Crazy Apple News Site

Really!

For years¹, you have had to read CANS on your gigantic laptop or desktop computer. Trying to read this glorious repository of Apple-flavored wit and wisdom on an iPhone or iPod Touch was a frustrating, nay, infuriating experience.

But no more!  Through countless hours² of diligent effort, the Androids and I have brought forth: Mobile CANS.

That’s right, all you owners of pocket-sized computers! From now on you can access the latest and greatest in made up news in full HTML5-style glory at http://crazyapplenews.com/m.  It even looks pretty good as a web clip!

The Mobile site has all the the flavor and all the footnotes of the full-size site, with none of the archives! That’s right, Mobile CANS lets you live your life by only showing you the last ten posts to the site.  But don’t worry: it considerately stores those articles on your device so even when you’re off line you are on top of the world of new gadgets…and the geeks who love them.

How much would you pay for all this conveneince? Nothing, obviously! I mean come on, you’ve already clicked the link and you’re using the new site instead of the old one, aren’t you?  Well that’s right friends, all this power, all this lack-of-archive, all this style can be yours absolutely free! Act now! Supplies are limited³! Operators are standing around.

1. 1 and a bit [↩]
2. okay, three [↩]
3. theoretically [↩]

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

This week we take a look at the new and improved Mail.app as portrayed by Snow Leopard.

Q: I have a lot of email accounts already! What’s a guy gotta do to keep them all organized? I’m lost in a forest of emails, and I need some direction!

A: Have you tried Hare Krishna?¹

Q: Enough with the witty banter already! I swimming in emails! Also, the terminology! POP, IMAP, Exchange, who can keep it all straight I ask you?

A: So you want to be able to handle all your emails in one place?

Q: And the spam! Always with the free offers of medicines, or loans, or the ceaseless pleas for help from princes of distant countries!

A: You didn’t actually fall for any of those, did you?

Q: I answered one or two why not? But all I got was emails with pictures of kittens attached.

A: Yeah, those were “trojan horse” virus emails.

Q: What’s with the talking and the not making any sense? They were kittens I tell you. Kittens!

A: Y-yeah. Anyway, you’re using a Mac, right?

Q: My son set it up for me. He bought me an iMac. I said it was too expensive, that he should keep the nice computer and his mother and I would just use the telephone, but he insisted! he’s a doctor you know. Also, my work uses the Exchange server for their emails, and the Entourage, oh its horrible! Horrible!

A: You’re telling me. Well, fortunately, I have a solution for you. Mail.app can handle all your email accounts in one place, even the work one.

Q: Oh, how I wish I could believe you! How nice it would be to not have to log in to dozens of different sites to read the letters my friends send me from Palm Beach.

A: Your problems are at an end. Mail makes it easy to add all your accounts to one program, and it checks them all for you. Also you can have it sort your mail, so letters from your friends show up in a nice friendly green, while messages from that guy who took your lawnmower in ‘68 get sent straight to the trash.

Q: Alright, alright, I’m interested. What’s this going to cost me, all this new technology?

A: Well, no matter what Mac you have, most of it is already there. If you want to be able to sign into your work email, that’s going to cost $30 if you don’t already have Snow Leopard.

Q: Oh, the Snow Leopard! My son, he put that on my iMac last week. He said it would make things faster. I told him that if somebody put a snow leopard in me I would be faster too. But kids these days, what are ya gonna do?

A: Well, then, you’re all set. Now you can set up all your email accounts and thank your son for the help. Send him a nice email.

Q: What’s the use? He never writes back! I mean, would it kill him to write once in a while, Mr. Big Shot Doctor?

A: What kind of doctor is he?

Q: He’s a Mac Doctor!

A: Yeah, I should have expected that.

1. This joke appears courtesy of Dr. Teeth and the 70’s. [↩]

I mean, Really.¹ Come on, guys. Even I don’t write stories about new financial practices. I write stories about other people who write stories about new financial practices. Which is clearly better.

1. Caution: Linked article contains TLAs and ETLAs related to accounting or whatever. We couldn’t be bothered to read the whole thing. [↩]

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

This week: Mariner Software’s most non-baseball-related program: MacGourmet.

Q: I really want to learn to cook Julia Child.

A: You mean cook like Julia Child.

Q: No, no. I said it right.

A: Next!

Q: I have many hundreds of recipes. But I also have the worst memory.

A: What makes you say that?

Q: What makes me say what? No, only kidding. Seriously. I’ll make some awesome soup–

A: Mmmmmmm…. Sooooup…. Gaaaaaahhhhhh….

Q: Focus!

A: Hmm, yes, sorry. So, you make some awesome, delicious, wholesome, soul-warming, thick and tasty potato soup with bacon and chives…

Q: Hey! No, I usually make vegetable soup or minestrone. And it’ll turn out well, but two weeks later I don’t remember what I did and I have to make up the recipe from scratch.

A: Well, I have the answer to all your problems, friend! Try MacGourmet! Not only does it store, categorize, and allow you to publish your recipes to the web¹, but it also calculates nutritional data for all your chowders, consommés, mulligatawnies, minestrone, noodle soups, rice soups, stews, broths, cream soups…

Q: And casseroles!

A: Wha? Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, if you can call a casserole cooking.

Q: I can and do, my friend.

A: You know what casserole is? It’s soup gone wrong. It’s lazy soup. It’s soup without the love. Casserole, bah!

Q: Will MacGourmet help me categorize my casseroles?

A: Sure! Sure! Why not? Do whatever you like! I suppose you can store your favorite recipe for rat poison in there too, but that doesn’t make it right.

Q: What about roasts? Are you okay with roasts?

A: With gravy?

Q: Yes.

A: Carry on.

Q: So, can I use MacGourmet to keep track of my different recipes for roasts, and sort them by the person from whom I learned the recipe?

A: Yes. It’s good at things like that. And it will help you plan out your meals for the week and generate a shopping list so you can buy everything you need in one fell swoop.

Q: Hey, that’s great!

A: Yeah! so, let’s say you were going to make Arroz Caldo. It would tell you how much ginger you needed, how much rice, how much chicken, how much broth… How long to cook the rice to get it niiice and tender, but not mushy, how to delicately season the chicken…

Q: Yep!

A: How to serve the dish on a rainy day, so that it warms the soul of the person eating it…

Q: That’s just what I’ll do!

A: *sigh* Namimiss ko naman. Babalik sana ako.²³

1. with MobileMe account, sold separately [↩]
2. Ano? Hindi ka mauronong managalog? [↩]
3. What? you don’t speak Tagalog? [↩]

Market researchers with too much time on their hands have made an astounding discovery.
“We have conducted polls of over 2000 people and found that all but one of them agreed that ‘paying less is better than paying more’.

“And that one apparently thought we said ‘We should pay Pauly Shore’ a point of view that is naturally untenable.”

However, the data from this poll seemed doomed to be unproven, until Apple released Snow Leopard.

“Suddenly we had a real product on which to test our theory,” said the same lab-coat-wearing geeky-looking guy. We never did get his name. “Snow Leopard cost less than Leopard AND gives no money to Pauly Shore! It’s the perfect product! So you can imagine our surprise when Snow Leopard sales have been significantly stronger than Leopard sales.

“We’re talking pants-wetting levels of surprise, folks.”

Steve Ballmer has reportedly been mock-stomping copies of Snlow Leopard in Microsoft all-staff meetings, but this has not had any noticable affect on sales.

Meanwhile, with all major announcements concerning new iPods, tablets, and iPhones either in the past or far in the future, Apple rumor sites have already started speculating on sales figures for OSX 10.7 “Gruber”.

Current estimates on AppleInsider say that 10.7 will sell 40 million copies in the first day. Apple was unwilling to comment, but pointed upward, raised their eyebrows, and nodded significantly.

Every Friday¹ we publish a list of inFrequently Answered ² Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

Today we try to tone things down a bit and actually answer a few questions about iTunes 9: the little jukebox that could.

Q: So, I still have a question about Rock Mix 2: The Revenge of Backbeats in my Genius Mix list. It still plays “You Spin Me Round”³ by Dead or Alive like, five times an hour.

A: Are you accidentally listening to Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 8?

Q: How could you possibly make a mistake like that?

A: Ask my boss. But no, I see your problem is deeper than that. You have come to Apple seeking improvements, and instead you received bass-heavy dance songs that do not fit the un-european flair you were going for in your playlist.

Q: Florid, perhaps, but that about sums it up.

A: And then, when seeking comfort, guidance and solace from your favorite source of made-up news, you were not given an answer, but were instead subjected to several hundred words of gloating, the effect of which was not as the balm of Gilead to your wounded soul.

Q: I wasn’t going to say anything, but that is also true.

A: Fear not, brave traveler! For while we have been discussing your plight, my crack team of Ruby Ninja Androids have been analyzing your iTunes library, and it seems to me that they have found a solution!

Q: What! How? I’ve got, like, passwords and stuff!

A: They have their ways, and it’s best not to know about them. But fear not, for they shall only use their knowledge of your extensive collection of bootleg Dylan tracks for good.

Q: I’m still creeped out by the whole thing.

A: That is to be expected. But soft! An answer awaits!

Q: Really, on this site?

A: Indeed! There is a simple way to get rid of the faux-disco plague!

Q: Tell me!

A: Yes, an answer that even a simple mind such as yours could comprehend!

Q: And? What is it?

A: Simply remove the cursed song from your library and replace it with “Don’t You Forget About Me” as made popular in the Molly Ringwald hit movie “The Breakfast Club”! This track will take the place of the other, coarser song and you will be transported back to a simpler time, a time when breakfast was indeed enjoyed in clubs, or occasionally in the mall after walking fourteen laps around the place.⁴

Q: Ummm…Okay, I guess that works.

A: Indeed! And it’s so much easier than changing your listening habits drastically enough to convince the Genius that you don’t love listening to Dead or Alive ponder their similarity to a record.

Q: Would that work?

A: Indeed. Listen to enough Vivaldi, Handel, Chopin, Mozart, and Toad the Wet Sprocket and you will find the crazy hair bands of the 80’s are replaced by the crazy hair guys of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, and the actually-quite-normal-hair guys of the nineties.

Q: Actually, now that I think about it, I kinda like that song. Lot’s of synthesizer, super pretentious…

A: That works too.

1. More or Less [↩]
2. Thanks to Ace for the new, much more Apple-y, much more appropriate name [↩]
3. The video is worth it just for the guy’s hair [↩]
4. I used to work in a mall. Lots of people did laps in there, then got breakfast at Cinnabon. [↩]

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: Everyone’s favorite media player’s newest incarnation: iTunes 9!

Q: I have a question about “Genius Mixes”; Why does my “Rock Mix 2″ play some tracks over and over?

A: That’s a good question. But you know what a better question would be?

Q: Ummm…

A: Something more like, “hey, where did you get that absolutely beautiful MacBook Pro?”

Q: So, did you get a MacBook Pro?

A: Or an even better question would be, “Hey, did you win some sort of major award at your place of employment, and then use part of the proceeds of that major award to purchase an absolutely stunning 15″ MacBook Pro?”

Q: I’m not even going to try to remember all that. Look, are you going to answer my question or what?

A: I don’t know what your problem is. iTunes works fine on my brand new MacBook Pro.

Q: Really?

A: Yes!… Maybe. I don’t actually have any music on there yet. But I plan to use home sharing later to pull a bunch of my music off of my iMac onto my new–

Q: –MacBook Pro. Yes, got it. So really, you don’t know what’s going on at all, as far as iTunes 9 is concerned, huh?

A: Well, I installed it on my iMac and my old MacBook, but I haven’t really had all that much time to play with it. I was too busy being named one of the six best employees IN THE WORLD!!!

Q: Really?

A: Maybe, or maybe it was more “one of the six recipients of an award given out by a fairly large UNIVERSITY that’s in the state OF UTAH“.

Q: You’re a bit useless this week,you know that?

A: Do you know how many days I’ve worked this week? 1.5!¹

Q: You are a paragon of employeeship. Okay, maybe you’ll be in the mood to actually answer questions next week. Have fun with your new toy.

A: Wait, what? I was too busy turning the lights off and watching my keyboard light up.

Q: My point exactly.

1. State holiday, work adjust day for working 16 hours in one day last week, one day home sick, one day allowed to go home early because I’d just become the first employee of my department to win my employer’s most prestigious award [↩]

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: Pixelmator, the image editor that isn’t as expensive as Photoshop, but also isn’t as ugly as the Gimp!

Q: Why you gotta say the Gimp is ugly?

A: Ummmm, because it is? I mean, X11? Seriously?

Q: But it has so much power! It’s elegance is matched only by its–

A: Really crappy interface! And anyway, we’re here to talk about Pixelmator.

Q: Never used it.

A: What? That what possible questions could you have about it?

Q: None. Some shiny robot guy told me to come in here and ask questions or else he’d elegantly reformat my hard drive.

A: Well that’s just great! How am I supposed to write an iFAQ with a “Q:” Guy who doesn’t have any questions?

Q: You could ask me questions!

A: About a program you’ve never used?

Q: Yeah! Wait, no. Hmmm… I see your point.

A: Listen, just…just read these cards okay?

Q: This seems weird. I feel dishonest doing this.

A: Give ya a buck!

Q: Okay! Here goes. Ahem. “How will pixelmator make me mroe popular with the ladies?”

A: What? That’s not what I wrote! I would never misspell the word “more”!

Q: Well, yeah, but your question was boring! Anyway, if it can make me more popular with the ladies, then I might be interested.

A: Okay, whatever. Look, if you can make a real nice picture, with like, hearts and flowers and print it with the lady’s name in the middle and stuff, then maybe that’ll help a little bit.

Q: What if I don’t know her name? What if I always just call her sweet–

A: Then you have bigger problems. Now, can we please just ask image manipulation questions?

Q: Okay, fine. How can I make an image do my bidding?

A: What?

Q: Why else would I manipulate it? Other than to torture its psyche, that is.

A: Yeah, okay, we’re done here.

Q: Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. And anyway, why haven’t you answered my question!

A: Well, you can warp, twist and blur your image. Does that help?

Q: A little.

A: Fine. Bye now.