant revenue by including a short advertising message along with it," said Microsoft marketing director Nathan Mirror.

The Justice Department immediately indicated that they intend to investigate whether Microsoft is gaining an unfair advantage in reaching the public with this advertising by virtue of its semi-monopolistic control over error messages.

Office buzz words:
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

CHAINSAW CONSULTANT: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage): What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STARTER MARRIAGE: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPED OUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

TOURISTS: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

TREEWARE: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

CHIPS & SALSA: Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic device to get it to work again. (Try not to dent the case.)

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CLM (Career Limiting Move): Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

DILBERTED: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been Dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located. "Don't bother asking him ... he's 404, man."

Leave your comments.

Spam King pleads guilty

Spam King pleads guilty:
The notorious spammer Robert Soloway whom authorities dubbed "the King of Spam" is facing a possible 26-year jail sentence after pleading guilty in Seattle on Friday to charges of fraud and tax evasion. Robert Soloway, 28, had already been found guilty of spam charges in several civil cases -- Microsoft won a US$7.8 million judgment against him in 2005 -- but had avoided paying fines in those cases. The criminal charges to which he pleaded guilty on Friday followed his arrest in 2007 by the U.S. Justice Department.

Robert Soloway is known to brag a lot in public. In 2005, when he raked in more than $300000, he posted on a public forum "I've been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars and have had my business running for over 10 years without ever paying a dime regardless to the outcome of any lawsuits". Soloway has avoided fines in the past, but this time around he may not be so lucky. In addition to the jail time he now faces, he has also agreed to discuss his financial assets while being monitored by a lie detector.

Though several cases have been registered against spammers, this is the 1st case where criminal charges were laid to deter others from spamming.

Well, if you spam and pool in money, then shut the fuck up and enjoy the money instead of bragging about it in public. Spammers and hackers should NOT be attention-seekers, FFS.

Intel comes with Quad-core:
For those of you who think that your dual-core processor is cool, think again. Intel has said that it had developed quad-core chips for laptops and will ship them later this year. The chip will be released after Intel's Centrino 2 platform, code-named Montevina, is launched in the second quarter. Montevina is an upgrade to the current Centrino mobile platform that puts WiMax and Wi-Fi networking capabilities on a single chip. Montevina will include processors based on the Core 2 microarchitecture and the quad-core notebook processor could be included in the platform.

But they make laptops heavier and are not recommended for MacBook Air. Gaming enthusiasts will be interested in these chips, as quad-core combined with a separate graphics card gives a top-notch performance. The initial quad-core processors will strain battery life and may first make their way to the high-end gaming and workstation notebooks that require heavy processing power.

Red Hat buys Amentra:
Linux developer Red Hat has purchased Amentra, an IT consulting firm with an open-source expertise to sell its JBoss Java infrastructure to enterprises as the basis for SOAs (service-oriented architectures). Amentra, a privately held systems integrator that specializes in SOA and business process management, will continue business as usual as an independent company owned by Red Hat.

Amentra is a certified JBoss systems integrator that has a solid reputation among enterprises; ExxonMobil, Pfizer and Merck are among its clients. The company also has been recognized for its expertise in providing open-source and SOA services by research firm Gartner.

Red Hat purchased JBoss in April 2006 and, like its Linux OS, now has two versions of the software -- a community ".org" version that is free for everyone to use and an enterprise version that has fees and maintenance tied to it. The company is hoping to use JBoss as a springboard to become successful beyond its enterprise Linux business and quiet critics who claim the company can't make a multi-product portfolio work.

Hmm, no entertainment news for today. You can check some cool posts here. If you've read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, then don't miss to read The Last Supper one. I happened to read a great article on Surface computing. Check the article here.

Trend Micro attacked by hackers

Trend Micro attacked by hackers:
Security vendor Trend Micro has fallen victim to widespread Web attacks that were reported by McAfee recently (check yesterday's post). As discussed earlier, the pages are infected with malicious code that tries to install a password stealing software on the PCs of people who visit the sites. Reportedly 20,000 websites have been attacked.

Researchers are still not sure how the attackers are managing to hack these Web pages, but the pages all seem to use Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP) technology (Oh, not again, screw you Microsoft!!!), which is used by many Web development programs to create dynamic HTML pages. A software bug in any of those programs is all the attackers need to install their malicious code.

It's embarrassing when security vendors fall victim to the attacks they are supposed to prevent, but Trend Micro is not the only company to have had its Web site hacked in recent months. In January, parts of CA's Web site were infected with a very similar type of attack.

My last appeal to Microsoft: Please develop more softwares rather than more bugs. Huh, when will you people understand??

Microsoft buys Rapt for its Ad management tools:
Days after Google made a deal with DoubleClick (check previous posts), Microsoft buys Rapt, of San Francisco. Rapt sells advertising yield management tools for online media companies. The tools are designed to predict demand for advertising and optimize the price and placement of ads, improving revenue. Microsoft plans to incorporate Rapt's tools and consultancy business into its Atlas Publisher Suite. That will allow it to offer publishers an integrated service to manage advertising sales, it said.

Yahoo said that they are considering the new $44.6 billion offer from Microsoft (check below) and Rapt will work along with Yahoo if there is a Microsoft-Yahoo merger. But if there isn't any merger, then Rapt will be a stiff competitor to Yahoo's online ads.

For the sake of outgoing MS chief, Bill Gates, I want the Yahoo deal to be done. But $44.6 billion is too much. Screw Yahoo!!!

Talks between Yahoo and MS?
A month after Yahoo rejected its $42 billion deal, Microsoft has approached Yahoo again with a new $44.6 billion deal. Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo and Microsoft executives met this week to discuss about the latest cash and stock bid from Microsoft.

According to me, there are several advantages of this merger and it can give a competition to Google's supremacy in online search. I personally don't like the way Google searches the content. Too much of useless pages and it takes hell lot of time to finally locate what we need. Screw Google!!!

What's your view, should the deal be done or not?

Snippets:

• Companies rarely use the 802.1x access protocol in Wi-Fi connections and thus leave the door open for hackers.
• Red Hat Linux tests its new Linux update.
• IBM unveils its SMash technology to secure software mashups.
• Boston Acoustics announces two new PC speaker systems.
• Although Apple updated its MacBook Air this week with a fix for the laptop's fan, some owners of the ultra-thin notebook continue to report that their machines overheat.
• Sustainability and other energy matters are priorities in many firms, but the cost is stalling progress, a survey says.
• A new software from UK's Access Accounting calculates carbon footprint.

Today's blog is dedicated to the three giants of the software industry, namely Microsoft, Google and Yahoo;)

Hackers attack Web yet again

Password-Stealing hackers infect thousands of web pages:
Hackers looking to steal passwords used in popular online games have infected more than 10,000 Web pages in recent days. These attacks have originated mostly from China and were first noticed by McAfee researchers 2 days ago. Within hours, the security company has tracked 10,000 web pages infected on hundreds of websites. As so many sites have been hacked in a very less time, the attack must have been an automated one.

The attackers use search engines to track websites with weak security measures and use them to spread the malicious code. The attacked web sites look no different from normal ones, but they contain an extra JavaScript code inserted into them, that re-directs the browsers of the victims to China-based servers from where invisible attacks are launched. Most of these attacks contain a data-collecting software that runs in your system, once your system is attacked. Depending on how much valuable information your system contains, the loss varies. If yours is a individual desktop PC used for mostly home needs, then the damage may not be big. But if you are a top official in a business organization, then there can be a huge data loss.

Most of these attacks are identified and the patches are released. So, if you play online games regularly, don't forget to install the patches released by your anti-virus vendor, most importantly the patches of ActiveX controls and JavaScript.

Gates asks for more H-1B visas:
According to Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates, US is driving away the best incoming talent by reducing the number of H-1B visas every year. More than half of the computer science students in US universities are from foreign countries and by reducing the number of H-1B visas, not many students can stay in US after graduation and are forced to leave.

In his own words, "We provide the world's best universities ... and the students are not allowed to stay and work in the country," Gates said. "The fact is, [other countries'] smartest people want to come here and that's a huge advantage to us, and in a sense, we're turning them away." These comments represent his long standing views about immigrant workers in US companies.

But there is an alternate argument that nearly 150,000 Americans have lost jobs because of foreign workers since 2000 and by limiting the number of H-1B visas, unemployment among Americans can be reduced. Gates says that these arguments are flawed. According to him, the big companies aren't giving jobs to Indians and Chinese just because they are foreign. According to him, Indians are getting jobs because they are more eligible than US citizens. So, if people who call themselves as US patriots are worried of this, then they should ask the Americans to have better qualifications.

You get a job not because you are a White or a Black or a Brown or a Yellow or a Red, but because you are qualified and are eligible for the job. A fitting reply to so-called patriots, Mr. Gates. We love you (except for the part that Microsoft manufacturing more bugs these days than software).

Google launches hosted ad management:
Google launched a free hosted service on Thursday that helps Web site publishers sell advertising faster and fill unsold slots on their sites. Ad Manager, which Google said has already been tested by a few businesses, is designed to streamline how ads are placed on Web sites and generate performance reports detailing how successful those ads are in reaching consumers, including click through-rates and revenue paid by the advertisers for those clicks.

Google said Ad Manager's purpose is to ease some of the problems that come with managing advertisements on a Web site, such as gauging available inventory and how to pick the highest-paying ads. The service is hosted on Google's servers, and Web site publishers can access it through a Web browser. Google's AdSense delivers text advertisements that are matched with the content of a Web site. Google will let publishers use Ad Manager in tandem with similar technology from other competing ad placement networks.

Ad Manager can also target ads at specific users. It is capable of delivering ads based on a user's domain, the brand of Web browser and language it uses, the PC's operating system and how much bandwidth is available on their Internet connection. That information may seen potentially sensitive, but it's automatically revealed when a browser visits a Web site. Increased attention has come around how Internet advertisers target ads to users and how they handle personal information.

Even this blog has Google ads. Check on top right corner of this page. Well, if you click that ad, I get paid. According to Google's terms and conditions, I am not supposed to directly ask the visitors to click those. But by now you must have guessed that I want you to click those. I really can't ask you. So, understand my position and do whatever needed (whatever I need). Huh, screw Google.

Snippets:

• Nintendo's upcoming Mario Kart Wii features 16 new courses, four control options.
• Intel CEO Paul Otellini defended the company's business practices at a two-day antitrust hearing in Brussels.
• Changes in software and computing over the next 10 years will affect all facets of life, says Bill Gates.
• Nintendo says errors encountered by some Wii owners playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl are linked to dirty DVD drive lenses.
• ZapMedia is suing Apple for "recklessly" infringing on its digital media distribution patents.
• The next-generation version of Windows (code name Windows 7) will face an antitrust review by U.S. regulators.
• Microsoft adds to its virtualization tool kit with the acquisition of software developer Kidaro.
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has started shipping triple-core Phenom processors.

• Mozilla's Firefox 3.0 is dramatically faster than its predecessor and rivals, benchmark tests claim.

P.S.
I was very very bored and out of the boredom have written a very very lengthy blog.