(Approx. 730 words)

Dufferdom
Tales of the Ordinary User by David D. Uffer, a member of the Chicago Computer Society, IL
daviduffer@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ccs.org 

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  It has been multiply upgraded, revised, and enhanced so that any original identity is no longer valid.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.