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Okay, we admit it — all these silly social conventions tend to get us down. We simply don’t understand why it’s such a major freaking deal if we want to walk down the street naked, loudly impugning the maternal lineage of passersby in the guttural accents of western Poland. Why should we not keep an untamed llama in the house? Why should we not drink whiskey sours in the morning, or piping hot cups of Earl Grey tea in a rollercoaster? Why should we not get jiggy wid it? And, more apropos to this review, why should we not pretend to be international spies?
If we happen to enjoy racing about continental Europe in zippy foreign motorcars, having random hot sex with impossibly proportioned humanoids, acting wildly daredevilish and debonair but secretly having a super-genius IQ, all while taking a firm stand against the most recent global menace (we’ll call him Bjorg W. Gush) and his hairy legions of shifty-eyed xenophobic puppetmasters — where the hell is this sentence going?
Oh yes. We like spy games. It’s true that we mostly like the part about dressing up in black trenchcoats, merkins, and giant boobs, but we aren’t totally shallow. No. We also like the part where we fiercely goose our fishtailing motorcycles across the opening drawbridge just in the nick of time, and we’d love to see John Moltz pull off a wicked stunt like THAT, the big softball-playing wussy.
So anyway, you’d think the PvT staff would glom right onto this squiffy little cloak-and-daggerish bit from Citrus Software (Vitamins for Your Computer!™) since it’s intended to render any or all of a computer’s folders invisible (just like magic!) to the lurking counter-spies and secret agents and moles and sleepers that haunt our footsteps.
Alas, alack. We regret to confirm that good intentions are not good enough. Eagerly typing in our password (“bob”) we disobeyed the read-me’s instructions to re-type the same password for confirmation (defiantly now: “fred”) expecting, of course, to be rejected as evil impostors. But no. It appears that the “password” is an idea that exists largely, perhaps completely. outside the conceptual sphere of Citrus Software.
It’s our woeful duty to inform our readers that CloakIt — an application so shiny and promising on the surface — is rotten to its faux-citrus core. When a developer claims that his software will make our folders invisible, in exchange for which he hopes to extract $9.95 (47,536.12 Zambian kwacha) from the international spy community, we feel it’s only fair that the software should actually make our folders invisible. But no. It appears that the traditional meaning of the word “invisible” has been rather broadly reinterpreted in certain lemon-fresh circles as something more akin to: “invisible if you are blind.”
Citrus Software, you have left us shaken, not stirred. In return for your perfidy, you will receive a mouth-puckering 11.0 in an unmarked parcel by the earliest possible post.
Download CloakIt
Posted by naomi at May 12, 2003 10:37 PM
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"A turnip shaped like a thingy"
Nice reference to Black Adder. That's two in a week.
Posted by: fuddes on May 12, 2003 11:15 PMTwo in a week aint too weak!
alright, I'm gone...
Posted by: humble on May 13, 2003 03:55 AMReminds me of all the GUI wrappers for stuff like 'chmod' and 'rm -rf' that people wrote and had the cheek to charge $$$ for when OS X was first released. 'mv pr0n .pr0n' works for me.
Posted by: James on May 13, 2003 05:15 AMCan you stop using references that I don't get?
Thanks!
"It's true that we mostly like the part about dressing up in black trenchcoats, merkins, and giant boobs..."
You like to dress up in giant boobs?
Posted by: Xeno on May 13, 2003 09:52 AMDoesn't everybody?
Posted by: gg on May 13, 2003 01:24 PMWrapping myself in a pair of giant boobs is quite possibly my favorite activity. If you are in the Boston or Seattle area and have a pair of giant boobs I could wrap myself in, please contact me at ...
Posted by: PNW Transplant on May 13, 2003 02:46 PMSo, what happened to the password train of thought? Will we have to wait for the next exciting episode of PvT, same perversion time, same perversion channel? Or will this be a mystery never to be revealed, except by a horde of people who have engaged in mass research/torture of those who wrote this article in the pursuit of all knowledge pertaining to the fate of all that isn't revealed?
If so, just e-mail me when they finally figure it out. Grassy Knoll.
You require clarification? Well, yes, I did write that review under the temporary influence of western religion and several gallons of fermented mango juice...
CloakIt tells you to set a password by typing your chosen PW into a text box. Then you are supposed to retype the same PW to confirm it. A sound theory, yes, but in practice the silly app gives you access no matter what you type the second time.
Ain't much use for spies like us.
Posted by: naomi on May 13, 2003 03:42 PMI'm suspicious that the cloaking device only works properly with passwords in Klingon. N'gloth?
Posted by: Leibnitz,N. on May 13, 2003 06:57 PMI think you people are inutterably cruel. Please don't make mock of Klingons. After all, the good people of Multnomah County, Oregon, are looking for interpreters fluent in Klingon to help with the care of their mental-health patients. Maybe those same patients are the ones for whom this software works? Maybe the folders don't have to be invisible. Maybe you just have to *believe* they're invisible.
There's something in that for all of us ...
Posted by: aussie boy on May 13, 2003 07:15 PMMerde!
Posted by: The French Resistance on May 13, 2003 07:26 PMThey appear to be using some sort of cloaking device, Jim, but I don't understand why we can still see them ...
Posted by: Spock on May 13, 2003 07:30 PMMr. Boy:
I find it difficult to understand how one could construe our comments as 'cruel' (this particular time). My comment was designed to be simply a suggestion that might fix Naomi's software glitch, ie that password recognition was in another language from another galaxy. I believe that if we all used my admittedly lenient interpretation of software performance, we might than begin to understand better why Word for Mac OSX was encoded in Denebian, and work constructively towards the formation of a lunar colony with the capability of hurling huge masses of lunar material directly at Redmond. Or maybe at least complaining to Microsoft, or something... Sincerely, N. Leibnitz
Dear Dr/Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Liebnitz
Thank you for you reply to my letter of 13 May. I appreciate you having taken the time to contact me re the matter of cruelty to Klingons.
Apparently, you misconstrued my remarks as those of someone who was being serious. I apologise unreservedly for any misconception I may have caused, and greatly appreciate your kind and tactful reply.
Although I can clearly never hope to repair the psychological damage I have so clearly caused you, I would nonetheless like to offer you a small token in compensation. Please find enclosed to tickets to Australian Sheep World (TM), the fun park that won't pull the wool over *your* eyes! If you attend the park on Sunday before 9.30 a.m., you should be able to avoid the coach-loads of New Zealanders who visit the park on sex tours.
Ever your servant
Mr A. Boy
NOTE: Tickets expire 14 May 1973.
Posted by: aussie boy on May 13, 2003 11:26 PMCloakIt my butt. Hey Mr CloakIt! You think you can hide a folder or file from me? Go ahead and try, twit! (Where do these morons come from? Are the people at R***b***c generating them in a DNA laboratory?)
Posted by: Rixster on May 14, 2003 08:29 AMPlease put me in for an order of the Giant Boobs.
I've enclosed $22.99 and some anchovy paste (used)
Your Pal,
Wojwm
Ah, the simple joys in life. A warm fire, a delicate glass of Merlot, wrapping yourself up in a pair of giant boobs....
boobs...hehehe
Can anyone tell me how to make the files you've made invisible, using the Cloak-It App., visible again if the app. does not accept the password you use to open the app.? Basically, I am using the app. to make certain files invisible but now the app. won't open when I type in my password so it won't allow me to make the files visible again. Any suggestions???
Posted by: Matt on December 26, 2003 01:48 AM