Backbytes

If you?re not busy on 14 January, and would like to sample the glamorous world of the British Computer Society, then why not pop down to its South West branch meeting on ?The Myths, Anecdotes and Realities of Building a PC.? If that?s not enough of a draw for you, then the venue might be: the event is to be held at Exeter Granada Motorway Services.

Wintel who?
This is a public service announcement for the person who called the Computing newsdesk hoping to obtain the phone number of the company called ?Wintel?: if you want to call back, we can tell you why you couldn?t find the number. And we promise not to laugh.

Mighty Colossus
Talking of Wintel, Backbytes recently visited Bletchley Park to see the re-creation of Colossus, the world?s first computer. It was used to decode Nazi signal traffic in World War II. Curiously, we understand that its builders recently ran a test against a Pentium II PC to see which could decode signals faster.

IT twaddle
It wouldn?t be a proper week on the Backbytes newsdesk without at least one group of IT consultants talking complete rubbish. This week we have a bumper crop. Staff at EDS? Rolls-Royce outsourcing centre in Derby sport stylish pig-shaped cuff-links. Are they modelled on the plucky little porker in Babe? Not quite. They?re based on EDS? audio-visual presentation which asks: ?What?s the difference between the contribution a chicken and a pig make to your breakfast?? Answer: ?The chicken contributes then naffs off, but the pigs are totally committed.? Laugh? We nearly did. Meanwhile, SAP has been placing ads in the FT risibly claiming R/3 is ?Einstein?s next of kin?. Shut up! You?re giving us a headache.

Backward step
To Tel Aviv, the scene of a recent Informix user conference. Oracle decided to run a spoiler press advertisement, telling Informix customers that there is a migration path from Informix to Oracle. The ad was in Hebrew. However, the bright spark at Oracle who composed the ad forgot that Hebrew reads from right to left. Accordingly, the ad instructs users to migrate These days, that?s something of a novel option, we think.

Low tactics
We much enjoyed the revelation in the recently published Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders that highly strung former chief executive Michael Spindler was sometimes to be found hiding under his desk. On reflection, you see his point. Das ist correct German police crime reports are no longer to be allowed references to ?Slavic? or ?negroid? looks. The ruling is in response to a complaint from a German church group which claimed computer reports ?were using concepts that evoked Nazi racial ideology?. But Bavarian police refuse to co-operate, insisting on the freedom, now denied to other regions, to describe the appearance of female suspects? breasts.

Case for treatment
Seven children have been taken into care because their parents are hooked on the Internet. ?The Internet took over and family life just disintegrated,? said a neighbour. This week a Reuters survey showed that almost half of computer users say that if information was classified as a drug, they would know an addict, and 54% get a high when they find the right data. It?s not surprising that Reuters is interested in information addicts: it?s one of the world?s biggest pushers.

I say, I say, I say
What?s the difference between an IT director and his computer? Answer: You only have to punch information into a computer once.