Skwonk! 1.2

It’s back. The worst app ever written for Mac OS X. Skwonk is an application that will listen to your network interface for traffic. All traffic. Like a traffic monitor. Difference is, Skwonk plays specific sounds for the type of packets that go flying by. For example, if a TCP packet for port 80 goes flying by the network to another Mac, Skwonk can blurt out a belch, or hoot like an owl, etc.

Yet another software snot-rag from John Schilling, that sweaty virtuoso of GRE analogies and useless software, Mr Schilling claims Skwonk to be “the worst” application on OS X. But can this cocksure braggadocio be substantiated? Will our team of discriminating judges emerge from the sweat lodge with bleeding eardrums, or will they painstakingly retrain their much-abused sensory system to enjoy the occasionally mellifluous braying? Let’s find out.

Built with REALbasic, Mr. Schilling has an excellent start on his goal of arriving at the zenith of badness. With a convenient “double-clickable” application icon, we were somewhat disappointed in the relative ease with which we launched this hair-festooned lard crumpet.

Skwonk comes with several sounds to get you started, and offers a convenient interface for assigning a distinct sound to each protocol. We recommend also downloading the barnyard noises pack, which will place this mighty battery of sonic delights under your direct command:

• Chicken (clucking)
• Crickets (chirping)
• Horse (whinny)
• Moo (regular)
• Moo (with bells)
• Owl (hooting)
• Pig (orgasmic)
• Rooster (crowing)
• Sheep (somewhat uneasy)
• Wolf (signaling presence of sheep)

Once properly configured, a mighty cacophony of animal wails emits from the speakers when the merest trickling of network activity is generated. This loathsomely noisome nonmusical noise is best classified as highly disruptive, much like the discovery of egret droppings in the bran flakes disrupts one’s ordinarily sedate morning routine.

At this juncture, we feel it is important to remind our readers that many species of small flying beetles can in fact bite humans, although they only rarely swarm all over your body and nibble you to death. We would also like to remind Mr. Schilling that offering manual volume controls in a purportedly useless application may lead to persons unknown to developing actual uses for this dreadnought of network monitoring utilities. Skwonk’s inescapable about box is a pathetic gambit — we’ve seen that one a million times before. Given our survival and barely noticeable scarring after running Skwonk for fifteen minutes, we award a 10.8, making Skwonk not quite the worst application on Mac OS X.

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