"At 3:37 A.M. on a Sunday, I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a Macintosh. She had gotten her entire fami- ly out of the house and was calling from the neighbor's. I asked her why on earth she had evacuated her house in the middle of the night. Turns out she had just received her first system error. She interpreted the little picture of a bomb as a warning that the computer was about to blow up. . . " Go into the trenches of tech support- and discover some of the wildest, weirdest, and funniest calls the computer experts have ever received. From fax failures to software screwups to disk debacles, the most hilarious stories are here in ... TALES from theTech Line Also Edited by David Pogue The Great Macintosh Easter Egg Hunt The Microsloth Joke Book T E CH LINE by D A V ID P O G UE Most Berkley Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books or book excerpts can also be created to fit specific needs. B For details, write to Special Markets, The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 BERKLEY BOOKS, Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. NEW YORK This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group. TALES FROM THE TECH LINE F O R E W O RD A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the editor PRINTING HISTORY Berkley trade paperback edition / June 1998 All rights reserved. Copyright © 1998 by David Pogue. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, Over twelve years ago, I worked for a small publisher in upstate New New York, New York 10016. York who bought a Macintosh computer for our office. None The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is of us knew much more than how to use it as a glorified typewriter. http://www.penguinputnam.com I silently claimed ownership as I tapped the keys with both index fingers and happily shoved plastic shingles in the open slots in the ISBN: 0-425-16363-6 front. Suddenly, I loved my job. BERKLEY® But the day I was to send our first computer-generated catalog Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of to the film house, the unthinkable happened: The machine would not Penguin Putnam Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. start. I had no idea why there was a flashing question mark on the BERKLEY and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publish- screen, but I knew this couldn't be a good thing. ing Corporation. I called the retailer's technical support line and frantically ex- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA plained my situation. I was told, "Your computer is suffering from disappearing hard drive." 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 < v > Foreword Foreword "Oh, no! How do I get it back?" Eric Hausmann's Tech Support Tales is a Web zine that compiles The tech vaguely explained this common, yet serious problem humorous true stories from the world of computer technical support. and suggested I overnight the hard drive to him. He walked me Eric's E-mail address is [email protected], and the Tech Support through the process of opening the case and removing the big metal Tales Web site is located at http://www.auricular.com/TST. brick that held my life's data. In the process, I noticed a dozen or so missing floppy disks scattered across the motherboard. All of this was a monumental learning experience, even if I learned only that that's where all the diskettes go when you stick them into a slot that has no floppy drive under the hood. The retailer fixed the hard drive after discovering that I had installed six duplicate operating systems. The drive was shipped back to us, and the catalog files went off to the printer successfully. Today I work in the information-technologies field; I've come a long way since the days when I could hose a Macintosh like nobody's business. I still think about my humorous actions back then, and applaud every customer who has ever used the mouse as a foot pedal or interpreted the CD-ROM tray as a cup holder. Not only have these understandable gaffes brought a few laughs into the workplace, but the individuals behind the keyboard often display a certain common sense and willingness to forge fearlessly ahead. After all, it's just a computer, and you can always pull the plug. Eric Hausmann Editor, Tech Support Tales < vi > <vii> I N T R O D U C T I ON About 45 percent of Americans today own a personal computer; the rest don't know how lucky they are. No matter how fast these machines become, or how powerful, or how "user-friendly" (ha!), the list of things that can go wrong just gets longer and longer. In fact, one study shows that when you factor in the time we spend fiddling with Windows, trying to make our CD- ROMs work, installing new printers, and so on, we're actually less productive than we were before we had the computer! It's no wonder, then, that in homes and offices nationwide, pri- vate dramas unfold daily in the relationships between us and our computers. No one witnesses these quiet battles more clearly than the kindly souls who man the tech-support hotlines at computer com- panies these days. These men and women fight all day long in the < xi > Introduction technophobic trenches, on the receiving end of the frustrated callers' emotions; each computer company receives several thousand calls a day from frustrated customers. Over the years, the help-desk reps have collected their favorite stories in private notebooks, passed them on by E-mail, or shared t he them over pizza and beer. This book contains several hundred of the most hilarious and amazing tech-support tales, from the lady who TECH LINE thought her mouse was a foot pedal, to the guy who tried to fax by holding a page up to the computer screen and pressing the Send key. These stories come from Internet postings, interviews, and E- mail messages. The largest single source of them is a free Internet- based E-mail newsletter called Tech Support Tales; its creator, Eric Hausmann, graciously offered me pilfering rights of his stash. Where possible, I've credited the original storyteller (unless anonymity was requested). These tales are funny, of course, but they're also enlightening; they make us realize, deep down, that the computer's owners aren't the stupid ones. The real silliness is our effort to create a relationship between our human selves and a $3000 hunk of plastic and silicon. The only fault of the hapless tech-line callers is trying to make sense of it all in the first place. The Computer T here it sits: a machine you've spent several months' salary on, glowering at you, covered with slits and knobs and jacks and ac- companied by a manual apparently translated from Japanese by na- tive Swahili speakers. The commercials have led you to believe that this machine will make you a more efficient, more powerful, and more glorious human being. If you can get it turned on, that is. It's a New Feature, Ma'am Tech: Tech support, how may I help you? Caller: This computer is brand-new, and it doesn't even work. Tech: Well, ma'am, have you set it up correctly? Caller: Well, I think so. I unpacked it, set it up, and plugged it Tales from the Tech Line Tales from the Tech Line in. But now I've sat here for twenty minutes waiting for something to happen, and it just won't come on. Tech: Well, what happens when you press the Power switch? Talk About "General System Faults"! Caller: What Power switch? It's nice to know that high-tech confusion isn't limited to the civilian population, isn't it? This tale conies to us from the system administrator No, the Other CPU for an Air Force office. A woman came into our shop and told us that she was having The Help Desk gave me a call from Major So-and-So, who was having problems with her monitor. We suggested that she bring her monitor a problem with his workstation. I called him and he told me, "Every in, and we promised to check it out. time I switch it over to 'Official,' the damn screen goes blank!" She brought in the monitor. We plugged it in. It worked without I had no idea what this "Official" switch was, but I was dying to a flaw. We told her that the monitor wasn't the problem—and we find out. I went down to the major's office. asked her to bring in her CPU. After nearly getting court-martialed for laughing so hard, I spent She stared at us blankly. "What's the CPU?" about twenty minutes explaining to this ex-pilot that "Off" was not "You know," I explained, "it's the central piece of equipment an abbreviation for "Official." that all your other devices plug into." I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. She returned an hour later, sure enough, carrying the piece of equipment she plugged Let's Hope It Wasn't Easter everything into. Her surge suppresser. Most computer glitches stem from flaky hardware, flaky software, or flaky users. Occasionally, however, something more surprising can hop up, as this London technician reports.