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Everyday, there are millions of
battles between people and technology. Most often the technology wins...
M 10.25.99
I got a call from one of our clients this morning. They just had DSL installed in their little office. On the phone they said something like, "I'm trying to connect to the server, but it's not responding." I troubleshooted for a minute making sure her computer's settings were correct when I heard in the background on the phone someone telling her that there was no cable coming out of the back of the computer and that it wasn't hooked into the network yet. She then said something like, "Oh, everything is fine now.
Nevermind!"
R 09.16.99
I had a group at our office for training on their laptops. It was time for one of them to leave early for an appointment and I noticed she was having a problem shutting down her laptop. She finally called me over and said something like, "I don't know what the problem is. It just keeps rebooting. Should I just shut it off?" I took a look at it. On the shutdown menu, the Restart choice was selected.
F 09.03.99
I was at a client's office working on something when one of the women there advised me to change my computer so that my date displayed four digits in the year instead of two. She said this was important so that my computer would be "YK2 Compliant". (No, that's not a typo. I mean YK2.)
F 08.20.99
I was teaching some poor saps how to use LotusNotes email. In Notes you often have to refresh your screen to see the most current info. I was showing them how they could refresh a mail memo they were composing to show the email address for the name they typed in the To: field. So I said, "Hit F9 to refresh your screen and you'll notice that the person's email address shows up in the 'To:' field." A few of my students said in a smart-ass voice, "No it doesn't." I walked over and took a look at their screens and in the 'To:' field were the characters 'F' and '9'. They had typed the F key and then the 9 key.
R 07.15.99
 Last night (7/14/99) I was watching the WCVB news at 6. The
Cutting Edge story was about a new software product that summarizes websites that have
been visited so parents can monitor what their children are accessing online. A
local police department had purchased a hundred or so units of this software that comes on
a CD to give away to needy families. At the end of the news story, they showed a
close up of someone inserting the CD into the 5 1/4" drive of a computer and then
fiddling with the lever on the drive to secure the CD in the computer.
R 06.24.99
I work at a small computer consulting company. Our target market is Lotus Notes
development and general networking applications. One day I was on the phone with one
of our clients when I reminded her that I needed her to mail me some data for the project.
She said she had mailed it already. I informed that I hadn't received it yet
and asked her how big the file was. She said that it fit on a floppy. So then
I asked, "When did you mail it?" Her response: "Tuesday, Priority
Mail."
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