In response to the recently very popular Upgrading Girlfriend 1.0 joke (it’s had hundreds of hits from a forum in Australia over the last two weeks) the following came through on the email – via my Mother-in-Law!

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs such as; Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs , such as NHL 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.

The response…

DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, D0 NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

In addition, please do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!
Tech Support

UPDATE (Mar 10): A reponse joke has been posted at Installing Husband 1.0.

Not sure I’ll make a habit of posting jokes but this one made me chuckle (curtosy of GetFrank.co.nz)

Dear Tech Support, I need your computer advice as a friend is having trouble with his system.

Last year he upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from Drinking Mates 4.2 which he’d used for years without trouble.

However, apparently there are conflicts between these two systems, the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend with the sound turned off, but to make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as; Lads Night Out 3.1,Golf 2 and Playboy 6.0.

Successive versions of Girlfriend proved no better, Girlfriend 3.0 has many Bugs and left a virus in his system, forcing him to shut down completely for several weeks.

Eventually he tried installing Girlfriend 2.1 as well as Girlfriend 1.0 only to discover when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to all his hardware. Sensing a way out, he upgraded to Fiancee. 1.0 only to discover to his dismay that this system requires rapid upgrading to Wife 1.0. However, whilst Wife 1.0 uses up all available resources it does come bundled with FreeSexPlus and Cleanhouse 2000.

But imagine my friends disappointment on discovering that not only can Wife 1.0 be unstable and costly to maintain, but also that any mistakes he makes are automatically stored in Wife 1.0 Hardrive and can not be deleted. They then re-surface months later .

Wife 1.0 also has an automatic InterDiary Explorer and E-mail Porn Filter, and automatically runs UltraSTROP and WINGE.zip. No option on the Help menu seems to work, leaving him to try and guess the fault himself.

The system footprint needs updating regularly requiring Shoeshop browserPro for new attachments – Hairstyle express needs to be reinstalled every week. It also refused some of the new Games and attachments he wanted to try, stating they are an Illegal operation.

When Wife 1.0 attaches itself to Car 1.0 it often crashes or runs the system dry. Wife 1.0 also has a rather annoying pop-up called Mother-in-Law, which can’t be turned off. Recently he’s been tempted to try Mistress Millennium add-on, but we have heard there could be problems.

If wife 1.0 detects the presence of mistress 2000, it will delete all MS Money files before un-installing itself.

Is this a common problem?

Guaranteed to make any geek’s heart all a flutter was the article in Gizmodo this morning on Data Center Cabling Masterpieces

After a little reading it appears there are plenty of stories out there dedicated to the “art” of cable management. More here at Pingdom.com.

All of a sudden I feel decidedly inadequate in my own attempts.