Ten New Email Acronyms

AABLAAUJA – About As Likely As A Useful Java Applet.

Example usage:

He came straight out with it: 'your cheque is in the post'. AABLAAUJA!

ARBIEA – A Rotten Bill In Every Apple

Example usage:

I used to think that Sun was an independent company, but these days you have to remember there's ARBIEA.

BWRCTPAM – Back When RAM Cost Ten Pounds A Meg

Example usage:

Haven't seen a hairdo like that since BWRCTPAM.

IMFTBHO – In My Friend Tony Blair’s Humble Opinion

Example usage:

You might think it's unfair but IMFTBHO it's a very generous deal.

ITMA – Information Technology Management Association

Example usage:

Good morning. I am your ITMA representative. Can I do you now, sir?

IWSOCFW – I Was Switching Off Channel Five When

Example usage:

IWSOCFW something rather good caught my eye. It was my reflection in the tube.

OBTACC – Overtaken By The ANSI C++ Committee

Example usage:

It has to be said this old 486 is not fast. In fact it's so slow it’s completely OBTACC.

ROFL – Rictus Of Fake Laughter

Example usage:

> They should be called Tarty Spice, Stupid Spice, Old Spice, Outer Spice and Spice O'Life ;-)

ROFL!

TLMBBO – The Last Memphis Beta But One

Example usage:

Nah – not since TLMBBO! Who wants Java support anyway?

WMFTBS – What My Friend Tony Blair Says

Example usage:

The DOS version is good enough? *You* might think that, but that's not WMFTBS.

Ten Email Message Subjects Calculated To Make The Heart Sink

Thank you for visiting the Inland Revenue website

Re: Your

Ever thought about retraining as a programmer?

Important! Your virus checker software has nearly expired

HotWired Says Hello Again

Fwd: Fwd: Re: FW Re: Fwd - Reply – Reply

THIS IS NOT A SPAM

== No Subject ==

Get out your PowerPoint!

New light bulb jokes (8) ...

Ten Great New Emoticons

Notice how all the following emoticons are achieved with three or fewer punctuation characters. After seeing these, you will never want to use a dull old ‘smiley’ again. VS.

Improved ‘happy smile’, with contact lenses

Swarm of bees

Chelmsford bypass, eastern approach

Robin Cook’s ‘Come hither’ smouldering glance

Shetland pony, limping on front left

‘You did say that pump was guaranteed’ mused the builder

nude vicar (male)

Quake troll monster

nude vicar (female)

Careful Dodi it’s stuck she breathed

(Editor’s note. In the above section we appear to have been struck once more by our typesetters’ famous intermittent inability to set certain punctuation characters. We apologise for this problem, and hope that it has not in any way spoiled your enjoyment of Ms Stob’s ingenious and amusing emoticons.)

Ten pieces of advice one might give to an annoying Net neophyte

Be sure to create your own website. Not only is it a fun way to while away the evenings, but everybody on the Internet will come and look at it and you will be famous.

No, of course there’s no stigma attached to CompuServe or AOL accounts.

Be sure to cross-post to all the newsgroups that might be relevant – it’s the only way to make yourself heard.

Those new models are really great – they always connect at 56 K.

It’s always a good idea to download the latest betas of the big browser packages.

And be sure, when you create your own website, to include a photograph of yourself.

Use ‘Net phone’ systems to cut down on your telephone bills.

If you find these graphical tools too hard to understand, switch to simpler text-based ones. Like sendmail.

And you’ll find Linux makes a splendid cheap and cheerful OS on which to use them.

Always download the contents of all the Usenet newsgroups. Otherwise you may miss something important.

Ten Net Sayings and Proverbs

One GIF, Two GIFs, Three GIFs, Four – B*ggered if I’m sitting here waiting any more.

A wise man runs a quiet modem during working hours

URLs’ Court (a trendy nickname for the World Wide Web).

Half of Usenet is pouring scorn, the other half is doing the opposite.

Sounding the last Trumpet. (Of someone who persists in using Windows 3.1, and is therefore obliged to continue to use a shareware TCP/IP stack.)

Cache in hand pays for many a slow link.

If you can’t use words, use MIME

No ping to Redmond means ‘slow Transatlantic’.No ping to Tucows: tech support frantic.

No ping to Docklands: major Internet brownout.No ping to ISP: InterNic’s pulled the plug out.

As useful as two-month-old milk, but not as tasty. (To describe a 9 MB file which is the remnant of an attempt to ftp a 10 MB .EXE over an unreliable slow link.)

A rotten Bill in every Apple (Hey! You’ve had that already! Be off with you – Ed)