Table Of ContentOwen W. Linzmayer
Create Chaos,
Mayhem, and
Devilish
Pranks on
the Mac
THE
CINTOSD ®
JO
II]
'n
IT'S Disk
contains
WILD! 33 cruel
tricks I
The Macintosh®J oker
The Macintosh®J oker
A Collection of 33 Cruel Mac Tricks
by Owen W. Linzmayer
~
~
The Macintosh Joker
©1993 Hayden Books, a division of Prentice Hall Computer Publishing
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v
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Dedication
To my wife Alane and my cat Nutella,
two mischievous girls without a cruel bone betwixt them.
About the Author
Owen W. Linzmayer is a San Francisco.-based freelance writer who contributes
regularly to MacUser and Macworld magazines. He is the author of Totally Rad Mac
Programs, and over the past dozen years has held editorial positions at numerous
personal computer magazines.
Acknowledgments
This book would not be possible without the sick minds from whence sprung the 33
programs included on the accompanying disk. Therefore it's only fitting that I pay
homage to the twisted souls who slaved over keyboards writing programs to mess
with Macs. I don't know what shared genetic defect drove them to create such great
stuff, but they deserve the lion's share of credit.
I'd also like to extend my sincerest thanks to you, dear reader, for having the good
judgment and bad taste to buy this book. If you're standing in a bookstore debating
whether or not to make the plunge, I recommend you hustle over to the counter
and lay down your greenbacks, pronto. If your enemies have already picked up their
copies, you'll appreciate knowing how to defend yourself when they decide to attack
your Mac, instead of the other way around. Besides, I don't make squat unless you
actually buy the book. Call me funny, but I appreciate people more if their actions
somehow cause little pieces of green paper with pictures of dead white men to
appear in my mailbox. So if you have a deep .. seated need for social acceptance, buy
this book and I'll fulfill my end of the deal by thinking fondly of you. Money can't
buy you love, but it can purchase a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Thanks also to the hundreds of misfits who ordered my Cruel Mac Tricks disk, a
motley collection of programs that spawned this book you hold in your hands today.
They shared my vision, psychotic though it may be, and in so doing inspired me to
seek a larger audience. As a result, I prompted my agent, Carole McClendon of
Waterside Productions to earn her pound of flesh and shop the concept around to a
number of publishers (yeah, I know, the whole affair sounds so commercial and
"Hollywood" that it embarrasses even me). Ultimately we found an acquisitions
editor not afraid to take a chance with her reputation and her employer's money. So
thanks to Karen Whitehouse and all the other fine professionals at Hayden.
I am also grateful for the various contributions made by the following people: Mark
Bankins (Sound Source Unlimited, Inc.), RogerS. Bloxberg (Nova Development
Corp.), David Gewirtz (Component Software Industries Corp.), Bob LeVitus, Alex
Louie, Mike Miley, Ivan Reitman (Ivan Reitman Productions), Dave Schutz
(Alikchi Graphics), Mark Simmons, and Phill Simon (Axis Graphics).
Finally, I would like to send as much negative energy as possible to the lawyers,
licensing directors, agents, and other small .. minded power .. trippers who thwarted my
every effort to obtain permission to include some really cool copyrighted material in
this book. Thanks for nothing. Y'all better hope I don't get nowhere near your
computers with this book in hand ...
Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
Part I Startup Tricks 7
1 StartupScreens .................................................................................... 9
2 DOS sHELL ...................................................................................... 13
3 Minitors ............................................................................................. 15
4 BrokaMac .......................................................................................... 17
5 FlyPaper ............................................................................................. 21
6 Solvent .............................................................................................. 25
7 Playin' Possum ................................................................................... 29
Part II Text Tricks 33
8 Backwards ......................................................................................... 35
9 Moof .................................................................................................. 39
10 Omlaut Omelette .............................................................................. 43
11 Vanish ............................................................................................... 45
12 HAL Edit ........................................................................................... 49
13 Mitten Touch.-Typist ........................................................................ 53
14 NVwls ............................................................................................... ,55
