Spring is rapidly approaching, and in lieu of that we are introducing ‘Tales from the Trails’ – a way for us to bring a little levity to our friend’s worlds.  

We have a client with an HP Touchscreen all-in-one PC.  (All-in-one just means the computer and monitor are combined into one.)  The touchscreen and all-in-one are becoming more popular.  Her thought when she bought it was,  ”How cool!”  It’s got all the stuff in one piece of equipment so there’re far less wires and you can just touch the screen where you want it to go to.  Perfect for a family PC that sits in the kitchen.

Little did she know that during the night, when all her family (and even the computer!) had gone to sleep, the creatures of the night would venture forth and be attracted to the little glowing light on the monitor.  And by creatures of the night she meant bugs.  Reliably, one of the bugs would hit the screen in just the right place and the monitor would spring back to life.  Bright and shiny it was a beacon for all the other bugs to come join the party!  And so they did.  When they found the computer in the morning, almost every single program on the machine had been launched, icons were moved, windows resized.  Her YOOEY had been completely vandalized!  She didn’t say whether they’d managed to print anything  – but even that wouldn’t be the worst part.  Some of those bugs would hit the screen pretty hard (and remember this is a touchscreen…)  So when those bugs hit, they’d leave a nice juicy smear on the screen before their carcass would drop to the desktop below.  Imagine touching your fingers to a screen full of June bug juice…. Yuck.

She did double-check and there was no mention of this “feature” in the user manual. And, technically, it is only a tragic flaw for the HP Touchscreen if you forget to close the screen door this summer!