Send us your spookiest tech tales!
Sure, Halloween brings on the spook, but no slime-covered zombie or ghoul with an ax through its skull can compare to the horror of tech nightmares. Just ask those unfortunate enough to have suffered Sidekick data losses in recent days. If it makes them feel any better (and we know it probably doesn't), they're not alone. Maybe they can take a small measure of comfort in knowing others have endured tech scares, too.
With that in mind, and with All Hallows Eve just around the bend, we want to hear your worst tech nightmares, readers--in gory detail. Did a black cat cross your path and knock your new MacBook to the floor, shattering the screen? Suffer a blue screen of death? Ghosts in the machine? Syncing mishap? Supremely inopportune hard drive failure?
What about that time you IMed a co-worker about your annoying boss only to realize you'd accidentally messaged your gripes straight to the source? Or maybe you're like my colleague Dong Ngo, and you left a pack of chewing gum atop your new laptop in temperatures upward of 100 degrees. Oops!
Whatever the tech tale of terror, we'd love to include it in a Halloween feature we're piecing together. If you have photos, all the better. Send your pictures and stories (250 words or less, please), along with your full name and location, to readersubmissions at cbs dot com. The more the merrier--and scarier.
Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and most other digital distractions. As a co-host of the CNET News Daily Podcast, she sometimes tries to channel Terry Gross. E-mail Leslie. 
Here's how my notebook gigabit port is haunted.... occasionally, the tone of that buzzing changes slightly: it changes to a definable "A flat" pitch... after about 2 seconds, it changes to an "A" pitch... as soon as I hear that "A flat", I know I will lose my network connection in seconds. When I'm on Skype, I will say to the other party "Oh, I'm going to lose my internet connection... I'll call you right back". It would be funny if it wasn't so irritating.
I've contacted my computer (Dell) and ISP (TekSavvy) tech support (who have been very helpful, as far as this bizarre problem is concerned), removed all other devices from in between my router and my computer (by using a 50 foot ethernet cable to connect directly to the DSL modem) and can not diagnose what is causing this. Some days, it doesn't happen at all: I can work from home without interruption all day. Other days, I am being knocked off every 45 seconds.
Since I work from home regularly, it is very disruptive to me... I even had an electrician come in to check my circuits. It is so inconsistent it is difficult to test possible solutions... but after ruling out my DSL modem and router, and the fact that I'm not just kicked off the Internet, but I'm kicked off my home network, somehow this "ghost" that causes the tell-tale sound on my rear channel speakers must somehow be affecting my Gigabit port... or... maybe... the Gigabit port is making the sound!!! Maybe what I'm hearing is the Gigabit port's A-Flat scream of terror, followed by it's A tone lapse into unconsciousness.
Anyone got any theories as to what's going on?
About a year later I was hired to manage a company co-owned by Alex Kamradt, who financed the design of Steve Wozniak's first homemade computers and hired Steve Jobs to run their business. Not long after my hire, Kamradt's predilection for underage males earned him a stint in San Quentin, and after his release a fatal bullet which ended his recklessness. The fistfuls of "life extension" supplements he ingested each day proved to be futile. The sordid story of Alex Kamradt is one of the more interesting in early PC lore, and has never been told in print.
My friend and her mother were walking through Best Buy, peering at the new modem models and trying to figure out those passwords that only the employees know for the computers fust for fun (we've all done it). Of course, she walked right by the printers, paying them no mind; because, really, does anyone just randomly look at printers unless they're in the market for one? She was facing a flat-screen monitor when she heard a noise from behind. One of the printers seemed to be spitting something out, though noone was at any of the other computers and she hadn't even started guessing the password on her current endeavor. So what was it printing? Her mother reached into the tray and pulled out a two-page article on exorcisms. A Wikipedia article on the movie "The Exorcist" came out a few minutes later.
...Yeah, scary crap.
AND
now I've got the theme song from "Charles In Charge" stuck in my head.
Thanks a lot, man...
Windows definitely has Pros and Cons. So do all the Mac's I have owned.
But the more users there are for a particular OS the worse it gets. Virus's, Spyware, Adware etc..
A Mac OS is not invincible to anything. It does have its weak points.
I find having a Mac more enjoyable because so much less people have them. (well i do)
? FTW
MSFT just hasn't put enough effort to achieve a good product. In my opinion they would rather have more money than fans. But hey, that's their choice.
When I had an internship at xxx company (classified) last summer, I received a brand new IBM Thinkpad laptop along with an optical mouse, a LCD monitor, ethernet cord, and a laptop dock. My cubicle was located at a floor below my immediate manager's cubicle. Well, in about two weeks during the internship period while working on a project task, I got a notification through email that I have to come upstair to have a progress report so come on up. I closed my laptop with the presentation file and everything, put on the laptop bag, and headed to the meeting room. And about 15 minutes past the meeting, I said that I have the demonstration to show and took out my laptop to find out... My laptop's screen was completely broken! What happen was I mistakenly put a pen between the keyboard and the screen and closed it and put the laptop inside the bag. The result was a laptop with black, cracked screen. Fortunately, my manager was kind enough to give me a desktop, though lower in performance, for me to continue to work on my project while the laptop is sent to the repair shop to get fixed. To get the laptop fixed, I had to wait about one week and kept talking and back and forward with the help desk. I later received the laptop back like new one, but I definitely learned my lesson.
Another episode happened about three years ago... My old HP desktop suddenly died out, so I tried to recover the contents from the hard drive with minimum money spent as possible. I head out to Fry's and buy a external hard-drive enclosure case(maybe that is what they call it), which set me around 40 bucks at the time. I took out my hard drive and put the hardrive within the hard-drive enclosure device. Then, I connect the device to another computer that I had and transffered the files successfuly. So that was sweet. A couple of weeks later, I had the need for the external drive enclosure case again. But this time, when I connect it to the computer, I found out that the smoke was coming behind the power connection to the enclosure case. I quickly plugged out the power, but that was almost dangerous that I could set the fire inside the house. I later went back to Fry's to refund the item as a defective product, but they said they cannot refund for the item. Oh, well...
Unplugged the unit, took out the PSU, a nice expensive Antec - hmmm now why would one of those blow? Peered inside, the smell was revolting, putrid even. Lo and behold, one severely fried and dead gecko inside!!!
Of course being a repair facility for extended warranties sold in cheap retail outlets such as walmart has other downsides, such as the computers that are so full of bugs (insects, not programming), we open the case cover and they come scurrying out all over the anti-static pads on the workbench. *shudder*
Since the event, Arnold's wife, who I will call 'Stacy' has endured horrifying hauntings and frightening unexplained events that seem to source from anything electronic. She described in detail how her web browser would be re-directed to sites condemming adultry. The week following Arnold's death, she found her iPod touch laying on the floor, glass screen spider-webbed, displaying a photo of her husband. She has experienced an unusual amount of power surges in her home, which have destroyed the flatscreen TV, DVD and Stereo components. All of the surges have occured during normal weather conditions. Stacy would get mysterious calls, when she lifted the reciever, it was dead air, (the caller-id only displayed jobberish characters). The garage door quit opening. She called to have it repaired, only to find that when the reapir man arrived, no problem could be found. when the repair man left, the door would no longer open. And then, all of the sudden, the hauntings ceased.
One year, on the anniversary of Arnold's death, the very laptop on which he discovered his wife's affair, had melted into a pile of plastic. None of the areas around the laptop showed burns, nor did the smoke alams go off. The Fire Dept could not explain, other than it could have been a battery malfunction. Stacy has since moved out of state and I have not heard from her. I can only hope that Arnold's ghost ahs subsided and she is living in peace.
Too bad for her.
LOL, my Sennheiser headphones can tell when people are going to call me. They emit a small amount of static.(They are not plugged in to the phone)
- by drsoben October 15, 2009 3:43 AM PDT
- I purchased Norton 360 and after a few months there was an update. I updated my software, and ran into issues. Contacted Norton and they told me my "90 day" free technical support had run out, although the purchase of Norton was for 1-year. So, they told me I would have to pay!
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (34 Comments)Guess what, I will use my free McAfee when the term expires.
Doc
PS: I ran into the same problem with SlingBox HD!