Tech Jokes...

Another one....
The Computer Museum in Boston is a very cool place and should not be judged by this anecdote. In 1995, I was there with my father. In a place with the first virtual reality machine ever built, Danny Hillis' Tinkertoy computer, and other lovely objects, their star attraction is a giant plywood model of a computer that you can walk around in. In fact, you can go on a tour of it, led by a young gentleman who explains how computers work as you went.
The tour guide failed to make a stellar impression early in the tour (Did YOU know they're called microchips because they're really, really small?), but we hung on bravely. That is, until he got to explaining what a floppy is. He pulled a 3 1/2" disk out of his pocket and said:

Tour Guide: "A lot of people don't know why they call it a floppy because, you see here--" (shakes disk) "--it's not floppy. But you see that's just the outside." (pries case apart, removes interior, shakes it) "Inside, you see, it's floppy. That's why they call it that. You need floppies because sometimes the computer can have what's called a fall-down. I dunno why they call it a fall-down, but that's why you need the floppies or else you lose the stuff in the computer."

It was at this point that my father leaned over to me and said, "I really don't think I can take any more of this tour." I agreed, and we snuck off to explore on our own, but in retrospect I almost wish we'd stayed. I mean, suppose he finished by showing us the giant plywood cup holder!

Source: Email
Another one from email.
This poor woman. She called our help desk in the middle of installing a new PCI card. She asked if she could cut the "ropes" because they were in her way. She had actually gotten scissors out. I explained that the ropes were power cables, and cutting them would cause her computer to stop functioning. Then I started to explain how to install the PCI card, when I heard her say, "Ouch!" as there was a grinding noise. She said her hand had accidentally touched the fan. The computer was still on!
PS: And, the one in my sig is a real life incident....about 24 Hrs back. :bleh:
 
Another Good One:
Overheard at a bus stop:
"That kid is so freakin' retahded. I had to explain what a CPU was. It's a computah. You know, C-P-U...Com-Pu-Tah."
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I was just talking to a user who had been having problems with her machine -- it was losing its settings every time she turned it on.

Her: "I asked my boyfriend about it. He knows about computers, and he said it sounds like it might need a new sea monster battery."

It took me a while to figure out what she meant
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Rat and Rope:
As the local computer enthusiast, I sometimes get called on to troubleshoot computer problems. A while back, my boss asked me to help her figure out what was going on with her computer, complaining that her "rat" (mouse) was not responding. She surmised that it was a problem with the "ropes" (cables) behind the computer.
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OMG!!! A Booty Disk!!!

My Teacher: "Do you have a booty disk on hand?"

Me: (almost losing it) "Don't you mean a boot disk?"

My Teacher: "Oh no. I need a booty disk to make the system booty up."
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Bumpy Files

Customer: "Yeah, my Internet Explorer can only save pictures as bumpy files."
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Source: Email
I Feel the Need, the Need for Speed :D

Tech Support: "Hello, tech support, can I help you?"

Customer: (slowly) "Oohh." (pause) "I think I did a bad thing."

Tech Support: "Ok, so tell me what's up."

Customer: "Well, my computer was running great. Everything was working fine, I had no problems whatsoever."

Tech Support: "Ok..."

Customer: "So I decided to open it up and have a look inside. I saw all these wires dangling all over the place. There were grey flat ones, and small red, black, and yellow ones, and it seemed like they weren't connected to anything. So I decided to plug them all in."

Tech Support: "Um, you mean you plugged them all in? What did you plug them into?"

Customer: "Well, whatever I could get them to connect to. I saw pins sticking off of some of the boards that didn't have anything on them, so I plugged all the loose wires in to make it run better."

Tech Support: "And then you..."

Customer: "And so I plugged them all in, and I hit the power button, and there was this loud bang and a flash and a puff of smoke. Now it doesn't work at all."

Tech Support: (suppressing all emotion and turning deep crimson) "Can you hold for a minute, please?"

Kaboom! "Explosive" doesn't adequately describe the laughter. I related the story to some co-workers between gasps for breath. Several of the techs and I had quite the laugh fest while he was on hold. After about five minutes of eye-popping, sweat-beading laughter, I wiped away the tears, took a sip of water, and came back on the line. I knew it'd be futile to even attempt to troubleshoot it.

Tech Support: "Ok, well why don't we just have you wrap it up in the original packing material and send it back to us, we'll take care of the whole thing."

And so another computer newbie learned that the extra power supply cables and unused IDE ribbon cables don't have to be plugged in for the computer to work just fine.
Click to expand...

Source: Email
 
486: The average IQ needed to understand a PC.

State-of-the-art: Any computer you can't afford.

Obsolete: Any computer you own.

Microsecond: The time it takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.

G3: Apple's new Macs that make you say 'Gee, three times faster than the computer I bought for the same price a Microsecond ago.'

Syntax Error: Walking into a computer store and saying, "Hi, I want to buy a computer and money is no object."

Hard Drive: The sales technique employed by computer salesmen, esp. after a Syntax Error.

GUI: What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it. (pronounced 'gooey')

Keyboard: The standard way to generate computer errors.

Mouse: An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

Floppy: The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.

Portable Computer: A device invented to force businessmen to work at home, on vacation, and on business trips.

Disk Crash: A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

Power User: Anyone who can format a disk from DOS.

System Update: A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.
 
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