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[Thomas Graham <lkthomashk AT yahoo.com.hk>]

cigars? I want it, actually, I never try one before,
wahahaha
CAT ? does your dog chewed your optical fiber cable ?
or the animal chewed the power cable and burn
themseleves, LOL...

 --- nealbirch <nealbirch AT attbi.com> wrote: > Well,
it's a week unemployed today... So I am doing
> some minor free 
> lance consulting type stuff.
> 
> Yesterday I did some in home repair for a guy a
> know, he wanted to get 
> on the web with his old compaq (300 mhz, win98)
> machine. I quoted a 
> price, (I have a reasonable hourly fee, you want to
> be able to get out 
> of there sometime. And if he's got the money to
> burn, I got the time to 
> waste answering inane questions =) and we took a
> look.
> 
> Kenny has no idea about ergonomics, so we discussed
> how using a kitchen 
> table as a computer desk is gonna kill him, even if
> he is a one finger 
> typer who can't double click. It's only $40 for
> cheap computer desk at 
> Office Depot, for christ sakes... anyway. Did I
> mention he has cats? I'm 
> allergic to cats.. at least he kept them outside.
> 
> His pc, at least 4 years old, is in the original
> pristine compaq install 
> condition, with every piece of crap software they
> install on it still 
> running. loverly.
> 
> His modem won't dial. this is because it's not being
> detected anymore. 
> It used to be detected, because it's setup, but when
> I remove it, it 
> doesn't find it again. bummer. com2 completely gone.
> I decide that I 
> will show him what a modem looks like, so we
> disconnect the thing and I 
> haul it off to his kitchen where he has a tall
> center island perfect for 
> working on the thing.
> 
> I quickly see that someone has been there before me,
> because they have 
> broken the fricken power button attachment by trying
> to take the front 
> of the case off without disconnecting the cord,
> which on these models is 
> firmly plugged into the motherboard... if you try to
> pull the front 
> bezel off it breaks the mounting bracket for the
> power switch rather 
> than unplugging the cord. Nice design. He said that
> a friend of his had 
> done that, and I explain the joys of non-conductive
> epoxy for case 
> repair, he says he doesn't use it, there is a power
> switch on the back 
> he uses instead when he shuts down.(ok, he gets
> points for actually 
> shutting down properly, which makes up for never in
> 4 years doing a scan 
> disk or defrag.) I told him to put some duct tape
> over the front so 
> someone else doesn't hit the switch and jam it
> again.
> 
> Unfortunately, the case won't come apart because his
> cat has at sometime 
> in the past sprayed the thing. ("It's mine! Mine, I
> tell you!" I had a 
> dog like that.) After a few moments of reflection, I
> say: "Normally, we 
> don't use hammers on computers, but do you have one
> handy?" With a 
> couple of judicious blows using a screwdriver as a
> chisel, I pried the 
> thing apart and took a little sandpaper and 3in1 oil
> to the rusted parts.
> 
> I figured that maybe the cat had pissed on the modem
> too, but no, no 
> evidence of corrosion there, swapped it to the other
> pci slot (rockwell 
> hcf modem, early model, software upgradeable) and
> figured what the hell, 
> it might work, so I washed my hands and we tried it.
> Joy! It works! Oh, 
> by the way, the cat chewed the phone cord, too. go
> figure.
> 
> Oh yeah, he wanted to use AOL. I figured he was
> paying. Latest version 
> didn't display well, but an earlier version did.
> Told him to call and 
> cancel in 45 days, he should get at least another
> free month, then he 
> can get the AARP discount... AOL is good for people
> like him. It's all 
> in one place, and he'll have to upgrade his computer
> to run the latest 
> version so he'll stimulate the economy.
> 
> I had to explain that computers aren't like cars.
> With cars, they don't 
> increase the minimum speed limit from 40 mph to 250
> mph... And it 
> doesn't hurt to clean the keyboard every now and
> then.
> 
> And keep the cat away from the computer...
> 
> Oh yeah, I got $50 and a couple of good cigars for
> about 3 hrs work. I 
> work cheap.
> 
> The story above is true. I didn't change the names
> because he'll never 
> see this.
> -- 
> "You can fool some of the people all of the time
> --and those are the ones you have to concentrate
> on!"
> GW Bush-- from the N.Y. Times
> 
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