Owen W. Linzmayer Create Chaos, Mayhem, and Devilish Pranks on the Mac THE CINTOSD® JO II] 'n Disk IT'S contains 33 cruel WILD! tricks I The Macintosh®Joker The Macintosh®Joker A Collection of 33 Cruel Mac Tricks by Owen W. Linzmayer ~ ~ The Macintosh Joker ©1993 Hayden Books, a division of Prentice Hall Computer Publishing All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Making copies of any part of this book for any purpose other than your own personal use is a violation of United States copyright laws. For information, address Hayden Books, 201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46290. Library of Congress Catalog No.: 93.-80879 ISBN: 1.-56830.-079.-4 This book is sold as is, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the pub.. lisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information or instruc.­ tions contained herein. It is further stated that the publisher and authors are not responsible for any damage or loss to your data or your equipment that results directly or indirectly from your use of this book. 95 94 93 4 3 2 1 Interpretation of the printing code: the rightmost double.-digit number is the year of the book's printing; the rightmost single.-digit number the number of the book's printing. For example, a printing code of 93 .. 1 shows that the first printing of the book occurred in 1993. Trademark Acknowledgments: All products mentioned in this book are either trademarks of the companies refer .. enced in this book, registered trademarks of the companies referenced in this book, or neither. We strongly advise that you investigate a particular product's name thoroughly before you use the name as your own. Apple, Mac, Macintosh, PowerBook, and Duo are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Publisher David Rogelberg Acquisition Editor Karen Whitehouse Development Editor Rosie Blankenship Publishing Coordinator Mat Wahlstrom Cover Designer ]ay Corpus Interior Designer Barbara Webster Production Team Gary Adair, Diana Bigham-Griffin, Kate Bodenmiller, Brad Chinn, Kim Cofer, Meshell Dinn, Mark Enochs, Stephanie Gregory, Jenny Kucera, Beth Raga , Marc Shecter , Greg Simsic, Carol Stamile Composed in Goudy by Hayden Books v We Want to Hear from You! What our readers think of Hayden Books is important to our ability to serve our customers. If you have any comments, no matter how great or how small, I'd appreciate you taking the time to send us a note. I can be reached at the following address: David Rogelberg Hayden Books 201 West 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN 46290 (800) 428 .. 5331 voice (800) 448 .. 3804 fax E.. mail addresses: America Online Hayden Bks AppleLink hayden. books CompuServe 76350,3014 Internet [email protected] If this book has changed your life, I would like to hear how and why. Do you have a great book idea? Please contact Hayden Books at the above address. Sincerely, David Rogelberg Publisher, Hayden Books 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 The Maci ntosh Joker Part Ill Sound Tricks 57 15 Conan The Librarian ........................................................................ 59 16 OffHook ........................................................................................... 63 17 Mac Barf ............................................................................................. 65 18 Sneezomatic ............................ ................................. oo•·•·oo•o····· ·····••o•o 69 19 Sniff ··o··············o••o•o··········o•o····o··················o•oo·· ········ ·o· ···· ·o• o· ······o· ···o·o73 20 Tweety o· ·········o•o····o······o···o••o••oo·················o•o•o• o·····o•oooo• o•o•••o·······o····o•o 77 21 Sonic Boom ..... oo•o··•o o•· ········ o·· ···················o•· oo• o····•o•o oo•· o·· ··· o•oo····o······o81 22 Squeaker .o ........ o.oo oo···· ·····o·o ·• o•··· ·············· ·o·• ·o· ··················· o·o· ·· ·······o••o 85 Part IV Menu Tricks 89 23 Enchanted Menus 0 0 ••••••••••• 0. 0 ••••••••••••••••••••• 0 ••• 0 •••••••••••••• 0 ••••• 0 ••••••••••••• 0 91 24 MenuHack ...... o.... oo•o·······o• oo• o•o•oo•••o••· o······o·•o•·o····· ·······o·····o•oo········oo• •o93 Part V Miscellaneous Tricks 95 25 April Fools o• o•o•• •o•o ooo•o•o••o•••o•o•o 00 •• o.o·····o······· o•··· o..... ... .. .. 0 ••••• o.•o········· ··· 97 26 Burning Fuse ....... 0 0 0 •• • • •••••••• 0 ••••••••• 0 0 • ••••••• • ••• 0. 0 •• •••••••••• 0 ••••••••••••••••••••