IT sits in on a vendor's presentation about the features of an upcoming product release. "At the end of the presentation, the floor was opened for questions," says IT. "The vendor was asked whether a bug in the integration with another of the vendor's products had been fixed." That integration isn't officially supported, the rep reports -- meaning it may or may not work. Hedging his bets, the rep described how it should work and then summarized his comments: "Since it was never tested, it's not a bug."

Bad

Of the packaged software installed on PCs worldwide in 2005 35 percent was pirated, the same percentage as in 2004, according to a study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Global losses from software piracy, however, rose by US$1.6 billion, to US$34 billion. Countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam and Zimbabwe at 90 percent each and Indonesia at 87 percent.

ANZ double-charged 200,000 non-ANZ customers to the tune of A$45 million (US$34.1 million), after a computer glitch duplicated 400,000 MasterCard transactions. The glitch affected non-ANZ customers who had used MasterCard credit cards on ANZ Eftpos machines between May 12 and 15, 2006. ANZ spokesperson Paul Edwards said the glitch was caused by human error during a routine maintenance check. Edwards said the mistake had been corrected and refunds issued with appropriate interest.

Ugly