VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a joint press conference in St. Peter’s Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.

With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company’s new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.

“We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years,” said Gates. “The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people.”

Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company’s new on-line service, “we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time” and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. “You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution — even reduce your time in Purgatory — all without leaving your home.”

A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.

An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter’s Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello — in character as Father Guido Sarducci — hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide.

Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, “Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats,” the crowd roared, but the pontiff’s smile seemed strained.

The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican’s prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors’ access to these key intellectual properties.

“The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures,” said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. “You take the parting of the Red Sea — we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene.”

But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. “The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience,” notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.

Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it.

Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church’s mission is to reach “the four corners of the earth,” echoing MICROSOFT’s vision of “a computer on every desktop and in every home”.

Gates described MICROSOFT’s long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired — “One religion, a couple of different implementations,” said Gates.

The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.

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�WinErr: 002 No Error – Yet
�WinErr: 003 Dynamic linking error – Your mistake is now in every file
�WinErr: 004 Erronious error – Nothing is wrong
�WinErr: 005 Multitasking attempted – System confused
�WinErr: 006 Malicious error – Desqview found on drive
�WinErr: 007 System price error – Inadeqaute money spent on hardware
�WinErr: 008 Broken window – Watch out for glass fragments
�WinErr: 009 Horrible bug encountered – God knows what has happened
�WinErr: 00A Promotional literature overflow – Mailbox full
�WinErr: 00B Inadeqaute disk space – Free at least 50MB
�WinErr: 00C Memory hog error – More Ram needed. More! More! More!
�WinErr: 00D Window closed – Do not look outside
�WinErr: 00E Window open – Do not look inside
�WinErr: 00F Unexplained error – Please tell us how this happened
�WinErr: 010 Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
�WinErr: 013 Unexpected error – Huh?
�WinErr: 014 Keyboard locked – Try anything you can think of.
�WinErr: 018 Unrecoverable error – System has been destroyed. Buy a new one. Old windows licence is not valid anymore.
�WinErr: 019 User error – Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!
�WinErr: 01A Operating system overwritten – Please reinstall all your
software. We are terribly sorry.
�WinErr: 01B Illegal error – You are not allowed to get this error. Next time you will get a penalty for that
�WinErr: 01C Uncertainty error – Uncertainty may be inadeqaute.
�WinErr: 01D System crash – We are unable to figure out our own code.
�WinErr: 01E Timing error – Please wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.
�WinErr: 01F Reserved for future mistakes of our developers
�WinErr: 020 Error recording error codes – Remaining errors will be lost.
�WinErr: 042 Virus error – A virus has been activated in a dos-box. The virus, however, requires Windows. All tasks will automaticly be closed and the virus will be activated again.
�WinErr: 079 Mouse not found – A mouse driver has not been installed.
Please click the left mouse button to continue.
�WinErr: 103 Error buffer overflow – Too many errors encountered. Next errors will not be displayed or recorded.
�WinErr: 678 This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?
�WinErr: 683 Time out error – Operator fell asleep while waiting for the system to complete boot procedure
�WinErr: 815 Insufficient Memory – Only 50,312,583 Bytes available

Never leave diskettes in the disk drive, as data can leak out of the disk and corrode the inner mechanics of the drive. Diskettes should be rolled up and stored in pencil holders.

Diskettes should be cleaned and waxed once a week. Microscopic metal particles can be removed by waving a powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn metallic shavings can be removed with scouring powder and soap. When waxing the diskettes, make sure the surface is even. This will allow the diskette to spin faster, resulting in better access time.

Do not fold diskettes unless they do not fit into the drive. “Big” diskettes may be folded and used in “little” disk drives.

Never insert a diskette into the drive upside down. The data can fall off the surface of the disk and jam the intricate mechanics of the drive.

Diskettes cannot be backed up by running them through the Xerox machine. If your data is going to need to be backed up, simply insert two diskettes into the drive. Whenever you update a document, the data will be written on both diskettes.

Diskettes should not be inserted or removed from the drive while the red light is flashing. Doing so could result in smeared or possibly unreadable text. Occasionally the red light remains flashing in what is known as a “hung” or “hooked” state. If your system is “hooking” you will probably need to
insert a few coins before being allowed access to the slot.

If your diskette is full and you need more storage space, remove the disk from the drive and shake vigorously for 2 minutes. This will pack the data enough (Data Compression) to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all the openings with scotch tape to prevent loss data.

Access time can be greatly improved by cutting more holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more simultaneous access points to the disk.

Diskettes may be used as coasters for beverage glasses, provided that they are properly waxed beforehand. Be sure to wipe the diskettes dry before using. (see item 2 above)

Never use scissors and glue to manually edit documents. The data is stored much too small for the naked eye, and you may end up with data from some other document stuck in the middle of your document. Razor blades and scotch tape may be used, however, provided the user is equipped with an electron microscope.

Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent system bugs from spreading.

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty’s address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can’t because there isn’t one typewriter in your house — only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as “friends,” but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers — and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers’ questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase “digital compression” in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase “digital compression.” Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don’t have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates’ e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying “phone number” and replace it with “voice number,” since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot’s phrase “electronic town hall” makes more sense than the term “information superhighway,” but you don’t because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it’s okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an “intriguing” fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say “I don’t know” when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better — the track ball or the track *pad*.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don’t use a laptop.

Top Ten Signs You are an Internet Geek…

10. When filling out your driver’s license application you give your IP address.

9. You no longer ask prospective dates what their sign is, instead your line is “Hi, what’s your URL?”

8. Instead of calling you to dinner, your spouse sends e-mail.

7. You’re amazed to find out spam is a food.

6. You “ping” people to see if they’re awake, “finger” them to find out how they are, and “AYT” them to make sure they’re listening to you.

5. You search the Net endlessly hoping to win every silly free T-shirt contest.

4. You introduce your wife as “my [email protected]” and refer to your children as “client applications”.

3. At social functions you introduce your husband as “my domain server”.

2. After winning the office super bowl pool you blurt out, “I feel so “colon-right parentheses!”

And the number one sign you are an Internet Geek:

1. Two Words: “Pizza’s Here!”