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Good Memory, Bad Choices

"Back in the '80s, our technical manager was a godsend. She could do anything, from wrestling network management software to the ground to fixing a squeaky hard drive. But it's the simple things that trip up the pros.

"I asked her to upgrade the memory in my computer, which in that era used individual RAM chips--not modules--that plugged into the motherboard. Unfortunately, she plugged them in backward. When she turned on the PC, there was a popping sound, then a little puff of smoke.

"Cost of new motherboard and RAM: hundreds of dollars.

"Cost of the look on her face: priceless."

Duh-tabase

"A temp we hired at my medical records department had been trained on typewriters and was used to typing a lowercase 'L' for the number one. Unfortunately, when we put her on a PC and had her update a huge insurance records database, she continued the practice. Later, when we tried to run reports, sort records, and so on, the database blew up. It took us weeks to strip out and replace all her damn Ls!"

Windows Thrice

"I'm an experienced network administrator, but I once installed Windows NT Server over and over on the same system. It was late and I was doing something else while waiting for Microsoft's installer to finish. Well, it finished, all right, and rebooted the PC while I wasn't looking. Because the installation CD was still in the drive, the installer kept loading and I kept answering the same prompts over and over. Only on the third time around did my weary eyes notice that the CD was still in the drive."

Many a Slip Between the Zip

"The rather venomous school secretary at my daughter's school blamed everyone for sabotaging her PC one day. After all, she'd lost all the changes she'd made the day before. It must have been crazed teachers or wayward children waving magnets that stole her data. Turns out she couldn't find a file in her Start Menu's Documents list. ('What--documents are stored somewhere else?') So the secretary restored the previous day's backup from her Zip disk, overwriting her latest files. A little knowledge (very little in this case) is a dangerous thing."

The Dangerous On Button

"I was fresh out of college, working for a small startup in Atlanta as a software engineer. We had a problem in some code, and my boss and I were working on it. We had just about figured out what was wrong when the screen suddenly went blank. We checked the cabling, the AC outlet, and more--until I realized I'd accidentally turned the PC off with my knee. My boss managed to stay calm, but he claims he added a few gray hairs that night."