Binary stars

BINARY STARS!

Your computer by sun-sign ...

by Rev Pam Crane

Aries

The Jeremy Clarkson of PCs - Likes to go fast! “Let’s burn some tracks!” it whoops! Try Athlon; give it loads of RAM and a quick boot, and you won’t see it for dust. Because some sad loser has nicked it.

Taurus

Slow, utterly reliable - and in PC heaven now that it can spend endless hours (securely) Banking Online or comparing the virtues of Money and Quicken with Bing or Ella in the CD drive.

Gemini

Total net-head, besotted with I.T. Will run up the phone bill of your nightmares until you move to the States. It will drive your car for you. Aspires to the Great Novel. For Christmas, give it woolly comms.

Cancer

‘Forgets’ to empty the Recycle Bin - can’t bear to throw anything away. Needs tucking in at night, cherishes history trails, dreams of a clamshell, and will freak if you ever reject it.

Leo

Demanding beast at home with Quality - fine ports, smooth drives, elegant screens, melodious speakers, rich text, gold card. Long rests essential.

Virgo

A tiny computer, loaded with tools, tweaks, free ISPs and all those helpful, interesting programs off monthly mags. And you’re learning to live with the endless error messages ...

Libra

Looks so appealing, with pretty blue speakers, nice sound, a mike. You have Speech Software on CD and want to talk to her. Unfortunately she only came with a floppy drive ... you’re starting to buy her things!...

Scorpio

What a hard drive! This one is going to put you through hell until you commit yourself body and soul to the Great Research it was created for. Or surrender to Lara Croft.

Sagittarius

Always hungry for more atlases, new languages, bigger Britannica! Won’t wear its case, opens Route-Planner as soon as you’re on the train. Advice: distract it with Web jokes and zip everything in Explorer.

Capricorn

Black, business-like, boring. “Future-proof”; cost you a fortune. Also Very Slow, came with version 1.0111 of a huge office suite and takes all morning to boot. As soon as you find out where it buried your files it’s time to go home.

Aquarius

Adores people! Impossible to log off Freeserve once embroiled in chat - will crash spectacularly rather than do what you want. Bribe with upgrades, give it really wacky science to do and an admiring audience, it’ll be your friend forever. Wants to be a Mac.

Pisces

Survives on fluff, instant coffee, cold tea, cheap wine - not fussy - digestive crumbs; needs a mac. Prefers romantic screensaver to real computing. Faints at databases; faced with a spreadsheet will chuck your life’s work into the Recycle Bin and commit suicide.