Dear Tech Support: I am currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 as my primary application, and all the GirlFriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies will not crash if GirlFriend is run in background mode and the sound is turned off. However, I am embarassed to say I can not find the switch to turn the sound off. I have resorted to running them separately, and it seems to work okay.

GirlFriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf 3.0 program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0 but I thought I might see better proformance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably did not have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right. As soon as I purged my cache, GirlFriend 2.0 uninstalled itself. Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 Beta Version. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus anyway. I had clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSI probe first and installed the virus-protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn’t know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, resulting in the immediate removal of both versions. The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I cannot understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. In addition, I have never liked how GirlFriend is totally object oriented.

A year ago, afriend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriend Plus 1.0, which is a terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriend Plus 1.0 expires within a year if you do not upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space, so he connot load anything else. And although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with a MotherIn-Law, which has an automatic pop-up feature he connot turn off. I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run Mistress 1.0 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete all of your MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress one will not install anyway because of insufficent resources.

Looking for advice on how to sort this all out.

Three engineers are riding in a car: an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car stalls and stops by the side of the road. The three engineers look at each other with bewilderment, wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer, not knowing much about mechanics, suggests, “Let’s strip down the electronics of the car and try to trace where a fault might have occurred.”

The chemical engineer, not knowing much about electronics, suggests, “Maybe the fuel has become emulsified and is causing a blockage somewhere in the system.”

The Microsoft engineer suggests, “Why don’t we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it will work.”

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 mi/gal.”

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: “Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?”

Not only that, but….

Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver wouuld cause your car to stop an fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought “Car95″ or “CarNT”. But, then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
The airbag system would say “are you sure?” before going off.
If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.