Tech Support    

Just in case you think you are TC (technologically challenged). The following is an excerpt taken 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 Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer had labeled the diskettes, then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.

    4.Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.

    5.A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.

    6.Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, 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.

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

    8.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.

    9.A confused caller to IBM was having troubles 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.

    10.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 happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

    11.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?"

    12.True story from a Novell NetWire 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 snapped it off the drive!

13.Another IBM customer had troubles 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" meant to remove Disk 1 first.   

14.In a similar incident, a customer had followed the instructions for installing software. The instructions said to remove the disk from it's cover and insert into the drive. The user had physically removed the casing of the disk and wondered why there were problems.   

A Few Words from the Technical Support Department
 

 
If you have worked in an IT Support Desk role this will seem all too familiar.
 

1. Don't write anything down. We can play back the error messages from here.

2. When tech. support say they are coming right over, go for a coffee. It's nothing to us to remember 275 screen saver passwords.

3. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, pictures, stuffed animals, and trophies. We don't have a life and find it deeply moving to catch a glimpse of yours.

4 When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get your mail because your computer won't power on.

5. Don't put your phone extension in your e-mails to the help desk. We need to keep an eye on the address book performance.

6. When tech. support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just sending out test messages.

7. When a member of tech. support is eating lunch, walk straight in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

8. When a member of tech. support is having a smoke outside, ask them a computer question. The only reason we smoke is to ferret out those clients who don't have e-mail or a telephone.

9. Send urgent e-mail in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

10. When you call a member of tech. support press 5 to bypass the bilingual greeting that say's he's out of town for a week, record your message and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an e-mail straight to the director because no-one ever returned your call. You're entitled to common courtesy.

11. When the photocopier doesn't work, call tech. support. There's electronics in it.

12. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call tech. support. We can fix your line from here.

13. When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of, call tech. support. We're collectors.

14. When something is wrong with your PC at home, dump it on a tech. support technician's chair, with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

15. If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing device and discard the manual. We know all the keyboard accelerators.

16. When a member of tech. support tells you that computer monitors don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

17. When you get a message about insufficient disk space, delete everything in the Windows directory. It's nothing but trouble anyway.

18. When you get a message about hard disk controller failure, and then you reboot and it looks O.K, don't call tech. support. We'd much rather troubleshoot it when it's as dead as a doornail.

19. When you have tech. support on the phone talking you through changing a setting, read the paper. We don't actually mean for you to do anything, we just love to hear ourselves talk.

20. When a member of tech. support tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That'll get us going.

21. If you have a 14" monitor that says VGA on it, set the display properties to 1024 X 768, true colour. You won't have to worry about people reading confidential files off of your screen again.

22. When we offer training on the latest OS upgrade, don't bother. We'll be there to hold your hand after it's done.

23. when the printer doesn't print, send the job at least 25 times. Print jobs frequently disappear out of the ether.

24. When the printer still won't print, send the job to all 47 printers in the branch. Once of them is bound to work.

25. Don't learn the correct name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by " my wotsit is jammed".

26. Don't use on-line help. On-line is for wimps.

27. if you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to go around and update network drivers on all of the computers. We enjoy the overtime money.

28. When tech. support makes popcorn, help yourself while he's checking out your access rights. We keep chocolate in the top drawer, too.

29. When you have a member of tech. support fixing your computer at lunch time, eat your lunch in his face. We function better when slightly dizzy.

30. Don't ever thank us. We're getting paid for this.

31. If you're an intern, feel free to bring in all of your friends from college and have your Dad complain to our boss when we won't let them use the scanner. We had no friends when we were at college, that's why we're bunch of tight-assed twerps.

32. When a member of tech. support asks you if you've installed any new software on this computer, lie. It's nobody's business what you've got on your computer.

33. When a member of tech. support finds AOL shortcuts in your Recycle Bin, tell them you've never seen those before. We couldn't tell bullshit if it kicked us in the face.

34. If you have Windows NT, feel free to change the local Administrator password to "lesbian" and promptly forget it. We like installing Windows NT.

35.If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your baby, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 30lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.

36. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the MS Office upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of bread and paper clips in them.

37. When you receive the Madonna CD for your birthday, shove it into any slot on the front of your computer. We like getting physical with 5.25" floppy drives.

38. When you get a message saying "Are you Sure?" click on that yes button as fast as you can. If you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?

39. When you find a member of tech. support on the phone with his bank, sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up. We don't have any money to speak of anyway.

40. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.

41. When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech. support. Changing the toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and HP recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a master's degree in nuclear physics.

42. When you can't find someone in the government directory, call tech. support. Due to budget restrictions we double as 411.

43. When you have a lock to pick in an old filing cabinet, call tech. support. We love to hack.

44. When something is wrong with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know anything about the problem.

45. When you receive a 30Mb Image file, send it to everyone as an attachment. We've got lots of disk space on the mail server.

46. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a letter into the print queue.

47. When a member of tech. support gets in the elevator pushing $15,000 worth of computer equipment on a cart, ask in a very loud voice: "Good god, you take the elevator to go down one floor?"

48. When the people in finance are printing a 100 page spreadsheet on the HP Laser, send your black and white print jobs to the colour printer. We get the black toner for free.

49. When you lose your car keys, send an e-mail to the entire department. People in the company like to keep abreast of what's going on.

50. When you bump into a member of tech. support at the grocery store on a Sunday, ask a computer question. We don't do weekends.

51. When you see a member of tech. support having a drink with a member of the opposite sex on a Friday night, walk right up to them and ask a computer question. We don't do dating, the reason why we have that horny look on our faces is because we are discussing the latest Intel Processor.

52. Don't bother to tell us when you move computers around on your own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature of Windows, they won't be doing anything useful until the next major release.

53. When you can't access some shared directory on your boss's machine, just tell us that you've lost your F: drive. We know all that shit by heart.

54. If you need to buy a computer for your daughter in college, feel free to pick our brains while we're taking a leak. We're good at talking shop with our dicks in our hands.

55. If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We'll be there for you when his illegal copy of Filemaker Pro makes his Access 97 database file screw up.

56. When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at the office, leave all the documentation at home. We'll find the jumper settings on the Internet.

57. We're aware of that problem with computer just sitting there and not doing anything. We're confident that with the next service pack they'll be able to dance the jig.

58. The correct location to store important files is the Recycle Bin. It's just like a real office, where you keep your tax receipts in the blue can under you desk.

59.If you miss windows 3.11, find the line that says shell=explorer.exe in your SYSTEM.INI file and replace it with shell=progman.exe. It makes troubleshooting infinitely easier when we ask you whether you have a Start button at the bottom of your screen and you truthfully answer us that you do not.

60. If you curse every morning when you start to type your password the Virus Shield screen pops up, disable the Virus Shield. This is just like real life, if you don't like condoms, don't use them.

61. If you hate PC's, get on the Internet and download one of those desktop enhancements that make your computer look just like a MAC, right down to the sad faces replacing error messages. We find it refreshing to troubleshoot the nuance in that sad little face instead of some cold forbidding hexadecimal value.

62. When you detect a French accent in a member tech. support's voice, switch to French. We don't mind that your level of fluency is that of a mildly retarded 4 year old, you don't make a lot of sense in your language either.

There is something sinister about this whole thing: 

666 is exactly 2.138 times the height of the pyramid of Cheops and if we multiply the height of the pyramid by 3.36 million, we get the EXACT, let me repeat that -EXACT - distance to the moon. 

SO YOU THINK YOU ARE TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED?
THINK AGAIN!!

Take heart, anyone among you who believes you are technologically challenged, you "ain't seen nuthin' yet." 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. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door.The customer asked the tech to hold on and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door.

4. 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.

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

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 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 happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

8. A woman called 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."

9. Tech Support: "O.K. Bob, let's press 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: "On your keyboard, Bob."

Customer: "What do you mean?"

Tech: ""P" on your keyboard, Bob."

"ERROR" keyboard not connected, hit F1 to continue.

Where do the characters go when I use my backspace or delete them on my PC?
ANSWER: The characters go to different places, depending on whom you ask:
The Buddhist explanation: If a character has lived rightly, and its karma is good, then after it has been deleted it will be reincarnated as a different, higher character. Those funny characters above the numbers on your keyboard will become numbers, numbers will become letters, and lower-case letters will become upper-case.

The 20th-century bitter cynical nihilist explanation: Who cares? It doesn't really matter if they're on the page, deleted, undeleted, underlined, etc. It's all the same.

The Mac user's explanation: All the characters written on a PC and then deleted go to straight to PC hell. If you're using a PC, you can probably see the deleted characters, because you're in PC hell also.

Stephen King's explanation: Every time you hit the (Del) key you unleash a tiny monster inside the cursor, who tears the poor, unsuspecting characters to shreds, drinks their blood, then eats them, bones and all. Hah, hah, hah!

The Christian Church's approach to characters: The nice characters go to Heaven, where they are bathed in the light of happiness. The naughty characters are punished for their sins. Naughty characters are those involved in the creation of naughty words, such as "breast," "sex," and contraception."

Dave Barry's explanation: The deleted characters are shipped to Battle Creek, Michigan, where they're made into Pop-Tart filling; this explains why Pop-Tarts are so flammable, while cheap imitations are not flammable. I'm not making this up.

IBM's explanation: The characters are not real. They exist only on the screen when they are needed, as concepts, so to delete them is merely to de-conceptualize them. Get a life.

From the WordPerfect Help Desk

This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say, the help desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the Word Perfect organization for "Termination without Cause."

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:

"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"

"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."

"What sort of trouble?"

"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."

"Went away?"

"They disappeared."

"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."

"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"

"How do I tell?"

"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"

"What's a sea-prompt?"

"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"

"There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I type."

"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

"What's a monitor?"

"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"

"I don't know."

"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."

".......Yes, it is."

"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"

"No."

"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."

".......Okay, here it is."

"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."

"I can't reach."

"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

"No."

"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"

"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."

"Dark?"

"Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."

"Well, turn on the office light then."

"I can't."

"No? Why not?"

"Because there's a power outage."

"A power... A power outage? Ah, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."

"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

"Really? Is it that bad?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

Contraceptives '02
Microsoft's Latest Venture

News just in of Microsoft's latest venture: Microsoft Corporation has taken another step toward dominating every aspect of American life with the introduction of Contraceptive02, a suite of applications designed for users who engage in sex. Microsoft has been a pioneer in peer-to-peer connectivity and plug and play.

It believes these technologies will give it substantial leverage in penetrating the copulation enhancement market. The product addresses two important user concerns: the need for virus protection and the need for a firewall to ensure the non-propagation of human beings.

The Contraceptive02 suite consists of three products: Condom02, DeFetus 1.0 (from Sementec), and AIDScan 2.1 (from Norton Utilities). A free copy of Intercourse Explorer 4.0 is bundled in the package. The suite also comes in two expanded versions. Contraceptive02 Professional is the Client/Server edition, for professionals in the sexual services sector. Contraceptive02 Small Business Edition is a package for startups, aimed at the housewife and gigolo niches.

While Contraceptive02 does not address nontraditional copulatory channels, future plug-ins are planned for next year.

OPERATION: Only one node in a peer-to-peer connection needs to install the package.

At installation, the Condom02 software checks for minimum hardware. If the user meets the requirements, the product installs and is sufficiently scaleable to meet most requirements. After installation, operation commences. One precaution is that the user must be sure they have sufficient RAM to complete the session. When the session is complete, a disconnect is initiated, and the user gets the message, it is now safe to turn off your partner.

DRAWBACKS: Usability testers report that frequent failures were a major concern during beta testing. General Protection Fault was the most serious error encountered. Early versions had numerous bugs, but most of these have been eliminated. The product needs to be installed each time its used.

CONCLUSION: Contraceptive02 is a robust product. Despite its drawbacks, it is reasonably good value for its $49.95 price tag, and is far superior to its shareware version. Hopefully, future releases (of the software, that is) will add missing functionality, such as Backout and Restore, uninterruptible Power Supply and Onboard Camera.

I heard that if you play the Windows CD backwards, you get a satanic message...

The Creation of the PC

1. In the beginning GOD created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.

2. And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.

3. And God said - Let the Data be; And so it happened.And God said - Let the Data go to their proper places.And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.

4. And God said - Let the computers be,so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.Thus God created computers and called them hardware.

5. And there was no Software yet.But God created programs; small and big... And told them:Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.

6. And God said - I will create the Programmer;And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.

7. And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes but DO NOT USE Windows.

8. And God said - It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer's body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer, and admire the Programmer, and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.

9. And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.

10. But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User - Did God really tell you not to run any programs ?

11. And the User answered - God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.

12. And Bill said to the User - How can you talk about something you did not even try? The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of yourmouse.

13. And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless since Windows could replace it.

14. So the User installed the Windows on his computer;and said to the Programmer that it was good.

15. And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him - What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered - I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS.And God said - Who told you that you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said - It was Bill who told us to !

16. And God said to Bill - Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sellWindows.

17. And God said to the User - Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs;and you will always rely on the Programmers help.

18. And God said to the Programmer - Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.

19. And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.

~ Maxims of The Internet Age ~

1. Home is where you hang your @

2. The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.

3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks.

5. Great groups from little icons grow.

6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.

7. C:\ is the root of all directories.

8. Don't put all your hypes in one home page.

9. Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish.

10. The modem is the message.

11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.

12. The geek shall inherit the earth.

13. A chat has nine lives.

14. Don't byte off more than you can view.

15. Fax is stranger than fiction.

16. What boots up must come down.

17. Windows will never cease.

18. In Gates we trust (and our tender is legal).

19. Virtual reality is its own reward.

20. Modulation in all things.

21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted.

22. There's no place like http//www.home.com

23. Know what to expect before you connect.

24. Oh, what a tangled website we weave when first we practice.

25. Speed thrills.

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed that the new program began making expected changes to the accounting modules, limiting access to flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Hot-sex 1.0 and Romance 9.9 but installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and HouseCleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

Signed,

Desperate Wife.

Dear Desperate Wife:

Keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Try to enter the command C:\I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME and install Tears 6.2.

Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Guilty 3.0 and Flowers 7.0. But remember, overuse can cause Husband 1.0 to default to GrumpySilence 2.5, Happyhour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.

Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will create "Snoring Loudly" .wav files.

DO NOT install Mother-In-Law 1.0 or reinstall another Boyfriend program.These applications are not supported and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program,but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. Consider buying additional software to improve performance.

Judy was having trouble with her computer, so she called Grant, the computer guy, over to her desk.

Grant clicked a couple buttons and solved the problem.

As he was walking away, Judy called after him, "So, what was wrong?"

He replied, "It was an ID Ten T Error."

A puzzled statement came over Judy's face. "An ID Ten T Error?What's that?

In case I need to fix it again."

Grant gave her a grin. "Haven't you ever heard of an ID Ten T Error before?"

"No," replied Judy."Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out."

10 WARNING SIGNS YOU MAY BE TECHNOLOGICALLY IMPAIRED

1. After sending someone an email, you phone to tell that someone that you've sent them an email.

2. All your bookmarks are tech support sites.

3. Look at your email address. Does it end in "aol.com"?

4. You keep forgetting which side of the mouse you use to "right-click."

5. All your bookmarks are genealogy sites.

6. When your computer freezes, and someone tells you to turn up the heat in the room, you actually do it.

7. When installing software and it asks if you want to do a "normal" or "custom" install, you get upset that there is more than one option.

8. You say things like, "With my new 850 Mhz machine, the Internet is much faster."

9. You ordered a computer with a CD-ROM, but instead it came with a stupid cup holder.