War is not healthy for fancy chickens and other living things.
Sponsored by
L337.com
If you’re a fan of apps that really “inflict pain”, then you’ll love ProgressBars—assuming you also love interfaces that conjure up images of a bastardly System 6 and Windows 95 cross. Although it is unclear what purpose this unmitigated pile of rotting smelly herb-bread dough might serve, we imagine that only the Pillsbury Doughboy could ever love it, as a discarded bread loaf might love the hungry bacteria that will soon consume it, in the process making fertile soil for wheat—the proverbial stork of every bread loaf—to grow in.
Although the preceding text may inspire pleasant mental imagery of storks bearing bread loaves, it is my duty to interrupt this flowery narrative for a bitter, but necessary dose of reality. It is not my intention to upset our readers unduly, nor to offend the author, but I feel that to leave this doughy mass un-criticized would be doing a great disservice to you.
Upon launch of the aforementioned application, which will henceforth be known as “The Unmentionable”, the screen is blacked—perhaps in preparation for a stunning intro movie? But no, I am let down. All that is waiting is a badly colored about dialog, featuring the disturbing message, “USER WARNING: this database solution contains passwords that can only be provided by rootsolutions”. If I did not know that “rootsolutions” is the maker of this crap, I might have become more confused than a honey bee trapped in a gin bottle.
After I succeeded in finding the green-rimmed “okay” button, I was whisked to… A shareware reminder. Yes, this would probably be a good time to inform you that a registered copy of ProgressBars will set you back $10 (70.71 Norwegian Kroner).
After clicking my way through this clear evidence of madness, I was finally deposited unceremoniously at the main screen. I will spare you a detailed description of this screen, suffice it to say that once I was able to start a progress bar, seemingly this app’s only function, I was presented with a window labeled “Message”, containing the profoundly disturbing text, “Remember that you can only stop this operation by pressing and holding the shift key. To exit, you must then click the hidden button.” The hidden button. THE HIDDEN BUTTON?!?!
Undaunted, I clicked “Proceed”. What follows so unbearably painful, that I beg thee, do not, I repeat, DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS APP, except under threat of a painful death at the hands of a sweaty marketing goon.
You see, I was presented with a Windows-esque dialog with the obviously promulgating message, “Only PANTHER OS TOOLS let you work locally or across the internet at the same awesome speed!” Some distance below that (it was a big dialog) was an animating Windows-style progress bar, which regaled me with witty messages like “Fixing missing file types…” and “Synchronizing backup data…”. The amazing thing is that the progress bar then stalled, and animated no more, like a limp tapeworm drowned in a bowl of garlic-curry stew. Needless to say, I was unable to find the “hidden button”. Perhaps it only appears after holding shift for several years.
Although it pains me, I will attempt to present what I think The Unmentionable is supposed to do:
I would describe to you the horrors of the customization dialogs, but I fear this review is growing overlong. Therefore I will “cut to the chase”, as they say, and give my rating, but not before revealing a crucial piece of information: The Unmentionable was created with FileMaker. Yes, this explains a great many things, like the 9.5 MB application size, and the surreptitiously hostile text entry system. It appears that while not resulting in the same volume of crap that REALbasic has, FileMaker’s existance has resulted in exceptionally stronger crap, at least where used for application development.
Stefan Schramm, for crimes against humanity, I award you the not-so-coveted 11.0. After this draining review of The Unmentionable, I feel in need of the “shrink” button, which presumably gets you an appointment with a psychologist.
Posted by jan at February 25, 2003 01:56 PM | TrackBackholy crap! that rootsolutions website is the motherland of apparently useless software.
the horror... the horror.
now i have to carve out my brain with my pencil to rid my memory of this experience.
Posted by: johnny come lately on February 25, 2003 03:56 PMYou know, they have a program there called "The Timewaster Collection". Just for fun I clicked on it. I guess I expected it was a quick way to download their entire software library. I was wrong.
Posted by: Swordman on February 25, 2003 04:39 PMNote the following description from the web site:
> Use it as a screensaver, to keep people away from
> your computer, or just to display fun messages.
I'd sure as hell want to stay about six thousand miles away from any computer with this software on it.
As a FileMaker Developer, this app almost makes me want to switch platforms and code databases in C. But then I remembered that I use FileMaker to make actual databases, not wastes of bits such as this.
Posted by: whoahdude on February 25, 2003 05:15 PMoh my God... the software is even worse than you describe...why in God'd name did I download it?
Posted by: sirogre on February 25, 2003 05:42 PMsirogre:
Jeez, I TOLD you not to! In big capital letters! Don't you people ever listen?
Posted by: Jan on February 25, 2003 05:50 PMWow, I must say, the guys that write these descriptions are excellent at it. They are well worded, and are funny, what could be better????
Great work writing your descriptions.
Posted by: Andy on February 25, 2003 07:38 PMFunny, but if you read the site, you see it was almost intended as a "joke":
"ProgressBars was originally developed for a computer art installation, running a mock guest book. Visitors were asked to sign the guest book, but the progress bars just never finished for them to post their entries."
Sounds pretty funny actually.
Though, the users would probably just think "stupid broken computer".. of course, that was the joke. It was on them!
Some of the other apps on the site appear to be 100% serious, and just as ugly...
Posted by: Ben on February 25, 2003 11:39 PMThat is no excuse. He who createth 9.5MB apps just to display ugly scrollbars should be dragged out in to the streets and shot.
Twice.
Posted by: Thuros M. on February 26, 2003 10:07 AMJan:
I know, I know... Next time I will believe...ooohh what's this...Rendezvous Opener? I gotta get this *downloads*
D'oh!
Posted by: sirogre on February 26, 2003 03:01 PMHey. Don't knock Filemaker. There are things that Filemaker is really excellent for (custom database driven solutions for small business, for example) , things it it is not particularly good for at all, and things that were poorly conceived in the first place and which no development product can salvage.
Posted by: on February 27, 2003 10:21 AMat:
I was not knocking FileMaker in general, only knocking it for application development -- an area it is uniquely poor in.
I mean come on, why do does it need to do some crazy "initialization" the first time you launch it? It took about 10 seconds to do that. And then it has to "close files" when you quit it, taking another couple seconds.
Oh, and if this was a joke, it wasn't a very well done one. The progress bars didn't even work correctly! And that's the ONLY thing it does!
Posted by: Jan on February 27, 2003 12:44 PMI, Bill Gates, can't figure out what this software is supposed to do. Therefore, I have decided to simply buy it out.
Posted by: Bill Gates on February 28, 2003 09:37 PMI love progress bars! This was still funny though... :p
"the hidden button"
HAHAHAHAHA
If only I had a mac....
Posted by: UA on April 5, 2003 04:16 PMTits wallpaper JANET JACKSON PUSSY. Fakes movie beyonce knowles. Hardcore sex CHriStina APpLEgatE. Strip tease blow job linda blair. Uncensored home video celINE dion bLOW JOB. Movie photos catherine bell fakes. Wallpapers galleries CArLY patTErSoN. Posters home video amanda beard gallery. Tape xxx KIM BASINGER STRIP TEASE. Undressed nude TORRIE WILSON. Porn sexy BROOKE BURKE SOFTCORE. Poster wallpaper christy canyon desnuda. Naked striptease scarlEtT JohanSsON UNdREsSeS. Boobs undresses marilyn monroe wallpaper. Stripped pics jodie sweetin. Wallpapers movies cindy margolis fake. Nipple galleries SERena WIlLiAmS SEx. Video stripped gloria trevi. Movies beautiful LISA RINNA BOOB. Video naked heather locklear. Movies gallery stACeY DaSh seX. Naked movie sKy LopEz nAKed. Home video nude JenNifeR cOnneLLy hARdcORe. Naked desnuda DENISE RICHARDS NAKED. Pictures boobs cARNIE wIlsON PicturEs. Clip movies RAQUEL WELCH NAKED. Stripped blowjobs FRANCINE DEE TOPLESS. Videos nipple silvia saint beautiful. Wallpaper home videos SUZANNE SOMERS. Beautiful gallery julia stiles dirty. Blow job xxx mia hamm fake. Sex desnuda adriana lima softcore. Blowjobs tit petra verkaik movies. Video nipples Kim CaTtRALl naKED. Clip clips sophia loren xxx. Dirty naked fran drescher. Undressed tit roselyn sanchez blowjobs. Pics nude melissa joan hart picture. Photos fakes BRIGITTE NIELSEN HAVING SEX. Blowjobs tit SVETLANA KHORKINA PLAYBOY. Dirty pics krista allen ass. Tape poster sHU qi bloWjobs. Tit blowjob michelle branch tits. Tit pic kiana tom boobs. Striptease home videos julianne moore. Home videos nude ELiZa DUShku pHoTO. Tits sex PENELOPE CRUZ WALLPAPERS. Undressed hardcore catherine zeta jones naked. Xxx sex PARIS HILTON BOOBS. Breast naked SUNG HI LEE UNDRESSED. Having sex tit jEnnA JamEson pHOTo. Gallery sex deMi mOoRe. Sexy porn NINA hartleY. Undresses wallpaper JeNnie FiNCh. Naked posters lacey chabert. Pics clips gwyneth paltrow naked. Uncensored tape brittany daniel sex. Wallpaper pussy CRIssY MORan BooB. Striptease photos sienna guillory stripped. Home video stripped alYSsa mILANO Sex. Undressed softcore DIANE LANE PIC. Nude pic stacy keibler sexy. Tit porn TARA REID UNDRESSES. Pics photo opRAH WInFrEy nipplEs. Photo hardcore heather graham uncensored. Softcore nipples solange knowles undressed. Nude nude hIlAry Duff BEAutIfUL. Sex sex MikO LEE TITs. Uncensored sex jennifer walcott having sex. Fake desnuda alI lANdry NUde. Clip naked jaime pressly. Clips photos KYLA COLE. Naked pictures jEnnIfER loVe hEwItT nUDE. Movie uncensored SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR. Photo topless daniElLe FIsHel dIrTY. Home videos having sex carrie fisher. Strip tease nude CHARISMA CARPENTER. Gallery xxx LISA DERGAN DIRTY. Playboy movies MONICA BELLUCCI BOOB. Naked hot farrah fawcett.
Posted by: jeri ryan sex on November 19, 2004 12:42 PM