Crazy Apple News Site

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: Snow Leopard, the coolest cat since the Fonz.

In honor of the fitfully departed CARS, we will be using this space to take calls and answer people’s questions about their new OS.

Q: Hi, I just bought the snow leopard upgrade, but the process seems to be taking a long time.

A: Really? What kind of computer are you trying to install it on?

Q: Computer? What? No, I just took my leopard up north.  He looks cold, sure, but I don’t see his ears shrinking to conserve warmth, and his tail hasn’t become massive and muscular to help him maintain balance on the rocky terrain.  He’s still as clumsy as…. Well there he goes. Right over the edge.

A: Ummmm, your system was faulty to begin with.

Q: I’ll say.

A: Hi, I’m having trouble upgrading to Snow Leopard…

Q: Wait, before you start, you did purchase the Apple Snow Leopard DVD, and you are attempting to install it on a currently running Leopard system, correct?

A: Yeah, I bought the disc, went home and tried to install it on my leopard.

Q: You mean, your Mac running leopard, right?

A: Well, my leopard was always a Linux guy, actually. anyway, I put the disc in and, boy, he’s running now! But he doesn’t seem any more fit for life on the tundra.

Q: You…put the disc… in…

A: Yeah. It didn’t seem to work, though.

Q: How…surprising.

Q: Hi…

A: No! Wait! You are trying to install Snow Leopard on a Macintosh computer, correct?

Q: Yes.

A: And not a big cat of any sort?

Q: No.

A: Okay. what’s your question, then?

Q: How do I get it into my floppy drive?

Q: Hi, I am trying to upgrade OSX 10.5 to OSX 10.6 on an Intel Core 2 Duo iMac using a DVD I purchased today.

A: Wow! Yes! Finally! Okay, so you’re trying to upgrade, and you’re having problems?

Q: No, actually I lied. I finished the upgrade earlier today. It was easy.

A: So…. are you having problems with your new snowy leopardness?

Q: No, no. Everything’s fine.

A: Have some old PowerPC programs that don’t run any more?

Q: Nope.

A: So… Why the call?

Q: I’m so lonely! Let’s face it, refinements to an OS do not fill the hole in my life that craves for human contact!

A: Hoo boy.

Q: I’ve not been on a date in years! And nobody reads my blog!

A: Well folks, see ya next time! This could take a while. Enjoy your newly modified big cats!

Q: My mother called me “lasagna brain!” I never had a gerbil! Nobody even says hi to me when I sign in on WoW….

Shocking news from the world of Apple Fandom today as an AP poll shows that there are absolutely no surprises left for those who shell out for Apple’s newest release of OSX. 

“The blogs have covered everything,” said an unnamed operative.¹ “From really, really obvious features like the new QuickTime X to really boring things like the OpenCL framework, every single facet of Snow Leopard has been covered.  I  mean, there have been long, in-depth articles about a “malware protection system” that watches for two packages! What’s that all about?”

The dearth of new material on the arctic cat has left the Apple Blogging Community² with a bit of a problem on their hands. 

“What do we write about?  It’s still to early to start guessing on the code name for 10.7. We’ll have to wait until at least next week for that,” said Leo Laporte.

“I disagree,” disagreed John Gruber, who went on to claim that Apple would name 10.7 “Fireball” after his own illustrious self.

“Let’s face it, I put the Missing Manual to bed six months ago, and since then it’s just been trying to weasel things out from under the NDA.  Now that we’re allowed to talk about it, there’s not really anything left to cover, other than the…oops, that feature’s still under NDA, I forgot. Well, you’ll see,” said a more-smug-than-usual David Pogue.

Those wishing to console the despondent Apple bloggers suggested they talk about rumors of be-camera’ed³ iPods or the coming Apple tablet, but these suggestions were met with moist snorts of derision.  “Out of the frying pan into the fire” was how the Macalope put it.

but fear not, gentle readers! CANS has found the one thing that no other blog has covered, and we will be providing exclusive coverage of that mysterious new thing, the one Apple product upgrade of which no one else knows, right after this week’s iFAQ.

Stay Tuned!

1. AP deals harshly with errant operatives. [↩]
2. That’s right, the ABC. What about it? [↩]
3. most over-punctuated word ever on this blog, ladies and gentlemen! [↩]

Early this morning, every member of the Apple “community”¹ started vibrating at about 20Hz.

“It’s coming!” they² said in unison at 6:45 PDT.  Several people were heard to growl like cats.
“The 28th! That’s only (carry the one…add three…) seven days from today! No, wait, FOUR! that’s four days from now!” squealed Walt Mossberg, immediately starting his glowing review of the nascent OS. 
“What? I’ve been running snow leopard for two [expeletive deleted] years now.  No big deal,” said John Gruber.
For those of us that don’t get free beta copies of unreleased releases, Friday is now officially a big deal™.  We’ll keep you posted on further developments in the community’s response as they happen.

1. defined as “people who care about OS updates” [↩]
2. alright, “we” [↩]

Every Friday¹ 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.

Today we look at MAMP: the german server software for you.

Q: Apple lied to me, man!

A: How’s that again?

Q: They said every Mac has all the software needed to be a web server built in.

A: Which is true.

Q: Except for PHP, man! I wrote a php website and it totally didn’t get served. No service! Web server fail, I say!

A: Easy there, oddly phrased hippie person! So, you turned on the “Web Sharing” thing…

Q: …Put a php file in my “sites” folder…

A: …And it didn’t do what you wanted. Yeah, been there. There’s two ways to deal with that.

Q: Yeah? what are they?

A: First, you could just edit the Apache configuration file to load the php module

Q: You lost me at “edit”.

A: Or you could download MAMP.

Q: What’s that? It sounds like someone with the mumps saying mump.

A: Don’t be weird. MAMP is a program that gives you a Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP web server. So you can do all your awesome server side scripting simply.

Q: Sweet!

A: Sure! Simply start several servers… okay, enough alliteration. MAMP sets up a local copy of PHP, MySQL and Apache that all runs separate and apart from the bulit-in “web sharing” server, so you can hack away at it’s config files and not screw up your mac. It makes it much easier to turn your MacBook into a development server.

Q: Wait, what? My MacBook? What about my iBook?

A: Sure. It’s Universal.

Q: Cosmic.

1. for sufficiently vague definitions of “Friday” [↩]

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: all of the SSB’s you could handle, all in one go!

Q: What’s an SSB?

A: Depending on who you ask, it’s either a Site Specific Browser or a Single Site Browser.

Q: Which means…

A: A fad. Travel with me back through the mists of time to 2007…

Q: What? No!, hey, I said I’d never go back! Stop it… Oh, we’re there.

A: Yes. As you can see, the world is still prosperous and people are still willing to support any open source project, no matter how idiotic.

Q: *Sigh* Were we really ever so carefree?

A: Yes. Now, here at Mozilla headquarters, they are about to begin a board meeting to discuss a new product called Mozilla Prism, which lets you “split” one web app off of the main web, much like a non-Mozilla prism splits white light into many colors

Mozilla Stormtrooper 1: Hey, you’re not allowed in the board meeting!

Mozilla Bartender: No Blasters!

Q: Shouldn’t we run?

A: Didn’t you read the iFAQ? he’s a Stormtrooper. He can’t hit us. (Blaster fire continues around the principle characters as they talk)

Q: Oh, yeah, right.

A: Anyway, when people who made browsers started noticing that there were websites that were more like applications than just collections of pages, they thought it would be awesome if you could a have a program that let you interact with these “web apps” just like desktop apps. So they started creating said programs. Generally, you would give the program an URL, and it would give you back a stripped down browser with the site’s favicon as the browser’s icon.

Q: … Why?

A: Apparently they felt that when some people need their MySpace fix¹ they can’t take all the time needed to open a regular browser and click on a bookmark.

Q: Yes, I can see how that might take…three seconds.

A: Indeed. So SSB’s were born. And since they were introduced as a TLA² people instantly decided to split into two groups about what “SSB” stands for.

Q: So what does it stand for?

A: Every human’s right to surf the web as they please!

Q: …. That was a joke, was it?

A: Look, I already answered that question at the beginning of the iFAQ.

Q: Ah, but the beginning of the iFAQ is in 2009, and we’re still in 2007! And we still have this storm trooper shooting at us.

Mozilla Stormtrooper: Die, semi-closed-semi-open-source Apple scum!

A: Right, right. Okay, back to 2009 we go.

Q: Thank you. So what happened to SSBs in the meanwhile?

A: They’re still out there, but all the open source support has been shifted to slightly less trendy projects. And making closed-source iPhone apps that do the exact same thing, then selling them for 99 cents.

Q: Makes “cents”. Hee hee hee.

Mozilla Stormtrooper: [Fires a 'stun' blast]

Q: [falls down]

MS: He’ll be all right. Inform Lady Baker that we found a pun-maker.

1. remember, this is 2007 [↩]
2. “Three letter acronym”. Unless you think it’s “Three-letter-abbreviation” [↩]

Apple’s Phil Schilller has recently been sending polite emails to bloggers who have problems with the iPhone, which is good. But none of these missives have dealt with the main problem we here at CANS have with the high-tech device, so we’re going to rant about it here until Apple takes action.¹ Because that’s the kind of public-spirited, watchdog source of invented news we are.

So, Apple talks about their commitment to the developers and iPhone owners. They have demonstrated their drive to make the iPhone the number one personal communications device through excellent marketing. They built an easy-to-shop² App Store, and continued in their tried and true pattern of making truly excellent products.  But they have missed one key element, one essential piece of the puzzle that, if left unchecked, will be the entire downfall of the iPhone’s empire, and we call upon Apple to set it right at all costs. ³

The problem is this: Nobody at CANS has an iPhone!  None of the Ruby Ninja Androids, not Nate, not….well, that’s the whole staff, really.  But none of us are iPhone owners, and if Apple doesn’t take drastic steps to remedy this situation we will be forced, as Steven Frank was, to utterly boycott the iPhone.  Needless to say, this will lead to the sort of financial problems that shuttered other great companies. For example, nobody at CANS was a customer at Enron, and look what happened to them!  And the same thing is true of Apple products:  Know why the Newton died? Because not a single CANS editor owned one! Case closed!

And yet Apple continues, blithely ignoring this threat to the very existence of their beloved iPhone, not doing the one simple thing that would put them on sure, solid ground: sending us a free iPhone 3GS and paying our AT&T contract for a year.  We estimate that this one simple, cost effective move would ensure a 100% increase in the iPhone’s market share⁴.

We call upon Apple to rectify this situation immediately.⁵

1. Or we get a nice email from a senior executive. [↩]
2. but somewhat less easy-to-stock [↩]
3. Free mixed metaphors,5-7pm nightly [↩]
4. at CANS HQ [↩]
5. or at the very least have Mr. Schiller send us a nice email explaining that they’ve taken our views on board and are considering it. [↩]

Martyn Williams, who surely had better things to do, chose instead to write about the downfall of tr.im, a nearly unknown url shortener, who sought to compete with the equally stupid sounding bit.ly, tinyurl.com, and the almost-longer-than-the-original readthisurl.com. And we here at CANS are glad he did, as we were all set to launch into the beta testing phase of our own url shortening website.  We had already run into a few snags with our program, not the least of which was the fact that our “shortened” urls were promising to look something like “http://crazyapplenews.com/shortening/index.php/sle4231xfSEslkeyggiotr78Cvdew” ¹

We will now observe a minute of silence for the fallen tr.im, shortened to three seconds, as they would have wanted it. 

Thank you.

1. I was going to actually make that link live, but decided at the last moment not to do three hours of coding and testing for a one-line throw away gag [↩]

Apple’s not-actually-announced-yet-but-it’s-totally-real-guys-seriously tablet device will be able to everything you ever wanted ever, predict many sources.

“This device will be usable by everyone everywhere. It will have 3G speeds on EDGE networks, and freeway gas mileage even in downtown NYC! Millions of starving children in Ghana will be able to use it to do their classwork without learning Linux or SmallTalk on one of those ghetto green lappy things,” asserted John Gruber, Walt Mosseberg, and David Pogue, in unison. Pogue continued, “And then the Enterprise will show up because we finally built a PADD, just like the one Wesley Crusher used!”¹ However, this is not predicted to have any effect on Will Wheaton’s Whining Ways²

“Dude, I stopped whining about leaving Star Trek when I wrote that “Geek” book,” Wheaton said. But we were busy trying to get back to the point of this article.

Steve Ballmer was dismissive of the as yet unannounced high-technology device, claiming that the beta weather-control module was “only 89% effective at re-structuring storm systems” and the “code for the lead-to-gold transmogrifier is really ugly. Hey Apple, the Dark Ages called, they want their technology back!” When pressed³ Ballmer admitted that he “hadn’t actually seen either of these components,” but he was “totally sure that they would suck, just like the iPhone”.

Not so, says every other technology news site ever. According to “trusted sources” quoted by the rest of the web, the new iSlate/iTab/MacSlate/McRib/MacTablet/MacPlate will have the following features:

• Telepathy
• Gorgeous new interface based on supermodels
• Gorgeous new supermodels based on the interface
• Gorgeous new Phil Schiller
• the first ever 8-finger “gesture”
• 8 actual fingers
• Side of fries
• Web cam
• Super-advanced webcam software that prevents users from posting embarrassing videos to YouTube
• QuickerTime
• FREE PONY!

And several thousand other amazing features.

the new product is expected to be released every day from today until somtime next year.

1. Pogue actually speaks with hyperlinks like that. It’s kinda freaky. But very web 2.0 [↩]
2. WWWWWA? (What Would Will Wheaton Whine About?) [↩]
3. not a task for the faint of heart [↩]

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: TextMate, the emacs of the GUI world

Q: That was a terrible analogy, you know.

A: It’s valid: emacs is practically an OS in its own right, and TextMate is basically the entire Ruby programming language masquerading as a text editor.

Q: That doesn’t make it good. Godwin’s law may be valid, but that doesn’t make me less inclined to smack people who mention it upside the head.

A: You’re awfully opinionated for a “Q:”, you know.

Q: Well, you got my back up. I mean, what do you want? You say that my beloved baby TextMate isn’t as awesome as some crufty ol’ emacs, and expect me to be happy about it?

A: Ummm… Can I speak frankly for a moment?

Q: I’m the “Q:” around here! Stop asking me questions!

A: Fine. You ask some.

Q: …Alright. What were you going to say? But it can’t be a question!

A: Okay…um…, okay here goes: I’ve noticed and often wondered about the odd relationships web designers seem to form with their text editors. Indeed, I have often wondered why this seems to happen so often to web designers in particular.

Q: So you suspect that web developers are strangely–

A: Perhaps unnaturally–

Q: Attached to their plain-text-with-syntax-higlights programs, is that it?

A: Yes.

Q: Because you totally aren’t a web programmer at all.

A: Right.

Q: And you could happily use any text editor under the sun, up to and including notepad.exe.

A: ….

Q: Right?

A: …. …..

Q: Riiiight?

A: ….Gaaaaaah! No! Not notepad! IneedmyOSXandTextMateorBBEditorevenKomodoifIhavetoworkonWindowsorLinuxpleasedon’tmakemeusenotepadpleasepleaseplease…

Q: Uh huh.

A: *pant* *pant* *pant*

Q: There there. Now, doesn’t that feel better?

A: A…A little.

Q: Good. Now maybe we can deal with the other problem.

A: What other problem?

Q: Having too many plain-text-with-syntax-highlighting text editors.