Regular readers around here should know how much I love (attempting) to solve puzzles. Alternate reality games and other stuff like that I mainly love to do, because of the fun of solving those type of puzzles. I still have to blog about a puzzle quest my brother set up for me as a Christmas present (the photos I made of the “puzzle” didn’t come out right, so that’s why there’s a delay in this post), but suffice to say I’m completely addicted to them.

Anyhow, another fun game (not sure if I should call it a ‘game’, but I can’t think of a better word) that fits with my addiction is MacHeist. The main idea behind MacHeist is the sale of the MacHeist bundle, a collection of Mac shareware applications (for only $49). What I love about it though is in the weeks leading up to that sale, there are the MacHeist missions, filled with puzzles, a great storyline and free Mac apps. 

The real missions haven’t started yet, but there’s a nanoMission available already. The first part of this has a link to a lockbox and has the following description:

All you need to solve this puzzle is in the picture. The puzzles after this one are pretty easy too, but trust when the real MacHeist starts it will get more complicated.

Check it out at MacHeist.com and solve the next puzzle!

Being a Dutch-Australian living in the UK, means I’m not that acquainted with the whole Thanksgiving shebang and I certainly didn’t know much about “Black Friday“. So I did a bit of wikipedia-ing for all the non-USers out there: Black Friday is the friday after Thanksgiving and is basically the un-official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Because it is the “busiest” shopping day of the year (it isn’t, but that’s beside the point), a lot of retailers hold special sales and deals to attract customers to their stores.

And one of them is the Apple Store. The great thing though is that it’s not only US based; every single Apple Store has a special sale going on for that one day (today) only. And they’ve got some cool deals going on:

I’m tempted to get a shiny new MacBook, but I’ll have to wait a couple more months until I get the money for that. 

Episode 62: “Time’s up”

A week ago I did a guest blog post about Apple Spotting and I came across this video showing the product placement used in Independence Day. It’s part of a series by YouTuber JediMoonShyne, featuring the product placements in all different movies.

Thanks to Michael, I have a guest blog post up on Apple Gazette. Head on over there to read: The Beginner’s Guide to Apple Spotting.

Episode 31: “But nothing else could ever take you away”

This is a pretty cool video showing the different front pages at Apple.com through the years, starting in 1996. It’s funny to see how all the different designs and products have evolved throughout the years.

Episode 23:”I’ve never knowingly slept with a Windows user” 

There’s a documentary coming soon called MacHeads about the lives and activities of a bunch of Mac addicts/fans/whatever you want to call them. I do love my Mac, but some people can take it too far: 

Episode 13: “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

I’m in an Apple mood anyway today, so here’s the video of the Think Different commercial: 

The complete text used in the commercial is:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
Are the ones who do. 

By now most of you Leopard users out there will have discovered the “cute” Blue Screen of Death for network Windows machines. And most of you should know the significance of the ICal Date (July 17th 2002 was the day Apple introduced ICal at the MacWorld Expo). But today I stumbled on some other cool Easter Eggs in Leopard.

It started by stumbling on this post about the TextEdit icon. If you take a look at the TextEdit icon in Coverflow, you can actually read the text on it. Seems familiar? It’s the monologue from the Think Different commerical (see here). But who are Kate and John Appleseed? John Appleseed could refer to Johnny Appleseed, an American pioneer that introduced the apple (the fruit, not the computer) to some parts of America. The “Kate” character is a bit more difficult to pinpoint. Some believe it’s a reference to the KDE text editor, while others believe it refers to Katie Cotton, the Apple Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Communications. One thing is certain: both names have also been used in iPhone ads: Kate Bell is calling at the end of this commercial and John Appleseed is calling in the middle image here.

Then you also have the Keynote icon. Blown up in Coverflow you get this:

Ken Drake managed to decode the text and it reads this:

God, I dreamed there was an angel Who could hear me through the wall As I cried out-like, in Latin “This is so not life at all Help me out-out-of this nightmare” Then I heard her silver call- She said: “Just give it time, kid I come to one and all”

She said: “Give me that hand, please And the itch you can’t control Let me teach you how to handle All the sadness in your soul Oh, we’ll work that silver magic Then we’ll aim it at the wall” She said: “Love may make you blind kid- But I wouldn’t mind at all”

It’s the bitch of living (Bitch, just a bitch) With nothing but your hand (Just a bitch, yeah) Just the bitch of living As someone you can’t stand See, each night, it’s like fantastic- Tossing, turning, without rest

It’s the first lines of the song “The Bitch of Living” from the musical “Spring Awakening”. The big question here though is: why this song and what is the significance of Q4 2008? Is something big going to happen then?

Two other cute discoveries are the icons from Dictionary and Mail. The Dictionary icon has the text “Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet Etiam” on it. The typical Lorem Ipsum doesn’t continue with Etiam, but some quick googling shows that there are some generators that use this version. Another explanation is that one translation of Etiam is And Further, which could be interpreted as a type of Etcetera.

If you look closely at the Mail icon you can see an Apple stamp on it with the words “Hello from Cupertino CA” around it.

There are other interesting icons, but so far no one has been able to figure out what they mean. For instance, the Calculator icon has the number 12374218.75 on it. What does this number mean?? No idea. And the Stickies icon has had for every long time the phone number of Lou on it (555-7361). Who’s Lou?

I also have a feeling that both the Numbers icon and the Spaces icon also have some hidden message within them. Especially the top left space in the Spaces icon has to contain something interesting.

Anybody else found other cool easter eggs in Leopard?