Double Click is IMG's fun section. This month, Owen W. Linzmayer presents us with some of his Cruel Mac Tricks. Plus some Macintosh Horror Stories from IMG readers. If you have any Macintosh Horror Stories, please send them to us. Also, if you would like to include any cartoons, funny stories, or other cool stuff in this section, let us know.
Cruel Mac Tricks
by Owen W. Linzmayer
As March comes to a close each year, instead of working myself into a frenzy worrying about Tax Man, I start thinking about April Fool's tricks to play on unsuspecting feebs. This year I’ve searched the world over for devious programs that wreak havoc on your enemies’ miserable little lives and assembled the best 17 into a collection I call the Cruel Mac Tricks disk. These applications, control panels, and extensions allow you to take pleasure in the misfortune of others, yet they harm nothing except your unwary victim’s mental health (for those that lack a sarcasm detector, please note that as I write this my tongue is firmly planted in cheek).
In the spirit of fair play and a free plug, I’ve granted Inside Mac Games exclusive rights to distribute two of my favorite Cruel Mac Tricks: Bob and sdrowkcaB. Bob prevents your victim’s Mac from displaying text anywhere, and sdrowkcaB displays all text backwards. Each is a barrel full of laughs by itself, but when these two system extensions are teamed up, you can really send your victim off the deep end.
As was just explained, with the Bob extension installed, your victim’s Mac no longer displays text. The icons appear in their normal places, but with blank spaces below where their names used to be. Likewise, windows open normally, but there’s nothing in their title bars. And all the menus in the menu bar operate, only it’s extremely difficult to tell what choices are being made because the text is completely gone.
To install Bob, just drag it into the System folder on your victim’s startup volume. Under System 7, an alert box appears explaining that the file belongs in the Extensions folder. Click OK and let the Finder put it in the right place. Then choose Restart from the Finder’s Special menu to complete the installation.
To de-install Bob, remove it from the System folder and restart. This is somewhat tricky for two reasons. First, the file names don’t appear in the Finder, so you must look for Bob’s icon of a Teddy bear (it helps if you choose By Icon from the Finder’s View menu before you install Bob). Second, you need to know how to choose Restart from the Finder’s Special menu when all the menu names and choices are blank.
Bob is very effective all by itself, but it can be even more fun if installed at the same time as sdrowkcaB, the extension that makes all text appear in reverse. Chances are, your victim will spot the Bob extension icon pretty easily because it looks like a Teddy bear. So when they throw Bob into the Trash and restart, text will be visible again, but sdrowkcaB will kick into action. The icons appear in their normal places, but with their names displayed backwards (see Figure 2). Likewise, windows open normally, but their title bars are reversed. And all the menus in the menu bar operate, only it’s difficult for your victim to tell what they’re doing because the text is flip flopped. Even characters your victim enters into a word processor appear in reverse order as they are typed. But rest assured, nothing really changes permanently. If your victim opens a document when sdrowkcaB is installed, it looks like mumbo jumbo. But once you de-install sdrowkcaB, everything returns to normal.
To install sdrowkcaB, just drag it into the System folder on your victim’s startup volume. Under System 7, an alert box appears explaining that the file belongs in the Extensions folder. Click OK and let the Finder put it in the right place. Then choose Restart from the Finder’s Special menu to complete the installation.
To de-install sdrowkcaB, remove it from the System folder and restart. This isn’t as tricky as it might seem because when all of the file names are reversed, its name is clearly legible as Backwords.
Words of Warning
Neither of these tricks actually harm your victim’s Macintosh, its peripherals, or its data in any way. However, these programs simulate various malfunctions and screw ups that naïve users may incorrectly interpret as serious problems. That’s part of the fun, but therein lies a great danger.
In their attempts to “fix” what isn’t really broken, your overzealous victims may tear out their hair and tear apart their systems. Who knows, they may reinstall their system software, reformat their hard drives, or even take their Macs in for unneeded repairs. While the very idea of such drastic actions may have you laughing fiendishly like Charles Manson at the prospect of a weekend pass, think how you would feel if someone played a similar prank on you just before a major deadline. Now, it’s not so funny anymore, is it? For this reason (and to cover my butt in case someone gets really mad and tries to sue), let me state for the record that it’s entirely up to you to use these programs in a responsible manner.
Before inflicting these programs on your victims, I suggest the following course of action. First, read the program’s ReadMe file from start to finish. Make sure you understand what the program is supposed to do and — this is very important —how to disable or de-install the program. Then, play the trick on your own Mac to make sure it works as described. If so, go ahead and install the program on your victim’s Mac when they aren’t looking.
But before leaving it for them to discover, check to see that the program works as expected on their Mac. (If anything seems out of the ordinary, abort the mission and de-install the software.) Finally, make sure you are around the victim when the trick is played. Not only are these tricks a lot more fun when you get to see your victim freak out trying to make sense of a Mac gone mad, you’ll also be on hand to make sure they don’t do anything drastic. After you’ve had your laughs at your victim’s expense, you should at least be kind enough to revert their system back to normal. It’s up to you whether you let them in on the gag or you make up some techno mumbo-jumbo to explain away the misbehavior.
Owen W. Linzmayer is a freelance writer who regularly contributes to MacUser and Macworld and has recently published SYBEX’s best-selling Totally Rad Mac Programs, a book/disk combo containing 23 programs designed to make your Mac the coolest on the block.
Macintosh Horror Stories
A Powerbook Disaster
April 19, 1992 should have been the happiest day of my life but really turned into a disaster for me. I got up that morning, took a shower and asked my good friend if I could borrow his brand new Powerbook 140. Being a nice guy and all, he said sure. I needed his machine because I was finally going to print out my thesis and be done with school forever. My friend lived in a suburb in Chicago and I had to take my motorcycle downtown to print the thesis out. So I got on my bike, with the Powerbook on my back in a back pack, and headed toward downtown Chicago.
All went well at the university, I printed the thesis in no time at all, and started heading back to my friend's house who lived about 30 minutes away from downtown. I got on the expressway and a feeling of satisfaction and relief came over me. I was finally done with school for ever. Well, that was my big mistake. Being happy and stuff, I started to speed on the motorcycle. I must have been going 75 MPH when out of nowhere the flap on the back pack opened up and my thesis went flying onto the highway. Not knowing what happened, I pulled over to the curb. Now here comes the big mistake. I hadn't realized my friend's Powerbook was still on my back. So when I turned my head back to see where my thesis was, the Powerbook just flopped over and came crashing on the hard cement. OH NO! CLUNK! The screen of the Powerbook had shattered in half. OUCH!
Well, anyway, I got my thesis, which was about 50 feet back, and headed back to my friends house to return him his now broken Powerbook. When I later told him what happened, the first thing he said was, “Hey, you just bought yourself a brand new broken Powerbook.” Yup, I ended up paying him for the Powerbook plus another $900 for fixing the screen. Quite an expensive day, wouldn't you say? The funny thing is that my thesis didn't have a scratch on it!
Eduardo Chavarri
Caracas, Venezuela
The Old Switch-a-Roo
I was one of the first lucky few to get my greedy little hands on that input device of supreme toastiness, the Gravis MouseStick II. Well, I though all would be well. WRONG! The hardware was just peachy, but the MouseStick cdev froze up my mouse whenever it loaded. I tried booting up under System 7, system 6.07, 6.08, with and without any or all of my inits and cdevs loaded, and various combinations thereof. Nothing worked. A call to Gravis tech support (long-distance to Canada, btw) promised a reply, but none was forthcoming. Again I called. Nothing. Finally, I got fed up at looking at my sleek, expensive, comfort-grip paperweight and called Gravis yet again. This time, I got connected to somebody who knew right away what the problem was: according to him, Gravis has petitioned Apple for a reserved ADB id, which happens to be 35. Well, Mouse Systems took apart a MouseStick and copied its design to build their Little Mouse ADB (one of which I also have), which resulted in the Little Mouse having an ADB id of 35, too. As anybody who’s ever diddled with a SCSI chain knows, ID conflicts cause strange and wonderful things to happen. At any rate, all I have to do to use my MouseStick is turn off my computer, unhook my mouse, and reboot off of a floppy with the MouseStick II cdev on it. (I can’t have the cdev on my startup disk, ’cause I leave the joystick connected all the time) The best fix would be to but another mouse (Gravis said just about any other one would work), but not all of us can afford to drop $75 for an electronic rodent. So, for now, I’ll stick to playing pick-the-plug. It’s not an elegant solution, but it works—kind of.
