Hawk Wings » humour

What if Microsoft had designed Gmail?

Tim Gaden — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:10:03 +0000

what if Microsoft, not Google, had created Gmail? What would be the differences in that web mail client for users today? What if we apply some of the same design rules that brought us Hotmail, for instance?

The answer is entertaining.

Here is a teaser, but as the post unfolds the mock-up screenshots get better and better:

Head on over and have a look for yourself. microsoft, windows live, gmail, google, interface design, humourSimilar Posts:

Hawk Wings reviewed and shamed

Tim Gaden — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:50:36 +0000

Claire Rottenberg has started up a new directory of “quality Mac web sites”.

As she explains :

Sifting through the hundreds or even thousands of websites with Mac information is a time-intensive effort, so I decided to create this blog to help other Mac users with that task. I’ll be continually adding reviews of Mac websites that meet certain quality criteria.

Hawk Wings was lucky enough to get a work over in her one of her first posts.

She judges that “the writing is in clear, non-technical language that is easily understood, even when the topic is an advanced one” but points out (correctly) that “some entries have typographical errors”.

Sadly even with the best intentions, typos do creep in, a sure sign perhaps that the writer is an “established journalist”.

I’m guilty as charged (apologies), but couldn’t resist pointing out a delicious little irony in the review:

[Thanks, Scott!]mail.app, apple mail, reviews, plugins, typos, not saved by grammar alone, hawkwings, humourSimilar Posts:

God’s Inbox: Time Magazine’s Mail.app humour

Tim Gaden — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:01:45 +0000

Time Magazine has published a humourous graphical essay by Evan Eisen on God’s Inbox.

The picture is full of visual gags (of varying quality).

They range from the files and folders on the Desktop (Jesus Baby pics, etc) to the subject lines and senders in God’s Inbox (surfrgrl@myspace.com “Can you, like, clear up my skin before the prom?”):

Download a PDF of the image from the Time Magazine web site and enjoy the joke at a higher resolution.

Personally, I think it is a fake. Using Mail.app adds initial credibility to the story, but I just can’t believe God doesn’t use Quicksilver.

[Thanks to Aaron , the developer of the Letterbox widescreen plugin for Mail.app for tipping me off about this.]mail.app, apple mail, God, inbox, humour, humor, time magazineSimilar Posts:

A Freudian slip

Tim Gaden — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:01:15 +0000

Every now and then you run across something in NetNewsWire that makes you chuckle.

I love Mail.app to death, but I am willing to admit that its IMAP support is less robust than it could be.

So the clever irony of this Freudian slip in a blogger’s headline struck me at once:

Sometimes Mail does frantically spin its wheels without getting anywhere. It needs a thrash folder.

However, the post he references on setting up Mail’s special IMAP folders for Sent, Drafts, Trash and Junk mail is excellent. Not knowing about this is a source of frustration to a lot of people on the Apple Discussion Boards and elsewhere.humour, mail.app, apple mail, imap, special folders, sent, drafts, junk, trash, IMAPSimilar Posts:

Donald Rumsfeld (and Mail.app) in the Dock

Tim Gaden — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:37:57 +0000

I haven’t seen a piece of screen art this good since Easter .

A fine piece of satirical screenshotting on current events.

And a little sliver of Mail.app there to add distinction.

[Via Daring Fireball ]rumsfeld, screenshot, Dock, Apple, mail.app, apple mail, humour, satire, newsSimilar Posts:

Howler of the Year?

Tim Gaden — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:06:53 +0000

“For Apple to make fun of Microsoft copying the idea of their “widgets” into “gadgets” is so unbelievably hippocratic that it makes me sick.”

[Spotted in the Dashboard section here ]howler, apple, dashboard, hippocrates, widget, humour, not apple mailSimilar Posts:

Shell Game: Fun for command-line geeks

Tim Gaden — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:31:46 +0000

As everyone knows, few things in life are more annoying than people who email you those daily funnies that come their way. (See further, “How the delete key is your friend”).

Having said that, if you ever find yourself doing things at the command-line, you may enjoy what follows the jump. Terminal-heads only, this way please…

>From the csh (c shell):

% make ‘heads or tails of all this’
Make: Don’t know how to make heads or tails of all this. Stop.

% make sense
Make: Don’t know how to make sense. Stop.

% make mistake
Make: Don’t know how to make mistake. Stop.

% make bottle.open
Make: Don’t know how to make bottle.open. Stop.

% make love
Make: Don’t know how to make love. Stop.

% got a light?
No match.

% sleep with me
bad character

% man: Why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

% rm God
rm: God nonexistent

% \(-
(-: Command not found.

% rm -i God
rm: remove God? y

% ls God
God not found

% make light
Make: Don’t know how to make light. Stop.

% date me
You are not superuser: date not set
Thu Aug 25 15:52:30 PDT 1988

% If I had a ) for every dollar Reagan spent, what would I have?
Too many )’s.

% * How would you describe George Bush
*: Ambiguous.

% %Vice-President
%Vice-President: No such job.

% ls Meese-Ethics
Meese-Ethics not found

% “How would you rate Reagan’s senility?
Unmatched “.

% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].

% ^How did the^sex change operation go?
Modifier failed.

% cp /dev/null sex;chmod 000 sex
% more sex
sex: Permission denied

% who is my match?
No match.

% set i=”Democratic_Platform”;mkdir $i;chmod 000 $i;ls $i
Democratic_Platform unreadable

% awk “Polly, the ship is sinking”
awk: syntax error near line 1
awk: bailing out near line

% ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’
thou shalt not commit adultery: Command not found.

And from the bourne shell (sh):

$ drink < bottle;opener
bottle: cannot open
opener: not found

$ test my argument
test: too many arguments

$ “Amelia Earhart”
Amelia Earhart: not found

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense
no sense in pretending!

$ mkdir “Yellow Pages”;fiYellow Pages
$ mkdir matter;cat > matter
matter: cannot create

$ lost
lost: not found

$ found
found: not found

$ i=Hoffa ;>$i ;$i ;rm $i ;rm $i
Hoffa: cannot execute
rm: Hoffa nonexistent

The following are ones that I can’t get to work on my BSD 4.3, so I suppose that they are stuff from ATT SysV or some other such:

% sccs what bottle
can’t open bottle (26)

$ cat “door: paws too slippery”
can’t open door: paws too slippery

$ cat food_in_tin_cans
cat: can’t open food_in_tin_cans

Now that you are suitably inspired, sally forth to the Terminal and create your own witty banter.

[From the AppleScript Uers mailing list ]humour, humor, command-line, jokes,

Similar Posts:

Lonesome Electric Chicken goes universal

Tim Gaden — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:47:17 +0000

Find out more .anti-productivity, humour, wisdom, chickens, quotesSimilar Posts:

Hawk Wings Easter Message

Tim Gaden — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 15:10:25 +0000

Avoid other causes of communication breakdown:

email, communication, miscommunication, those who have ears let them ear, Easter, humour, humor, productivity, etiquette, apple mail, mail.appSimilar Posts:

Mail.app cracks another joke

Tim Gaden — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 13:20:01 +0000

A while ago I blogged a screenshot of Mail.app’s Dock icon being cheeky when it has too many unread emails to count.

Today a friend sent me another picture of Mail getting funny, this time with attachments:

This was caused by a cut ‘n’ pasted iChat transcript packed full of emoticons.

[Thanks, Dan ]mail.app, apple mail, attachments, joke, humour, unread emails, email Similar Posts: