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What is Keystrokes Pronouncer? "You want your Macintosh to pronounce each key you press on your keyboard? Then Function Keys Mapper is what you need!" Now, we're not sure where that "Function Keys Mapper" came from, but we're pretty sure it's not what we need.
This pile of regurgitated tripe-ware is so really basic that we feel compelled to review it. What possible use could it be? We suppose it could be useful if you forgot how to pronounce that dastardly K (who really needs it anyway?) but it neglects to respect the modifier keys, negating the one good use we can think of: Learning how to pronounce ψ.
We do have to admit that it's rather fun to slap the keyboard a bit while this app is running, especially keys like [ / and *. So echo-y.
Weighing in at a hefty 2.3 MB (uncompressed), KeyPron hardly "takes very little . . . disk space," as the documentation claims. Perhaps we would be more inclined to pay $10 (970 Sri Lanka Rupee) if it pronounced what we intended to type, anticipating our next move with the audacity of John Moltz's rampant falsification of inter-Apple executive dialog.
AlphaOmega Software, for continuing your grand tradition of useless software creation, we award you a shite-spangled 9.9.
In response to scarcely intelligible reader criticism that "long reviews make our brains hurt," we present a special sound bite review format. It has been lovingly handcrafted for those whose limited intellectual capacities are based solely on twitch responses. Feel free to only read the sentence you like best, then frenetically surf to another web page in a desperate attempt to cram your brain with half-comprehended irrelevancies. Our precious few readers with adequate mental faculties can chortle at the hidden innuendoes and olieballen insinuated below.
Purporting to play "media" of the "windows" variety, we can only surmise that this application is intended to display voyeuristic dirty pictures.
Featuring hilariously inept "Aqua" style controls, we believe this to be one of the rare examples where metal would have been a more sensible user interface.
Weighing in at a substantial 7.3MB, Windows Media Player appears to have been coopered rather than conceived.
The two principle design goals of WiMP for Mac OS X appear to be: A) Instability, B) Inability to play most Windows Media files.
Gratuitous use of Geneva 9 causes other applications to mock and abuse WiMP, causing it to eat pastries as a substitute for love and respect.
WiMP, we almost feel sorry for you. We hope you will use this 10.8 to shave your palms, and buy a new waistcoat.
Have you ever laid awake at 4 AM on an Easter Sunday because of the coffee dessert you ate, thinking about a squeaky toy you had seen earlier that evening? No? Alex Metcalf has. And this is the result.
Squeaky Toy Deluxe will surely delight you, especially if someone has installed it on your machine without your knowledge. The purpose is simple; play a squeak sound whenever you click the mouse. At this, STD succeeds brilliantly.
Installing STD is really quite simple; just double-click the icon, and you'll be instantly experiencing squeaky-induced joy. The quality displayed here is phenomenal; a click-and-hold plays one downer of a squeak, while releasing the mouse button plays a different, uplifting squeak. It even appears to have some random variation in the sounds -- FOR MAXIMUM LASTING POWER!
Unlike its acronymic namesake, this STD is easy to remove. Lucky for us, because damn, it gets annoying, unless you happen to be some sort of extraterrestrial who requires high-pitched noises on a regular basis to survive. We suggest several additional features to increase the lovability factor:
Alex Metcalf, for crafting a wonderful application that is simultaneously extremely annoying and mind-blowing, we award you a glowing, radioactive 4.4. But obviously it should immediately be rewritten in Cocoa, with generous use of "metal," to be fully Mac OS X-compliant.
Ah, you're back! Or is that your front ... Never mind. I suspect you thought last week's review of Aussie barbie meat was as attractive as the mangy purse of a three-legged blue cattle dog with ticks. So this week I'm going to treat you to a more cultured topic: an anthropological survey of the great rituals of the barbie.
The most crucial feature of barbecue society is that the female (or sheila) exists only to make salad, and to deliver meat and fresh beers to the males at the barbie. When she is not doing so, her only task is to join with other small groups of sheilas, as far from the barbie as possible, and look pretty.
If the sheila is not able to look pretty, she is referred to as a bush pig, and universally shunned by all but the fat, sweaty bank teller who laughs too loud and whom no-one can remember inviting.
The sheila must not approach the barbecue, except to deliver meat or beer, and must certainly never touch the implements (see below) or cook. In keeping with the mores of barbecue culture, I shall not mention sheilas again.
The job of the male, or bloke, is twofold -- cooking and getting as pissed as an emu. The latter is intrinsic to the former. Cooking is simple, and is divided into four main phases:
There are four main tools of Barbecue Man (Homo australiensis flatulosis): the spatula or egg flip, used to scrape stuck steaks off the barbie plate; the tongs, the barbie equivalents of a king's sceptre, and held by the Alpha bloke, who clicks them while cooking to remind the other blokes of his dominance; the blunt knife, used to hack apart strings of sausages; and the barbecue fork, used to prick small holes in the sausages so that fat can drain out of them and ignite.
As with many primitive rituals, the greatest hazard is fire. The paramount rule in a fat-fire is that the blokes should never attempt to put it out by massed urination, otherwise the burning fat may spread, and this could heat your beer -- disaster! Just beat the burning fat with the spatula until it is so far dispersed that it is no longer able to burn. Ignore the pain.
You have learned much, Grasshopper! Now go forth and conflagrate! Aussie barbies rate 2 out of 11. (Points off because I'm not a sexist pig, and don't appreciate this kind of talk in front of the ladies, mate!)
WildBits -- perhaps you should rename your company to "NaughtyBits," and stop aggravating us with such 9.6ish nonsense.
You are sapping our youthful vigor with your bland and pointless commentary. Do you think this website was created for your enjoyment? It was not. Do you think the comments section is merely a vehicle for your inanity? It is not. If you continue this trend toward the lowest common denominator (a.k.a. "Joe Bob") we will be forced to take a page from the fascist handbook of the jackbooted John Moltz and disallow reader comments. Or we will be forced to edit them so they are witty and interesting and semi-literate. Or we will come to your house and stomp your keyboard. Or possibly our reviews will become book-length and filled with irrelevant foreign accents, zut alors! You cannot know which direction our wrath will take, because we do not know ourselves. Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to now?
Once upon a time, there was a happy little application named iPong. It belonged to a large loving family of mutant software in the "made for PerversionTracker" category. Let's meet the siblings first.
By now you have already guessed the awful truth, sharp little crayons that you are. Yes, it's the Aussies again. Who knew that New South Wales could be as delightfully nutty as a pistachio-stuffed koala? Now, in a sideways crouch, we scurry under cover of shrubbery and make our cautious approach to the application in question: iPong. The name alone is worth repeating. Note the stimulating way it pops off your pursed lips? Yeah, baby, that's it. Now say it LOUDER! With FEELING! Lose yourself in the moment!
[Several hours later. . . The lights go up on a bare stage, prostrate figure at lower left, ominous banjo music . . . is that a spreading pool of blood?]
As I was saying. According to its read-me, iPong is "an integrated media player and pong game which revolutionises [Aussie slang for 'revolutionizes'] the way people view media and play pong simultaneously." And why the hell not? Torn between the lures of the read-me and the game itself, I tried to experience both at once and lost three games in a row. At first you are fooled by the game's simple exterior. You think that iPong will be nothing more than a showcase for your talent and beauty. But soon your ignorance is exposed, and you abase yourself in shame and sackcloth.
It wasn't until our fourth game that I began to see the pattern of my failure. I was trying too hard. The computer's main strategy was to sit in one place and quiver like a Shaker with malaria. In contrast, my main strategy was to lunge wildly about like a string-phobic puppet come to life, while engaging in energy-sapping verbal intimidation. Like so:
My long-awaited moment of triumph finally came when I beat the Egg Marketing Board's bony ass -- without even moving my paddle! This hard-fought battle almost, but not quite, made up for my humiliating capitulation to the fierce paddlework and relentless "trash talk" of the Ministry of Truth. My confidence bolstered, I was about to try my hand against the highest level, Daryl "Baise-Moi" Williams, but suddenly became intimidated by the Australian inside joke.
Instead I played around with iPong's sliding-scale array of ball sizes (insert gratuitous scrotal joke here) and was charmed against my will. In a further nod to freedom of choice, the speed of the ball can range from "Geological" to "Heisenberg." The game's aggressively pongy noises cannot be modified, and silencing them would be an unwarranted violation of the spirit of '76, but to the attentive listener they convey a daring reconception of the idea of weltschmerz.
After a few more losing rounds against The Guy With All The Medals, I retired to puff my pride back up with a modified bicycle pump. Soon I became brave enough to try the background-movie-playing function, which not only worked (!) but also had an interesting effect on the pong portion of tonight's program. Now you see the ball, now you don't. Now you see two balls. Now you become certain that the ball has been kidnapped by the GMC. Now you watch the movie instead. Now you see the ball rocketing into the wall just above your paddle. Now you become wildly paranoid and descend into an alcoholic fog, each day a constant struggle to survive in a world that punishes and rewards without justice.
[Exeunt. The stage slowly darkens. Upstage right, a tiny old lady rocks quietly back and forth, knitting a nuclear warhead . . .]
The bold lack of utility displayed by iPong must be, unfortunately, weighed against the useful movie-playing function. Daily Grind Software, we award you a mildly decorative 6.5 for having the balls (ha ha!) to be satirically useless AND live in New South Wales.