You useless tech support people........I TRIED the method of general-purpose troubleshooting you recommended in your most recent column. Obviously, it didn't work, as I am still emailing you and cluttering up your /var/spool/mail directory with useless ASCII characters. Firecrackers, dynamite, even \ the much vaunted ICBM. BUT IT DIDN'T WORK!!!! The things just sat there and the computer didn't seem to mind at all. I think I'm going to come over to seattle some day and sledgehammer you myself :). And you may go ahead and call the police, the national guard, or even form your own private army......
This was interesting... a scenario that I had never figured on. I guess I should have mentioned that nuke-proof computers are completely unsupported. And that the drivers for firecrackers used were created several thousand years ago. This means that they have not been tested for compatibility with this particular user's computer. In fact, even the ICBM drivers were merely real mode drivers written for a DOS 3.2 machine, and there are some known compatibility issues to boot. Sure, the torubleshooting techniques outlined would be excellent when actually effective, but it appears that you are using unsupported hardware and are therefore failing to make any progress, as is evident by the fact that your computer is still working. It has come to my attention that my strategy is not quite flawless.
After trashing the den upon reciept of this message (so far, nobody has noticed) I got to pondering (which led to a scheme to take over the world, but then I remembered that there were already a couple of lab mice out there trying to do so.) If for some computers, these techniques don't seem to be working, there are some more subversive techniques which aren't quite as flashy (or as illegal) as the others, but they just might work.
For one thing, you may try the ever popular "spill" techniques, if only to weaken the computer's guard. Start with something simple, like coffee or soda (Mountain Dew happens to be particularly useful. Work up to a double-tall mocha latte (or other similar beverage.) Eventually, you will work up to the point of using household chemicals, and from that point, you will work up to some really powerful stuff like hydrofluoric acid. Right on the CPU. If that doesn't solve your problems, I would suggest psychiatric help.
This is just one of many cruel and unusual ways to take care of an uncooperative system (or any Packard Bell, Macintosh, or any other similarly worthless piece of silicon.) Of course, as I have mentioned in this column before, turning loose a clueless luser is another excellent way of dispatching a misbehaving system. Proving that there is actually some purpose for the existence of lusers, they are remarkably effective at hosing systems, as many a cynical tech support rep might tell you. In many cases (such as the one that occurred recently with the luser being unable to reformat their hard disk, and deciding that a low-level format was needed... and they thought it was a Win95 problem!)
With the increasing dependence of modern society on computers, we can only imagine some of the impending carnage that will eventually be rendered on computers, an awful vengance on the technology that has driven humanity in general closer to the brink of insanity. This should lead to some interesting and creative ways to destroy the things. I have a few systems here that I am about to get seriously disgruntled at... They seem to be resisting the blows of my sledgehammer, which is losing effectiveness rapidly at this point.
For now,if the "spill" technique proved to be ineffective (as I'm sure certain of my readers will claim) and even the luser somehow is unable to hose the system (which may be because the operation of the keyboard confuses them.) In this case, there seems to be some confusion as to what method to pursue next. Some people favor throwing the computers off tall buildings (although if the computer managed to survive an ICBM, this isn't likely to do much to the thing.) One may try tossing it off said building into the path of a moving steamroller... running through a minefield. Maybe that way you can at least make a dent in the system, after which, if you're lucky, the system may be reduced down to being forced to run in safe mode for Win95. At this point, you can claim at least partial victory.
The possibilities for ways to destroy a computer are endless. The ways to destroy a computer creatively are not quite so numerous. This is why I am announcing the Sledgehammer "Hosed!" arwards, for people who can find new and creative ways to destroy computers. If you think you can fix all of the bugs in a system at once (as well as keeping any future bugs from showing up) let me know how you propose to do this, and who knows? Maybe you will someday get the chance to actually apply this solution somewhere (depending on the federal, state and local laws governing such activities,) and recive recognition in the pages of The Sledgehammer. Happy Hosing!