Oops!

This pilot fish is the family computer nerd. So when he's home for the holidays, he knows there will be lots of questions -- and maybe a project or two.

"My aunt is a departmental secretary in a science department of a large university," says fish. "She does a lot image editing and other graphics-intensive work for grad students and the department head. She asked me to take a look at her work computer and see if I could suggest any improvements."

So it's off to her office they go. Fish starts with his standard improvements: increasing the monitor's refresh rate, increase the resolution and adjusting the monitor to use the whole screen.

Once he's found the settings that work best for his aunt, he shows her how to make the adjustments herself in case she needs to undo them. Then they move on to making other small improvements.

"We were just discussing calling it a day when...ZZZZTTTT!" fish says. "There was a frying sound and a cute little curl of smoke wafting out of the top of her monitor. Yikes!

"I took a quick swipe at the monitor power switch while she scampered around the back and pulled the plug. Whew! No more smoke or flames. Good thing it happened before we left -- it might have been embarrassing to be the cause of burning down the new science wing."

But now there's a new problem: Fish's aunt has work she'd hoped to get done before New Year's. If she has to wait until the tech guys get back after the holiday, she'll be a week behind.

Fortunately, she remembers that there's a pile of old computer equipment sitting on the loading dock, waiting for disposal.

A short run down to the dock turns up the equipment, including several monitors that appear to be better than her old one -- even before it was fried. "There were no obvious defects on most of them, so we piled a couple candidates onto a cart and went back up to the office," says fish.

"The first one off the cart worked just fine. It was a larger screen and supported a higher resolution than the original one.

"She kept using that 'junk heap' monitor for more than a year until it was her turn to have her PC upgraded in the normal rotation."

Sharky says: Kids! Don't try this while you're home! Just drink your eggnog and send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. I'll send you a high-resolution Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

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