• Beernutts (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

  • (cs)

    Come on, she's blond, she's a secretary. What do you expect?

  • (cs) in reply to Beernutts
    Beernutts:
    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

    Disabling JavaScript in your browser is also effective.

  • Robert (unregistered) in reply to Happy Programmer

    @Happy Programmer: You made that up, didn't you?

  • (cs)

    I did part volunteer support on the old computers at my high school. At one point my mom was reading "DOS For Dummies", and commented about how it actaully had a warning: "Make sure you put the floppy disk in the disk drive, NOT THE CRACK BETWEEN THE DRIVES". We both laughed at hot there was no way anybody would be stupid enough to make that mistake.

    About two weeks later, I was called in to troubleshoot some sort of problem. Opened up machine to find two floppies inside that had to have been there for a couple years.

  • (cs) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    I think there are lots of people that have trouble understanding the relationship between print documents and digital documents.

    I worked as a "copy boy" at a law firm a few years ago and saw similar things. Sometimes lawyers would send me a Word doc and ask me to print, say, 500 copies. Sometimes they would send me a stack of 500 pages and ask me to scan them in and e-mail them the PDF.

    One day, a woman comes down and asks me to scan in a bunch of stuff to make a PDF. I'm happily scanning this stuff until she realizes there's a typo or something in the document. "Luckily," she says, "I've got the Word Doc this stuff came from on this floppy here!" She whips out the floppy and makes the change, then tries to print out the document so I can scan in the new version.

    At this point I stop here, and explain that Word has a feature where you can convert .doc files straight into PDF form, no scanning involved...

    The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure 99% of the physical documents sent down to me were from Word files that were printed out just moments before...

    Hmm, I surprised that you didn't ask for an electronic version before you started scanning. Any document created after the mid-80's would exist in electronic form somewhere.

  • Phleabo (unregistered) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    Jay:
    A few years back someone in my office tried to copy a file to a floppy, but it was too big. So a co-worker suggested, "Why don't you try using a smaller font?"

    One of my co-workers, a web designer, once gave a mockup of a new design to a customer and was asked if he could give it "a warmer font". My co-worker considered telling her that she should leave her monitor on for a while before viewing the site.

    I once worked (for several months) on the redesign of a bank website. The president of the bank didn't really trust his staff to make final decisions, but would let them work on projects for a long time without giving them much direction. Anyway, after our designers going back and forth with the marketing people for a while, the final design got presented to the bank president. He hated it and rejected the design, saying he wanted something more "circusy."

    It's not as bad as "embezzly" or "insolventy," but as a consumer, "circusy" is definitely not the adjective I'd like to describemy banking experience.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Phleabo

    I don't think it's a WFT at all.

    She own the copyright to the document so this is her way of permitting you to have six copies. You now have her permission to either print or email.

    • DMCA: with restriction that the total of documents copied in print or email cannot exceed 6.
  • McGuffin (unregistered)

    Before all the news websites had the "Email this Article" feature, my dad used to print out the article from the website, scan it, then email me the scanned image.

    To be fair, though, this was after the stroke.

  • (cs)

    I work as a network administrator, and when the users complain of slow network, I tell them either A. it's cold outside, so the electrons move slower in the cold, or B. since the network cabling is in the ceiling, when the electrons go up the cable they move slower, or C. they are sending too much data and it won't all fit in the cable.

    Sadly, they believe me.

  • James Schend (unregistered) in reply to Beernutts
    Beernutts:
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

    Quicker and easier to use the "Page Info" menu item in Firefox (or Safari.) Just click to the Media tab and find the image in the list, it previews them all so it's easy. You can drag&drop from there, or use the Save As button.

  • (cs) in reply to Patrick
    Patrick:
    A. Friend:
    Maybe it was a hint, like "I'm not your secretary, print your own copies if you need them."

    Or she could not be a bitch and say, "Hey, I'm busy would you mind running off the copies."

    As the OP, I can say with certainty that it was neither laziness nor bitchiness; just sheer stupidity!

  • AlexG (unregistered) in reply to Tei

    A: People bitching about topposting.

    Tei:
    >Q: What's the most annoying thing on USENET?

    I am on tons of mail list with people that always make topposting, and have absolutelly zero idea what is quoting, bottomposting or nettiquete. I try to teach these people to remove the ad's, or to reply only to whatever is really replying. But Is imposible.

    EMAIL IS DYING!!, email netiquette has become a unknom art!!

  • Global Warmer (unregistered)

    I am a Star Trek Geek (surprise, suprise, a computer guy is a star trek geek) and lately I have been watching a lot of ST Voyager. I have noticed that, for people 400 years in the future that can travel at warp 9.975, that have transporters, replicators, and holo decks... They are constantly faced with the delema of losing the only copy of the Doctors program... They can figure out how to travel through time but not make a backup of a program.

  • rycamor (unregistered) in reply to Grovesy
    Grovesy:
    Jasmine:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    Oh come on! You are making that up...

    I remember a story from my Dad back when fax machines first appeared in the UK... they started to fax a a letter through it and the secretary screamed 'no that's our only copy'.... I think it's more of an urban legend, but still good.

    My father-in-law is a businessman in Jamaica, and a couple decades ago when he first started installing fax machines in his offices. It took a little explaining. He installed one in his Montego Bay office, which only had one phone line, and then told the secretary he would call her when he got back to Kingston to test it out. When he arrived, he called her with the go-ahead. A few seconds later the fax appeared. And then another, and another, which of course prevented him from calling to tell her to stop. Finally when he got through, the poor secretary told him "I'm trying to send it, Mr. B_, but the paper keeps coming right back out again."

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    Jay:
    A few years back someone in my office tried to copy a file to a floppy, but it was too big. So a co-worker suggested, "Why don't you try using a smaller font?"
    That actually could make a document slightly smaller, by reducing the number of line breaks.

    I think my head just exploded with WTFness...

  • C. F. Martin (unregistered)

    I cannot pass up an opportunity to denunciate my ex-mother-in-law whom I had to correct when I found her trying to move the cursor with her mouse by actually placing the mouse on the monitor (and not the 'ball' part of the mouse). She was very frustrated.

    BTW: the monitor happened to be on a wooden table.

  • Yanman (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    TRWTF is the pathetic attempt at copy-protection on that page. All your cartoon are belong to us hahahahaha!

    TRWTF is that you can just Print Screen + paste it in mspain.

  • SkyFalling (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    Jay:
    A few years back someone in my office tried to copy a file to a floppy, but it was too big. So a co-worker suggested, "Why don't you try using a smaller font?"
    That actually could make a document slightly smaller, by reducing the number of line breaks.

    Uh, line breaks caused by wrapping (as opposed to actually hitting the carriage return key) are generally not stored as actual line break characters -- they're simply produced by the wrapping logic of the word processing program when the file is open.

    Of course, there are exceptions -- for example, when I write plaintext files in Emacs, I use auto-fill-mode, which does in fact insert line break characters. But, being a plaintext file, it obviously doesn't have a font size saved in it. I guess I could adjust the font size or wrap width and that would be sort of what you're talking about, but not really.

  • (cs)

    I have heard of customers who ask why our software can't cause documents to print in color, even though they own black and white printers. I've also heard of people who want to print mixed letter and legal on a printer with a single tray and don't understand why it isn't possible.

    Also, using a color copier on a black and white document should cause it to become colorized. Right?

  • Richard Sargent (unregistered) in reply to Global Warmer
    Global Warmer:
    They are constantly faced with the delema of losing the only copy of the Doctors program... They can figure out how to travel through time but not make a backup of a program.

    Oh no, you really do not want to start making backups of AI's. Next thing you know, you'll have Doctors all over the place.

    And for God's sake, whatever you do, especially don't backup a Lawyer AI!!!

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Beernutts
    Beernutts:
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

    I want on their site and it said their copy-protection thing is "patent pending". Good luck at patenting a stupid Javascript.

    Oh, look at me! I'm writing a javascript that replaces the image on mouseover and then patenting it!

    And you don't even have to view the source. You can take a screenshot of the page. Or you could use a digital camera to take a picture of the computer screen. That's how I always copy images from sites. Let's see them stop me from taking a picture of my computer with a camera.

  • Packrat (unregistered)

    This is why women shouldn't be trusted with computers or other high technology, like fax machines.... :)

  • Venom Pen (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    Beernutts:
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

    I want on their site and it said their copy-protection thing is "patent pending". Good luck at patenting a stupid Javascript.

    Oh, look at me! I'm writing a javascript that replaces the image on mouseover and then patenting it!

    And you don't even have to view the source. You can take a screenshot of the page. Or you could use a digital camera to take a picture of the computer screen. That's how I always copy images from sites. Let's see them stop me from taking a picture of my computer with a camera.

    No, you all might appreciate this: http://www.venompen.com

  • (cs) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    Or you could use a digital camera to take a picture of the computer screen. That's how I always copy images from sites. Let's see them stop me from taking a picture of my computer with a camera.

    Amateur. You know the only real way is to take a video of you surfing the net, with commentary!

  • Werner (unregistered)

    My aunt, for whom I did some minor IT Stuff once insisted on sending people their files (sent by e-mail) back, after she'd read them. So I don't think it is uncommon to relate a digital copy to an actual unique paper dossier.

  • Aitch B (unregistered)

    My father-in-law is a great guy, but we still have troubles trying to get him to use the intertubes.

    He gets an e-mail that he thinks is interesting, prints it out, and then send it via snailmail.

    But his perseverence is admirable.

  • iMalc (unregistered)

    Just the other day My partner told me that a lady at her work needed to type an upsidedown question mark character because it was the delimeter used in a csv-like file, so she rotated her keyboard 180 degress and pressed '?'.

  • (cs) in reply to Happy Programmer

    Man, that reminds me of the time my mum asked me if she had to rewind a DVD. Brilliant.

  • Sasquatch (unregistered) in reply to Happy Programmer

    Your Mom sounds like an idiot.

  • shiny (unregistered) in reply to Happy Programmer

    Yeah, right.

  • (cs) in reply to Beernutts
    Beernutts:
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    I went to that Link, and, when you mouse over the image, it displays a huge Warning picture instead.

    Well, I wanted to send that site to my Mom, but I was worried she'd get frustrated with that large Warning banenr when she moused over, and wouldn't read it.

    So, looking at the source, I just found where it loads the proper image, and sent the picture to her. I guess it's "security" enough for most users.

    Do you mean this link?

  • (cs) in reply to Packrat
    Packrat:
    This is why women shouldn't be trusted with computers or other high technology, like fax machines.... :)
    Or even low technology, like pack rats. You never know with women. They might just choose to bite your genitals off, for no reason whatsoever.
  • Tomato Queen (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark

    For "no reason whatsoever"?

    I see several good reasons on this thread. Or is it "Secret Boy Lunkhead Day"?

  • ~ (unregistered)

    The first time my dad sent me an email, he sent a black message with a Word document attached containing the message. This proved to be a problem since I didn't have Word...

  • ~ (unregistered) in reply to ~

    And by black message, I mean blank message. >_<

  • (cs) in reply to Drum D.
    Drum D.:
    Pyro:
    Everyone knows the best way to get a document to electronic form is taking a picture of it on a wooden table.
    2. Take 35 other pictures, to make the film complete 3. Get the film role to the next supermarket to have the negatives processed.
    There's mucho bonus points in it for you when doing this with highly classified documents... :D

    np: Pole - Winkelstreben (Ghislain Poirier Remix) (Steingarten Remixes)

  • anonym (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    The WTF here is that that annoying "nocopy.com" hasn't any effect on copy-paste...

  • meh (unregistered)

    You remember that wtf survey? The one that said some shit about comments. I think the idea of this highlighted comment thing came from that survey.

    The fact is I filled that out several times with complete crap because I hate spammy bullshit. I'm sure probably 80% of others did the same thing, meaning the site has been changed based on faulty information.

    I'm just saying this because highlighted comments are stupid, I'd rather this click a link and see all the comments without having some stupid post somebody else thinks is important shoved in my face.

    thankyou and have a nice day

  • nzruss (unregistered)

    My mother kept receiving spam and one day complained to my father.

    His answer: "Just print the bloody thing out and trow it in the trash"

  • nzruss (unregistered) in reply to Global Warmer
    Global Warmer:
    I am a Star Trek Geek (surprise, suprise, a computer guy is a star trek geek) and lately I have been watching a lot of ST Voyager. I have noticed that, for people 400 years in the future that can travel at warp 9.975, that have transporters, replicators, and holo decks... They are constantly faced with the delema of losing the only copy of the Doctors program... They can figure out how to travel through time but not make a backup of a program.

    And still cut their head when they are in collisions. which would easily be prevented if they wore safteybelts /seatbelts.

  • munhasen (unregistered) in reply to A. Friend

    that is bad, but how is that worse than putting $20 into a floppy drive to purchase items off the internet?

  • (cs) in reply to McGuffin
    McGuffin:
    Before all the news websites had the "Email this Article" feature, my dad used to print out the article from the website, scan it, then email me the scanned image.

    To be fair, though, this was after the stroke.

    Aww, you made me smile at something really sad :(

  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    Drum D.:
    Pyro:
    You scan documents? WTF? Everyone knows the best way to get a document to electronic form is taking a picture of it on a wooden table.

    OK, but that's only the first step. 2. Take 35 other pictures, to make the film complete 3. Get the film role to the next supermarket to have the negatives processed. 4. Get the pictures a few days later 5. Make b/w copies 6. Scan the copies

    You're both clueless. Come to the swamp shack. I video in my docs. Then I add them to all-docs.txt. Search them with Desktop Search. Much easier. Stop by. I'll bring you up to speed.

    Sounds like you are using the ultimate search engine

  • (cs)

    Oh well, not long ago, at <insert a supermarket near you here> there was an elderly person at the self-checkout thingys feeding the credit card slot with coins. Needless to say, this checkout machine was closed for repairs not long after that.

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to Happy Programmer
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    I call fake.

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to ~
    ~:
    The first time my dad sent me an email, he sent a black message with a Word document attached containing the message. This proved to be a problem since I didn't have Word...

    You didn't have Word? That's the REAL WTF.

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to The Masked Director of Development
    The Masked Director of Development:
    Years ago at a small company we were all under indescribable stress. The chief EE had to fax an important document to a customer. He put the document in the fax, started to walk away, then shouted, "S***! I didn't make a copy first!" and ran back to yank the paper out of the fax rollers.

    We just looked at him in silence. He stood there stunned at what he had just done, and started laughing with us.

    Not really a WTF. I wouln't put the only copy of ANYTHING in a fax machine, becuase there is a good chance the machine would mangle the paper, the paper would get stuck halfway through and I'd have to tear it to get it out, etc.

  • chrome (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Happy Programmer:
    I'll never forget the day my mom tried to send her first e-mail... She had printed out the Word document, put it in an envelope, written the e-mail address on the envelope and stamped it. The she put it in her floppy drive...

    We had a good laugh about that one :)

    CAPTCHA: bene

    You might appreciate this

    WTF: http://www.bobstaake.com/copyno/warning.shtml

  • Gooner (unregistered) in reply to Happy Programmer

    No she didn't - I've met your Mum and she's not that stupid!!

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