Computer Saints
by E.T. Robbins
My mother believes in praying to saints. Can’t find your keys? Pray to Saint Anthony. Want to sell your house? Bury a statue of Saint Joseph in your yard. Want to have a safe trip? Pray to Saint Christopher.
So the other day I wondered, who is the patron saint of computers?
My issue is that I don’t know where to officially turn when something goes wrong with mine. And since every week there seems to be a new tragedy with my PC, and considering this is the way I conduct 99.9% of my business, this is a problem.
When something is wrong with my car, I bring it to the mechanic. When I’m not feeling well, I can go to the doctor and tell her where it hurts. When something is wrong with my computer, I usually don’t know what’s wrong. In fact, I am usually the last to know. Not until the screen reads “ERROR – ALL INFORMATION WILL BE LOST” am I truly aware. Of course, these cryptic messages appear for 200th of a millisecond.
So, what do I do? I peer at the mass of wires behind my computer and wiggle them. I’ll perform the ever popular “reboot” function (reboot is the politically correct way of saying “turn your computer off and on again while crossing your fingers”). I’m always amazed when rebooting solves the problem. I’ll approach my work warily, becoming obsessive compulsive (for the next few hours anyway) about saving my work every two minutes and backing up my hard drive to CD’s I always end up misplacing.
Of course, the bigger problem is when the reboot trick doesn’t work. That’s when I resort to desperate measures.
My parents live with me (okay, it’s their house, but at the age of 30 it sounds much better to say that they are living with me), and luckily Dad was born with half of the Computer Programmer Gene (CPG). I say half, because half the time he’s as flummoxed as I am, and the other half he is able to press enough keyboard combinations to somehow get everything to work. Even though if he had to repeat the process again, he couldn’t do it to save his life.
Because he has half of a CPG and because I do believe my mother probably has at least ¼ CPG, one of my five brothers was born with an almost whole CPG.
Ross never went to school for this stuff, he just knows. Sometimes I feel people in the know about computers belong to a secret society. And I have no idea where to find an application.
I’m not a picky person. All I want is for my computer to work. That means, when I turn it on, it goes on. Period. When I pick up the telephone, 99.9% of the time there’s a dial tone. And if there’s not one, I know what to do. I call the phone company. Not so simple with computers.
I’ll call Ross, but we just don’t speak the same language. For example, his language contains mostly initials like USB, ROM, RAM, ABC.
Often times he’ll ask, “What was the last thing you did before your computer froze (or stopped working, or lost your information etc.)?” I always say the same thing. “I wasn’t doing anything.” Which isn’t exactly true. Obviously, I was doing something. Usually typing a column, checking email, or surfing the net. I don’t do much beyond that. But somehow, this bit of information is crucial for the computer programmer types to understand what went wrong.
So then he’ll ask, “Okay, what does the screen say now?”
I tell him it’s a bright blue screen with the words “fatal error” followed by three lines of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
“B-SOD,” he murmurs. “Not good. Have you ever been B-SOD’d before?”
I tell him no. After all, I think I’d remember being B-SOD’d.
“Blue Screen of Death” is what B-SOD stands for (part of the secret society language). Apparently, (according to my brother — I wouldn’t even know where to find this information), this is Microsoft’s official name for this nefarious screen.
Of course, this doesn’t give me much hope.
The word “troubleshooting” doesn’t give me much hope either. There are endless chapters of “troubleshooting” in computer books, and I find this a predetermined indicator of failure. If you are obviously anticipating things to NOT work, and have to write endless appendices for what to do when THIS or THAT happens, then maybe it’s not the right time to release your little computer program, n’est pas?
I’m not saying troubleshooting tips are not useful. They are. But how many of us need them for regular old dependable items like our alarm clock, microwave, or even our car?
To make life easier, there should be Community Troubleshooter Centers in every town and city. When something goes wrong, you call 1-800-Trouble. And the nearest Troubleshooter is dispatched to your home to correct the computer problem faster than you can say “America Online.” Or, at the very least, the Troubleshooters should be available between 9-5 Monday through Friday like the cable guy.
Until this happens, I guess I’ll have to continue praying to the holy saint of Reboot. I think he is related to Bill Gates.
©2003 E.T. Robbins
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