The Computer Is Always Right

Lost, Bored, & Unpleasant

Who am I referring to? The troll. "One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument". In extreme cases they direct harsh and nasty criticism to others who leave comments. Moderators remove the worst offenders. Some sites have stopped allowing comments because of the cost of constantly monitoring them. Some things of note:

Trolls want you like this...

Lost: They find website of no interest to them or that contains things that annoy them. To do that they must get easily lost.

Bored: Often their comments claim to have a dislike of the subject under discussion. Then why are they still there? I only go to a website to read things that interest me.

Unpleasant: Having stumbled onto a site by accident, finding they don't want to be there, they then proceed to leave a comment, then another, come back later with another. Each one attacking others and the subject. Nothing nice about that attitude.

...but give them some of this
by ignoring them altogether

Summary: Obviously the first one (Lost) is a touch sarcastic because this isn't an accidental visit. They probably have a boring life because it (life) is too short to waste time behaving like this. Unpleasant is a kindly word to explain these people. I think they have an inner frustration and want others to feel what they feel.

The solution: It amazes me the people that get dragged into their petty existence. The last thing they want is to be ignored, because they want to bug you. If you aren't bugged or refuse to show it, then they fail in their sad, unpleasant mission.

Upgrade, Upgrade, Upgrade

Everything in this world is about change, often forced upon us. Technology is driving this situation. By going along with it, we are supposed to get a better quality product or service. I have got to point where I no longer trust this constant change and the reasons behind it.

A classic example is Microsoft. I had the XP operating system that I was happy with and so was everyone else, except Microsoft. They wanted to improve it, so out came Vista. That was not a well received system, despite the fact it was an 'improvement' on XP. Vista was in turn replaced by 7, then 8 and now 10, all of which are in my mind were inferior to XP. Many wish they still had XP, including myself.

The problem is we are told the old systems are no longer supported by upgrades and security patches. It creates fear. My Vista system will no longer receive any support after April 2017. I get a message when I open Google that "This computer will soon stop receiving Google Chrome updates because Windows XP and Windows Vista will no longer be supported". Apparently "such older platforms are missing critical security updates and have a greater potential to be infected by viruses and malware". Often Google Chrome tells me to update it's browser but when I go to do it, I am taken to a site where it says the upgrade doesn't work with Vista. That's what I understand it to mean, but I keep getting the reminder.

Frankly I'm over technology. The people who sell it to you cannot provide a safe, secure and pleasant environment to operate in. Constant patches and forced upgrades are poorly executed and promised improvements for new products are more often giving us something worse than what we already had. When is someone going to sue some of these companies for false representation?

Technology is foisted upon us by companies who want to make money out of us. They employ young techno whizz kids who seem to be bereft of any practical wisdom. People just want to use a system they can get to know, use and can trust. Technology cannot deliver that to us. It is therefore an overwhelming failure.

Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. What a joke. We want simple, efficient. We get complicated. Humans think they are clever with this technology. Looking around the natural world I see clever. I look at human technology and I see plenty of stupid.

Tech Support - Funny But True

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as: Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as: NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do? 

Signed,

Desperate

                                                      **************

Dear Desperate,

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter command: I thought you loved me.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). In addition, please, do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications 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. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Regards

Tech Support.

Top 25 Passwords 2015

Passwords are a pain. If they are too simple or obvious, they are useless, too complicated and you may find yourself shut out. Some have simple passwords for websites where security isn't an issue and the real deal when it is. You have to be careful to remember or note down difficult ones, then where do you store them safely? 

So what are the top 25? Bearing in mind some have simple passwords because they are forced to have one on a zero risk site: 

1. 123456 (unchanged) 
2. password (unchanged)
3. 12345678 (up 1)
4. qwerty (up 1)
5. 12345 (down 2)
6. 123456789 (unchanged)
7.  football (up 3)
8. 1234 (down 1)
9. 1234567 (up 2)
10. baseball (down 2)
11. welcome (new)
12. 1234567890 (new)
13. abc123 (up 1)
14. 111111 (up 1)
15. 1qaz2wsx (new)
16. dragon (down 7)
17. master (up 2)
18. monkey (down 6)
19. letmein (down 6)
20. login (new)
21. princess (new)
22. qwertyuiop (new)
23. solo (new)
24. passw0rd (new)
25. starwars (new)

Remember: for important passwords, don't use any of these.

Facebook In Real Life Works!

For those (such as myself) who do not really comprehend why Facebook exists I have tried an experiment. I am trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the same principles. Every day I go down on the street and tell the passers-by what I have eaten, how I feel, what I have done the night before and what I will do tomorrow night. Then I give them pictures of my family, my dog and me gardening and spending time in my pool. I also listen to their conversations and I tell them I love them.


And it works. I already have 3 persons following me: 2 police officers and a psychiatrist.

Beware Of Phone Scams

I got a phone call and when I answered, there was just silence. I waited a short while, then put the receiver down. I checked who the caller was and got an Australian number. I went to the internet and found only one website that had this number listed, namlats-au.com. Now I assume Australian web sites are .com.au but the twist here it is just a .com site.

I found the person as D Mitaros, not a name I am familiar with. This namlats site has a personal profile for several people with this name scattered across that country. They all have personal profiles that didn't seem quite right to me. They have location addresses and I have their phone number, but not known by White Pages when I checked.

There is a scam that occurs when you ring them up out of curiosity. You are connected to a number with perhaps a $20 instant charge and expensive per minute rates. If this was one, I cannot be certain as I didn't want to be caught ringing a number of someone in Western Australia I don't even know. Some clues led me to believe I would end up in Thailand.

The advice is if you get an overseas call and don't know who it is, they can ring you back if it is that important. Making a call back could be an expensive mistake.

Guilty Text Message

A man received the following text from his neighbour:

"I am so sorry Bob. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess. I have been helping myself to your wife, day and night whenever you're not around. I do not get it at home, but that's no excuse. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apology with my promise that it won't ever happen again".


A few moments later, a second text came in:

"Damned auto spell! I meant wifi".

The Embarrassing Phone Message.

I'm not really into tech things. I think most gadgets are more complicated than is necessary. I use them for their basic function and get on with real life. If you do decide to get into all the features, it takes hours studying the manual and wading through all the option you didn't want. The problem can be learning a little but not learning enough.

Once I had come in from mowing the lawn, hot and needing a shower. My wife was soon going to follow me in. I checked for any missed calls and remembered that you could leave a message on the phone that others could retrieve by pressing a button. I left a very cheeky message about going in the shower and after she had also, we could meet on the bed for...well that's enough for you to get what it was like. I called there was a message I had left for her an went for the clean up.

My wife came in the the bedroom and got dressed. I asked if she got the message and she said there was none there. I went and checked and there was no message. I decided it hadn't recorded and thought no more of it.

Two weeks later a friend of ours left a message when we were out and said we needed to check the answerphone message as there was something not right about it. I checked it and the missing invitation for my wife had become the public message. I was so embarrassed to think that for two weeks such a personal communication was heard by anyone who called.

Later I asked around as to why they didn't tell me. They all said they were surprised, but left it at that. Even the secretary where I work who often called never said anything, but said she wondered what was going on.

                    *******

It just goes to show that you cannot always trust your friends to be honest with you. Also, don't play around with gadgets unless you know what you are doing.

A Must Watch About Technology

I walk down the road and around town, and I see this so often. Wires hanging out of ears, no eye contact. People glued to small screens. People without a life....

The Older Generation And The Telephone

The older generation has often resisted new technologies. When they are reluctantly embraced, they are sometimes not used in the way others do. An example of this was of an elderly man many years ago who was one of the last to get a telephone.

Shortly afterward a friend popped by to have a yarn. While they conversed, the telephone rang....and rang...and rang. The elderly homeowner made no attempt to answer it. The visitor blurted out "Well aren't you going to answer it?"

The elderly man bluntly replied "No".

The visitor was confused and said "Why not?"

The curt response was "I got the darned thing installed for my convenience, not everyone else's".

Human Technology? Bah!

Technology has given mankind a better quality of life, no question. But how good is it? Let's look at a few examples:

TV Signals: New Zealand has been switching to digital signals, meaning we have to buy decoder boxes to get programmes. The old analogue system worked fine but digital is a better signal. Just don't have any problems. Recently a channel just pulled itself from our area, and I lost all channels trying to fix it. Despite some knowledge of such things, I had to get help to get my TV back.

Cellphones, etc: I was reading about some of the metals that go into the likes of cellphones and most other appliances. It seems they contain products dangerous to the workers extracting them, and hard on the environment when disposed of. The cost to the planet means human technology has a finite future. Clever indeed.

Technical services: Google is a monster of a company, which is making record profits. Scary if they are the best, as you wonder about the competence of the rest. My Google Search engine, gmail and Blogger all worked OK...until recently. The services were enhanced so I am to get an 'improved' experience with Google.

Some Google searches such as to their product forum are impossible to execute now. Some of Google's YouTube videos wouldn't load (seems better now), some gmail actions are so slow I give up. Blogger only accepts text only - although that is starting to go bad too. This article is currently not saving, pictures above 10kb are near impossible to upload (no, really, kb isn't a typo). Pictures have now stopped completely. Operating in Blogger behind the scenes leads to having to exit and re-enter my browser get things happening. I don't know what to do. The upgrades it seems are to increase revenue, not user service. Is Google now too big to care?

Summary: So what does this say about human technology? As it gets more complicated, it gets more confusing for the layman. It is more likely to fail as it is often released in too much of a hurry to sort all the bugs. It is ruining the earth, but hey, another generation will have to deal with that... hopefully.


If technology's pace of change was slowed, that would be a good start. Keep it as simple as possible to improve reliability and customer understanding of it. Minimise the greed factor that causes this rush to 'improve' the customer experience (or in reality make more money). Compare our technical advances by what we see in nature, and humans look very clumsy. And greed always comes back to bite you eventually.

1 Chat Request...

Whenever I go to a particular website, among the advertisements is this request from Stephanie. At first I was flattered that such a pretty young lady wanted to wile away the hours talking to me.  However, I resisted the offer and thought no more of it. Until the next time...and the next time...and the next time I visited the site. She was still there, wanting that call.

I thought she either has a dull life always being on-line as she is, or really has it bad for me. Hmmm, only 2.8 miles away. Actually how does the computer know how far away I am from Steph's place? (I"m starting to get too familiar shortening the name).

I feel sorry for Stephie (there I go again). I am too old for her and already contentedly married. There must be a host of young men that would gladly sweep her off her feet with romantic charm. Sometimes people want what they cannot have. All I can say is I hope she reads this blog, and this post will let her down gently.

Phony Sheep

YouTube/Twitter/Facebook Merger

Computer Tech Support

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Customer: A white one.
Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?

******

Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

Customer: My keyboard is not working.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back...Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in.

Tech support: 'Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager.'
Customer: I don't have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: 'P'... on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer:I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

Real Call Centre Enquiry

Caller: 'Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?'

Operator: 'I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about.'

Caller: 'On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?'

NZs IT Advantage

After having dug to a depth of 3 metres last year, British scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the British, in the weeks that followed, an American archaeologist dug to a depth of 6 metres, and shortly after, a story published in the New York Times: "American archaeologists, finding traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the British".

One week later, the Kapi-mana news, reported the following: "After digging as deep as 10 metres in his backyard Rangi White a self-taught archaeologist from Porirua, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Rangi has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, New Zealand had already gone wireless."

Pic; www.nz2011.govt.nz

An Overly Complicated World

A friend of mine who isn't into things technical bought a cell phone. He complained to me that all he wanted was a phone but got so many other features that it had him so frustrated. Why can't you just get a phone if that is what you want?

I'm more into technical things than he is but I know exactly how he feels. I bought a nice but not expensive watch a year or so ago. I use a watch to tell me the time and the date, that's all. Every six months, we have to change the clocks with daylight saving and I cannot work out how to do it without the instruction book. If I accidentally bump one of the prominent buttons on it, it changes something which I cannot work out, without - yes you guessed it - getting the manual.

Now that isn't the only thing. This watch seems to have 2,187 features, only two of which I want. The other 2,185 of them that I don't want turn a one page fact sheet into a veritable tome. I'm sure if I dug deep enough, I could find features that would tell me my heart rate, my blood pressure and stress levels...things will I need as I strive to change the time.

Is a watch made today that tells the time and date only? Is there a cell phone that is simply a phone and not a camera, media centre and goodness knows what else? There are people like me who buy things to do the job they started out doing in the first place. The clue is in their names such as watch and telephone. I refuse Google Chrome as Google 'Normal' is just fine. I refuse to install additional toolbars as the computer came with one and it works.

When a manufacturer realises there are ordinary folk who want ordinary tools - and so offer a basic model in the range - will make a killing.

Real Answer Phone Messages

My wife and I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name and number, we'll get back to you as soon as we're finished.

Hello, you are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need siding, windows or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to charity at the office and don't need their picture taken. If you're still with me, leave your name and home phone number and they will get back to you.

Hi! John's answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly, and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets.

Hi. This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my bank, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have LOTS of money.

Hi. Now YOU say something.

Hi. I'm probably home, I'm just avoiding someone I don't like. Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you.

Hello, you've reached Jim and Sonya. We can't answer right now, because we're doing something we really enjoy. Sonya likes doing it up and down, and I like doing it left to right...real slowly. So leave a message, and when we're done brushing our teeth, we'll call you back.