Shark tank: No half measures here

03.04.2006
This user's PC is going haywire. Every time she tries to type, the cursor jumps around the screen. Rebooting doesn't help, and neither does swapping out the keyboard. "She didn't use the mouse much, but I noticed that when I did, the pointer instantly jumped to the end," says troubleshooting pilot fish. "That was when she told me this started after she replaced the wireless mouse's batteries. I then spun the scroll wheel on the mouse and the problem stopped instantly. Turns out she turned it over to install the batteries and left the scroll wheel a half click stuck between two resting spots. The mouse assumed she wanted to scroll down."

It's her!

IT security pilot fish detects an employee accessing pornographic Web sites and calls the user's manager -- it's cause for automatic termination at this company. As usual, fish prints out samples from the site so the manager knows the employee isn't being targeted unfairly. But there's no doubt when the manager sees the pictures: "Yup, that's her," he says. Sighs stunned fish, "The employee was posting pictures of herself on the Web site. So much for pleading, 'I went to this site in error.' "

Rat race

Our optical mice are controlling other users' computers, user tells pilot fish. That can't be, says fish, but user is adamant and finally suggests, "I guess we should have purchased the laser mice instead." Wait, asks fish, is there a wire attached to the mouse? No. Turns out the boss found a sale on wireless optical mice and bought them for five department admins who sit next to each other. Reports fish, "I changed the frequencies of the mice, and the users were very happy."

Shhhh!