Crazy Apple News Site

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 cover the one and only 1Password, for all your storing-secret-stuff needs!

A: What’s the big deal? I already use one password!

Q: The program “1Password”?

A: No, I mean I have one password that I use for everything everywhere. Wanna know what it is?

Q: NO! That’s just stupid! Why even ask?

A: It’s “kittenzcanhasfood”! It’s super secure because it’s long and has a “z” instead of an “s” in there!

Q: And it’s on the internet! That has “secure password” all over it!

A: Aaaah, what’s the big deal? So the five people who read this site will know my password, so what? I don’t even really exist.

Q: True, but if you did, suddenly all your everything would be vulerable to…let me see here… anybody on earth. If you want to be that exposed on the web why not just take the plunge and run Windows Vista? And it’s more like 20 people, thank you very much.

A: I still don’t see how a program is going to help me be “safer” on the web. I mean, I still just have one password, it just stores it a bunch of times.

Q: Or you can let it create new passwords for you, which are random and secure, and let it fill those in for you.

A: So anyone can walk up to my computer and use all my stored 1Password passwords. Great. MUCH better than what I’m doing now.

Q: No, they would have to know your “1Password” that you use to sign in to 1Password, otherwise it won’t fill in squat.

A: Okay, so it fills in passwords on one computer…

Q: All your Macs…

A: What now?

Q: 1Password can synchronize your stored passwords to all your macs. And your stored software serial numbers. And your stored…whatever. It specializes in those areas, though. Oh, and it can sync with your iPhone/iPod Touch.

A: Well that’s just spiffy. So what can’t it do?

Q: Make this post funny.

An unseen roadblock has arisen in the adoption of Apple’s latest hardware offering.
“Magic? Pfaugh!” said Nigel Rutheford, a bland, portly tax adjuster from Norwich. “When you get older, my boy, you’ll realize there’s no such thing. I won’t have this kind of nonsense brought into my home!” He shook his huge florid face to emphasize this last point, then sent his young charge to his room.

“I wish my uncle could see that ‘bluetooth connectivity’ is technological, not mythological,” simpered “Perry H.”, Rutheford’s orphaned nephew. “And I really should have known better than to tell him about the new ‘gestures’ feature. And I really really shouldn’t have mentioned the ‘two-finger gesture’ first.”

“This problem seems to be an epidemic amongst a certain breed of cardigan-wearing Britons with large-haired wives, ” said Eve Bite, Apple’s Product Adoption Liason in the UK. “For some reason the very word ‘magic’ makes them go all irrational and 1950′s-ish. They seem to feel that ‘magic’ leads to talking animals, flying confections, and socially embarrasing hijinks. Naturally, this isn’t the image we want associated with Apple’s products.”

Nobody at Apple’s Cupertino offices was available for comment, although we’re pretty sure we caught a glimpse of Steve Jobs hurredly doffing a flowing purple robe with mystical symbols.

So, we noticed today that 1.) we didn’t write anything on Friday and 2.) what we wrote two weeks ago is no longer true. We said that TypeStylerX’s webpage had buttons that looked like this:

Ultra-Classy Button

And we mocked them for this, considering the nature of the product.  We are pleased to see that the buttons on the site now look like this:

Ever So Much Better!

Which is a change for the much, much better.

But…¹

There’s still so much more to do for the site.  And here’s where I’m on thin ice. First of all, props to Strider software for getting a new version out after 7 years. Props for hanging on for 7 years, and for that matter, having a commercial product on the market at all.  I’ve got any number of half-finished² programs that haven’t yet seen the light of day, and may not ever do so.  So with all that, they still got a web store up and functional, no mean feat in and of itself. Heaven knows that I don’t spend a whole lot of time on site design on this site.  I choose a WordPress theme, make a few changes, and run with it. So me criticizing someone else’s site design can be compared to a telephone conversation between a pot and a kettle regarding scorch marks.  But when layout matters, like when I’m making a site for a client, then I focus on every pixel on every browser, and spend almost as much time on the layout as the code.

But…³

This site has nothing to do with text layout, graphic design, or the like. I’m here to make fun of people in hopefully creative and theoretically amusing ways.  My site design is not integral to my message. If you are selling a product that is meant to make things look good, yours is.  Really, if you are selling a product full stop, your site design is integral to your message.  Pagehand‘s developer knows this, as does the gentleman who makes Scrivener. They have both designed beautiful sites that tell you exactly what the product does, with screenshots, trials, pricing and everything else easy to find and attractively designed. And their headers don’t look like they were made in 2001.

Well, you could say that this article is 1.) needlessly long, boring and preachy, 2.) more appropriate for my other site, or even 3.) more appropriate for throwing away entirely.  But hopefully someone at Strider Software will look into hiring a web designer to update their site⁴ . Or at least replace the header image and add a few screen shots.

Okay, I’m done. Theoretically funny posts return soon.

1. There’s always a “But…” [↩]
2. and in some cases, half-started [↩]
3. Sometimes there’s two “But…”s [↩]
4. I charge a very reasonable $35/hour. But something tells me that this post is not the place to advertise that fact. [↩]

Apple Reported Fourth Quarter Results yesterday, leaving reporters scrambling for good ways to express their financial situation to laymen.

“Seriously, they have a buttload of cash right now,” one analyst put it.  He then spent the next two hours trying to convince his editor that a “butt” is a large container used “back in the day”.

Peter Oppenheimer was typically restrained during the official conference call, stating that the company is “delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results.” Unbeknownst to people listening to the call, he was doing what Jony Ive later described as “an unholy melding of the Cabbage Patch and the Macarena” at the time he said this, while Steve Jobs was “joyfully firing interns”.

Out of a cannon.

“We can afford it,” was all he said.

The interns were unavailable for comment.  Unless “UUUuuuuUUUrrgh. My head!” counts as a comment.

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 continue our look at all things textish with a blast from the past: Typestyler X, the revived version of Typestyler!

Q: Hey, wow! Typestyler is back! I loved that program on my ol’ Flower Power iMac!

A: Yep! It’s back and better than ever!  Typestyler X makes full use of OpenGL, Quartz, CoreImage–

Q: And a website that was apparently designed in 1991!

A: What?

Q: Do you even click on your links?  Their website looks like it was designed on Dreamweaver 1.0 using MacPaint.  I mean look at this button:

Ultra-Classy Button

A: Well, yeah, it’s not the best ever, but you can’t judge the program on the website…

Q: Wait, why not? They’re selling software that’s designed to make beautiful buttons, logos, etc. and this is what they have on their own site? I mean, here’s a better button I created in 40 seconds in ArtText2:

Extra Super special button

A: Well, they’ve been so busy getting the new version out, and things have been difficult, I’m sure.

Q: They’ve had seven years! Seven. Years.  And they hadn’t thought to update the graphics on their site in that entire time?  And somehow based on the strength of this website, sans screenshots, sans example files, they expect me to drop $200 for something that ArtText does for less than $40?

A: Well, Typestyler has a long tradition of being…wait, $200?

Q: Do you have an existing license?

A: No…

Q: Then you get to pay $200.  Do not pass go, do not collect squat.

A: Ouch. But wait! I’m sure the program rocks!

Q: Honestly, if you didn’t love it as an OS 9 program you won’t be impressed. It still looks a lot like OS 9.  Old. School. I mean, it’s powerful, and it’s got good features, but it’s ugly and hard to use.

A: Man, that’s harsh.  Which is usually my role.

Q: Yeah, you kinda didn’t answer any questions this week.

A: Well, I learned about ArtText, and that’s something.

Q: Good for you! That’ll be $200.

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 bring you the master of typography: Pagehand.¹

Q: I hate Word!

A: Word.

Q: Right.

A: What?

Q: I said I hate Word, you said “Word”, and I assumed that you were just agreeing with me.

A: Ah, right.

Q: So, do you have an answer?

A: Did you ask a question?

Q: Would you like me to ask a question?

A: Do you want to explain why you hate Word?

Q: …Yeah. Okay, I hate Word because it does stupid things to innocent text.  I mean, why should I have to dig for six miles in piles to change styles?

A: So you can re-style your file?

Q: Yes, you imbecile!

A: Now you’re getting puerile.

Q: And you’re using a dictionary.  Stop it.  So, to sum up: I hate Word because it makes things I write ugly and makes it hard to make things pretty.  Do you have a solution to my problem? An answer to my question? A Bonnie to my Clyde?

A: That last one didn’t really fit.

Q: Noted.  Are you going to answer me?

A: Pagehand.

Q:What?

A: You want your document to look perfect, you want text that flows cleanly across the page, and you want to be able to style your document without a climbing harness and a pick axe, right?

Q: Right.

A: Pagehand. Pagehand is your solution!  It’s simple, clean, has contextual menus that make sense and only appear when needed, and  it’s almost insanely focused on how your document will look.  It’s native file format is PDF, so you know that your documents will look the same no matter where you send them, PC, Mac, or Linux.

Q: Great! Now I can finally re-style that text box on the third page of my great new novel-slash-programming manual!

A: Whoa, hold up there, hoss.  Pagehand don’t do no textboxes. Yet, anyway.

Q: Wait, what? Why?

A: Where? Who? When?

Q: Kindly explain.

A: Pagehand is new, and made by one guy who believes that we should make pretty documents, but he’s still one guy and needs a bit of time and support before he can get his product to be all that you can be.

Q: So he wants me to pay for beta software?

A: No, he wants you to pay for 1.0 software, and he wants you to pay 20% less for 1.0 software than you would for 1.1 software.  It’s a fair deal. I mean, look what Microsoft wants you to pay for.

Q: Fair enough.

A: Be sure to read the section of the help file called “Producing Beautiful Documents”. It will change your life.

Q: Ummm…

A: Once you read about the true way of document design you will not want to stray from it again.  Indeed, in purity, and only in purity of design is there safety from the evils of Times New Roman.  Live it, love it, be it; the good design for the ages.  Amen.

Q: Okay! Well, thank you for your time. I gotta go now. Bye!

A: Return you will, when more training you need, yes. MmmMMMmmmm.

1. Once again, I’m writing an iFAQ for software that I genuinely like, and hope to someday purchase.  These aren’t usually my funniest. You have been warned. [↩]

Frustrated by years of being unable to bring their animation-cum-game-creation technology to the iPhone platform, Adobe has announced plans to make Flash 5 capable of building iPhone apps.

“We expect that this will spell the end of native iPhone apps as we know them,” chortled Adobe’s CRAP¹ Dearth Maul. “Once Flash CS 5 comes out, people can start ignoring the “hard” Objective-C language and write their apps in our much more newbie developer friendly ActionScript!”

“OpenGL ES! Accelerometer support! Google maps! Native controls,” ranted Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software, trying to convince people to use Apple’s tools for iPhone development, apparently by reciting random lists at them. “I mean, can Flash do 3D? No. Games based on tilting the device? No.  All Flash can do is 2D stuff, simple, brightly colored…Awww, crap. Who am I kidding? Freeverse will continue to make good games for the iPhone, everyone else will start making their crappy games in Flash, instead of just making  crappy games that look like they were made in Flash.  Crap.”

Peter Oppenheimer was quick to point out that Apple will still “get $99 up front and 30% in perpetuity” from Flash iPhone developers, just as they do from Objective-C iPhone developers.  These words did little to comfort the perfectionist Forstall.

“Still gonna look like crap,” Forstall muttered.

Normally this is where we would say that Apple was unavailable for comment, but with a long comment from Forstall we are left without a good ending to this article. Crap.

1. Chief Ruiner of Apple’s Products [↩]

It has come to my attention that, in my haste to publish the earnings of this blog, I failed to mention one line item. It is with the intent to rectify this oversight that I do hereby publish the following:

• Over 200 comments apiece from two very faithful commenters, valued at: giving me a reason to keep doing this.
  • Personal value: priceless.¹

To the other roughly 20 people a day who read this blog: would it kill you to write once in a while? Your mother and I, we worry about you, out there all alone while people like Kanye West and John Meyer are on the loose.

1. note to the IRS: taxable value is still zero! [↩]

In order to be fully compliant with this new guideline, the CANS staff does hereby make the following disclosure:

In the 1.5 years we have been covering Apple news and events, we have received the following material considerations:

• From Apple, Inc, their subsidiary and affiliate companies: Nothing, valued at $0.
• From Microsoft, and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates: Nothing, valued at $0.
• From New York Times Columnist David Pogue: 1 less-than-thrilled comment on an article we wrote a while ago, valued at roughly 20 new hits on our site from people who saw that thing I put on twitter.

We hope this will help you make more informed decisions about our trustworthiness as a source of Crazy Apple News.

We called ourselves for a statement on these numbers but we were unwilling to comment.

Waves of shock rocked the Microsoft campus today. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has ceased to exist following an announcement that his entire existence in the first place was the result of a “rounding error” by accountants using Microsoft Money.

This news is made ironic¹ in light of a recent interview the nonexistent CEO gave recently stating that Apple’s Safari browser and Google’s Chrome were both “Rounding Errors“, as opposed to Mozilla Firefox, which is statistically relevant.

“It was actually his comments that led us to look deeper at Microsoft’s finances,” admitted P. Waterhouse of Pfister Attorneys and Pflumbers². “We had been hired to do a routine audit of Microsoft’s accounts and holdings, and in the course of our investigation we came to find that the existence of a being such as “Steve Ballmer” was so statistically improbable that we were forced to conclude that he does not, in fact, exist.”

When asked what effect this could have on the company, Waterhouse replied, “well, obviously they’re going to need a CEO with enough essential existence to maintain a physical presence. We have recommended that Paul Allen pull a Steve Jobs, but for some reason he’s locked himself in his office and is adamantly refusing to talk to us about what he calls ‘a sinking ship’. We tried to explain to him that a software company, unlike a boat, actually can be unsinkable, but he refuses to listen.”

Rumors that Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and/or Phil Schiller have been approached to take over Mr. Ballmer’s spot have been neither confirmed nor denied by our contacts at Apple. Not surprisingly, Mr. Ballmer was also unavailable for comment.

1. or made up [↩]
2. “The Pfancy Pfrosecutors with the Pfunny name” [↩]