Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.


Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.

Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.

Every now and again, the Help Desk gets the wrong mail. We don’t know why. But would it kill you to play along? No. I don’t think so.

Anyway, not only was today’s mail delivered to the wrong place, it was answered by the wrong guy. Yeah. J. Hobbs was apparently a MacUser help columnist back in 1993 until he got hit in the head with an LC II. He was never the same again after that.

On the bright side, it’s nice to see him working again after so long.

Q: My father has been getting on in years and I’m worried for his safety as he moves around the house. I’m concerned he might fall down and hurt himself. As he’s moving into my house in October, are there any steps I can take to “elderly-proof” my house?
A: After startup, look for a file called “PowerTalk Preferences” in your System Folder’s Preference folder. Drag that file to the trash (don’t worry, it’ll be recreated!). Now open up the “File Sharing” control panel. Option-click on the title bar and voila! Andy Hertzfeld’s name in the San Francisco font will pop up in a Balloon Help bubble!

Q: I’ve been dating the same guy for almost four years now, and he just won’t make the commitment to take things to the next level. He just tells me that he feels that things are perfect the way they are. Is there anything I can do to help my man feel comfortable enough to make the leap?
A: This doesn’t mean your Performa is dead; it just means the battery has died, and as a result you’re getting no signal out of video port . The long-term fix is to get a new 3.3V lithium battery (available at Radio Shack or your local Apple dealer), but the short-term fix is to zap the PRAM. Hold down P-R-option-command at startup until you hear the chime, and keep holding the keys down until you hear the chime three times. Then, unplug your Apple Geoport Adapter and reboot. After the desktop appears, open the OpenDoc preferences and shift-click on the “O” in OpenDoc and it will turn into an 3-D rotating cartoon head of Jef Raskin while “Yellow Rose of Texas” plays via QuickTime. Now summon Gorto to exorcise the Raskin presence, or your extensions will not load.

Q: My grandmother has been collecting bleach bottles for the past twenty years and the sheer size of the collection has become unwieldy. When it was just one or two bleach bottles, it was a charming little hobby. But now that the collection has taken over most of the basement, it’s less amusing. We’ve tried suggesting arts and crafts she can use the bottles for, but she stubbornly insists the bottles are “her legacy”. How can my wife and I make it clear that the bottles are no longer welcome?
A: Publish and Subscribe is a very powerful new technology, but not all applications can take advantage of it. An alternate method of accomplishing this might be via AppleScript, Apple’s scripting technology that allows you to pass “scripts” to your applications to tell them what to do, without using the mouse. However, writing AppleScripts can be a difficult process. So, in this case you should probably first try rebuilding your desktop — hold down “option” and “command” (also known as “Open-Apple”) after your extensions load. After this process completes, hold down “option” while you double-click TeachText and truck like the doo-dah man. Instead of the standard new blank text page, you’ll hear MacinTalk list off the names of the original Lisa developers while you see a bit-mapped MacPaint image on a brick wall texture that reads “Bill Atkinson Rulez”.

It’s easy!

50 thoughts on “Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.”

  5. I could never get any of those stupid easter eggs to work even when I DID have system 7….

  8. I don’t like it much when John goes on vacation — and not just because it usually means Karen is on vacation, too, and therefore someone like Sean or Stacey or maybe even Kris or Mike is covering courts and crime. (“The triple murder was ‘horrorifical.’ “? What the hell kind of lede is THAT?) I just think this whole Alaska trip was a bad idea. When you’re worried about a grizzly eating your s’mores or Cheez-Whiz, you get distracted and don’t have time to fine-tune the acerbic Mac humor we’ve come to expect and love. Come home to Tacoma, John, all is forgiven. Oh, and tell Karen we need an A1 centerpiece for Thursday.

  11. 110000000th POST BITCHES

    DON’T TOUCH ME…I MAY PERFORMA RAPED FIRE OF MY GUN….

  12. GEOPORT…GORTO…THOSE WERE SOME REAL DEMON-GODS!

    AH, THE MEMORIES. IT REALLY TAKES ME BACK. THERE WAS THAT TIME WHEN GORTO AND I SUCKED THE SOULS OUT OF HALF OF APPLE’S DESIGN STAFF, THEN USED THEM TO “DOUBLE-STUFF” THE REST. IT WAS TASTY!

    MMM, GOOD TIMES!

  13. Huh, huh… he said “Performa.” Performa’s sucked… except when I had one. But I don’t have one anymore. But man “RAPED FIRE” is scary. I wanna run away so I don’t get shot, but I’m gonna have nightmares. I hope I can find my nightlight…

  14. cheez whiz…someone’s been reading the Mega Post…all those wonderful references.

    shakes head in bewilderment

    slinks back to the Mega Post for another fix

  15. RIGHT AFTER THAT STUNT GORTO AND I PULLED, PERFORMAS WERE ANNOUNCED. COINCIDENCE? DON’T BET ON IT.

    PERFORMAS: THE ESSENCE OF UNSPEAKABLE HORROR!

  18. mmmm mmMMMmm… i could really pop some viagra, whilst losing all my money to an online dodgy casino. Im excited!

    Are there any cool easter eggs in OS X? I want to get me some Bill Atkinson action… LOL

  19. Wait! What about Grandma’s bleach bottles? What of her legacy? Oh, the humanity!

    Um….OK. Sorry about that. I just accidentally zapped myself while trying to zap the PRAM.

    Zapping the PRAM…Will doing that too often make my keyboard hairy?

  20. DEMON-GODS SPURN VIAGRA!

    SPAMMERS, I’M COMING TO TAKE YOUR SOULS NOW!

    OH, SOMEONE BEAT ME TO IT…NO, IT’S JUST THAT SPAMMERS LACK SOULS IN THE FIRST PLACE. I KEEP FORGETTING THAT.

    I’D DEVOUR YOUR CORPOREAL SHELL, BUT I’M TRYING TO CUT DOWN ON GREASY FOOD. I’LL SEND GLAARKU BY TO TAKE CARE OF IT.

    WANKERS LIKE YOU ARE MORE HIS SPEED ANYWAY.

  21. whoooooooooo whowooo aaahaaahaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhH!!!! Oh crap not again…

    “ALL HAIL LORD GLAARKU!! ALL TREMBLE IN FEAR AT HIS DEMONIC MANHOOD FOR VIAGRA IT NEEDS NOT! OH IT FEELS GOOD TO BE IN A NEW HOST AGAIN. STEVE’S WAS OUT SICK LAST MONTH AND BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED! WHERE WAS I?! OH YEAH, ALL FEAR GLAARKU!! AND MAKE SURE YOU USE AT LEAST TWO EXCLAIMATION POINTS AFTER MY NAME, GLAARKU!! GLAARKU!! ASK FOR ME BY NAME! WHAT? SPAMMERS?! GLAARKU IS NOT PLEASED BY THE SPAMMER, AND YOU’RE RIGHT I DON’T SENSE ANY TASTY SOULS INSIDE WITH WHICH TO ENJOY WITH A, WELL WHAT IS THAT, IT’S A KIND OF SKIN-CHUTNEY THING, IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN, BUT IT’S REALLY QUITE TASTY… WHERE WAS I? OH YEAH, FEAR GLAARKU, SPAMMERS, FOR A REALLY NASTY SKIN RASH RIGHT ON YOUR GROIN SHALL BE YOUR FINAL UNDOING!”

    “SUCH IS THE WILL OF GLAARKU! HAIL!”

    Hey, where’d my diet coke go?! Glaarku!!

  24. Oops, just being dumb on that God post, I didn’t realize it was a real url. Forgive me. Mods: You can edit it out.

    (Mods = Moltz.)

    ~ winky the 8.5th

  25. GLAARKU, THAT WAS WELL EXECUTED! PERHAPS YOU MIGHT COMPLETE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THAT MERIT BADGE OF UNSPEAKABLE HORROR AFTER ALL.

    IT’S THE FIRST STEP OUT OF WANKER-HOOD FOR A DEMON-GOD, YOU KNOW. KEEP UP THE PROGRESS AND SOMEDAY ALL MORTALS MIGHT FEAR YOU.

    HERE’S A HELPFUL HINT: THE GROIN ISN’T THE ONLY PLACE THESE SPAMMERS ARE VULNERABLE–TRY THE WALLET. THAT PRODUCES SUCH SCREAMS AS ARE TRULY…TASTY!

  26. Glaarku! Cthulu! Take it outside, boys! All this fighting is tearing large holes in the time-space continuum, and I’m not cleaning this mess up again!

    I can barely walk around here without running the risk of stepping into a wrinkle in ti —

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

  27. AAAAAAAOH MAN!

    I hate when that happens….

    Oh yeah, Bill and Ted told me to tell you hello. I think someone was about go all medieval on them.

  30. SORRY, CTHULHU GET’S ME GOING AND I JUST CAN’T STOP DEVOURING SOULS!!! NOT AN EXCUSE, I KNOW. HEY, ARE WE GOING TO HAVE A WEDDING HERE? WE SHOULD GET IT ON FOR BETTER OR WORSE, THAT OR BUFF BRIDES. LOVE TLC/DISCOVERY. CHECK OUT MY NEW FAN-SITE! GLAARKU OUT!

  31. A WEDDING? HOW SWEET (AND TASTY)!

    I CALL DIBS ON THE SOULS OF ALL WHO ATTEND!

    (GLAARKU, SINCE YOU’RE DOING SO WELL WITH THE SPAMMERS, I’LL SAVE YOU A FEW. YOU TOO GORTO, BUT ONLY IF YOU BRING THE BEER.)

  35. YES, FOR YOUR AVARAGE, RUN OF THE MILL, DEMON GOD, ALL CAPS *IS* LOWER CASE. IF WE WERE TO WRITE IN DEMON-GOD-ALL-CAPS YOUR SCREENS WOULD EXPLODE (OR IMPLODE IF YOU’RE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE) IN A WASTEFUL BUT NECESSARY DISPLAY OF FIRE, PHOSPHOR AND BROKEN GLASS!!!

    IS SEXY KING BITCH A DEMON GOD TOO?

    SUCH IS THE WILL OF GLAARKU! HAIL!

  36. WELL SAID GLAARKU! TRUE UNSPEAKABLE HORROR IS WITHIN YOUR GRASP!!! THESE PUNY MORTALS WOULD EAT THEIR OWN HEADS TO ESCAPE THE POWER OF DEMON-GOD-ALL-CAPS!!!!!

    BUT, YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THE EXCLAMATION-MARK IS THE DEMON-GOD EQUIVALENT OF A PERIOD!!!!!!! MORTALS WOULD SUCK OUT THEIR OWN SOULS TO ESCAPE THE HORROR IF THEY WERE TO WITNESS DEMON-GOD-ALL-CAPS AND TRUE DEMON-GOD EXCLAMATION POINTS USED TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!

    MORTALS, COWER IN FEAR OF DEMON-GOD TYPOGRAPHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    BTW, I WAS PASSING THROUGH THE GALAXY OF TERROR ONCE AND HEARD SOMETHING ABOUT SKB…PROBABLY SOME DEMI-DEMON-GOD…

    (ELLIPSES ARE ELLIPSES, DEMON-GOD OR OTHERWISE…)

  37. OKAY THEN, I’M A DEMON-GOD TOO!!! WHAT I WAS DOING BEFORE WAS… WHISPERING!!! HAHAHA MAKE YOUR TIME!!!

    WHERE ARE THE MORTALS??? I WANT TO YELL AT THEM AND SEE HOW FAR I CAN MAKE THE EXPLODED BITS OF THEIR BRAINS FLY!!! FLY BRAINS BITS FLY!!! NO!!! NOT IN MY TAPIOCA!!! GET OUT!!!

    ANYWAY, THAT’S A FINE DEMON-GOD WEBSITE YOU HAVE THERE GLAARKU. I SURE COULD USE ME SOME SACRIFI… ER, WORSHIPPERS LIKE YOU’VE GOT THERE!!! I CAN BE REAL!!! I CAN BE ULTIMATE!!! ARRRRRGH!!! CHECK OUT THESE PYTHONS!!!

  40. I’m mortal. See I can use lower case. 😛

    Hey demon guys. Over here.

    *Puts down demon god glue trap on the floor*

    Look nice tasty soul and I’m just waiting to be exploded.

  41. NOOOO!!! NOT AN EAR QUATER!!! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!!!

    *RUNS AROUND IN BIG, FIREY DEMON-GOD CIRCLES*

    IS A QUATER LIKE A CRATER??? IF SO, BWAAAAAH!!! OF COURSE MY EARS HAVE CRATERS IN THEM, FOR THEY ARE ALL-POWERFUL HELL PITS OF EARS!!! EARS FORMED FROM THE BOMBARDMENT OF METEORS!!!

    I… WAS TANNING ON ONE OF JUPITER’S MOONS AND… WELL, I DIDN’T USE ENOUGH METEOR TAN LOTION ON MY EARS AND… I OVERSLEPT A FEW EONS TOO MANY!!! PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THEM, THEY ARE VERY TENDER… I MEAN ALL-POWERFUL!!!

    FEE FI FO FUM…

    I SMELL THE NON-CAPS TEXT OF AN ENGLISHMAN… ER, MORTAL!!!

  42. So! What Kind Of Demi-God Are You If You Type In Initial Caps? The God Of Taglines? The Evil Overlord Of Advertising Slogans?

  44. Visions of a Steve/Carly/Phil sandwich.

    What can I say August was a long month whithout regular CARS updates

  45. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg

  46. GLAARKU and CTHULU! Calling GORTO! There’s fresh meat in the house!

    Oops! My bad. I forgot that spambots have no souls for you to comsume.

    And where’s NinjaMasako when you need her? No doubt at Steve’s bedside assisting in his recovery (that, or stalking him in the hospital parking lot).

    Dear spammers: Go away. Why don’t you find some nice Linux users forum or something?

  47. Hrm… I think we should lend you guys the nut kicker robot that we designed for the Mega-Post, you should see all the spamming bastards we get in there.

    We recently outfitted it with a cheese-grater option that replaces the traditional kicking method. It is somewhat more entertaining…

    personally, I think the “naked grannies avi” requires some delicate cheese-grater attention.

  49. Warning Large amounts of Spam in this forum has brought me over from the Mega Post.

    *klaxxon begins to sound*

    Warning spam has breached acceptable level. Emergency spam procedure 14986b-11e activated.

    *Robot’s torso opens up and little robot bats carrying nets fly out and begin rounding up spammers. Large jolts of electricity go through the metal fibers of the net knocking the spammers unconscious and making them more docile. *

    2 arms are not enough to handle this amount of spam.

    *Robot pulls out box ‘o arms and begins attaching multiple arms to his body.*

    I am short one cheese grater so one of the spammers will get hoed instead of shredded.

    *Robot begins shredding the spammers into finely ground spam paste. The robot bats begin collecting the pieces to send back to the companies to … deter their use of spam. The spammer that got hoed is broken up into pieces and fed to Howard though the head is saved so it can be mounted on the wall.*

    My work here is done. Now I return to the Mega Post to do a little more nutkicking.

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