Thanks for joining us on another episode of When The Internet Attacks!. Today, we're going to focus on some stupid error messages I've found recently while doing work for Rogue Amoeba. It's a picture-packed episode, and I think you'll particularly enjoy the last one.

Error #1: iTunes

This useless little error appeared one day when I launched iTunes. When I clicked OK, the application then quits. That's great guys, that's just perfect. I'm pretty knowledgeable with computers, and I still had to work to figure out how to fix this. Clicking OK sure didn't do it. This is sort of like if you turned the key to turn on your car, and it just said "I'm broken" and then did nothing. Not very helpful, eh?

Error #2: EarthLink SpamBlocker

The next error message comes from Earthlink, who has spam filtering that users can turn on. When turned on, any time a message is received from someone not in the user's address book, they're required to verify that they aren't spamming. So, when Rogue Amoeba sends an email, I often receive an email telling me to follow a link to verify the mail. That's fine, if annoying. However, instead of a "Message Approved" message, sometimes I get this.

What. The. Hell! How is this helpful? It says, in brief, that my message either:

1) Expired
2) Was accepted
or
3) Was rejected.

So I should resend my message? If it was spam, I wouldn't be checking this. And yet, I have no way of knowing if they never saw it (and I should send it again), if they saw it and don't want it (so I probably shouldn't resend it) or if they saw it and have already read it (so I definitely don't need to resend it). Most likely, I DON'T need to resend it, and yet that's just what they tell me to do. That's more work for me, and more work for the recipient.

Error #3: JavaScript

Now we come to my personal favorite, a ludicrous little message from a web site. I wish I remember where I got this one, but really. it doesn't probably matter. With web developers this stupid, I'd bet the site is out of business by now. I'm not going to bother explaining the joke to death here (though I would like to point out the stupid title of this error, as seen in bold). Gaze ye now in horror!

That's so terrible, it's all the way back around to great again. But then it continues back around to terrible. I need to end the show, because I'm a little nauseated just looking at that error. For the rest of you, you'll find airsick bags in the seatback in front of you. Once you've washed up, we hope you'll join us next time on When The Internet Attacks!.