(Approx. 730 words)
Dufferdom
Tales of
the Ordinary User by David D. Uffer, a member of the Chicago Computer Society,
IL
daviduffer@sbcglobal.net
When you
think about it, you may come to the view that there are users and there are
abusers of personal computers. Of
course, the direction of the abuse may be at issue: the PC could seem to be
abusing the user, not responding as it had and probably should. A techie may find a fine point where the
user has not followed the rules and the PC was just responding to some
erroneous action or mistaken understanding.
You may believe that. You may
believe that machines are always constant and humans variable. I don’t.
Electronic circuits are complex enough in their construction and
interaction that they can go corrupt on their own. Ask a techie. Ask Murphy
how he found his Law.
I think I
have one of Murphy’s PCs. And it may be
that it does have a mind of its own, or at least an inclination to uphold and
sustain Murphy. It has no brand name. It has been multiply upgraded, revised, and
enhanced so that any original identity is no longer valid. I’ve tried various names. I discontinued Mongrel when I felt it was
disrespectful, that the PC’s ego, if any, would suffer. In view of its heritage, I used Legacy for a
while. Then sort of settled on
Custom. That’s descriptive, respectful,
and honorable. But there are times I
want to call it Murphy.
Or maybe
call up Murphy and ask him to pick up his PC–and thanks for the loan. But maybe he thinks it’s mine. And maybe he’s right and I’m stuck with
it. Maybe it’ll get better if I treat
it gingerly, or just gently. But it
recently developed this cute trick of getting the screen to go blank and black,
not to return until some secret rite is performed upon it by a repair guy who
says it’s nothing special, just reconnecting.
So, I’ve tried that too and sometimes it does whatever magic is
required. The screen comes back and
pretends it hasn’t been up to anything sneaky.
Then I tried being analytical and have successfully reduced the number of cables it took to
achieve restoration. I’ve got it down
to just 5 USB connections plus the Ethernet port. Almost gives me some pleasure to anticipate the next blackout and
further reduction in cable connections.
Almost a game.
The most
recent blackout seems to have occurred as a result of accidentally hitting the
F12 key. I’ll try it intentionally when
I get some slack time for fooling around and some courage. Maybe I’ll learn something. I do have yet to learn another key quirk. While typing a long message or document, I
accidentally invoked another kind of vanishing act by touching some key in the
bottom row. Immediately, I was back at
the basic desktop screen, all message or document image having gone forever
bye-bye. That’s when I learn and
relearn that re-doing a message or document usually makes it better. Authors call it rewriting and it’s a royal
pain but good for the soul. I’ve yet to
discover what key or combination causes that reaction. Same reason: chickenhearted.
Now then
there may be another reason. It might
just be another prank Microsoft or its staffers play on users. A colleague of mine some time ago visited
Redmond for some genuine learning and came back with some tricky mini-programs
that made the keys or mouse pointer behave in tricky ways, like wandering
around or appearing to lose data. You
can find subsequent versions of such programs by browsing the Internet, if you
value frustration or scaring your colleagues.
If you seriously seek and cannot find such items, you can ask me by way
of Beata Kernan, who knows how to get in touch with me, at 1ccsadmin@comcast.net. ■
Dave Uffer
is a member of some standing, attends occasional Lake Shore and West Suburban
meetings, and regrets having missed CCS Mini Expo-V, which he hears was very
good, again.
There is no restriction
against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in
context with proper credit given the author.
The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User
Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member,
brings this article to you.
