[Funnies] Words of Wisdom

No matter how tasty they look, keyboard and mice should not be fed to family pets.  Nor should they be allowed to be chew toys.   Ask poor 'Fluffy' and 'Rover' why.

Real mice with little teeth do not interchange easily with the "computer kin".  Just don't understand why.   Stopped asking after several attempts.

Using surplus 5 1/4" platters to make into 6 gig hard drives was a BAD IDEA.  (Thank you BIGFOOT... NOT!)

If you're trying to scare the family cat away from the main computer with REALLY large fans, make sure the fans don't suck the cat inside.  Don't ask.   Also note, fur is REALLY hard to get out of CPU fans.   Tails too.

If you are not an IT pro and try to password your kids out of the computer, they will seek revenge.   It will not be a pretty revenge.  Play nice with the evil teenagers lest they ask their friends how to open the cage.   Note however that Cyberpatrol is an effective and satisfying defense tho.

Spanned drives might be a "cool idea" on paper, they do not equate to 'Redundancy'.   They should NEVER be the storage location for your Great Plains SQL database.

Backup tapes must be changes daily.    The unit should probably get cleaned even.   Hoping the mystical computer deities will handle this job will make disaster recovery far more difficult.

Plan for the equipment to die and or fail at the worst possible time.   Servers do not run 10 years without issues.   The reason your old server was changed was because it was old and dying.   Pretending the 'good old days' were that will not make equipment last longer.   Change it before it needs to be.  That clicking noise is PROBABLY a bad thing.   The funny smell is worse.   The smoke should probably be looked into.

No, that big power outage on the east coast was not your fault.  Yes you should probably invest in at least a few Battery Backups.  No a 50 cent 'duracell' stuck to the side of the PC does not count as a Battery backup.

Double notching the floppies as a kid WAS cool.   Using that as a long term backup solution for a client is NOT.   Don't EVEN suggest it. 

That old 486 in the back corner might be cool to fix up and play with.   It is NOT cool to make it the main server for a 50 user environment, EVEN with Linux on it.  Old hardware is still that.  OLD.  it WILL go boom.   You WILL hear the phone call in the wee hours.   Their lawyers ARE coming to your front door.

Remember band-aid solutions are good to get a client out of jam short-term.    Using 'Band-Aids' to hold the LAN cable to that back of the Quad-Xeon server isn't.

If you burned your hands on the Case, there's a good chance of some failed fans.  Don't touch it again.   No matter how tempting.

Cherry-pickers in a warehouse are really fun to cable with.  They should however not be a choice location to do the 'Macarena' on.   Especially if they are extended.  (Even if you have the harness on) Note.  The landing is quite bumpy.  The harness can give you quite a 'Wedgie'.  Speed racing is also not advised at 40 feet in the air.

No matter how much you want to work for your favorite software / hardware company; sending in 1000 resumes in a span of twenty-four hours MIGHT be considered 'spam'.  In less than 1 hour it might be considered a direct corporate attack.   Within a 5 minute span and you might just see 'Uncle Sam and the boyz' at the door.  Strange, some people just can't seem to take a joke.

Bugging people during the summer holidays and being perplexed could find you banished into that horrible land of searching for the Pentium 3 1/2 CPU.   Can't understand why they might want to sit down and relax.   What is this dirty "Vacation" word.... :)

Buying an  inkjet printer at 'Goodwill' was probably a bad idea.   Spending three hours cleaning out the barrels with rubbing alcohol was a worse idea.   Doing it on the kitchen table was unforgivable.   My wife has no sense of humor.

Buying that new gadget was a good idea.  Fixing the car alternator was a better idea.   Implementing the latter before you attempted the former would have been a much better idea.  Oh... who needs a car anyhow.

Priorities to be learned.   Rent, Hydro, Food, Car, Pets, Computer.    NOT.  Computer, Food, Rent, Hydro, Pets, Car.    Must memorize that one.  But why?!

Glowing Neon fans are REALLY neat sometimes.  Spending extra money on them CAN be fun.   Putting them inside an ALL BLACK SEALED CASE WITH NO OPEN SPOTS DEFEATS THE PURPOSE!

Modding a case is fun and can be enjoyable.   Modding a case in the shape of a large rottweiler just to scare your cat isn't.   Note.  Cats ALSO don't have a sense of humor.   Further note, cat 'surprises' are not 'electrically compatible with most circuit boards.

Also note, placing an open gerbil cage nearby a nicely modded case (that DOES have open spots for those previously mentioned neon fans) is also a bad idea.   Shavings do NOT mix well with CPU / Case / Powersupply fans.   Sunflower seeds may also cause unexpected blue screens.    Gerbils have an even odder sense of humor than cats.

When you are in front of you system, coding, learning Unified Messaging or whatever drives you; Having the headphones over your ears and breaking out in 'Air Guitar' to Mr. Osborne does NOT impress teenagers.    They will strangely look at you as if you just ate a sandwich made of jellyfish.   Odd.

Shooting a hard drive to make it not recoverable for data recovery IS a viable option.   Same with CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, embarrassing high school photos etc.   It is however not legal within most city limits.    That doesn't make sense to me.  Explain.

That battery backup you scooped off eBay for $10 was a great Idea.   The $125 shipping wasn't.

And most important!  Get your Outlook calendar dates for REALLY important stuff in.  Even look like a goof and ask. (No no no no no!  Not Mr. Gates Birthday)... I mean Family birthdays, reunions and MOST IMPORTANTLY your anniversary.  Make sure you set that reminder a full week in advance.   I did not fall prey to this one (yet) but I'm hoping this saves somebody from certain death.   

Your anniversary (and Valentine's day) is REALLY important to your spouse.  Note all of the above they have put up with for the year.    To them this is the same as a QuadCore 512 Gig Ram workstation with 8 video cards running in SLI with 1 Petabyte of storage.    Buy the biggest batch of flowers (or cigars or beers depending on their preference!  they will remember this the next time you goof up.   They might even come to your defense.

Lord watch us all.   We're bound to screw up in some way...