Mr. Computer opens his letter bag

Originally published 10 February 1997

Dear Mr. Computer,

My hus­band Ver­non stays up late every night, some­times til 3 or 4 in the morn­ing, “cruis­ing the infor­ma­tion high­way,” as he calls it. What’s he going to do with all that infor­ma­tion? He cer­tain­ly does­n’t seem any bet­ter informed to me.

Deb­bie B., Dorchester

Dear Deb­bie,

The first thing you should know is this: The infor­ma­tion super­high­way runs through some seamy parts of town. Ver­non is using those late-night ses­sions for a bit of cyber han­ky-panky. His noc­tur­nal habits are prob­a­bly harm­less unless they start inter­fer­ing with his day job. What your boy needs is less cruis­ing and more snoozing.

Dear Mr. Computer,

What’s this I hear about the “Mil­len­ni­um Bug”? Will all com­put­ers real­ly blow up in the year 2000? How can I pro­tect my machine?

Jack M., Attleboro

Dear Jack,

The prob­lem you’ve heard about has to do with the way num­bers rep­re­sent­ing years are stored in com­put­ers. Most machines store only the last two dig­its of the year, and assume the first dig­its are “19”. There­fore, when the year 2000 rolls around, many com­put­ers will assume it is the year 1900 and act accord­ing­ly. Experts pre­dict busi­ness chaos unless the bug is fixed, and they set the price of the fix in the tens of bil­lions of dol­lars. It may be cheap­er to do the 20th cen­tu­ry all over again.

Dear Mr. Computer,

For the past 12 months I have been telecom­mut­ing to my job, doing all of my work out of my house. I bank by com­put­er, shop by com­put­er. I’m even hav­ing a tel­ere­la­tion­ship with a nice man named Ver­non that I met in a chat room. It seems I nev­er get out of the house any more. Can this be good for me?

Hele­na B., Ipswich

Dear Hele­na,

No, it’s not good for you. Every­one should have some con­tact with the out­side world. I would sug­gest a nice screen-saver from the col­lec­tion mar­ket­ed by Dig­i­Na­ture. You can select pic­tures of moun­tains, seashore, a for­est, pop­py fields, and so on. You can even have your com­put­er auto­mat­i­cal­ly cycle through the col­lec­tion. You might also con­sid­er a sun lamp.

Dear Mr. Computer,

Junk e‑mail is becom­ing a real prob­lem. Every day my elec­tron­ic mail­box is crammed with com­mer­cial solic­i­ta­tions of one sort or anoth­er. How can I keep these sleaze­bag mar­keters out of my computer?

Horace S., Weston

Dear Horace,

Your ques­tion strikes me as vague­ly un-Amer­i­can. After all, it is adver­tis­ing that made this coun­try great. You’ve got­ten used to com­mer­cials on radio, tele­vi­sion, tele­phone, and fax; you’ll get used to junk e‑mail too. Mean­while, why don’t you scan some of that “junk” mail. You’ll prob­a­bly find an adver­tise­ment for a prod­uct that will help you block unso­licit­ed elec­tron­ic solic­i­ta­tions. Is this a great coun­try or what?

Dear Mr. Computer,

Two years ago I wrote to you about my crush on Bill Gates, the chair­man of Microsoft. I still can’t get him out of my mind. My let­ters return unopened. My e‑mail mes­sages to Bill dis­ap­pear into the void. How can I get him to pay attention?

Cindy Y., Stoughton

Dear Cindy,

I am afraid you are suf­fer­ing a painful delu­sion. Bill Gates is not a real per­son. He is a com­pa­ny mas­cot, like the Pills­bury Dough­boy, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and the Kee­bler Elf. The boy­ish, bespec­ta­cled “rich­est-man-in-the-world” was cre­at­ed for Microsoft by an adver­tis­ing agency as part of a $100 mil­lion cam­paign to give the mam­moth soft­ware firm a human face.

Dear Mr. Computer,

I am con­sid­er­ing buy­ing a dig­i­tal cam­era. The idea of being able to orga­nize and dis­play my snap­shots on the com­put­er appeals to me. Is this a good idea?

Char­lotte W., West Roxbury

Dear Char­lotte,

Dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy has lots of advan­tages, and ease of orga­ni­za­tion and dis­play are two of them. But don’t over­look the real advan­tage of the dig­i­tal medi­um: You can give the cam­era a help­ing hand. With a soft­ware pack­age such as Per­fec­tU from Cyber­Soft, edit­ing your per­son­al pho­tos is a snap. The menu offers options such as “Remove Pounds,” “Erase Wrin­kles,” “Enhance Bosoms,” and “Add Hair.” A click of the mouse is all it takes to be the per­son you you want to be.

Dear Mr. Computer,

Help! I’m a col­lege stu­dent addict­ed to the Inter­net. I’m on-line 20 hours a day, min­i­mum! I skip class­es. Miss meals. Go with­out sleep. I have no social life. My friends have left me. I’m flunk­ing my cours­es. I’ve got the cyber­shakes. My fin­gers twitch invol­un­tar­i­ly. I need help fast.

Evan, North Easton

Dear Evan,

I get lots of let­ters from kids like you. The sit­u­a­tion is going to get worse before it gets bet­ter. More and more col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties are spend­ing big bucks to pro­vide every dor­mi­to­ry room with an Inter­net con­nec­tion. Cam­pus coun­sel­ing offices report sky­rock­et­ing cas­es of what they call IAD (Inter­net Addic­tion Dis­or­der), more than they can cur­rent­ly han­dle. Your best bet is to find an on-line sup­port group.