Crazy Apple News Site

Once upon a time there was a beautiful computer company who lived in the magic valley far to the west. And this computer company made graceful, elegant, useful machines that everyone loved.  True, it was hard to develop software for the beautiful computer because the beautiful company only wanted beautiful software. And true, the beautiful computer was a little expensive, but people were happy to buy it because it was so great.

One day an evil software company from far to the north came and tricked the Master of Business and Industry into putting their software on all the computers the Master sold.  The evil company’s software was ugly, hard to use, and downright primitive compared to the beautiful company’s offerings, but people still bought it for two reasons: it was cheap, it was easy for all the little developers to write software for the evil company’s operating system, and you could install it on any hardware you wanted.¹

At first the beautiful company laughed at the evil company’s products, but somehow the evil company took over the world, and all but a faithful handful moved to the Dungeon Of Stupidity. Those few waited for the return of their King, the head of the beautiful company, and a day when they would once again be able to use beautiful computers in the light of day, instead of hiding in MUGs.

At last the King returned and the beautiful company started the long, slow climb back out of obscurity. They made it easier for the little programmers to write software for the beautiful computer by giving them the tools they needed. They brought the price of the beautiful computer down, so that more people could know of its beauty.  And the beautiful computer once again flourished.

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 now a company that claims not to be evil has brought forth software that seeks to replace the beautiful device.  The software isn’t ugly, but it isn’t as beautiful as the software that runs the beautiful device.  It isn’t hard to use, but it’s harder to use than the software for the beautiful device.  It is more primitive than the software for the beautiful device, but there are those in the kingdom who fear that people will use the software of the company that claims not to be evil for two reasons: It’s cheaper than the beautiful device², it’s easy for all the little developers to write software for it³, and you can install it on many different devices.⁴

For now, the beautiful company laughs at the company who claims not to be evil’s device. But the faithful sit and wait, wondering what the King will do to ensure that what happened to the beautiful computer doesn’t happen to the beautiful device.  They hope that the beautiful company will allow the little programmers to write software for the beautiful device in freedom, as they have the beautiful computer.  They hope that the beautiful company will make the beautiful device less expensive, so that more people may know of its beauty. And they hope that the beautiful device will flourish.

1. Three reasons. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! [↩]
2. 
   The software is free [↩]
3. Because the company that claims not to be evil says that any software will be allowed [↩]
4. This fairy tale still hasn’t learned to count [↩]

• 11:15pm, Day one – My Hotel Room: Finish talking with wife on iChat.  Set alarm on cell phone to wake me up at 6:00AM.
• 3:25 am, Day two – My Hotel Room: Dream that cats have taken over planet.  All requests for food are must be phrased in the form of “I can has soup?” (really)¹
• 6:30 am -same place: wake up and notice that alarm has failed me again.
• 6:35 am - stumble into shower. Because bathroom has one light in middle of room and remarkably loud fan, blearily believe that I am being abducted  by aliens so that I can be inducted into Earthling Hall of Fame.  My acceptance speech is hailed as “heart touching…moving” by Alien Abductors Weekly.
• 6:50 am - decide to stop writing post and go get some breakfast.
• 7:40 am – CSU: Resume top-secret meetings with CSU programmers.  They reveal a truth so secret, so, dark, so deep, that Sarah Palin would have me killed if I revealed it here. So I’ll reveal it in the footnotes.²
• 11:30 am – CSU: top-secret meetings concluded, we set off, spirits high and MacBook battery low, back to the Denver Airport.
• 12:30 – lunch: Nothing even remotely Apple related happens, except that every other person in the restaurant has an iPhone.
• 3:30 – Denver Airport: Flight departs.  Airline stewardess completes safety demonstration, adds under her breath, “hopefully this one makes it over the mountains”³
• 3:31 – Denver Airport: I commence worrying.
• 4:40 – Salt Lake International Airport: plane lands.  I have blinked twice, after holding the plane in the air the entire time with nothing but my mind.
• 5:30 – Salt Lake International Airport: I finally get my baggage back from the airport trolls. Homeward bound!

And so ends the saga of the Crazy Apple News Fort Collins Trip (CAN… I’m not gonna finish that one.)  I hope you were entertained and enlightened, as I was. True, we never solved the mystery of why CSU doesn’t like Macs, but I did get a number of good meals on somewhat else’s dime.  Thank you.

1. I never sleep soundly in hotels [↩]
2. Alaskan moose (meese? Mooses?) never wear pants! [↩]
3. Not really. She’d probably get fired for saying that. If anyone gets fired and subsequently rich and famous for my little blog, I want it to be me. [↩]

Microsoft feels that the best way to counteract the market’s move towards Apple products is to hire Jerry Seinfeld to appear with Bill Gates¹  in an attempt to get people to take Vista seriously.

Well, this makes perfect sense to us here at CANS.  I mean, look at how much Apple’s stock has gone up in the last few months since CANS went live!  Clearly, there is a link between the number of people who make jokes about a computing platform and how popular it is.

The great thing is that we all know this is only the beginning. If this Seinfeld thing works at all, they’ll buy up every comedian they can get, and I for one can’t wait.  Personally, I’m hoping that Carrot Top is the next one tapped to hawk Mr. Ballmer’s wares. I feel his painful, grating voice and irritatingly over-the-top appearance would make him the truest face of Windows Vista. The fact that he seems to be putting on insane amounts of muscle–presumably to get people to stop making fun of him–only adds to the appeal. But until that’s official, why don’t we all guess about it for a while. Make this a more interactive post for once.  Why don’t you all talk about it? Who do you think Microsoft should hire to try to make Apple look less attractive?

Talk amongst yourselves.

1. How long should I wait until I start calling him things like “Dorky McSweatervest”?  Is that toothbrush still in use? [↩]

Ladies and gentlemen¹, we are just as pleased as punch to bring you our first ever Guest Editorial, and boy do we have a great one to start out with. Yes, today we are proud to publish wit and wisdom from beyond the grave. We present the undead father of Open Source, a great man and now a great zombie, please put your keyboards together for Zombie Richard M. Stallman!

BRAAAAINS! BRAAAAAAINSSSS! Hahaha, sorry, little zombie joke there.

Thank you, Mr. Dickson, for that lovely introduction. By the way, “Zombie Richard M. Stallman” is my mundane name, you all can call me ZRMS.  Yes, I return from an untimely death, pushed upon me by that cowardly Raymond and separatist Torvalds to let the people of the world of the living know what I think about your software development strategies.  The advantage of death is that it unclouds your vision and frees your thinking.  Suddenly I understand the appeal of Java to developers and, while I don’t agree with it, I see why so many users use Windows. But most of all I have come to love what I thought I would always hate: your little “Mac” computers.

I always thought that Macs were just toys for the closed-source bourgeoisie, playthings for the rich and unenlightened. But suddenly CARS is funny², and  now I see the beauty, the symmetry of using a closed source mach system on top of the stable, reliable, open source Unix foundation.  I see the elegance of two licenses for each piece of software, the beauty of not knowing when your next update will be coming out.  I also see all people as basically walking delicatessens, but again, that’s a zombie thing.

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.

Sorry, wandered a bit from my point there.  My point is that there is so much more to worry about in life other than how “open” your license is, how much you can do to absolutely mod your OS to your exact tastes, and that all the time we spent being rabid about the Firefox logo not being 100% free seems kinda silly now.  I mean, eventually you have to use that computer for something, right? Sure Gentoo kicks Windows all round the block in terms of speed and stabilizability, and sure freedom of computers is important, and someone needs to keep Microsoft in check, but there does come a point where enough is sufficient, and you just need to stop recompiling your kernel and write that thesis paper you’ve been avoiding all semester.

I don’t know why I didn’t think this way when I was alive.  Chemicals, probably.  When you’re alive you have all this adrenalin, testosterone, endorphins, and all that other chemical muck swilling around inside of you, screwing up your thinking and making you want to hit things all day long.  Or something.  Ever since I was brought back to this plane by that itinerant Voodoo priest my memories of my past life are somewhat confused.  I mean, I know that I didn’t like someone called Bill Gates, and every once in a while I suddenly remember  being really happy writing code to be compatible with the 80386 processor, but I don’t really remember why I did like 80386′s and didn’t like Gates.

Guess what I use computers for now. Go on, guess.  I use them to tell really awesome zombie jokes.  Wanna hear some?  C’mon, be a sport. No?  Fine. Be that way. I’ma go eat Steve Ballmer’s brain.  I could use a light snack.

HA! Sneaked a zombie joke right past you! ZING!

No, okay, I was being serious. I’m hungry. Later, fruit lovers.

1. or to judge from our comments: Lady and Gentleman [↩]
2. had to sneak a trackback link in here somewhere [↩]

With the release of the iPhone 3G, we were excited to read Walt Mossberg’s review of the new and improved hardware and software offerings from Apple. As he has with so many other new releases, Walt praised the iPhone in general and the App Store specifically, but we wanted more.
I mean, look at his review of Firefox 3:

Firefox 3.0 is the best Web browser out there right now, and that it tops the current versions of both IE and Safari in features, speed and security.

Or how about his review of the App store:

compared with the graphically rich, snappy iPhone apps — many of which fetch data from the Internet at high speed — the typical program on these older platforms [Palm and Blackberrry] looks positively primitive.

But his latest review of the iPhone itself, well, it was…
it was kinda negative. And we just can’t handle that.

I mean sure, he calls it “a true computing platform with wide versatility” and “the world’s most influential smart phone”. But he also complains about the battery life, talks about it having problems with syncing email from Exchange and other systems, and he says that it’s more expensive due to AT&T’s increased prices.

How do you think that makes Apple feel, Walt? You can’t blame Apple for some battery supplier’s problems, or Microsoft’s terrible Exchange system, or AT&T’s pricing schemes. These things aren’t Apple’s fault!

And what about us, the consumers? What we want from you is happy –nay, ebullient– reviews of new products so we can feel good about spending all our money on things we don’t need and keep the economy from going in the toilet. And you give us objectivity. Great. Thanks. We can get that from bankers or lawyers.

So fine, you don’t absolutely love the iPhone 3G. Great. I guess we can deal with that, Mr. Mossberg. Just don’t say anything nasty about our good, beloved, almost-working Mobile Me…
Oh, you rat.

Every Sunday¹ 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: The person who just installed our carpet² answers your questions about using DSL to connect a Mac to the internet.

Q: I’ve heard that cable is faster than DSL, is that true?

A: Oh, I don’t know, and speed isn’t all that important, you know? But I have a cousin who can install cable for you.

Q: What’s the best way to find a reliable service provider in the state where I live?

A: My brother runs a business that will get you hooked up reeeeeal niiiice, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Q: I’m not sure I do, nor do I want to. Who is that old guy that came with you, why doesn’t he do anything, and why did he just cut a perfectly good six-foot piece of carpet into two three-foot pieces of carpet?

A: That’s my dad, no? And we need the smaller pieces to finish the small room, right? So, we will do it really quick, after we go take a break and talk about it for a while. Then we will look in all your closets.

Q: So, do you think you would be able to, oh, I don’t know, put my phone jack back on the wall, so that I can connect to the internet ³ anytime soon, considering that the jack is four feet above the ground in a room you’ve already finished?

A: Oh, see, we need to keep it off, and it’s not in our contract to put things like doors or phone jacks back. But I have a brother-in-law who owns a company that does that sort of thing. I can give you his number.

Q: When will you be finished, and how did you break my Logitech keyboard, which was in a drawer in the garage, where we don’t even have carpet going in? Do you know how much I hate this old white Apple keyboard?

A: We’re done, so will you please sign this invoice that’s for another house we’re doing in two days? We don’t like keeping our paperwork straight. I have a sister who works for Logitech-

Q: OUT! Get out!

1. If we have had contractors in our house Headquarters all day Friday and Saturday [↩]
2. and made a 4 hour job take two days [↩]
3. DSL uses phone lines. CANS don’t do dial-up [↩]

As an apology for not posting the Friday iFAQ on Friday, I present to you: Vista Bullying

In a widely reported move,¹ Microsoft has announced that the “Vista Bullying stops here”.  And we here at CANS think it’s about time, too.  I mean, look at poor little Microsoft, barely making enough money to keep every single human being on earth fed, and along come big ol’ Apple, throwing its weight around, making Vista feel bad. Be nice to Microsoft! They’re doing their best, folks!  They don’t have all that many programmers in Redmond, and making an operating system is hard! Why does Apple have to be so mean, anyway?  All Vista wants to do is take over the world and make everyone have to buy OneCare to patch all the security holes left in the original operating system.  Is that so bad?

But as much fun as it is to paint Microsoft as a spoiled, whiny little nine year old getting pushed around by a much cooler five year old, It’s even more fun to look at some of the comments they actually made in the announcement:

Yes, the changes did cause a lot of pain.

What’s funny is that the full stop did go there.  (In the interest of fair reporting² I should mention that the next line was “But the customers are starting to see benefits.”) Microsoft acknowledges that using Vista causes pain, and that it’s only a year later that “customers are starting to see benefits.”   I…I just don’t have anything to say to that, but I will mention that when I took a class that required me to write software in Visual Studio, I got a “are you sure you want to run this program?” warning every time I started Visual Studio, itself a Microsoft product.  My guess is that Microsoft wanted to let me know that if I run VS, I could write a virus, which would then infect my machine and destroy all my data.

And then there’s this comment:

Brooks noted that the same architectural changes that caused hardships in Vista are carrying over to Windows 7…

What they mean to say is that the hardships are over, because all the changes were made in Vista, so Windows 7 should be a breeze.  What it sounds like is “All the hardships in Vista are carrying over to Windows 7″, which is way funnier.

One more:

You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping. We’ve woken up and it’s time to take this message forward. This is the true story of Vista…

Ahh, pure marketing speak.  Take one metaphor, muddle it up with some other vaguely fairy-tale sounding phrases, and then “take your message forward”.  The great thing about this sentence is that it doesn’t actually mean anything! Asimov would have called it “syntactically null”.  But it sounds like big news.

Now, I have to say that the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads are getting on my nerves.  So if those went away, I’d be happy. But all this whining about “people is bein’ mean to us fer no reason” is pretty silly, and isn’t going to get Microsoft any credibility in the market, especially while they’re running their own smear campaigns against Linux.

Well, this didn’t end up being as funny as I’d hoped, but one of the first rules of comedy is that it isn’t funny to make fun of something that’s already a joke.

1. that last one is the funniest [↩]
2. I do that sometimes [↩]