User Friendly

For the concept in software engineering, see user-friendliness.

User Friendly is an online daily comic strip about a gang of friends who operate a small Linux-based internet service provider. The strip's humor tends to be centered around technology jokes, and so-called geek humor.

It is drawn and authored by J.D. Frazer, a.k.a. "Illiad". It is considered to be one of the first major webcomics, and has been running since November 17, 1997. Although the drawings were shaky to start with, the jokes have been popular and the artistic style has developed. Its popularity inspired many other webcomics with similar themes, the most popular being Penny Arcade and PvP.

User Friendly is now published in a variety of newspapers making it one of the first webcomics to make the transition from the net to the mainstream.

In late 1999, User Friendly and Sluggy Freelance swapped a character (A.J. and Torg).

Main Characters

For more information, see User Friendly characters.

A.J. Garrett

First Appearance: November 17, 1997

A.J. is the creative guy for the company, maintaining and designing their websites. As a web designer, he's uncomfortably crammed in that tiny crevasse between the techies and the marketing people. This means he's not disliked by anyone, but they all look at him funny from time to time. He loves most computer games, nifty art, and has a big brother relationship with the Dust Puppy. A.J. is terrified of Grues and attempts to avoid them.

A.J. was downsized on September 5, 1998, following iCan't Internet's purchase of Columbia Internet on August 24, 1998, but was re-engaged on October 17, 1998 after the company had been rebought. He lost his job again on October 16, 2002, following working on a personal project, and was employed by AOL. Having suffered an Ethicectomy, he became a clone of Stef – fortunately following a Ethics donation from Colin Powell he was re-employed.

He and Miranda have previously dated, but split up over a misunderstanding. They remain attracted to each other.

• A.J.'s cast description
• A.J. climbs to new heights

The Chief

First Appearance: November 19, 1997

The Chief is Columbia Internet's CEO. He is the fearless leader for the techies and salespeople, as well as the only calm, clear-thinking head in the company. He wouldn't be if he knew what was really going on. The Chief is also a closet guitar player, having spent years mastering the art of perfect tone, only to have computers come along and render all of his effort meaningless.

• The Chief's cast description
• Staff incentives

Dust Puppy

First Appearance: December 3, 1997

The Dust Puppy first appeared in the strip on December 3 1997; born in a server from a combination of dust, lint and quantum events, the Dust Puppy looks similar to a ball of dust and lint, with eyes, feet and an occasional big smile. He was briefly absent from the strip from January 6 to January 10 1998 after accidentally being blown with compressed air while sleeping inside a dusty server.

Although the Dust Puppy is very innocent and everything but worldly, he plays a superb game of Quake, doing his first deathmatch only four days after his initial appearance in the strip, on December 7 1997, and even beating Zock, the Quake god, on February 13, 1998; he also created an artificial intelligence named Erwin on January 25 1998, with whom he has been known to do occasional song performances (the first one being on February 8, 1998).

Generally, all the other characters in the strip like the Dust Puppy; notable exceptions to this are Stef and the Dust Puppy's evil nemesis, the Crud Puppy, who first appeared in the strip on February 24 1998.

The Dust Puppy has (in the strip for January 17 1998) described himself as:

"I walk around looking short, and sleep in the servers, and give advice to people who need it and sometimes I even play Quake."

• Dust Puppy's cast description
• Dust Puppy and Erwin's take on The Police – I'll Be Watching You

Erwin

First Appearance: January 25, 1998

Erwin is a highly advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) that resides somewhere on the network. He was created overnight during experimentation in Artificial intelligence by the Dust Puppy, who was feeling kind of bored. Erwin is written in COBOL because Dust Puppy "lost a bet". Erwin passes the Turing Test with flying colours, and has a dry sense of humour. He is an expert on any subject that is covered on the World Wide Web, such as Elvis sightings and alien conspiracies.

He was named on January 28, 1998, in light of the alternative, "web designer".

Originally, Erwin occupied the classic 'monitor and keyboard' type computer with an x86 computer architecture, but was later given such residences as an iMac, a Palm III, a Coleco Adam on Mir, a Furby, a nuclear weapon guidance system, an SGI O2, a Hewlett-Packard Calculator (with reverse Polish notation), a Lego Mindstorms construction, a Tamagotchi, a Segway, a Mech-Warrior Timber Wolf exo-skeleton, and an internet equipped toilet as a punishment for insulting Hastur.

• Erwin's cast description
• Erwin becomes MIRwin
• Erwin puts weight behind A.J.'s game
• Hastur creates a vacancy

Greg Flemming

First Appearance: November 17, 1997

Greg is in charge of Technical Support at the company. In other words, he's the guy that customers turd all over when something goes wrong. He blows off steam by playing visceral games and doing Bad Things to the salespeople. He's not a bad sort, but his grip on his sanity hovers somewhere between weak and non-existent, and he once worked for Microsoft Quality Assurance.

• Greg's cast description
• Deep mystery
• Greg deals with a minion

Mike Floyd

First Appearance: November 20, 1997

Mike works as a System Administrator, and is responsible for the smooth running of the network at the office. He's bright but prone to fits of anxiety. His worst nightmare is being locked in a room with a sweaty Windows 95 programmer, and no hacking weapons in sight. He loves hot curries, preferably ones with the same properties as Alien acid-for-blood.

• Mike's cast description
• Anatomy of a furby
• Define two ways a Network designer can optimise performance
• Love You virus
• A world without Google!

Miranda Cornielle

First Appearance: October 10, 1998

Miranda is a trained systems technologist, an experienced UNIX sysadmin, and very, very female. Her technical abilities unnerve the other techs, but her obvious physical charms compel them to stare at her, except for Pitr, who is convinced she is evil. Although she has yet to reveal any character flaws, it is a commonly held belief in psychological circles that "perfect" people like her are deeply disturbed neurotics with sociopathic tendencies. Maybe that's why she smiles so much.

She is frustrated by A.J.'s inability to express himself and his love for her.

• Miranda's cast description
• Miranda to date Stef!
• Miranda has a word with A.J.
• Miranda's none too keen on Pearl's arrival

Pitr Dubovich

First Appearance: November 20, 1997

Pitr is the admin of the Columbia Internet server, and a self proclaimed Linux guru. He suddenly began to speak with a fake Slavic accent on 17 June 1998, as part of his program to "Become an Evil Genius". He has almost succeeded in taking over the planet several times. His sworn enemy is Sid, who seems to outdo him at every turn. Pitr's achievements include: Making the world's (second) strongest coffee, Merging Coca Cola and Pepsi into Pitr-Cola and Making Columbia Internet Millions with a nuclear weapon purchased from Russia.

• Pitr's cast description
• God, root...
• Fatal Flaw
• Mr Cola's Bargain
• Sid & Pitr "network"

Sid Dabster

First Appearance: September 9, 2000

Sid is the oldest of the geeks, and very knowledgable. His advanced age gives him the upper hand against Pitr, whom he has outdone on several occasions; including in a coffee brewing competition and in a (rather biased) game of Jeopardy. Unlike Pitr, he has no evil ambitions per se, but he is a friend of Hastur's and Cthulhu's (based on the H.P. Lovecraft Mythos characters).

• Sid's cast description
• An apple for the teacher
• Sid & Pearl discuss Pitr's offer

Smiling Man

First Appearance: November 22, 1997

The Smiling Man is the company Controller. He is in charge of accounts, finances and expenditures. He smiles all day, for no reason. This in itself is enough to encourage the other staff to keep pointy objects out of his reach. His favourite wallpaper is a large, complex, and utterly meaningless spreadsheet.

• Smiling Man's cast description
• Smiling man the CTO?
• A Challenging Smile

Stef Murky

First Appearance: November 17, 1997

Stef works as the Corporate Sales Manager. He runs most of the marketing efforts within the firm and sells things before they exist. He can't understand the way techies think, so doesn't get very far with them. He sucks at Quake. Although he admires the power of Microsoft's marketing muscle, he has a real problem with Microsoft salesmen, probably because they make much more money than he does. He has a strange relationship with women and is universally hated by the geeks. Stef is definitely gormless as demonstrated on January 14, 2005.

• Stef's cast description
• 700 hours Stef Lovin' Absolutely Free
• Why we need spam
• Calming Stef's nerves

Comment board

Every daily strip has its own comment space for people to comment and discuss the strip in. A community has evolved around the comment board, which is considered by many User Friendly fans a contributing factor in the popularity of the comic.

Common threads found in the comment board are:

• Illiways, the café at the end of the Ufiverse (a pun on The Restaurant at the End of the Universe): This thread is used for café-like, general conversation. Newspapers, coffee and warm fuzzies are available daily.
• Question of the Day (QOTD)
• "I don't get it" thread (IDGIT)

A general guideline for what is suitable to post is the Fourteen-year-old sister rule. That is, if you wouldn't want your fourteen-year-old sister to see it, don't post it. This excludes external links, although it is considered polite to warn people of sound and violence. Entries only containing references to being a first post (or second, et cetera) are not welcome and likely to be deleted by the moderators.

The source code for the ARS (Account Registration System) is available for download.

Link of the day (LOTD)

Every day a link suggested by the community is posted to the main page. The sites selected are usually not well-known and mainly non-commercial. As the User Friendly community has grown larger being selected as the link of the day has a similar effect as being Slashdotted.

Illiad for a day

This is a contest where members of the community create an original strip with bits and pieces of previously published strips.

This section is a stub. You can help by adding to it.

Ufie Idol

This is a music contest, where members of the community show their singing talents.

This section is a stub. You can help by adding to it.

Bibliography

Several cartoon compilations have been published:

• User Friendly ISBN 1565926730 January 25, 1998 – December 25, 1998 (misses out December 20 and probably some others)
• Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell ISBN 156592861 January 3, 1999 – December 11, 1999
• The Root of All Evil ISBN 0596001932 January 1, 2000 – December 31, 2000
• Even Grues Get Full ISBN 0–596–00566–0 January 1, 2001 – November 17, 2001
• User Friendly – Die Deutsche Dialekt-Ausgabe (translation to several German dialects) ISBN 3–89721–380-X

External links

• User Friendly

Copyright

All images are from UserFriendly.org Copyright © 2005 J.D. "Illiad" Frazer.

Some text is taken from or based on text from UserFriendly.org.