PC SQUEALER - CHANNEL TALK

One-stop cop out

Before we get under way with this week's light-hearted mickey taking, PC Squealer has one question for all you channelers out there - what is a 'one-stop shop'? Gone are the days when your average vendor would babble on about its next product 'shifting paradigms' or providing us with 'better answers', as promised by Compaq. Better answers to what? Anyway, if any of you knowledgeable channel types out there can fill PC Squealer in, we'd love to know just what it is you can buy at a 'one-stop shop'. Or maybe it's just vendors making up a load of pap to sell their products. Nothing would surprise us.

Technician, heal thyself

Ever had a junkie on your computer? Don't worry, we're not talking about any coke-fuelled Christmas party shananikins, but rather a nasty little virus which features in a well known antivirus vendor's top 10 of PC infectants which can play havoc with your hard drive. Coming in as a new entry at number nine is that pesky bug Empire.Monkey, which we're told screws up your boot sector like nobody's business. But hitting the top spot at number one is Autostart.9805, which, as the most dangerous virus, gets right up your Macintosh Worm - whatever that means. The company in question would probably like PC Squealer to mention that it's on hand all the time to deal with these nasty things that get inside your computer. But as the Rolling Stones once sang: 'You can't always get what you want.'

Cheesed off

All hail to the king of wit, NDS, which kindly sent us this lovely photo of 'digital cheese'. That's right, le fromage est digital, which you can tell by those square holes where round shapes should be. NDS tells us that, in the digital age, all things are possible - which would therefore include, if this photo is anything to go by, cloning, additive-sodden food and genetic engineering.

Thank goodness for technology then.

Horsin' around

Talking of techy things with stupid names, Commslogic has taken upon itself to warn everyone about Trojan horses. But don't be alarmed, Trojan has nothing to do with those cheap-looking condoms you used to buy from the chemist when you were 16 in the hope of getting lucky. Instead, a Trojan horse, named after the wooden gee-gee the Greeks used to try to get into Troy, is a software application that pretends to be something it's not - like all the promises vendors make when they're forcing you to buy #1 million worth of products. These pesky horses attach themselves to an email or Website and just when you access it, your hard drive gets erased. This 'malware' (malicious software) is a bugger to pick up on, so it's like playing Russian roulette with your computer. So, in future, be careful where you're pointing your mouse.

Stormy weather

With nothing better to do than to wave her elongated fingers around in front of a blue screen poking at clouds, everyone's favourite weather woman, Sian Lloyd, has made friends with Phillips. Our Sian has taken the time to lend her experience to Phillips' Palm PC computer, which is tastefully named Nino after that well-known meteorological disaster El Nino. In case you missed El Nino, which roughly translates as 'the Christ child', this particular storm was responsible for death and destruction in America, specifically North Carolina. Not only did hundreds of people have their homes and businesses wiped out, but many casualties and fatalities occurred. So next time Phillips is thinking of naming a product, maybe it could think along the lines of cyclone, volcano eruption or anthrax.

Loaded with meaning

Apparently, Michael Schumacher and the success of the Ferrari team in the British, French and Argentinian Grand Prix is all down to one lil' ol' company called Platform. So wonderful is Platform that the Ferrari racing team saw fit to implement Load Sharing Facility (that's LSF to you and me) to fiddle about with car simulations and some other type of mechanical technology thingy. The Ferrari team are so impressed and grateful to Platform for helping its star driver to reach that chequered flag before all the other testosterone-driven ejits, that it's going to extend LSF to its vehicle engineering division. Isn't it lucky that Ferrari showed its faith in LSF or PC Squealer might have thought Platform was full of it's own self importance.

What goes up

Prizes for the most ridiculous attempt by a company to get itself noticed goes to ViewSonic which thought it would be a simply capital idea to launch a gigantic air balloon in the shape of a monitor due to the release of - wait for it - its gigantic monitor. The balloon, which took a mind-numbing 2,000 hours to make, used the equivalent of 32 football pitches worth of tear-proof fabric. Just think of all the curtains you could make with that. Anyway, the huge wind-bag made its debut in the UK this month and is going to be flying all around the world to 'increase awareness of America's top selling (says who?) monitor company and reinforce the company's branding'.

Now, call PC Squealer old fashioned, but what happened to sending out a few mail shots?

Mulder and Scaredy cat

X-Files star Gillian Anderson, who plays Scully in the TV series for geeks, recently made an appearance in the UK to promote some CD-Roms.

Just in case you don't know who Scully is, she's the one who at the start of every episode of The X-files, is told about some weird occurrence by her partner Mulder and, although she doesn't believe him at first, all sorts of unexplained things begin to happen until cynical Scully ain't so sure anymore. This happens in every single bloody episode so you're not missing much. Meanwhile, back at the launch, Gillian told the crowds of spotty schoolboys and social misfits that she, too, used to have a love of computer games. Her favourite's included Tetris, Tortured Souls and Myst, but Gillian said she was careful not to get too involved in the games. She said: 'I'm terrified of delving into some other reality that I'm not able to come out of and forgetting I'm a mother with responsibilities in my life.' Lighten up Scully, for Christ's sake.

Loose talk

During a phone interview with the esteemed Evesham Micros representative Carolyn Worth, there were a number of confusing asides, including: 'stick it through there', 'it'll come apart really easily', 'oh God, take the knobs off' and 'give it a good bang'. Was she taking about a) an Evesham PC, b) the state of the industry, or c) the feared office move? Answers on a postcard, please, to the usual address.