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!AUTH 106899!6 Feb 1996 13:44:49 (#3934) Jacob W. Haller
 
Are you trying to be funny?                   (ST102315)

So I was working phone, and a woman called up. We had the following dialogue:

SHE: I'm trying to put Excel 5 on my hard drive, and it gets part of the way through but then says that I don't have enough space. What can I do?

I: Well, it's telling you that you don't have enough hard drive space. You'll have to get rid of some stuff on your hard drive to make space.

SHE: Oh. There's nothing else I can do?

I: No.

SHE: OK, thanks.

Fair enough. But then, ten minutes later, she called back:
SHE: Hi. I got rid of Excel 4, but it still says there isn't enough space.

I: OK. Well, you can find out how much disk space is available on your hard drive by (blah, blah), and somewhere on the box or in the Excel 5 manual it should say how much disk space Excel needs.

SHE: But I'm installing it off of the Applications Server; I don't have the manual.

I: Even better. Somewhere in the Excel 5 folder on the Applications Server, there should be a file called "Read Me" or something like that that tells you how much disk space Excel needs.

SHE: OK, thanks. Do you think I'll have to throw away something big?

I: I don't know. But what you can do is, take the amount of space that Excel needs, and subtract the amount of space that's left on the hard drive, and that will tell you how much stuff you need to get rid of.

SHE: OK, thanks.

As one of my friends said upon hearing this story, "Ah, subtraction: Addition's tricky friend." But the real punchline is:

My current theory is that she never bothered emptying the trash.

-jwgh

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