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Hot Off The Press
2001
Computer Weekly 3 May 2001
The first recommendation made by the DTI's select committee report on UK Online reads as follows, "It is not a promising symptom of the attitude of government to the digital divide that such a key document as the e-minister and e-envoy's first annual report should not have been made more readily available in paper form as well as electronically. We recommend that future annual reports be made available in paper when the House is sitting."
Computing 3 May 2001
We have sympathy for few here at Backbytes, but we are right behind 18-year-old Carl Filer. He was hired a couple of weeks ago by B&Q to be a weekend supervisor at its Bournemouth store. Then a week later, he was fired again. The reason: he failed an automated telephone-based personality test. 'We have found that successful completion of this interview is a strong indicator of successful and sustained employment at B&Q,' said the director of HR in a grovelling letter to Carl, explaining why, while the store manager liked him, the computers didn't. We're staggered. We watch the B&Q ads on television: is the company saying that the employees in those ads actually passed a personality test?
Computing 26 April 2001
News reaches Computing of a giant leap for fish kind. Scientists in the US (surely not) have succeeded in connecting the brain of a lamprey, an eel-like bloodsucking fish, to a Swiss-made robot. The brain floats in a tank of saline solution, and the cyborg fish is apparently capable of moving towards lights, albeit by trundling along the laboratory floor on wheels. Darwin would have been proud. Researchers at the university in Chicago say that, when one of the robot's eyes is covered, the fish's brain gets very confused. Computing thinks that is probably the least of its problems.
Computing 19 April 2001
Teacher Clair Clark's social studies class found out that she was single and posted an advertisement on a lonely hearts Internet noticeboard on her behalf. Then, when the replies came in, pupils picked out their favourite: Kevin Wiles, a Navy veteran who sent a picture of himself with his two dogs. But instead of punishing the kids, Miss Clark arranged to meet Mr Wiles and ended up getting engaged to him. Next month they hold their dream wedding: in the school hall! Stop sniggering at the back.
The Canadian Tire Corporation is trying to beat a pesky cybersquatter by claiming it has the rights to the domain name 'CrappyTire.com'. The domain name is registered to a car recycler called Mick McFadden, although if the Canadian Tire COmpany's protest to the World Intellectual Property Organisation is successful, he'll have to give it up. He's using the site to post the differences in prices between the Canadian Tire Company products and those of their competitors, to protest against the company. Now, the company has to prove that crappytire.com is its own trademark. We look forward to finding out exactly how it achieves this.
We're terribly upset to announce that Clippy, Microsoft Office's helpful paperclip, is being made redundant. It's all part of Microsoft's strategy to sell us Office XP - there's even a web site on which Clippy is touting for work. 'Office XP works so easily that it's made Office Assistants like me useless,' says Clippy on the site. Or, of course, it could just be that everyone hates being interrupted by the irritatingly helpful piece of animated wire, and Microsoft has decided to put everyone concerned out of their misery. For anyone who was struggling to find a justification for upgrading to Office XP, suddenly a compelling reason presents itself.
Computing 12 April 2001
Ian Waddington, from Wakefield, draws our attention to a job advertisement he saw recently. The recruiter was offering jobs 'up north' - in Norwich or Norfolk. 'This surely dispels any rumours that you have to live in the south east to get a decent job,' remarks Ian bitterly.
Computing 22 March 2001
Backbytes salutes Josh Klehr. Who? The originator of the Klehr-Bliss theorem, of course, which specifies a point at which three lines, drawn through the midpoints of three sides of a triangle would meet. The theorem has just been published in the American Mathematical Monthly. So far, so unremarkable. But Josh discovered the theorem during a study break in his geometry class at school in Atlanta. Don't they teach kids to doodle any more?
Liz and Antony Hawkins supply the latest in our occasional series of technical support email responses. This one came from ahead.de, and arrived a month after they mailed for help. 'Dear Customer,' it said. 'This is an auto-reply. Attention: Your email will not be passed to our support! In the meantime, we hope you will find answers to your problems in our HelpTool system. If the HelpTool system fails to contain a resolution for your problem, then you will find a support email address in the HelpTool System itself, located in the "If it has not been possible to solve the problem" section of the HelpTool.' Helpfully, the message was also sent in German.
We are delighted to hear from the company formerly known as English Hop Products. Having changed its name to Botanix, our correspondent sent out an email saying 'please address all future messages to existing email users in the form name.surname@botanix.co.uk'. No surprise that name.surname has become the email address that one of the company's main customers uses.
Computing 8 March 2001
The house built by Bill Gates on the shore of Lake Washington (known to Microsoft employees, imaginatively, as 'The House') offers a mere 37,000 sq ft of living space, 24 bathrooms, an indoor pool and six kitchens. It has its own cinema, a sauna, a gym, and banqueting space for 120 guests. But unfortunately, Bill needs to get it extended, and has requested planning permission for an alteration to the £75 million pad. The reason: he has built a house with only four bedrooms, and now Bill and Melinda are expecting their third child. A house with six times as many bathrooms as bedrooms? Did the same architects design Windows ME?
Computing 1 March 2001
When urban myths come true, we're so happy. We are indebted to Ian Smith, who supplied the following reference to Compaq's support page frequently-asked questions. Pop over to http://web14.compaq.com/falco/detail.asp?FAQnum=FAQ2859, then read it and weep. The answer: 'This is not a key. When you instructed to press any key, this means that you can press any of the keys on the keyboard (such as the Enter key, the R key, or the space bar).' The question: 'Where is the ANY key?'
Computing 22 February 2001
Lasitha Leelasena and Bertie Beenham both write to us with the same example of mutual recursion: Thetrainline.com. 'We are sorry, but the web site is very busy at present. Call 0870 010 1128 to make your booking,' it told them. 'You call the number. It invites you to visit the web site. Hours of harmless fun may be had in this manner,' Bertie says. Hours, yes. Fun, no!
Computer Weekly 22 February 2001
We have all got Microsoft Word, but why do people use only a fraction of the functionality? According to Microsoft, it is because many users are too thick to read the manual. However, help is at hand. When Office XP comes out these miscreants will have functionality coming out of their ears, says the company, after they use new wizards to guide them through the rare and exotic reaces of the suite. Department heads despair. You may have stopped your company's staff playing Solitaire, and the novelty of trying to find the right typeface for a CV may have waned. But now work will grind to a halt as users play with functions and features they will never use. No wonder analyst reports say that technology has failed to deliver the promised increases in productivity.
Computer Weekly 15 February 2001
Following reports in the ever reliable Sun newspaper, bookie William Hill has admitted that it will be opening a book on Internet-based goldfish racing at some point in the near future. The aim of the "sport" is to study a group of fish and bet on the one most likely to be first to swim under a bridge in the on-screen tank. After the bets are '"plaiced", the gamblers just have to flounder around waiting, but then "sardinely" it's all over and a winner is announced. William Hill says the fish will be well looked after and will not be mistreated in any way. The company insists that not all goldfish are the same and that their fish will be easily distinguishable from one another. But how are they going to get over the fact that all goldfish are called Bob?
Computing 15 February 2001
Warwick University wants all its students to buy laptops. It claims that turning up to lectures without one would be the equivalent of turning up without a paper and pen. Students are angry, claiming that it's an attempt to introduce new fees. There's an obvious solution: don't go to the lectures. Really, students have to be told everything these days.
There's an entrepreneurial spirit abroad in the UK. Jim Mason, at Alpha Dot, saw our article on CoShopper's plan to pay $50 for each name of the LetsBuyIt.com database. Having previously bought a microwave from LetsBuyIt.com, Jim has a batter idea. 'Can you let CoShopper know that I will tell them who I am for $40 and we can cut out the middle man?' If anyone from CoShopper is reading this, we'll let you know who Jim is for $35.
Any contractors frustrated that they don't get enough information about their offers should not miss Lorien's web site. Bruce Newsom was looking for a job and found this one: 'Test Environment Specialist, Location: Cheshire. Dureation: 26 weeks. Rate: £33.7999992370605 per hour.' Sadly, they are unable to stretch to £37.80.
Computing 8 February 2001
A systems analyst we will only call 'Mr X', working for a company we will only call 'one of the top oil companies in the world', encloses his meeting agenda from last week. If anyone can tell him what the following items on the agenda are, please put us all out of our misery:
- Integrating management and customer communications through the widespread use of the GIMP (Group Information Management Program)
- Removing predefined mental filters to eliminate Mental Checklist Activity
- Focusing the Scope to Increase Active Engagement With Customers
- Methods to ensure that the KPIs are in line with industry standard SPIs, with reference to [company name] SLAs and that customers OPIs are met by the HDA and IMG, and that the CSMs are aware of the possible ramifications of this
Luckily we know what 'Approval for a revision to the NOBs (Networking Outsourcing Brokers) strategy for Aligning all internal and external communications to be in line with local, national and international policy' means. It turned out to be an email to everyone, asking them to check their internal extension was listed correctly.
Computing 1 February 2001
If you've ever lost your job and stole the office stapler on the way out, then you'll sympathise with the Democrats leaving the Old Executive Office Building in the White House complex. As Reuters reports, the outgoing Clinton team have made things tricky for George W. Bush, by nicking all the 'W's from the keyboards. Some keys had the spring broken. Some were taped on the top of doorways. Some were just scratched out. While campaigning, president Bush boasted that if Al Gore was so clever, why did every Internet address start with a W. 'And not just one W. Three Ws!' Our future is safe in his hands.
Computer Weekly 25 January 2001
Reader Peter Hughes tells us a tale of Telewest. "The other night after re-installing windows (doh) on my machine; I discovered that I no longer had any record of my Telewest Blue Yonder password. After a quick call to its customer care department, explaining I could no longer get connected to the Internet without my password, they helpfully offered to e-mail it to me - go figure!"
Computing 25 January 2001
As you know, we have little time for students at Backbytes because they don't have jobs and therefore don't qualify for a subscription. But we sympathise with Alex Procopiou, of Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London, because he's trying to get one. He consulted the UK graduate page on Microsoft's site to apply online for an internship. After filling in the six page form, which took him about three hours, he hit 'submit'. The form then sent him back to fill in some fields that Alex had left blank because they weren't relevant. 'When I finally went back, half the information I'd put down was gone,' he says. 'I filled in everything again, putting n/a where necessary and making sure that all fields with a star were definitely completed. After hitting the submit button again, the same message came up!' After four further hours, he gave up. We're not certain that this wasn't some obscure initiative test - if it was, we've failed too. 'There are probably chimps living in the African jungles who can run a company better than Microsoft,' says Alex, which should go a long way to ensuring that he doesn't get that internship, ever.
Geoff Lee at Centrica has been reading his Unix manual. Wait, there's more. 'I like the humour and subtle understatement,' he says. 'Particularly this bit: "True does nothing, successfully. False does nothing, unsuccessfully". Which of these best describes Backbytes?' Backbytes writes about unsuccessful companies successfully, Geoff.
Another classic piece of computer manual silliness finds us, courtesy of Origin's Dave Jakeman. 'Not only does the Vax Datatrieve documentation have wonderfully useless help text about wombats, including habitat, characteristics and behaviour, but the advanced help text delves into this creature's sexual exploits,' he says. 'It goes on to suggest uses for wombats, which include alarm clocks and doormats. After carefully pointing out that a certain prehistoric wombat was as large as a rhinoceros, it describes the "PLOT WOMBAT" command, which does indeed draw a wombat. This surely proves that Datatrieve must be useful for something,' Dave adds. We're not committing ourselves on that one until we've seen the quality of the plot.
Computing 18 January 2001
Much as we treasure the Data Protection Act, it's possible to have too much of a good thing, as reader Jez Goldstone found out when he tried to pay his tax by debit card.
The office gave him a dedicated number to call. 'I rang and asked how much I owed as of that day, to be told they don't have that information!' he says. 'I have to guess what I need to pay and then tell them how much.' The reason: under the DPA, those details aren't passed on. 'If you overpay, you can always get the money back. This is the government, you know,' the person in charge of taking debit card numbers told him, which somehow isn't very reassuring.
Computer Weekly 11 January 2001
It's good to see that some bugs know a real millennium when they see one. At the stroke of the midnight hour that heralded the start of 2001, trains stopped running in Norway and US retail chain 7-Eleven was plunged into the early 20th century. The Y2K+1 bug had struck.
Norwegian State Railways did not need a NorRailtrack to screw up its transport system - the trains did it of their own accord. Some 29 trains refused to start their engines on 31 December because the onboard computers did not recognise the date as valid. The solution was to wind the computers' clocks back to 1 December, giving the authorities a month to solve the problem.
At 7-Eleven stores, the date on its cash registers reset to 1901 and refused to recognise credit cards (well, they had not been invented then, had they). The company spent $8.8m (£5.9m) on Y2K compliance but were caught out by Y2K+1 complacency.
Computing 11 January 2001
Our latest case study on problem resolution comes from the world of frozen food. Thanks to our correspondent, 'Alex', we can pass on a tip for anyone struggling with unmanned reception errors.
At the well-known company in question, whenever a visitor arrived and used the reception phone to attract attention as requested, the phone rang - but it was at extension 15, at the other end of the building. The result of which was that the visitors were stranded in the outer office.
The first fix involved running an extension cable the length of the building, so that the office manager could have extension 15 on her desk.
Finally, technical support solved the problem: as a joke, someone had added a '1' to the instruction card which said 'Please lift handset and dial 5 for service'.
Technology's gift to the impatient motorist, the speed camera, has many victims in the M4 corridor who feel unjustly punished for speeding.
But there can be few cases as unjust as the speed camera in Western Australia which, last week, clocked a parked motorbike at 60mph.
Australia's left coast is racy place: the same camera picked out an electricity pylon which was allegedly travelling at a speed of 40mph.
More from the world of technical support, where Andy Smy at SDS Applications has received a support request:
'We appear to allow the same password for different user names. Don't you think we should disallow that?'
Perhaps, he suggests, he could add an error message, saying: 'Sorry, the password you have entered is already in use by user Joe Bloggs. Please choose another.' Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Computing 4 January 2001
We're often reminded that, in the words of a consultant whom we recently asked about the subject, 'a paperless office is about as likely as the paperless toilet'. Robert White has evidence: 'I recently sent an email to GE USA to see if it would send me a printed version of its annual report,' he says.
Sure enough, he received an email by return asking for his address, which he sent. 'Two days later I received a letter from the headquarters in Connecticut informing me that, as GE is a paperless company, I can only download its annual report from the web site,' he explains. 'For some reason sending me a letter telling me it's a paperless company just seems so wrong.'
Some of our readers have commented, however unfairly, that Americans cannot count. Scot Hubbard has more pressing worries.
'Take a look at the disclaimer of an email I received from the University of Texas Medical Branch,' he frets. Sure enough, it's assuming a low level of literacy: 'Note: this return receipt only acknowledges that the message was displayed on the recipient's machine. There is no guarantee that the content has been read or understood.' When we're in Texas, we're going to try to stay healthy.
Page updated: 22/09/2002 21:12 © 2002 GJR Computing |