Product Jokes / Recent Jokes

Redmond, WA - Microsoft Corporation chair, CEO and all-around babe magnet Bill Gates announced yesterday the introduction of a new product for Windows 95: Microsoft Panhandling."The idea came to me the other day when a homeless man asked me for money," recalls Gates. "I suddenly realized that we were missing a golden opportunity. Here was a chance to make a profit without any initial monetary investment. Naturally, this man then became my competition, so I had my limo driver run over him several times."Microsoft engineers have been working around the clock to complete Gates' vision of panhandling for the 21st century."We feel that our program designers really understand how the poor and needy situation works," says Microsoft Homeless product leader Bernard Liu. "Except for the fact that they're stinking rich."Microsoft Panhandling will be automatically installed with Windows 95. At random intervals, a dialog box pops up, asking the user if they more...

Redmond, WA - Microsoft Corporation chair, CEO and all-around babe
magnet Bill Gates announced yesterday the introduction of a new product
for Windows 95: Microsoft Panhandling.
"The idea came to me the other day when a homeless man asked me for
money," recalls Gates. "I suddenly realized that we were missing a golden
opportunity. Here was a chance to make a profit without any initial
monetary investment. Naturally, this man then became my competition, so I
had my limo driver run over him several times."
Microsoft engineers have been working around the clock to complete Gates'
vision of panhandling for the 21st century.
"We feel that our program designers really understand how the poor and
needy situation works," says Microsoft Homeless product leader Bernard Liu.
"Except for the fact that they're stinking rich."
Microsoft Panhandling will be automatically installed with Windows 95. more...

The software engineering community has been placing a great deal of
emphasis lately on metrics and their use in software development. The
following metrics are probably among the most valuable for a software
project:
The Pizza Metric
How: Count the number of pizza boxes in the lab.
What: Measures the amount of schedule under-estimation.
If people are spending enough after-hours time
working on the project that they need to have
meals delivered to the office, then there has
obviously been a mis-estimation somewhere.
The Aspirin Metric
How: Maintain a centrally-located aspirin bottle for use
by the team. At the beginning and end of each month,
count the number of aspirin remaining aspirin in the
bottle.
What: Measures stress suffered by the team during the project.
This most likely indicates poor project design in the
early phases, which causes over-expenditure of effort
later on. In the early phases, high more...

WARNING: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance Between Them.
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.
CAUTION: This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles Per Hour.
CONSUMER NOTICE: Because of the "Uncertainty Principle," It Is Impossible for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving.
ADVISORY: There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a Process Know as "Tunneling," This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Random Place in the Universe, Including Your Neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer more...

REDMOND, WASHINGTON - In an effort to dispell confusion surrounding Microsoft's upcoming new version of Windows, Microsoft annouced today that it would rename the upgrade - formerly known as Windows 95 - to WinEver.
"There seemed to be a great deal of anxiety about when the product would ship. We felt it was in the best interest of our users to free them from this anxiety," said a Microsoft spokesperson who requested to remain anonymous.
Industry analysts were quick to praise the decision. "WinEver will free Windows users from space and time constraints. It also gives Windows a new timeless quality", said a member of Ziff-Davis Publishing's Editorial Staff. "This is precisely why OS/2 is failing in the marketplace - they have failed to deliver a strategy for their product."
When asked when WinEver would be available, a Microsoft spokesperson said "Whenever." The spokesperson added "It really doesn't matter since WinEver is more...

WOMBAT:
Stands for "Waste of Money, Brains and Time". Suitable for describing a person, product or project.
Code 18:
An error made by the user. Refers to the 18 inches that separate a user's face from the computer display.
Lasagna Syndrome:
Writing a piece of software with so many overlapping dialog boxes that it's nearly impossible to complete a task.
Nerd Bird:
Any weekday direct airline flight between another U.S. city and San Jose, California. These flights are typically over-populated with engineers and technical types, so a good amount of job seeking and rumor-milling occurs during each run.
Waldo:
A demo given with great showmanship for a product with little innovation or creativity.
Booth Bunny:
The attractive women staffing the booths at tradeshows that do not work for the main company represented and have no technical knowledge whatsoever.
Triority:
The three things your manager would have you do at once.
I/O more...

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren`t really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn`t work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. Repeat three times steps 3 and 4.
6. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
7. Users find 137 new bugs.
8. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
9. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
10. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
11. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
12. New CEO is more...