Help Desk

For the Wikipedia "Help Desk," see Wikipedia:Help Desk. If you were looking for the information and assistance resource, see Help desk.

Help Desk is a webcomic by Christopher B. Wright which debuted on March 31, 1996, making it one of the older webcomics on the Internet. The comic is a satirical and cynical view of computer software companies in general, and of the antics of Microsoft, Apple, and Linux in particular. This is done through the employees at Ubersoft, a fictional computer software company that markets a number of software products, including a computer operating system called Nifty Doorways. The comic draws heavily from real-life events in the computer software industry and lampoons those events through the cast of characters.

Ubersoft

Ubersoft is a fictional computer software company run by an ethereal being from another plane, otherwise known as Mr. Bunny the Hoppy Computer Guy. Originally called Megasoft, the company was forced to change its name and logo due to software pirates copyrighting both. Famed for marketing tactics such as disabling software features until a customer pays for an upgrade to re-enable them, and implementing features into its software such as making it easier to exit programs by causing it to quit when a customer tries to print their documents, Ubersoft tries to be the bane of the existence of each of its customers. They also charge customers to receive bug fixes, claiming they are feature enhancements and are thus only needed by those customers that want them.

Characters

Alex

Alex is Help Desk's protagonist. He is a technical support technician working on Ubersoft's telephone support lines. His job has been described as "not necessarily to solve a customer's problems, but to make the customer feel that what they think is a problem isn't really a problem and they're wasting my time and yours."

The Boss

Also known as '"Mr. Bunny, the Hoppy Computer Guy"', The Boss is an evil being from another plane. He is usually followed around by flaming letters that spell the word "Boss." The Boss temporarily lost custody of the letters to Steve Case, but regained them after directing the company programmers to come up with a program to help malware developers create new viruses. Don't mention rings around him.

Binky the Cheerful Winking Paperclip

Binky is a helpful little fellow that is (almost) always cheerful. No matter what it is you are trying to do, he'll greet you with a "Hey, Skipper! What can I help you with today?". Dealing with Binky and his always cheerful demeanor would be enough to send Linus Torvalds or Eric S. Raymond screaming into the night. Recently, he saved the world from Steve Jobs with the help of an old scary Linux guy.

Mark

Mark is the technical writer of Ubersoft. He spent a brief time on the Help Desk due to Alex being moved to Marketing during the time the lack of a moral compass had caused him to err on the side of the good and helpful. Mark is perhaps the most tormented character on the team, having been plagued by a computer with evil sentience (inspired from the cartoonist's real life computer woes), arrested under suspicion of being a terrorist for being a Linux user, arrested under suspicion of being a terrorist for having a CD burner, forced to be the company mascot, and brainwashed by Binky the Paperclip.

Alice

As the lone female character at Ubersoft, Alice is nonetheless able to hold her own quite undeniably. She is Alex's sister, but is a primary force in the Marketing Department. As a marketer, she is totally devoid of any moral scruples—driven solely by the determination to sell whatever Ubersoft may (or may not yet) have available—and to make sure that new vaporware is always on the horizon. What she lacks in a moral compass is more than compensated for in imagination.

External links

• Ubersoft.net