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Vital Signs

DHMC has a secret agent in its battle against (computer) viruses

Randy White, a DHMC user support specialist, has found a clever way to make computer "geek speak" palatable. He dons a porkpie hat and dark glasses and performs original songs such as "Secret Hacker Man" to educate DHMC employees about proper computer use.

"Secret Hacker Man" is based on Johnny Rivers's "Secret Agent Man," the theme song for the hit 1960s TV show. The words to the song, says White, "kind of fell into my head during lunch one day, when we were fighting off [computer] viruses":

The Internet is often filled with danger:
Don't ever open e-mail from a stranger.
Oh, with every click you make
Is another chance you take—
Odds are you won't safely click tomorrow.
Secret Hacker Man, Secret Hacker Man:
He's given you a cookie and taken away your name.

Performing "Hacker Man" is part of a presentation White and his senior manager, Bill Weyrick, lead on Internet spyware, worms, and viruses. "I want

vs_18.jpg

Rocker Randy White poses in the get-up he wears when he performs his instructional songs.

people to realize, 'Hey, this is all fun, but it's also serious as far as being careful and not allowing bad things to download on your computer,' " White says. With his electric-acoustic guitar and melodious voice, White has performed for DHMC department directors, receptionists, nurses, and many others.

One of his other computer-themed compositions is "The Runway Shift-Click Shuffle." It tells users how to download applications properly in a program called Runway (the "pepper" is an image that appears in a dialog box):

You see, it thinks that it can handle all the things we wanna do,
But it's nothin' but an old bear trap;
We do the Runway Shift-Click Shuffle 'til the pepper is done.

When he's not singing about or working on computers, White sings and plays with a local '60s-'70s pop-rock duo that goes by "The Fossils." Their slogan is "The Fossils—Almost Rock."

M.C.W.


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