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Hot Off The Press
2000
Computer Weekly 14 December 2000
As Lewis Carrol's Alice proved, a call to action, such as "Drink Me!", has an irresistible appeal. What was true in the mid 19th century, the dotcom advertisers are proving, is still true today. Banner advertisements with "click here" or "click now" written on them show a click-through rate increase of between 10% and 40%. US ad agency Beyond Interactive reckons if an advert says "Click here to buy this new CD", even the most sophisticated Web surfer finds it hard not to fall for this - in the US anyway.
Computing 7 December 2000
Security scandals ain't what they used to be. The CIA sacks four permies plus nine contractors and disciplines another 18 of its staff because they were using secret internal chat databases that the agency didn't know about. What was the hidden data that undermined the heart of intelligence in the Western world? Tasteless jokes and gossip, rather like the first 20 emails you read this morning. It's disturbing that it took a decade and a half to find the hidden messages - what with the CIA having its hands full intercepting every Internet mail that mentions the word 'bomb' and all - but it's even sadder that its employees couldn't have found some better information to swap. The Hollywood blockbuster is not rumoured to be in production.
Computing 23 November 2000
A monkey in Duke University Medical Centre in the US has reached for a banana by the power of thought alone.
The only cost to the monkey is that it had to have 96 electrodes implanted into the surface of its brain, and that it has to keep company with such people as Dr Mandayam Srinivasan, directory of the MIT laboratory, there the banana actually was.
'It was as if the monkey had a 600-mile long virtual arm,' said the doctor excitedly, after the monkey's brainwaves moved a robot arm, connected to the primate's brain via the Internet.
What the monkey thought of it all has not been recorded, but he disappointed observers by not raising two robot fingers to the boffins. Next stop a typewriter and the works of Shakespeare.
'Don't over estimate a user's inability to follow simple instructions,' Steve Barrett warns. 'I once told someone to right-click on some text and select from the pop-up menu.' The user couldn't see a pop-up, no matter how many times they tried. 'No success until the user asked me to confirm that click was spelt c-l-i-c-k,' Steve says. 'Then it dawned on me how "right" was being interpreted.'
Backbytes salutes the technological cunning of surgeon Mr Ahmed Samy, who conducted a life-saving diagnosis on a patient while sitting in an InterCity train just outside Edinburgh. This wouldn't be unusual, except that the patient happened to be in Grimsby. As the patient needed an immediate operation, the hospital staff phoned Samy on his mobile, then emailed him the patient's X-rays for inspection. 'Mobile phones can be very annoying when you're sat on a train,' he admitted afterwards.
Computing 16 November 2000
We are pleased to pass on the highlights of this little gem, as found by Steve Foster of Kingdom Security: we can't claim authorship, but we welcome additions. The title: 'Shooting yourself in the foot in computer language'.
- C++
- You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible, since you can't tell which are the bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying 'That's me, over there.'
- FORTRAN
- You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling ability.
- BASIC
- Shoot yourself in foot with water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
- FORTH
- Foot in yourself shoot.
- Concurrent Euclid
- You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
- Paradox
- Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.
- Modula-2
- After realising that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
- Unix
- % Is foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm '.o rm: .o: No such file or directory % Is %.
Computing 9 November 2000
We were pleased to receive the screenshot of a page from a company's intranet site entitled 'Development plan'. 'Poisons very easily bought one mostly bourgeois aardvark,' it begins. 'Two almost speedy orifices grew up, yet umpteen trailers tickled one progressive Jabberwocky, and two purple subways kisses on sheep,' it continues. We're fascinated. If you want to hear more from Vodafone's intranet, let us know. If you work for Vodafone and would like to explain your development plan, please feel free to call. Hopefully there will be less noise on the line than there was when this was dictated.
Computing 19 October 2000
Don Bright connected to Freeserve's toll-free service, but found it difficult to get online. So he mailed Freeserve to ask why: ' Please advise if this service will improve and, if you cannot, please let me know so I can change to a more reliable service provider.' Freeserve replied: 'Dear customer, your account has been cancelled as requested, all details of it will be removed from our system within seven days.'
Computer Weekly 5 October 2000
Hacking and cybercrime are reaching epidemic proportions. So it's good to know that the boys in blue are on top of the situation. The National Crime Squad (NCS) has clearly learned from the security gaffes that have blighted Egg and Barclay's bank in recent weeks. Its Web site is nothing short of impregnable, as anyone trying to look at the squad's glitzy online annual report last week would have discovered. "Please type in your username and password," the site demanded. After trying the obvious combinations like 'Dixon' and 'Dock Green', we gave up and phoned the NCS press office. "We don't know how to get into it either," they admitted. It's good to know that their data is secure.
Computing 28 September 2000
To infinity, and beyond: John Kirkwood, at Silvertech Limited, was delighted to be presented with a birthday present from his young son: a Buzz Lightyear mouse mat. 'Jolly nice it was too,' he says. 'But I couldn't help notice the dire warning on the back of the packaging. Apparently the mouse mat should be kept away from children under 36 months due to the risk of choking on small parts.'
Thanks to Graeme Foster for helpfully passing on a page from the government's recent fuel blockade information web site (www.fuelinfo.gov.uk). '14-9-00, Important Information: More information for the general public is available on Ceefax page 157 and Teletext page 364,' it says, while not bothering to present the information on the web page in question. 'The government is really getting the hang of the Internet, don't you think?' asks Graeme.
Computing 21 September 2000
Graham Foster registered at Simply Money, and received a questionnaire in his mailbox, asking him whether he hides bills from his wife. 'How far would you go for £1 million?' was one of the choicer questions, with answers ranging from, at the low end 'Run up and down the street stark naked', to 'Kill someone'. Once they have their customer data, we're anxiously awaiting the special offers it produces on the web site.
Computing 14 September 2000
Nigel Heather of BAE Systems would like to draw attention to the cunning design of the BA booking service. 'I've always been amazed by the poor soul who thinks he is going to Spain but ends up in Cuba, arrested by the police. After using the British Airways online booking service, I can see how,' he says. Nigel was heading to Turin. But BA doesn't fly there. So instead of turning away a customer, it supplies flights to the nearest match. Which is, of course, Tehran.
Computer Weekly 14 September 2000
Full marks to Microsoft's press office for accurately reflecting the company's attitude to other operating systems. When a Computer Weekly reporter called recently to get Microsoft's view on Linux, the press office replied, "I'm sure I could find someone - how do you spell Linux?"
Computing 7 September 2000
As we often say, you can't make this stuff up. The US Department of Energy awarded its contract for the world's largest supercomputer to Compaq last week. IBM didn't bid for it. Why not? 'The US government must have some choice. If it buys all these machines from IBM then there will be no competitor to provide the machine when the next one comes up for tender,' says IBM's Luigi Brochard. Translation: 'We let Compaq have it out of the goodness of our hearts.'
Please can someone tell Nick Haynes what this help screen from SunAccounts means? 'If both the base and other amount fields are blank, the base and other amounts on the input transaction will be the output on the export transaction. If the other amount is blank and the base amount = "B", the transaction will be treated as base amount only. If the other amount = "B", the the base amount will be placed in the other amount. The base amount will contain the other amount if base amount = "O" otherwise it will be zero. If other amount = "O" the other amount will contain the other amount. If base amount = "B" the base amount will contain the base amount otherwise it will be zero.' That's why we didn't become accountants.
Computer Weekly 17 August 2000
Do you follow the instructions when setting up a PC? Or do you try to predict them and set the thing up on your own? Apparently, 90% of women follow the instructions to the letter and, if things go wrong, 70% will blame themselves. Whereas 70% of men don't bother reading any information until it has all gone wrong, with 30% making up directions themselves. These figures have led the very PC PC retailer PC Retailer to write his and hers guides to setting up PCs to cater for the difference in approach. Watch out soon for the "Bridget Jones guide to Pentium III."
Computing 17 August 2000
'Your item last week about the nail-clipping preventing the space bar from working has solved the gripe I have with my laptop,' says Paul Forsdyke, of Manhattan Associates. 'I am forever accidentally hitting the 'caps lock' button because it is so close to the 'shift' key. Now, by placing a finger nail under the 'caps lock' button, it only works when I hit it hard. Brilliant.'
Computing 10 August 2000
Rob Hague isn't recommending thetrainline.com for anyone's rail requirements. After trying in vain to buy two tickets for a journey in August, when he was told there were no tickets available at any price, he fired off an email to the company containing polite suggestions as to how the site might be improved. 'We're sorry to hear you've had difficult with the site. We would ask you also to modify your language as we are not obliged to respond to offensive emails,' the company told him. What gave offence? Was it his foul-mouthed description of the menu structure as 'rather haphazard'? Or his intemperate use of the phrase 'rather disappointed'? Indeed not. It appears that thetrainline.com took umbrage at his use of the word 'bloody'. If you work in the rail business lads, you'll have to get used to worse language than that.
Computer Weekly 10 August 2000
Silver surfers have whipped up a storm in the online needlepoint world. Using a digital scanner and an online chat room, grannies have been swapping copyright patterns over the Internet for free, saving up to £8 a time. All this underhand activity has rocked the pattern publishing industry, which is now threatening to take legal action against the old dears.
Computing 3 August 2000
At Premier Brands, all 800 staff received the following email last week from one of their colleagues in the marketing department: 'I've been away for a week and as my absence was unplanned, I was unable to put an out of office message on my email. As a result I have over 100 emails, which I have to say does seem excessive and makes me think that the system is being abused. I do not propose to read them, as this would incur even more wasted time. Please would you either resend anything which needs my attention or, preferably, phone me between 9am and noon tomorrow (Tuesday) when I will ensure I'm at tmy desk with my voice mail turned off.' Our correspondent reports that this has generated a predictably large amount of email traffic, not all of it praising her time management strategy.
We like to make your job easier, so we forward this tasteful tech support tip from Geoff Hawley, who's in network support at Equitas. 'The user requested that the laptop be replaced, the space bar only responding when pressed hard. Upon investigation, the problem was resolved without additional cost. Removing the fingernail clipping from under the space bar left the laptop working perfectly.'
Computing 27 July 2000
One of our digitally-challenged readers popped over to the Samsung web site last week. 'SAMSUNG DIGI-Tall' it says on the home page. 'Everyone is invited. Sorry, your browser doesn't support Java.'
Computer Weekly 27 July 2000
Are you tired of all the IT jargon and buzzwords thrown at you by those sharp-suited consultants? Don't worry, help is at hand in a book called The Plain English Guide to Consultancy Speak. Some jargon-busting examples include:
- "We will need to review the existing baseline information."
- Translation: "We are going to take a good look through the work that the other consultants did."
- "I need to check out the detail on this one."
- Translation: "I have no idea at the moment, but 30 minutes on the Internet will turn me into an instant expert."
The guide is available from Crew, which describes itself as an "independent client-side company offering advice and support on buying and implementing software." Translation: "IT consultants with a sense of humour."
Computing 20 July 2000
An interesting innovation from Mark Newton, IT managing director at Barclays Global Investors, loyally forwarded to us by one of his employees. The day of a network crash this week, his assistant was asked to send out the following message: 'If anyone is still unable to log on due to this morning's problems, could you please let me know?' it said. There was no response. This was taken as a good sign.
Computing 13 July 2000
Even if it's a lie, we'll pass on this helpdesk story, from a correspondent who requests anonymity because of his humourless bosses.
User: I'm trying to do a pensions quote, but it's not accepting the date of birth
I've entered. Everyone else in the office has tried it, with the same results.
Helpdesk: What's the date?
User: 30/02/1973
Helpdesk: There aren't 30 days in February
User: That'll be it then.
Computing 6 July 2000
Helplines for the hard of thinking: 'Welcome to BT's billing enquiry line for business customers,' says the automated message. 'If you are a business customer with a billing enquiry, press 1.' (Thanks to Andrew Fishwick for this one.)
We thought we'd plumbed the depths of customer service hell already. Not so. Julian
Cole emailed a billing query to World Online UK. He received the following response:
From: automation@uk.worldonline.com
To: Julian Cole
This email will not be replied to.
Kind regards, World Online UK
Computer Weekly 6 July 2000
Some things never change. The latest research shows that, Internet or no Internet, men still hate shopping. According to Informix, nine out of 10 men can't stand browsing the Web for goods. They know what they want, go in, order it, and then come straight out, job done. Women, on the other hand, will spend up to two hours looking at the products on offer. Sounds familiar? As one of our female editors pointed out, it sounds just like men's and women's differing approaches to foreplay.
Computing 29 June 2000
In May, Compaq accidentally offered one of its models for £1 on the web, and 400 people tried to buy it. Andy Carr, at SmithKline Beecham International, thinks that Gateway might have less of a rush for the offer he discovered when he tried to buy an SB-750 recently. Gateway's online salse page said: 'Base price: £2000000749.00,' it says. '£2350000880.08 inc. VAT,' it adds, helpfully.
Computing 22 June 2000
Bob Foreman, at Hanson Concrete Products, reports a support call from one caller this week which may not be real, but if it isn't - we still salute his imagination. 'What does the error message on the screen say?' he asked his caller. 'I can't read it,' she said. 'There's an arrow in the way.'
Computing 15 June 2000
'Our manager recently noted that successful companies such as Microsoft give prejects a name such as Cairo or Chicago,' says Peter Kidson. 'He ruled that from now on, all our own projects must also have a catchy name.' We'll leave the question as to whether or not this will make a company more successful for you to discuss. In this case though, the answer may well be 'no'. 'On our current project we are reverse engineering data out of some other database into Oracle. After much head-scratching, someone came up with the name "Elcaro" - "Oracle" spelt backwards.' This clever idea was included in the company's presentation, much to the amusement of the first customers to see it - Spanish speakers from Mexico - who pointed out that calling your project 'the expensive one' isn't the best way to win friends.
Computer Weekly 8 June 2000
A recent white paper from IBM to promote careers in e-business for women used an analogy that was especially appealing to women. E-business is described as "a new cake we are baking". Downtime has come up with a few more calculated to tempt today's go-getting post-feminists into the cyber-economy. How about "a new blanket we are knitting", or "a new vase of flowers we're arranging"?
Computing 8 June 2000
Every time we announce that we're not publishing any more support calls, one that simply sits up and begs to be published pops up. Mark Smith writes to tell us of the call he received from a customer. 'My dog is sitting on my bold button,' the customer said. The solution? The customer was using Word, and the Office Assistant was covering the Toolbar. Mark told the customer to right-click on the dog and select 'Hide'. 'I can't,' the customer said, 'I'm left handed.'
Computing 1 June 2000
In the interests of the personal safety of any IT staff planning to work in Germany this autumn, we reprint the following warning sent by an Eastern European recruitment company's manager to UK recruiter Martin Stainthorpe. 'I would like to invite you for further contacts with ambition for followed business collaboration,' it says. 'In point, because of highest quest for IT specialist which is on the headline, our company has an existing database of available different specialist in the area and we will be interested in human resources exchanging activity. In fact, with the German government official campaign for beating up 200 thousands IT specialists in September this year, I would like to inform you that we have a possibilities to share the certain part of different levels specialist...'
Backbytes loved this story from the Press Gazette about an article in British Airways' in-flight magazine Business Life encouraging readers to make use of their spare time on the plane by keying in the recent telephone number changes to their mobile phones. Brilliant - except that switching on a mobile inside a plane is an offence, and last month the Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that doing so is a hazard to aircraft control systems.
Computer Weekly 1 June 2000
Internet Age magazine, supposedly a publication that is right up there with the Internet revolution, was recently exposed as not having an e-mail address and relying instead on snail mail. When pushed, a spokesperson for the magazine admitted that they did not have an e-mail facility, having previously pretended that the system was down.
Computer Weekly 25 May 2000
Damned clever these Internet criminals. Lamar Christian of Trenton, New Jersey, set up more than 300 fake credit card accounts in the names of the US military's top brass. Among those ripped off was former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General John Shalikashvili. All Christian needed to create the accounts were names and social security numbers, which are readily available in the online congressional records. Bill Clinton might want to spend £1.25bn on computer security, but no amount of money can buy common sense.
Computing 25 May 2000
Anglicans Online know just how widespread the works of the devil are. Pete Berry alerts us to a posting on their mailing list warning about Microsoft's TV adverts for Internet Explorer. 'The music in the ad is the theme of the Confutatis Maledictis from Mozart's Requiem,' it says. '"Where do you want to go today?" is the cheery line on the screen, while the chorus sings, "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictus". In case your Latin is rusty, this means: "The damned and accursed are convicted to the flames of Hell".' When Backbytes brought this to the attention of Microsoft's press office, a scared official said: 'Oh Lord, I can't comment on that.' Which Lord, of which realm, do Microsoft employees look to for spiritual guidance?
AOL sent Peter Barnes, at Nationwide, an offer of free registration which seemed to include some kind of prophesy. The registration card listed an ID code and the password AVIDLY-BINNED.
Computing 18 May 2000
FKI Group is a 'major global player in the provision of electrical capital plant', from whence Jim Smith mails us to say he has just completed an urgent request to recover a file from Backup. Having sneaked a peek at the file, we are delighted that Sue was able to salvage her shopping list, all 187 items of it, after it was accidentally deleted, and will now forget neither the flea collar nor the copy of the Loughborough Echo she had promised herself.
Last week, much of Santa Clara, including its airport, suffered a power cut shortly after noon. Traffic lights were out, and airport luggage was humped by hand. 'A spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric said power was restored to Santa Clara County office buildings and the San Jose International Airport and all other customers around 2.30pm,' says a US news report forwarded by Mike Landers of Brand-Rex. Investigations into what could have caused this surprise outage eventually discovered the perpetrator - or what was left of him. Santa Clara's electricity failed 'when a squirrel touched a conductor and blew a circuit breaker'. Now that's gotta hurt.
From the wacky world of dot com companies, another idea that we didn't know we could live without. Golflogix.com, based in Arizona, is about to launch a service that will track your golf game using the global positioning system (GPS). Before each shot, you hold a small device over your ball, and it tells the GPS satellite network exactly where your ball is. Afterwards, you can relive your round of golf on your own personal web page, and presumably share it with a loved one.
West Midlands Metro News 16 May 2000
In March 1992 a man living in Newton, Massachusetts received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He threw it away.
The following month, the company warned that they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them the $0.00. He called them, and they said it was a computer error.
But when he tried to use his card at a store, he found it had been cancelled nonetheless.
He called the company again and they said they'd take care of it. The next day, he got another bill for $0.00, stating that payment was now overdue. He ignored it.
Next month he got a third bill for $0.00, warning he had 10 days to pay or the company would take steps to recover the debt.
Finally giving in, he mailed them a cheque for $0.00. The computer processed his account and returned a statement, saying he now owed nothing at all.
Trouble is, the bizarre cheque caused his bank's computer to crash. They couldn't process any cheques at all.
The following month, he received a letter from the credit card company advising that his cheque had bounced, and that they were taking action to recover the $0.00 debt!
It ended up with the lawyers, and an undisclosed out of court settlement for rather more than nothing.
Computer Weekly 11 May 2000
Visitors to the currents.net Web site are invited to take part in an online poll. Recently, users were asked, "Which appliance would you prefer to surf the Web with?" Cell phone was the favoured response, although toaster and washing machine were not far behind. This week's question was "Do you participate in online polls?" Only 68% of respondents said yes, with a stunning 32% replying no. A disclaimer on the Web site reads, "This poll is not scientific." You don't say!
Computer Weekly 4 May 2000
E-mail is everywhere nowadays, but some people seem to be taking it too far. The Wall Street Journal reports that as one woman was struggling with labour in the hospital delivery room, her husband was e-mailing future grandparents with the immortal line, "Here comes the head." Not surprisingly, the missus, who was not at her calmest at that precise moment, was hopping mad that hubby - a venture capitalist - was tapping messages into a wireless device called Blackberry. Of course, some might suggest that the wife - an Internet industry executive - was being narrow minded, and at that precise moment of pain she should really consider e-mailing her thoughts to the world for posterity.
Just when you thought the browser war was over, it seems Microsoft is still trading insults with Netscape - through .dll files. Contributors to the security newsgroup Bugtraq claim to have discovered a strange encryption key included in the Windows NT4 option pack. The dvwssr.dll file allows you to read encrypted Web files generated through Active Server Pages, provided you know the key. The key is: "Netscape engineers are weenies."
Computing 27 April 2000
Gary Pugh, Oracle's data server marketing manager, gives an insight into how the company views its market share in a new magazine called D Cafe, forwarded by George Street from Queenridge Services. '61% of our databases are deployed on Unix systems, and 47.3% on Windows NT, but we are starting to see Linux make a dent in these figures,' Pugh claims. Which is hardly surprising, as that's a total of 108.4% already.
Finally: 'My local video rental shop is now dealing in DVDs,' says Tim Ditchburn, an office manager for the Diocese of Gloucester. 'Neatly written on the overnight boxes is "Please rewind when finished". Isn't it good to feel superior?' In those circumstances, Tim, it's impossible not to.
Computer Weekly 13 April 2000
Everybody knows that e-commerce is a mgic bullet for improving efficiencies, speeding up business and increasing revenues, not to mention profitability (no, don't mention profitability). However, a story from Jungle.com suggests otherwise.
When a disgruntled customer refused to believe that CDs from pop maestros St Etienne and techno-legend Derrick May were out of stock due to demand, he complained with a barrage of e-mail. So keen were Jungle.com to maintain good customer relations that an employee dashed around the corner to the local music shop and sent the requested CDs. How do we know? The hapless individual left the Our Price stickers on.
Computing 13 April 2000
Paul Kerman, of Cambrian Printers recently bought Filemaker Pro 5.0 for Macintosh. He thought he'd share this: 'Passwords for Remote Administration of the Web Security databases must not contain the letter "t". Passwords that begin with "t" will not be saved. For example "text" becomes "". Passwords that contain "t" are truncated after the last character before "t". For example, "software" becomes "sof"'. He says this is the most bizarre bug in a shrink-wrapped product. Unless, of course, you know different.
Computer Weekly 30 March 2000
A Computer Weekly reader writes in with a tale of a space-age corporate presentation.
"A few years ago I attended a KPMG corporate dinner. The theme for the evening was 'space travel'. The room was decked out in all the appropriate decorations and from the ceiling hung five spacecraft. And after the meal we were 'treated' to a lightshow which turned out to be more like a space battle.
"The spacecraft in the middle of the room turned out to represent KPMG while the ships in the corners represented the other four large accountancy firms. To the sound of great applause, led by the partners, each of the four was shot out of the sky. A futile exercise in self-congratulation if ever there was one!"
Computing 23 March 2000
An interesting definition of customer service from www.dell.co.uk's email support page: 'Please note: while all messages are read, we may not respond to or forward your message'. I guess I'll be using the phone then, says our correspondent.
Computer Weekly 16 March 2000
At a recent summit on technology and skills, held in Brussels, Microsoft's chairman for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Bernard Vergnes, presented a plan of action to beat the projected pan-European Union skills crisis. "We need to target minority groups such as women," he said. That ain't half bad, Bernard.
Computer Weekly 9 March 2000
Readers inundated Downtime with amusing titbits this week, including this one from Nick Buckley: Today I had reason to call the help desk of a well-known IBM business partner. I was put on hold and the accompanying muzak was... Send in the Clowns.
Computing 9 March 2000
We usually pass on AutoSummary humour (the device in Word that produces a precis of your document), but we like this one. Dave Nurse summarised the following document to 25% of its original size. 'This is really important and the company could collapse if we don't implement it. We should move to open source software to reduce operating costs. We should nuy Microsoft software as if money is going out of fashion.' 'Guess which sentence is NOT discarded,' he writes.
David Salvesen at IS Oxford passes on this instruction from the Windows 2000 Server Getting Started Guide: 'With the computer turned off, insert the CD-Rom in the drive,' it starts.
Computing 2 March 2000
Sam Covington has forwarded an intriguing job advertisement from an online recruitment site. It says: 'Great opportunity for bossy person to run new team in digital banking/ecommerce environment. Experience of distributing Easter eggs and running lottery syndicates an advantage.' We'd explain it if we could.
We can never work out why you send us emails requesting a receipt on delivery. Take it from us: they all get here. Hundreds of them. Steve Barrett, at Software Stationery Specialists, tells us of a similar email to his sales team from one of his customers, titled 'Stationery', requesting delivery of some items he had ordered. His email asked for a receipt, which was sent automatically. The receipt was a mail message, titled 'Delivered: Stationery', and specifying that the 'delivery was made to the following recipient: Julie'. So the customer wrote back to say he didn't know of a Julie in his company who had received the stationery. The automatic receipt was sent back again, saying: 'Delivered to the following recipient: Steve'. The customer had to say that no Steve in his company had received the stationery either.
We'd like to make fun of all those who wrote in following last week's Charred Slug Award story about the user who reduced all his prices by 10% accidentally and then tried to put it right by raising them by 10%. 'This doesn't solve the problem,' you said. We know. That's the point.
Finally, David Stiles-Pickard would like to comment on a story in Computing last month. '"Linux launch date slips" is old news,' he says. 'Microsoft launched "date slips" years ago.'
Computer Weekly 24 February 2000
Linux nuts provided an amusing sideshow to the stage-managed corporate circus that was the launch of Windows 2000. Industry watchers arriving at the Microsoft show in San Fransisco were greeted by a gang of merry pranksters who staged a boxing match between the Linux penguin and a mock-up of Bill Gates. After taking a beating in the early rounds the penguin came back Rocky-style to be victorious. "He's over me be a couple of inches, and he's got the weight," the bitter loser complained. At least he now knows what it's like to be smacked about the ring by a larger component.
The Tory Party's plan to popularise itself with the availability of free e-mail addresses containing the party's name has backfired. Early takers include those registering themselves as sleaze@tory.org and cashforquestions@tory.org.
Computing 24 February 2000
Tony Russell at Nera passes on to us the opportunity to go to Basda's seminar on ecommerce via the Internet ('one that no company can afford to ignore'). You guessed it: 'Bookings can be made by telephone, post or fax.
We present the first entry for the Charred Slug Award, given to the reader who did something that seemed totally reasonable at the time, but has led to shame, disgrace or physical suffering afterwards. We begin with two similar acts of folly. A few years ago, Alan Brindley's colleague 'Michelle' tried to change her Windows 3.11 login name from her nickname to her first name. After a frustrating time getting the change to work, she searched her Windows files for any mention of her nickname, which happened to be 'Shell', and then changed it to 'Michelle'. When her PC wouldn't work, she called in the helpdesk. The problem? Perhaps the line in WIN.INI that said 'Michelle=C:\WINDOWS\PROGMAN.EXE'.
On a larger scale, Calum Davidson at Scottish and Southern Electricity has 'an anonymous friend' (your secret is safe with us, Calum) who was updating prices in an Oracle database. 'When trying to reduce a selection of prices by 10%, he forgot his WHERE clause and accidentally reduced the entire company's stock by 10% and committed the change before he noticed,' Calum explains. Which is a simple mistake, easy to fix, even if it does mean changing 60,000 rows. So Calum's friend fixed it. He increased the price of every item of stock - by 10%.
It's so rare that we receive compliments about large vendors from our readers, so Gareth Bloor's letter is refreshing. 'I feel I must praise Hewlett-Packard for the accuracy of its installation instructions for its Colorado Backup device,' he says. 'The overview instructs you to install the software, the documentation, then the drive and finally to 'prepare for a computer system failure'. My computer crashed immediately on re-booting after installation. Thanks for the warning, guys!'
Computing 17 February 2000
Phil Davies sends us the following advertisement from a recruitment web site, which prompts him to ask how the prospective employer will know if you fulfil the requirements: 'Position: Site Acquisition Manager. Skills: All acquisition-related activities, must speak 79% Italian.' Whoever gets the job, let us know what they asked you in the interview. In 100% English, please.
'Are you brave enough to publish this?' asks Frank Brookes. 'There's a millennium bug in Microsoft Excel 97! If you enter a date separated by dots (01.01.00, for example) then the date is stored as 1900.' Our advice, that we're brave enough to give: don't enter dates separated by dots, Frank.
Computer Weekly 17 February 2000
The literary world has now caught on to the joy of viruses. The latest worm detected by Computer Associates arrives by e-mail and offers to help the recipient to write haikus, Japanese poems with three lines and 17 syllables. It contains an example: "Old pond / a frog leaps in / water's sound." When you reboot your PC, the worm displays a beautiful poem that it has generated specially for you... and then stops you connecting to e-mail and e-commerce sites.
Computer Weekly 10 February 2000
It was a short step from John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance, to Coca-Cola's I'd Like to Give the World a Coke and, likewise, corporate America is now smelling money in the open source movement. The computer industry's big boys like IBM and Compaq are now in on the act, which has tweaked a few beards of the Linux die-hards at Linux World in New York. "A couple of product demonstrators pronounced Linux as lie-nicks," one grumbled. "I have to wonder how dedicated they are to the platform." Another, self-proclaimed Linux nut, Davish ("no last name, just Davish") believes his beloved OS will not be surrendered without a fight. "Corporate America will own Linux only when they pry my cold, dead hands off my keyboard," he proclaimed.
Computing 10 February 2000
As the impassioned tales of your users' incompetence pour in, we're pleased to have one of those round-robin emails forwarded to us by Sean Somerswall-Weekes at the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Usually we delete these and send a rude message back (especially that one promising you that Bill Gates will give you money if you send emails - believe us, when you forward that to Backbytes, it makes you look pretty stupid). However, this one we've kept, because it's funny. Guidelines to making the most of your IT department is too long to print in full, but here are some of its salient points.
- 'When IT say they're coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for us to remember 700 network passwords.
- 'When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
- 'Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.'
You get the drift.
Computing 3 February 2000
News reaches us of a customer who ordered an opera video from an online retailer, and received an adult video instead. 'I was disappointed,' the customer is reported to have said. Though presumably not as disappointed as the guy who opened his box to discover an opera video.
We're delighted to bring you this educational clip from the Daily Mail's article 'What really goes on inside your family PC', as supplied by spotter Tim Hale at Champion Hire. 'The brain of the machine is the central processing unit. All the real work is done by this chip, which resembles an After Eight Mint with tiny pins attached. In many machines, this is made by Pentel and is known as a Pentium processor. Intel also makes a cheaper version called the Celeron
Computing 27 January 2000
Andrew Westrope writes specifically to grass up his colleague Carole, who sent the following email. ' did ask about a ZIP drive for Greg's computer, as he is unable to unzip any attachments at the moment. Please can you respond with your comments.' We think forwarding the mail to us is comment enough.
We don't believe for a second that non-PC users are odd. However, you must make up your own minds. Stephen Gardiner reports that he recently powered up his Amiga 4000 to investigate its state of compliance, and found it working perfectly. Having consulted the official Amiga users' web page, however, he is disturbed to find warnings of two further date problems: one on 19 January 2046, followed by another on 7 February 2114. We are delighted to pass them on.
Computer Weekly 27 January 2000
Sad but true. Kay Atherton, exiled in the US from her native Manchester e-mailed Tameside Council to say that she scoured the council Web site every day in the hope of seeing her parents shopping on the Webcam broadcasting from Ashton market. In line with Tony Blair's best value requirement for local authorities, Ashton told Kay to arrange a time for her parents to visit the market and told them where to stand for the optimum view. Apparently, Wynne and Bill Atherton can be seen in the market on a daily basis waving at the camera.
Computing 20 January 2000
Ian Thomas at Level 8 Systems reports that his wife received a junk mail sales pitch in the post last week. 'In less than three months you'll make history. For you, together with your family and friends, will be part of an event that happens so seldom it is never experienced in most lifetimes - the dawning of a new Millennium,' it says. We'd be more forgiving, if the sender wasn't the Post Office.
We've had lots of you forwarding emails from recruiters offering jobs that start in 1900, or even in 19100, but only one email that offers a job we'd consider taking. Robert McCord forwards this from Jobserve: 'Job title: business objects/web int. developer,' it says. 'The role will involve creation of universe for whole organisation. Duration: 1 year fixed term contract (training will be given)'. Back in the old days, this sort of job only used to take a week.
Computing 13 January 2000
Anne, Julie and Andrew forward this useful piece of millennium planning, received by their helpdesk: 'Happy New Year to all at Professional Support Services. Well done, the smooth transition stands testimony to your team's efforts over the millennium. Many thanks. You couldn't do anything about our heating, could you? We appear to have neglected the year 2000 compliance of our boiler clocks.'
Compare and contrast: 'The prudent will start stock-piling now. Computer scientists who really understand the problem are buying a few extra tins or bags of flour every time they go shopping. I'm fortunate in that we live in the country, so we can subsist. I have a wood-burner and calor gas, stream and a big vegetable garden. And I'll stock up with three months' supply of food. Three months' supply is sensible, at the cautious end of things.'
And: 'Company bosses ahould be sacked. The level of waste is so conspicuous that those who presided over it should have to pay. We have to ask how important these failures really are.'
The first was Cambridge University computer scientist who really understands the problem, Ross Anderson, talking about the millennium bug in February 1999. The second? Er, Cambridge University's Ross Anderson, talking about the millennium bug last week. If you need to borrow some flour, you know who to ask. (Thanks to Simon Quinn.)
And so we return to the sort of miserable failure that happens not once in a millennium but 365 days a year. Eric Bodger sent an email to Lotus complaining that too many graphics had made its web site run slowly. 'To better respond to your questions and comments, we've set up a web page to gather your feedback and other important information,' came the reply, a couple of weeks ago. 'Please resubmit the feedback. Please note that all future emails to webmaster@lotus.com will be returned.' This would be barely acceptable customer service at the best of times. Thing is, Eric's original email was sent in 1997. Seems like the web pages aren't the only things running slowly.
Computer Weekly 13 January 2000
Racal Electronics provided one of the few real Y2K disasters after 20,000 of its swipe card terminals refused to register payments between 27 and 31 December. Downtime has tracked down the complex coding error that months of fixing failed to detect. "Apparently there was an equals sign where there should have been a greater-than sign" said a Racal spokesperson. One of the high street banks hit by the failure explained how its rigorous testing procedures failed to spot the problem, "We didn't know the software on the terminals existed," said a harassed Y2K project manager.
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