THE NEWBIE GUIDE TO COMPUTERS BY RAISTLYN MAJERE
-------------------------------------------------

HARDWARE : This is the part that stops working when you spill beer or 
various types of spirits on it e.g. Jack Daniels

SOFTWARE : These programs give instructions to the CPU, which processes 
billions of tiny facts called bytes, and within a fraction of a second sends 
you an error message that requires you to ring a customer support hotline 
and be put on hold for aproximately 40,000 years while the hotline staff
play Quake .

MEGAHERTZ : This is a really really really really big hertz .

RAM : This is a male ego thing, It gives guys a way of deciding whose  
computer has the biggest studliest memory. That matters because the more
memory a computer has the faster it can produce error messages .

THE INTERNET : This is the single most important invention in the history 
of communications since the invention of call waiting. Imagine that you 
need to 1. make an airline reservation; 2. Buy a concert ticket or 3. Help 
your child with a school essay. Now you simply turn on your computer, dial
your internet service provider and within seconds your listening to a busy
signal !!

SOUND-CARD : This allows your computer to play preset error sounds along 
with your error messages in glorious surround sound .

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network ) : This is a new system which 
has eliminated busy signals on the internet by keeping you logged on at 
all times and charging you an unlimited amount of money for the privilage,
so your concert ticket in reality costs £6000 plus V.A.T. .

CLIP-ART : The computing equivilent of cutting out a picture and selotaping 
it to a page .

COMPUTER PETS : These are electronically animated animals which run around
your desktop while your trying to do some work supposedly designed for the 
lonely computer nerd. The bad side of computer pet is that they use alot 
of RAM so you don't get error messages as quickly .

GUI ( graphic user interface ) : These wonderful programs are designed to 
be more user friendly by making it easier to get error messages and harder
to fix the problems that cause the error messages.

IRC ( internet relay chat ) : This is a place where u can go and talk to
people its supposed to be like real life but u can't use bad lanuage or
kick the shit out of people via bots or floods .
( try irc.iol.ie )

IRCOPS (irc operators) : These nice people are bollox's they are put their 
by the owners of your irc server to make sure you cannot possibly have fun .

BOTS : these are programs loaded onto irc's by the ircops to make sure when
there not there you still cannot have any fun, they usually have word 
analysis programs that kick you off the server for using bad lanuage or
using clones or your own bots .

CLONES : this is when you open more than one connection to the server via 
IRC usually used for war programs and irc warfare



                        (c) JD publishing 1997/1998