A new generation of CPUs has arrived, and users are screaming for the latest and greatest. "The users got wind of the new, fast machines and inundated us with requests, says IT who has to deal with the demand without an upgrade budget to meet it. "I soon realized the end users had no idea what they were asking for when I was giving them a 'new' PC as an upgrade after retrieving the 'old' PC. "I take the old PC back to the shop, add a sound card, replace the floppy with a CD-ROM, defrag the hard drive and then wait for the next 'critical' upgrade request." And his shell game works. The upgraded users are delighted with their, um, vastly improved machines -- so happy that they thank IT's boss by taking him to lunch. Boss returns from his free lunch furious and immediately calls IT. Why have you been handing out so many high-end PCs without my authorization? he asks. "I informed him of the scam and explained that the upgrades were merely the multimedia kits he had ordered to upgrade the old PCs with," IT says.

Bad

Remote office can't access the system at headquarters one day, so head office IT tests the remote equipment. "Neither the router nor the CSU/DSU, which connects the office LAN to the dedicated circuit, could be looped," says IT, who calls the phone company. Several hours later, telco calls back with the answer: "The smartjack, CSU/DSU, router, dumb terminal and printer were all gone," sighs IT. "Everything had been stolen."

Ugly

Sun Microsystems asked a California court last week to order network-attached processing specialist Azul Systems to stop infringing Sun patents on memory technology, and to order the company to pay damages. The filings in US District Court counters a suit Azul filed in March, asking the court to block just such a move. In March, Azul announced that Sun had threatened to sue it for patent infringement and abuse of trade secrets, and filed suit to prevent Sun from doing so. Now Sun has made good on the alleged threat, asking for a jury trial to consider its claim for damages.