Apple:
Humor

New Mac user can’t open his MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul. 17, ’08, 1:30 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Humor

How do you spell “slow news day”? To make up for lack of non-iPhone-related news, I’ll throw a little Apple humor your way.

First time MacBook Pro owner aberard just can’t get that darned MBP to open! He goes to the Apple Support forum for much needed assistance.

“I can’t open my new MacBook Pro. Is there a latch? I’m afraid of wrecking something by pulling or pushing,” he queries.

Granted, using a PC all these years has probably done substantial damage to his brain, this still seems a little over the top. Nevertheless, the friendly Mac community tries to help him out. To no avail. Seems there is a mysterious “grey strip” across the body of the laptop that is somehow keeping him from opening the precious piece of hardware.

Read the as-of-now unresolved thread for a good laugh, and to lower your hope for humanity just a tad bit more.

[Via Macenstein]

Fake Steve Jobs heads out; Fake Apple stock plummets

Posted on Jul. 9, ’08, 5:05 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Apple » Geekery

‘Tis a sad day in the world of Fake Apple fandom. Fake Apple Fake CEO Fake Steve Jobs is leaving the Internets for bigger and better fake things. Sorta, I think.

You’ll recall (if you dare!) that Dan Lyons—FSJ’s alter-ego/the guy who pretends to be Fake Steve—recently jumped the S.S. Forbes to join the crew of the intrepid Newsweek. It wasn’t totally clear what would happen to Fake Steve, but we all sat back comfortably assuming he’d follow Lyons and crash at the new crib.

Well apparently not, at least as far as I can tell from this vague post on the Fake Steve blog. Lyons says he’ll be starting a new blog under his own name, and goes on to conclude the post with this head-scratching perhaps-misleading paragraph:

I know you’ll miss FSJ. So will I. But rest assured, Fake Steve is not really going away. He’s just taking on a new form. As Jimi Hendrix once said, If I don’t see you no more in this world, I’ll meet you on the next one, but don’t be late.

How, you ask, can we—and Lyons—miss Fake Steve if, as Lyons claims, he isn’t really going away?

It’s the mystery of the Fake World, oooooooo CRASH! other creepy noises lightning flashes etc.!

Lyons has compiled ‘Best of Fake Steve’ books at Blurb.com—one “short” version for $25, and one long-ass version for $58 ($70 for hardcover). If you’re a hardcore FSJ fan, be sure to check out Lyon’s other FSJ book, oPtion$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, which we reviewed back in November. And, to relive the excitement in a sitcom-series-finale-esque bang, you can also read two months of the original Fake Steve posts from the summer of ‘06.

My only question through all of this: Who’s going to be running Fake Apple after Fake Steve leaves? Fake Tim Cook? …Fake Phil Schiller?

Fake cringe.

Iconfactory deserves Apple Design Award Design Award

Posted on Jul. 2, ’08, 8:35 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Humor

Winning an Apple Design Award is a prestigious achievement for any Mac developer. I mean, it’s more than just a cube that lights up—it’s a symbol of excellence. And a cube that lights up. Still, how prestigious can it really be—I mean they give out a bunch of them every year, right? A real award would be unique.

I keep telling myself that was the rationale behind this project by the Iconfactory. The icon design/software development house took home an ADA this year for the forthcoming iPhone version of Twitterrific. The team’s chief software engineer, Craig Hockenberry, is based in Laguna Beach (no…not the television show), but he sent the award back to the team’s HQ in Greensboro, North Carolina so they could all enjoy it.

Of course, when they sent it back to Craig, he might have noticed something funny about the award. Like, how it seemed to be made out of duct tape. And inscribed with the words “Honoring Outstanding Design and Stuff.” But hey, at least the Apple logo still lit up.

That’s okay: if there’s one thing we know Craig stands for, it’s revenge. Oh, and really slick programming. But mostly revenge. Watch out, guys.

Your Mac would rather…just…sing!

Posted on Jun. 30, ’08, 9:58 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Humor

You probably didn’t even know that your Mac could carry a tune (well, outside of your music playing app of choice). I mean, it’s not about to win American Idol or anything, but it’s got a few musical tricks up its sleeve that you can coax out of it with some well-placed terminal commands (you can accomplish these tricks using the Speech preference pane as well, but it’s actually little easier to just cut and paste).

The UsingMac blog gives an example of a few songs you can have your Mac sing, with the help of some extra Text-to-Speech voices that you might not know about (they’re accessible under Speech if you go to the drop down menu and select “Show More Voices”). They’re not like the hyper-real Alex voice that Apple spent so much time perfecting, so these probably aren’t the voices you want reading you your morning news feed—unless you’re a very special brand of odd—but they might be worth a moment or two of amusement in your otherwise dull and boring day.

Now if only my computer could vary its repertoire a little bit. Would it be too much to ask for the occasional track by The Who, or The Four Person British Band From Liverpool That Shall Not Be Named?

[via Lifehacker]

Windows Vista makes headlines again, and not of the good sort

Posted on Jun. 20, ’08, 9:50 AM PT by Aayush Arya

Category | Apple » Humor

Todd Bishop over at Seattle Post-Intelligencer posted a story a couple of days ago with the headline “Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer”. That, my dear friends, is the actual headline of a genuine news article from a non-satirical blog—we’re not talking about Fake Steve Jobs or The Onion here.

Apparently, the hero of this saga, Mr. Charles Walling, recently upgraded from Windows XP to Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system, Windows Vista, probably anticipating a more fruitful and satisfying computing experience—it’s Microsoft Windows® Vista™ after all, what could possibly go wrong!

Unfortunately for Mr. Walling, however, the transition was anything but perfect. He had a Dell printer he’d been using with Windows XP, you see, and he made the all too simple and yet ultimately fateful mistake of assuming that Vista would be just as welcoming and friendly to it as XP used to be.

If you’ve been anywhere near Vista lately, you probably already know what followed—the printer refused to work using the drivers that it had shipped with and, after Charles was luckily cited as an example of disillusioned Vista users in an earlier Seattle P.I. story, Tom White, a member of Microsoft’s Windows Experience Group, went over to his house to lend him a helping hand.

After several such visits, White was finally able to resolve the issue and get the printer and, more importantly, Vista back on track and working in tandem. The Seattle P.I. story even has a picture of Mr. Walling printing “from his Windows Vista PC” for propriety’s sake, in case it’s too unbelievable that Vista did finally manage to get its act together.

I’m still just in love with the headline of the story—maybe Microsoft should use it in some promotional posters: “Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer. The Wow starts now!”

[Via Daring Fireball via Jacqui Cheng on Twitter]

A tale of Snow Leopards, Cheetahs, and the Girl Scouts

Posted on Jun. 12, ’08, 12:00 PM PT by Aayush Arya

Category | Apple » Huh?

Over at the mental_floss blog, Mangesh tries to draw our attention to some reasons why Snow Leopard might not be the best cat for Apple to associate Mac OS X with. Apparently, Snow Leopards aren’t actually Leopards but more closely related to Cheetahs (I have my doubts about that), cannot roar, are “the symbol of the Girl Scout Association of Kyrgyzstan”, and hide behind their tails.

Mangesh might have his doubts but I am pretty satisfied with Snow Leopard as the name for OS X’s next iteration. I, in fact, think that it’s the perfect name for it and, as regular readers must be aware, I can be quite difficult to please.

Snow Leopard tells you that it’s not much different from Leopard (the closer relation to Cheetah’s be damned) and sounds majestic in and of itself. Snow Leopard also happens to be a beautiful, rare animal, albeit a very powerful one. Since the animal is endangered, any positive attention drawn to it might even have an impact on efforts towards its conservation.

The fact that it cannot roar is actually a point in the name’s favor. Leopard, with its fancy new features, came roaring onto the scene. Snow Leopard is its more serious elder sibling, sauntering along quietly, confident in its performance and stability. As for the propensity to hide behind its tail in the face of stiff winters—well, I’m sure it will come in handy if it ends up shipping without PowerPC support, so I guess it lends all the more credibility to the name.

[Image courtesy of ‘digitalstu’ on deviantART.]

[Via TUAW]

WWDC predictions that are serious business

Posted on Jun. 9, ’08, 6:40 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple » Events

Ah, it’s getting warm out, so it’s time for WWDC and the WWDC keynote. You need to know what Apple’s going to release ASAP, even if it’s a few hours early. Unsubstantiated rumors, hearsay, and fiction are why you visit all those sites.

Let me break down what you can expect. First, everyone keeps talking about this 3G iPhone thing. Apple’s gonna kick it up a notch. The iPhone G4 will premier. Later versions will run overly hot and have fans that run way too loud. Apple will try to rectify this with replacement fans, but they won’t really be any better.

Next, everyone expects the next version of OS X to be announced. Support for PowerPC Macs is thought to be going away. The truth is, support for all Macs is going away. The next version will only run on generic Intel hardware. Yup. It’s really going to be Windows with a special theme. It’s going to run on top of Windows 7, so prepare to wait about a decade for its release.

That’s the latest from the mothership. Have your credit cards warmed up and ready to go.

My Entry to the Snoop Dogg Apple giveaway contest

Posted on Jun. 2, ’08, 3:55 PM PT by Brian Chen

Category | Apple » Humor

Think I’ll win that MacBook Air?

[via Flickr: Sterling Star]

MacBook Air can cut your cake and eat it too

Posted on Jun. 2, ’08, 8:13 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Humor

The MacBook Air may not really be sharp enough to cut a loaf of French bread, but it goes through chocolate cake like butter. Or like chocolate cake, anyway. That’s according to Rahul Sood, HP’s Chief Technology Officer for Global Gaming. At his recent birthday party, Rahul took his buddy’s MacBook Air to his birthday cake, demonstrating the sleek laptop’s ability to serve delicious dessert.

Before you jump all over poor Rahul, we have his assurances that the whole thing was just a gag—no Macs were harmed. Rather, the photo was the result of “some fantastic wine, constant ribbing from my friends, and a hand rolled cigar.” Truly: given that combination of factors, who hasn’t tried something ridiculous? I myself once tried to serve ice cream with a G4 Cube. Trust me: do not attempt.

That said, MacUser’s sources tell us that a future version of the Air will feature a serrated edge, allowing you to slice through even the crustiest of loaves.

[via Engadget]

Coz every girl crazy about a sharp-dressed laptop

Posted on May. 27, ’08, 8:57 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Humor

Hey man, that is a sharp MacBook Air you’ve got there. No, seriously: I mean sharp. Like, sharp-enough-to-cut-flesh sharp. Or so say some Apple forum members in Germany, who claim that their MacBooks Airs are dangerously sharp. One user even says he sliced his arm open on the edge of his MBA MacBook (warning: the link above contains a bloody elbow pic).

Due to the machine translation from German, it’s hard to tell whether or not this is an exaggeration (it appears that this picture, which shows someone trying to cut a loaf of delicious French bread using a MacBook Air is merely a “dramatization”). Oh, that nutty German sense of humor!

Though, you know, maybe Steve and co. should run with this idea. “The MacBook Air! It slices! It dices! It gets you on wireless Internet! The only laptop you’ll ever need!” If they were clever, maybe they could ramp up the heat output and let you make grilled sandwiches inside it. All sorts of culinary usages await.

Update: According to a German-comprehending commenter below, the original post says that the fellow in question sliced his arm on a MacBook (wait, how?) prompting the joking around that led to the bread-slicing picture. We remain confident that Steve Jobs will release a bread-slicing laptop sometime in the next year. Maybe.

[via Engadget]