Crazy Apple News Site

Based on current trends in Internet rumors and pre-release information, it has become obvious that the iPhone, once thought to be the most innovative and creative high technology device to come  down the pike, is in fact the least good thing ever.

“I love the Zune HD!” raved the entire staff of Engadget, in unison. “It’s going to be  so much better than that Apple thing! I mean, look! It plays movies! and it has an accelerometer! Sure, it doesn’t do HD radio, which is where it’s name comes from. And yeah, some of the menu items sometime gets cut off the edge of the screen, but how could Microsoft know how big that screen was going to be? Don’t listen to the haters.  When Microsoft finally releases it it’ll be the best thing ever ever ever!!!!!1!!”(sic)

Meanwhile, Gizmodo was equally excited about the Palm Pre. “The Pre is going to change the way you communicate with the world around you! It comes with a revolutionary on-screen keyboard! Who woulda thought of putting your keyboard on the screen? It’s just so awesome! And from Palm! There’s a name that’s synonymous with agility and innovation! I mean, look at the Palm OS! Version 5 looks so much different than version 4! They’re hardly even identical! And now they’ve got a brand new OS based on HTML! It’s amazing!  Well, I mean, the screenshots are amazing…I haven’t actually seen it yet… at least, not a fully functional model. But still, HTML!”

Meanwhile, the entire Linux world couldn’t shut up about something called “Cupcake” for the Android OS, but every time someone tries to explain it to us we get a headache.

Chris Pirillio got so excited about the onslaught of new devices that he had a little accident.  

Clearly, in the face of such giants of innovation like Microsoft and Palm, the iPhone, with it’s billion downloaded apps, a community that is trying to get new apps into the store as quickly as possible, and a stable and profitible company behind it, hasn’t a prayer.  Once you add in the enormous pressure that the Android OS is bringing to bear on the beleagured giant, and you can pretty much just kiss your sleek little device goodbye.

Somebody tried to tell the pundits about the possibility of Apple releasing updates to the iPhone at next month’s WWDC, but they were too busy drooling over grainy videos of people using the Pre to notice.

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week: VoodooPad, a wiki made by a deer.

Q: I want to make up news stories!

A: Whaaa! Easy there, pardner. What the heck?

Q: But Wikipedia has banned me!

A: Ah, I see now.

Q: Can the Flying Meat give me amazing Voodoo powers?

A: No. They can give you an amazing personal wiki.

Q: Where I can make up news stories?

A: I usually use a blog to do that. For that matter, so does C|Net.

Q: But I’ll have my own wiki, right? Just like Wikipedia?

A: Weeeeeeell, you’ll have  a wiki, but it’s personal, see? So it’s like, only on your computer. Not out on the web.¹

Q: But I can make up news, right?

A: Easy there, Citizen Kane. Yes, I suppose you could.

Q: And change the world?

A: Ummm…

Q: Or should I just keep waitin’ on the world…

A: HEY! Stop that! As long as you ask questions under my roof  there will be no John Mayer song titles!

Q: Okay, I’ll try again.

A: Okay.

Q: Ahem. Okay, here goes. “Or should I just remember when I ruled the world”?

A: Convoluted, but better. Anyway, it’s a personal wiki. It’s to help you keep track of your thoughts.  As the makers say, “you put your brain in it.”

Q: Okay! Done.  Now what?

A: Ummm, you use it to find things you were thinking about, and, umm… use that knowledge to move forward in your life?

Q: All I found was an awesome way to finally be better than Batman.

A: Okay, we’re done here. You should go read Dinosaur Comics, you’ve got a soulmate there. I’m gonna go do that voodoo that I do so well.

Q: You’ve already used that quote.

A: No longer listening.

1. Actually you can put it on the web if you enlist the aid of MobileMe or some other web server. [↩]

When we first learned that Psystar was filing chapter 11, our response was

HAAAAAhahahahahahahahahaheeeeeeee [gasp] heeheeheehoooooo wooo! Heh heh heh. Heh. Heh heh heh ha haa ha ha ha ha ha haaaahaaa haa hahahahahahahahahoooo boy! No, okay, I’m done. Snrk. Snort. Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha hooo hooo hoooo haaaahahahahaaaa! Aaaaaaaahhhhh.. Heh heh heh.

But then we realised that, while on the surface Psystar seems to be nothing more than a straw man with feet of clay living in a house of cards with a paper tiger who cried “Fire!” in a crowded theater while the wolf was at the door, in reality they struck while the iron was hot, but couldn’t stand the heat so they got out of the kitchen and now they have to pay the piper and give the devil his due, or else the chickens will be coming home to roost with a vengence.  Oh, they can play this chapter 11 shell game while the sun shines, but somebody’s eventually gonna find the fat lady and it’ll be time to face the music. And you can take that to the bank.

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week: Opera, the Alternate Browser to the alternate browsers you’re used to using.

Q: Why? Why another browser?

A: Opera is not just “another browser”, my friend. Opera is the other browser.

Q: You mean, like, the one my blog has been seeing when I’m not home? The one it got that new CSS for?

A: No. No, that’s just stupid. Why would you say stupid things like that?  I mean, like, the browser that was setting trends when Firefox was still part of the dying Netscape corporation.

Q: So, it’s old. Like iCab.

A: It’s experienced, and unlike iCab, it doesn’t look like crap.

Q: Okay, so it’s like OmniWeb.

A: Well, like OmniWeb, you used to have to pay for it, but now it’s free. But unlike OmniWeb, it’s still under active development.

Q: So, it’s like Chrome?

A: Well, it’s pretty fast with the ol’ JavaScript, like Chrome. Unlike Chrome, however, it runs on all major operating systems, including Leopard.

Q: Which would make it…I’m running out of alternate browsers here.

A: (whispers) Shiira.

Q: Right, thanks. So, it’s like Shiira.

A: Well, Shiira and Opera are both made in countries outside of North America, but Shiira is Japanese and Opera comes from the great untamed wildernesses of Norway.  

Q: Okay, I’m really out of other alternates. So. What makes Opera so special?

A: Well! It was the first major browser to have tabs…

Q: Which even IE has now…

A: It has an integrated mail client…

Q: a la Netscape Communicator or SeaMonkey…

A: It has an integrated¹ password manager…

Q: Just like Firefox²…

A: And it’s faster than Safari. And it created the “Speed dial” feature that Safari 4 stole. And has a good-looking feed preview. And mouse gestures that no other browser can rival. And a kiosk mode that is actually secure. There. Name browsers that do those things, smartypants.

Q: Firefox with extensions.

A: *Sigh*. Yeah. Okay, I got it: Opera is the only major browser written by a company who claimed he would swim from Norway to New York.

Q: Really?

A: Yeah. He only made it to the edge of the harbor, though. His support raft got a hole.  ((You think I’m making this all up. I’m not. They did. Google it. They took it all of their site, but it was pretty funny.))

Q: Huh.  It’s free, right?

A: Yeah.

Q: Maybe I’ll try it out. Hey, thanks!

1. And secured, unlike Chrome [↩]
2. if you set the master password [↩]

So, with Apple’s huge reported stockpile of cash, rumors of the technology superstar acquiring other major players–such as Twitter or even EA games–abound. But all the pundits have overlooked the most obvious and affordable possible acquisition that Apple could make:

This site.

That’s right, we have it on good authority¹ that Apple has been looking at getting a sense of humor any time now, and we feel that a good way to start would be to purchase the craziest of Apple News Sites.

For only $.5Million Apple would have access to all of the following:

• Friday iFAQs!
• Ruby Ninja Androids!
• Made up stories about their board of directors!
• Up to three (3) loyal comment-makers per post!
• My, er… My Twitter Updates!… over there…?

And so much more! Just like Twitter we have no revenue, no income, and no real business model, yet we are rumored to be available for so much less and can thus theoretically  pass the hypothetical savings on to Apple!  What’s more, we are actually somewhat related to Apple, unlike some Pogue-centric microblogging services.  Yes, CANS is² an amazing bargain!

But wait, there’s more! If Apple acts now we will also throw in, absolutely free of charge, my vintage Core³ Duo iMac, and 40% interest in coals2newcastle.com, my other technology blog!  All for a mere fraction of what the rumors sites think Apple would pay just one web-texty messagey site people keep talking about!  So, if you are a major innovator in the personal electronics industry, don’t wait! An offer this good comes around only once every couple of weeks! Call now! Operators are standing around.

1. our dog at 2:30am in a dream [↩]
2. the grammar is correct in this case, I promise. [↩]
3. note that there’s no “2″ here [↩]

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week we offer you the opportunity to write your own iFAQ with this handy template!

Q: I have a question about the new ___________. Can you help me?

A: Ah, yes, the __________. Do you have the __________ Standard or the Pro?

Q: The Standard. I didn’t want to pay the extra __________ dollars, just so I could ______________ without using a third party ______________________.

A: Hmmm. Well, sometimes that will work, if you watch out for ____________ or condensation, but you’re still going to lose definition in the _____________. What is the problem you’re having?

Q: Well, whenever I try to spool up a ______________ node, I get 75% too much _________________ all along the regressor pathways.

A: Yeah, that’ll happen. Are you using an open-source _____________ patch or the Microsoft one?

Q: Microsoft! I wouldn’t use the “Muckrosoft” version if they threatened to _____________ my left ______________ all the way to Sheboygan.

A: Well, I realize that there are moral issues at stake, but in this case, It’s hard to deny that Microsoft _________________s a good ___________________.

Q: Look, the only reason their version doesn’t _________________ is because they bought out _______________, fired the _________________ department, and put all the engineers in ________________ and re-branded it.

A: Still, if you want less ________________ in your ______________, you have to decide if you can deal with the ___________________, or take the extra time for the ________________ version to load your ____________ files, respectively.

Q: Listen, if it’s a choice between a fuzzy ___________ or paying Mr. Ballmer ______________ just so he can ____________ my nodules, then call me Leo Laporte, ’cause this _____________ don’t _____________ with the monkeys.

A: Language! Please, we have reason to believe that young ______________ read this blog on occasion! Well, if that’s how you feel about it, then you should probably try the free ________________, darken to 30% ______________ per diem, then put in the sun and hope for the best!

Q: Better than _________________ing with the devil in the ______________________.

It’s CANS first birthday! And what better way to celebrate this momentous occasion than with a flashback episode?  Walk down memory lane with me as we review some of the previous year’s best moments.

Who can forget the introduction of Grug, the Freeverse Technical Support Orc?

A: …Grug not from third-world country, Grug orc.

Q: What?

A: Grug orc from Hordes of Orcs. Freeverse too cheap to pay employees, so make game characters do work.

Q; I thought that redhead they’ve always got all over the site does all the tech support.

A: Grug not think so! She just model, never do any real work around office.

Q: Wow, that’s rough.

A: Nah, Grug pretty happy. At least have desk job.

Q: As opposed to…

A: You ever play Hordes of Orcs? Imagine from our perspective: “Okay Grug, walk out there. Don’t worry about arrows, fire, radiation, walls, or fact that player take all your money when your head explode.”

Q: Yesh. That sounds….Kinda fun, actually. Why do you orcs throw your money when you die?

A: Can’t help it! Last thought usually “Can’t take it with me!”

Or the in-depth reporting we did on the pre-launch parties for Mobile Me:

But not everyone shares Bob’s trepidation. Bob hoards his trepidation, keeping it locked away, safe within a strongbox deep in his soul.

“With the coming of Me we shall all finally be able to transcend the myth of physical forms, not to mention have our contacts available to us from any Mac or PC. Yes, as we embrace the Me in the Cloud, the purely physical me, the one that doesn’t take stylish vacations to Cancun or Whistler, the one that doesn’t match Apple’s vision of humanity, will be left, a shell sitting in a chair in front of a late-model G5 iMac, while our spirits dance among the servers in Cupertino.”

Of course, it wasn’t all rocky product releases and accented tech support this year. We also saw the passing of one of the great ones of Open Source, Mr. Richard Stallman:

“We brought him into a nice living room with Charles in Charge on the TV. He loved Charles in Charge…” Raymond paused for a moment, his eyes moist. “Sorry… Anyway, while he was distracted by the antics of the lovable Scott Baio and Nicole Eggert, a technician came in behind him and injected 40,000 lines of pure Windows ME source code into his beard. Richard was gone before the second commercial break.”

But even death couldn’t keep RMS down, and he came back for a guest editorial, giving us all a little peek into the afterlife:

So does that mean that I, the reanimated corpus of RMS, have started using an iMac to do all my otherworldly programming and checking my email? No. I use the real æthernet, a network the likes of which you mortals cannot comprehend, to transmit my thoughts as data structures directly to those that need them. It’s like wireless, but far, far spookier and cooler. Also we get, like, 9800GBps transfer rates, so my BitTorrent ratio has gone up quite a bit.

Add in a some Fairy Magic:

And the King thought, and brought forth Music that the people could carry, and all was good. And he thought again, and the beautiful company built computers in the Air, and all was good. And at last he thought his greatest thought, and brought forth a new device, one that combined the Music, and the Air, and let people talk to other people across great distances. And the people rejoiced, for the new device was amazing and powerful. At length the beautiful company let others create programs to run on the device, and the rejoicing increased. True, it was hard to develop software for the beautiful device because the beautiful company only wanted beautiful software. And true, the beautiful device was a little expensive, but people were happy to buy it because it was so great.

and some executive cookies:

Since the launch of the new Mobile Me platform Apple has extended all users’ accounts by at least 90 days, as an apology for the flawed and awkward rollout process. But that just isn’t enough for Steve Jobs, who in a recent meeting decided that the executive board of Apple need to take this “to the next level” and personally apologize to each and every Mobile Me subscriber by bringing them a plate of cookies.

And it adds up to a pretty good year.

Well friends, I would like to thank you for your continued support and readership. Here’s to a happy second year of CANS!

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week: The little known download YouTube videos to your mac app Tubular, now in angry person¹ beta!

Q: So, like, I heard there was this, like tubular program for my mac that would let me watch all the gnarly surf videos I want on my Apple.

A: Totally, man.

Q: Awesome. How do I do that, Mr. Answer Dude?

A: Ummm… you download the file

Q: Aawww, dude, I once downloaded this killer late 360 on a half-pipe on my board. It was sweet, bro.

A: Yeah. Not the same thing.

Q: Nah, I get ya. So I like, go get the program and put it on my Mac, right? Then what?

A: Then you use it. You can search for things and watch them.

Q: Righteous. Hey, you wanna watch my surf video?

A: Are you a penguin or a chicken?

Q: What? Nah, bra. I’m like, totally a dude!

A: How is life in the 80′s these days, anyway?

Q: Aw man, it’s so sweet… you meant, like, the perfect 80 degree weather we have all year here in SoCal, right?

A: Sure man, sure.

Q: Yeah, that’s what I thought. Okay, so, I get this tubular program and I can watch surf videos all day long, right?

A: And other things!

Q: Yeah? Like what?

A: “Like what?” Like everything that’s on YouTube!

Q: That’s cool. So what is on YouTube?

A: Well, there’s people sitting in their room spouting angry invective against any and all political parties, rebroadcast commercials, video game walkthroughs, really grainy music videos put up by record labels in a dying attempt to stay relevant…senior projects…political videos…

Q: Y-Yeeah. Hey, know what, bro? I’m gonna stick to the surf videos, ‘kay?

A: Yeah. That’s probably for the best.

Q: Sweet. Later, bro!

1. read the comments on the linked site [↩]

Yes, the war of the fruits is on, as RIM announced that Blackberry has displaced the iPhone as the number 1 smart phone in the USA during the first quarter of the new year. As you would expect, the Apple executive board had some calm, measured suggestions for combating the growing threat of the aggregate berry.

“Ponies! Free ponies with every iPhone! F’real this time!” suggested Jony Ive, mostly because he’s easier to spell than Peter Oppenheimer. “Everybody likes ponies!” But Tim Cook wasn’t moved.

“If you aren’t calling on an iPhone, I’m not listening,” was Al Gore’s input. Actually, it turned out to be a statement of fact, not an advertising campaign. Still, while the eletist card is always good, Steve Jobs didn’t see it as really carrying the day.

“The more goodest phone ever,” said Phil Schiller, drawing upon the surprisingly successful ads for the iPod Touch. But neither Tim nor Steve thought this was the way to victory.

Finally, after looking at Wikipedia and learning how to spell his name, Peter Oppenheimer chimed in.

Yes! Apple would rely on the draw of David Pogue, that Tzar of Twitter, the Czar of Circuits, the Caesar of Semiconductors¹. They knew that if the 270,000 Fans Of Pogue knew the telephonic whims of their master they would fall in line. And that 270,000 would be enough to put the iPhone back where it belongs.

On top of the world.

1. Say it out loud. It works. [↩]

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and
answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy
Apple products.

This week: The virtualizer that generates less radioactive waste than fission: Fusion!

Q: That was not good. Your intro was hard to understand and I wasn’t able to understand it easily.

A: C’mon, it was great.

Q: I want to run Linux.

A: Really.

Q: Yes.  And I want to run Linux in a virtual machine. On my Mac.

A: Do you.

Q: Yes.

A: Why?

Q: Because Linux is true and faithful and strong.  Linux is a great operating system that has power and strength.  And I have need of it.

A: Do you need a guide?

Q: I have seen many summers, on the plains. I have much experience that will aid those of fewer summers.

A: But to compute well and true and faithfully requires more.

Q: Yes. I will have need of your services if I am to install Linux.  I have not yet done that, and I will need to.  You must help me.

A: I will assist you.

Q: That is good. And once I have installed Linux, then I will help you work on your Hemingway impression. It is not enough to use short, repetitive sentences.  To truly imitate Hem is a great quest, dangerous and prone to fall in to clichés. When a post falls into a cliché it can’t climb back out by itself, and it takes many strong men to pull it back to the surface.  I have seen strong men weep when they have lost a post in the morass.

A: Hem once shot himself in both legs while firing a machine gun at a shark in Bimini.

Q: What does that have to do with Linux and posts?

A: Nothing.

Q: Then let us embark on our quest.  What must I do to procure the Linux?

A: Seek it on the internets. You will find it in ISOs on many sites. You must look deep and far and wide.

Q: I have found them on Google. I will use the one with the Lizard.

A: The Lizard will serve you well. Go then, and download the ISO. Fusion itself will now be your guide.

Q: Thank you. I will remember you. And I will remember my promise to teach you the ways of imitating Hemingway.