Midimusic.org.uk Computer Humour, Networks: 3.5 The World Wide Web

Midimusic.org.uk Computer Humour, Networks

3.5 The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web allows naive users to show their mistakes to a world wide audience. Fortunately, most of them are too confused about what the web is to figure out how to get on it.

I used to do tech support for a company that made computer accessories and video game accessories. We had a pay-for-access web site for one of our products. The site was full of special codes and cheats. One day, a customer called, asking how to access the site.

Tech Support: "Well, just go to [URL]."
Customer: "How do I do that?"
Tech Support: "Type it in in your web browser."
Customer: "Huh?"
Tech Support: "Ok...sir...do you have Internet access?"
Customer: "Huh? No. No Internet. I don't even have a computer."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir, you need a computer and an Internet account to access web sites."
Customer: "Oh. Well, it didn't say that when I mailed in the membership card. I want my money back."

This conversation took place through email.

Customer: "I need something off the web, and I don't have any way to use a browser!"
Tech Support: "There's a browser called 'lynx' that you can use from a shell." (gives a brief description of how to use it)
Customer: "What's lynx? I need a browser!"
Tech Support: (again mentions lynx and says how to use it)
Customer: "I need a browser. If you can't help me, get someone else to answer my emails."

Customer: "What do you mean I have to dial into the Internet every time I want to go to your web site? I thought I only had to do that the first time I used this software!"

A customer, to his ISP:

Customer: "I found this [web] page on [another service] but the name you need to get there is too long. Shorten it."

I work for a small ISP. One day I received a phone call from a very angry customer who switched to us from another provider. He had problems installing our software. It took a long time to walk him through fixing the problems, because he had no computer skills (even though he was a programmer for the last 30 years) and rarely did what I asked him to.

I thought I actually made him happy until he asked me to change his Yahoo username and password. He assumed that since we provide access to the web page that we must control it as well. To this day I still hear that he calls in from time to time to yell at other techs because they won't change his Yahoo username and password.

Customer: "I can't get to the page. The address is: http://[site]/~user/~home.htm.

Sent to our tech support email address:

PLEASE GIVE ME HELP ON HOW TO DELETE HTTP://MULTIMEDIA.COM

There was an URL floating around a while ago that pointed to a site that had a card trick on it. I sent the URL to my mom.

The web page asked you to choose a card out of a set of cards and then to click on a link. That link took you to a page with a new set of cards. The page stated that the card you picked was now missing from the set, because the site had read your mind and knew which card to remove. The way the trick worked was that none of the cards in the first set were in the second set -- the second set contained similar cards to the first set, but none of the same ones. Many people first think that the web page somehow determined what card they had chosen even though they had done nothing on the computer to indicate any particular card.

A while after sending the link to my mom, I sent her an explanation for how the trick worked. She sent back email saying that she and her husband were rolling on the floor with laughter because they had spent the last half hour trying to fool the computer using various methods. One of them was this: her husband would go into another room in the house. Then my mom would call him on his cell phone using hers and tell him all the cards. Then he'd tell her that he'd chosen one -- but not tell her which one -- and then she would click on the link. They were frustrated and befuddled that the computer still "knew" which card to remove even though they had gone to great lengths to separate the person that chose the card from the computer.

Emailed to the owner of a web page:

I got here by some nefarious route. I was trying to get to [an email address] or other similar sites. I distinctly dislike being hijacked in cyberspace to see something I did not ask to see. If this happens again I will make a formal complaint to my local federal district attorney. Thank you. Do not do this again.

A customer emailed the following to his ISP: hello, I have just published my first web page. What is my address? Never mind, found it, thank you."

A standard format for web sites containing images is to have a front page full of thumbnail images, and you click on the thumbnail image to get to the corresponding full-sized image. The reason you do this, of course, is to reduce the loading time and required bandwidth for the front page. Some people don't understand this. I've seen a few thumbnail pages where the thumbnail images have the same file sizes as the large versions -- they just appear smaller on the page.

I'm a high school senior. One day, we were partnered with another class to do an Internet project. Web site design is a hobby of mine, so I happily displayed one of my pages to my partner in Internet Explorer. My partner, in a vain attempt to scare me or tease me or something, highlighted all the text on the web page and threatened to delete it.

Being one of the people that interviews many prospective candidates for our computer consulting company, I came across many individuals who shouldn't have made it past the first screening process. One was a college student for an entry-level position in web development, and I was simply trying to ease him into demonstrating his technical knowledge.

Me: "So tell me one of the ways in which you would try to get images to load faster in web pages?"
Him: "I'd do it in Java."

Student: "I can't find the place to type in the URT."
Teacher: "The what?"
Student: "You know the URT -- the thing that starts with 'www'?"
Teacher: "Oh, URL."
Student: "Whatever. Where do I type it?"
Teacher: "On the blank line at the top."
Student: "Where?"
Teacher: "At the top!"
Student: "I see no line."
Teacher: "Is Netscape open?"
Student: "Does it have to be?"

Our school requires all students to take a computer class. My class has to have some of the stupidest people I've ever met.

Teacher: "Does anyone know what HTML means?"
Student: "That means something?!"
Me: "Hypertext Markup Language."
Teacher: "Correct, have any of you ever used HTML?"

I'm the only one who raises a hand.

Teacher: "Great! We'll be doing some simple HTML by the end of the year."
Me: (bangs head on desk)
Student: "How do you use HTML? Is it like typing?"

I work as the graphic/computer designer at a printshop. A while back, I got a phone call from someone who works for a major ISP who asked to have an image scanned. He said he wanted me to scan in the image to a one meg JPEG file so he could email it to people and use it on web pages. He didn't give me any dimensions, just the file size. I explained that this was rather large for use online and that even if he had a fast modem or a direct line, others might not.

Customer: "Oh, well I want it this way because, even though the Internet won't allow you to send files that large, the ISP I work for can."

I recently visited the site of a company which shall remain unnamed and was frustrated by the extremely slow screen refresh as I scrolled through the page. I investigated and discovered that instead of declaring a plain green background color for the page, they had created a one pixel GIF image which was 'tiled' as a background.

I run a web hosting service. This was sent via email from one of our customers:

um,u said that if i delete some stuff from my page i'll get more space what do u mean by delete?do u mean by deleting the file or just taking a picture out of my page?i took saome pictures out of my page but it still said that i already used all my space