Month: July 2006

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.

Q: I was reading this bullcrap yesterday from this douche bag who says that the Mac OS isn’t invulnerable to malware and that it’s only going to get worse. Man, that is such crap!
A: Well, I think it’s pretty difficult to say categorically that if the Mac OS continues to have success that it’s going to be just as vulnerable to malware as Windows, but it’s clear that OS X has benefitted from not being such a magnet for hackers.
Q: What the hell are you talking about?
A: Well, I think it might be harder on OS X than on Windows, but I bet if you were determined, you could write a piece of malware for any operating system.
Q: What?!
A: The Mac OS is probably more secure, but it’s not invulnerable.
Q: It is so invulnerable!
A: Um… you seem to be taking this a little personally.
Q: OS X is the one true and beautiful thing in my life! Why would you try to take that from me?!
A: Oh, c’mon. That’s not true. You’ll always have your collection of pretty porcelain ponies.
Q: Well… that’s true…

Q: I’m using Java, HTML and Apache on my Power Mac G5 to create a web site for a client that has an underlying database in MySQL. I’m creating Java Beans that access the data, but I’m having trouble maintaining a solid connection to the database. What am I doing wrong?
A: You might look at the version of the MySQL connection driver you’re using in…
Q: You know… what this all really might get down to is just that I’m not happy with my job.
A: Uh…
Q: You know that feeling when you wake up one day and you realize that you just don’t want to be a web developer anymore?
A: Not really, I…
Q: What I really want to do now is go to film school.
A: Well, have you checked the connection string?
Q: I mean, I don’t know anything about making movies. I’ve never worked on a movie. Or in the theater. It’s just, I like going to movies and how hard could it be?
A: I was going to suggest checking the MySQL user name and…
Q: I dunno. I like animals, too. Maybe… maybe I should be a veterinarian.
A: Oh, hey! If you really like animals, why don’t you be a bear?
Q: What? That’s stupid. I can’t be a bear.
A: Well, sure, but I think it’s just about as likely as you being a movie director or a vet.
Q: I… I could be a vet.
A: Nuh-uh.

Q: Hey, speaking of bears, I was thinking that Apple’s just about run the gamut on big cat names for OS X…
A: Well, there’s still Cougar. And Lion.
Q: No, no. Those are both stupid. They’ve used all the good ones. Anyway, I was thinking they should turn to bears! “Mac OS X Grizzly” would rock!
A: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good one. But… um… what would they use after that?
Q: Uh, well, there’s… uh…
A: “Panda” doesn’t really strike fear into anyone. Plus, I don’t even think they’re really bears. I think they’re, like, big raccoons or some shit.
Q: Well, black bears are kind of cool.
A: “Mac OS X Black Bear”?
Q: Hey, it’s not my fault that bears are stupid!
A: Well, what other animals are cool?
Q: Um… Hey! Sharks are wicked cool!
A: Oh, yeah! Like “Mac OS X Mako”!
Q: Yeah! Or “Mac OS X Hammerhead”!
A: Or “Mac OS X Tiger”!
Q: Yeah! Oh. Wait…
A: Oh, no… wait…
Q: That’s…
A: Maybe sharks aren’t the right thing.
Q: Yeah.
A: Huh.
Q: Well… what about monkeys?
A: Um… I don’t think so.

Apple Gives Up On Searching For Leaker.

Apple announced today that it has discontinued its search for the person responsible for the leak of confidential information related to the project code named “Asteroid.” Published reports of the leak had prompted the company to sue AppleInsider and O’Grady’s PowerPage, suits it has decided not to pursue any further.

Sources at Apple indicate the decision was made after it was realized that no one could remember what “Asteroid” really was and what it was that had been leaked.

“Phil? Do you remember?” a visibly confused CEO Steve Jobs asked Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller.

“Whoo,” Schiller said. “Sheesh. Kinda puttin’ me on the spot here, Steve!”

Pursing his lips, shifting his weigh from one foot to another and crossing and uncrossing his arms, Schiller looked pensive for several moments.

“Nope. I’m drawing a blank. I got nothin’.”

“Me, too,” Jobs said. “Kind of embarrassing! Ha-ha! Boy, I really made a big fuss over this. You’d think I could remember what it was all about…”

“Didn’t it have something to do with iLife?” Chief Operating Office Tim Cook chimed in.

This suggestion however only prompted more blank stares and heavy sighs.

“Mmm, maybe not,” Cook said.

“Was it a tablet device?” asked CFO Peter Oppenheimer.

Jobs, Schiller and Cook squinted at him quizzically.

“No,” Oppenheimer said. “No… er…”

“Wasn’t it sort of a thing that connected to other things and had some kind of other connection for this one special thing?” head of Mac hardware engineering Peter Mehring offered.

“I remember it was white,” Chief Designer Jonathan Ive said, prompting nods from everyone.

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Duh.”

After another prolonged silence, Jobs said “What the heck was that thing?!”

Whatever the device was, Apple insists that it was all worthwhile.

Investors Sue Apple For Too Many Law Suits.

Reacting to recent news that the company is being sued for stock option grant irregularities, a group of investors today filed suit against Apple for facing too many lawsuits.

“Apple is currently the subject of no less than 5, 28 lawsuits,” said Marcus Gregory, Chief Investment Strategist for the State of California Teacher’s Pension Plan, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

“This has a negative effect on the value of the company’s stock. We are initiating this lawsuit to recuperate our losses of potential income.”

While “loss of potential income” may not sound like much of a legal footing, Apple has already been sued by someone who feared his iPod could damage his hearing.

Seriously.

As its star has risen in recent years, Apple has seen the number of suits against it skyrocket, many of them baseless.

For example, contrary to what has been claimed in some of these suits, it is highly unlikely that Apple

  • Fathered a love child with an 18-year old woman from New Rochelle, NY. It was more likely that dratted Ronald from across town who was always coming by.
  • Built Stonehenge in the third century B.C. and won’t give up its secrets.
  • Leaked the identity of Valerie Plame and the details of several government spying programs. And then tried to sell the formula for Coke to Pepsi. And peed in the pool.
  • Shot JFK.

Apple stock was down 2.69 on the news of the new suit.

“See?!” Gregory said.

iPod Still So Totally Doomed.

As analysts continue to wet themselves in excitement over the impending release of the Microsoft iPod killer, details about the device continue to trickle out.

An article by the Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley says that the Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Portable Media Player Device Media Player Media Player Media Player, coded named Argo, will be much more than just an MP3 player. It will also act as a wireless platform for games like the PSP.

Strangely, it will also leave little raisins around your house like an Angora bunny.

The device is not yet complete according to Dudley, but it’s scheduled for release for the holiday shopping season and may be being rushed so that it can be announced at Microsoft’s July 27th meeting with financial analysts. Given the company’s track record in meeting deadlines and its ability to turn out quality X.0 releases on a rush schedule this can only spell doom for the iPod.

Or it could spell “xkljadefklja;vjadk.”

But, in yet another sign that the iPod is like so totally doomed, Microsoft will offer license parity for songs already purchased from the iTunes Music Store, so you can bring your music with you to the Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Music Download Service. This will amount to a $1 billion giveaway simply to entice users to the new service – a steep price for any company – but Rob Enderle of the group of the same name indicates Microsoft “is wicked boss and has magical powers.”

How this will be accomplished technologically is that the Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Music Download Service will log on to the iTunes Music Store, view what songs you already own and transfer those assets to their Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Music Download Service counterparts.

Microsoft expects Apple to send them the fully documented API for how to do this any day now.

Just in case you still don’t believe the iPod is doomy-doom-doom-doomèd, analysts predict that the strength of the Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Music Download Service will be its ability to play music on a whole mess of devices that were designed to do something else, which consumer are known to love to do.

Many analysts are recommending that iPod users just go ahead and sell their iPods right now while they still have some value and listen to their old vinyl LPs until they receive their new Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 Portable Media Player Device Media Player Media Player Media Player. If rumors are true, Microsoft is just going to go ahead and buy one for each and every person on the planet.

“They could totally do that,” said Rob Enderle. “Totally.”