Happy Halloween from Macenstein!
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac Chick of the Month
Well, here’s a real treat! Mac chick of the Month June 2009 Irina Voronina and her Mac-loving friends Brooke Taylor and Raynecat were nice enough to show us that Apple gear is the perfect accessory to any costume. Oddly I was going to wear the same Devil costume. Enjoy!
More pics, click here. Read more
The best Apple-themed Halloween costume… EVER
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac Chick of the Month
And on the 8th day, God created Steve Jobs, who subsequently invented Woz, who then begot Apple, which hired Tony Fadell, and so on and so forth until Dr.Macenstein founded Macenstein.com, which produced the Mac Chick of the Month.
OK, I’ll admit it’s been a little while since I’ve been to church, but that’s more or less how I remember it going down. Anyway, there can be no denying that the Mac Chick of the Month is a gift from above, and this month as a special Halloween treat we once again present you with the lovely Aerin, who you may remember as our Miss December 2008. Why the repeat performance? Well, quite frankly when we got word that Aerin had decided to dress up (or DOWN, actually) as “Eve” for her Halloween costume this year, we couldn’t imagine a more perfect “Apple”-themed costume to showcase here on Macenstein! So sit back, whip out your Old Testament, and watch as Eve awakens in Paradise to discovers a very special “Apple” in the Garden of Eden. Read more
This is why I never jailbreak my pumpkins
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Humor, iTunes
Sure I love all the cool things I can do with a jailbroken pumpkin, but when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. I resolved last year to stop jailbreaking my pumpkins, and this picture reminds me of exactly why I decided to suck it up and just make do with the firmware that ships natively with the fruit.
It takes roughly 2 hours to restore a 12 pound pumpkin via iTunes, and the 20 pound model takes up to 3 hours. It just isn’t worth it.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Glen for the link!
[via imgur]
Random thoughts: Apple’s 100,000 iPhone apps and the Google GPS app
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Cynicism, Opinion, iTunes
Two things happened today that filled me with a resounding feeling of… “meh”. Well, actually lots of underwhelming things happened today (I’m rather hard to overwhelm thanks to various mood evening drugs)) but two Apple-related things happened.
Apple to hit 100,000 iPhone Apps
The first announcement did not officially come from Apple itself, rather it came via the blog-o-sphere. Apparently Apple has now passed (or will reach in the next day or so) the 100,000 mark of apps on iTunes. I’m not all that sure that Apple should be all that proud of hitting that milestone. If anyone should be proud of that astronomical number, it is the developers of Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit. They apparently did such a good job at designing the SDK that even people who have zero talent, originality, programing or artistic ability can now easily create a horrible app that does basically nothing. Read more
Hosting Your Windows 7 Torrenting Party
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, Microsoft Bashing
Like many British skits, this parody of Microsoft’s “Host a Windows 7 launch party” video is pretty damn funny, right up until the very end where they obviously didn’t know how to end it. I almost would have preferred to see Monty Python’s giant Foot squash them, but still the concept is awesome, as is the first minute forty, so enjoy.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Phelim for the tip!
[via Funny or Die]
Best iPhone costumes to date – hopefully it comes with a Chiropractic app
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Humor, design, iPhone
I made an iPhone costume last year which I thought was pretty sweet (basically a sandwich board type thing with giant glossy icons printed out), but apparently it sucked and I looked like a dork, because these guys went all out and really made a kick-ass iPhone costume to die for… and yet they too look like dorks.
The video is rather short, presumably either because both fellows suffered crippling back injuries 30 seconds after putting on their costumes (which consist of 40-inch LCD displays) or because whatever giant portable battery unit they have strapped to their backs only lasts 30 seconds to power the things, or it burned them so severely that the costumes fused to their bodies, in a kind of Doctor Octopus kind of way (but hopefully with better acting). Still, very impressive.
This all started two years ago Reko Rivera and Bobby Hartman created a wearable large iPhone costume with a real 37″ lcd tv. An iPod was attached with a looping video of a real iPhones screen in normal use. This time with the help of John Savio and John Matthews the team created yet another amazing rendition of the new iPhone 3GS. Savio loved the original idea but wanted to take it to the next level and make it thinner and actually work with user input! With some heavy researching and some solid determination Savio finally found a solution. He managed to modify the software on the iPhone to allow a live dual image output to the large 42″ lcd tv while maintaining the image in landscape mode. Reko originally came up with the idea and really pushed to see his vision come to life two years ago. This year John and Reko plan to compete in most of the local and online contest to win back all the money they invested in the costumes. The team has about $2000 into the two costumes and has no regrets! Please go to www.votesavio.com for a list of online contests you can help the guys with votes!
iPhone Engrish of the day: TimerMusicStop
Faithful Macenstein reader James writes:
“Hey Doc, I remember that you had a couple articles awhile back that highlighted some bad App Store Engrish. Thought this may qualify…my brother and I still have no idea what it does. Something with time?
”
TimerMusicStop’s description:
iPod you want to stop in time but want to listen to music for?
Interest in a case like! !
Usage is simple. Time to stop the roll set time, please switch to ON.
Then the music stops They added time.
You’re on the right track James. At first I thought it was simply a “put the iPod’s music to sleep” timer app, but after re-reading the description two dozen times, it is clear that TimerMusicStop apparently can stop time itself by “adding time”. Otherwise Apple would not have approved the app, as the iPhone already has a built-in timer feature which can turn off the iPod’s music, and we all know Apple will not approve an app (Google Voice) that duplicates existing functionality.
Fake excitement reaches new levels as Microsoft Store opens
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Cynicism, Microsoft Bashing, video
Faithful Macenstein reader Justin sent us this link of a video from the grand opening of the new Microsoft retail store in Scottsdale, AZ.
I won’t go into the whole “completely copying the look of the Apple Stores”, the color coded shirts of employees, and the “high fives” of the first customers that we’ve seen in hundreds of Apple Store openings over the years. But what I would like to draw your attention to is just how sad and confused the people seem to be once they actually get into the store. All the fake excitement and cheers from the employees gets them all worked up as they travel through a corridor of Star Trek extras until they are greeted by…. Three very elderly, unhip, suit wearing Microsoft corporate types. They then look around with vaguely puzzled “so… now what?” expressions as they realize there isn’t all that much to see or do in a store that basically sells corporate software. Although I guesss you could peruse the healthy selection of Zune cases…
[via When Will Apple?]
Luxo blows a fuse
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, Slow News Day, Steve Jobs, video
I know that Pixar news isn’t exactly Apple news, but it’s my damn site and I thought this was funny.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Jonro for the tip!
[via CollegeHumor]
If K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider were a Windows-hating Ford Focus with a Mac mini for a brain
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Mac mini, Microsoft Bashing, design
I’m not sure if they will solve as many ridiculously unimportant, driving-related crimes as Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. did on the original 1980’s Knight Rider series (I mean, how many corrupt racing competitions can you bust up?), but faithful Swedish Macenstein reader Sascha and his Mac mini-powered Ford Focus, or F.O.X. (Focus ‘0 siX) will certainly be able to launch iTunes while trying.
F.O.X doesn’t do windows.
That’s right. Thanks to the power of OS X, Sascha now has both music AND a clock in his car while driving, two things even H.G Wells couldn’t have imagined. Truly the future is NOW!
Writes Sascha:
Since i am a huge fan of Knight Rider (80’s and 2008 version), i decided to have my own “KITT”.
No, it’s not a Pontiac Trans AM. And not a Ford Mustang either.
But it’s the Mustang’s little brother: Ford Focus.and it’s called F.O.X. (Focus ‘0 siX).
For the car’s “A.I.” i put a Mac Mini (1 GB ram, 1,66GHz, Mac Os 10.5.8) in the glovecompartment.
I wanted to use the Mac as a multimedia center (video/dvd/mp3/ tv for long trips); now many people would say, this is not very special…But i can talk to it. And it can talk back!
I use the speech recognition from Mac Speech Dictate (the Mac Os own wouldn’t work on the mini btw) and only AppleScript to build up conversations.A good example of my .. ehm.. “A.I.” would be this:
If i say just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without a context, the computer talks back with “you are quite positive, right?” (or negative).
But if “he” suggest me a program to run, “he” would react correctly to the short answers of “yes” or “no”.
And maybe in the future i install a small camera to use the face recognition of iLife 09
I must say F.O.X could benefit from a snobby, effeminate British accent (And Bonnie, of course), but aside from that it seems F.O.X is every bit the chick magnet K.I.T.T. was. Plus the Ford Focus has a bigger back seat than the Trans Am so it can hold MULTIPLE chicks with feathered hair styles.
