I’ll tell you right up front, this is a long-winded, foul-mouthed, inconsiderate rant. I’ve been storing some of these comments up for weeks, and in some cases months, just waiting to explode. Below is my abbreviated list of people who can just shut the hell up: MacHeist, developers, and participants: To all of you “other” developers who cry and complain that MacHeist (and similar promotions) are hurting all developers by de-valuating applications and the work it takes to create them. Please, do us a favor and shut your yap. 
I’m fairly certain that nobody from the MacHeist crew held a gun to the head of the participating developers and forced them to jump on-board. They did it to make money – the same reason you make your products. If they sell their apps for cheap, then they’ll have to deal with the consequences of making less money but still provide the updates and support required. Worst-case scenario is that they made a little extra money that they probably wouldn’t have made otherwise. It’s their call, So just shut up. And for all the cry-babies and whiners who complain about the quality or selection of the applications made available for MacHeist (and other similar promotions). Please do the rest of us a favor and shut the hell up. MacHeist gave away nearly a dozen apps for FREE! As in, it didn’t cost you a stinking dime. So shut up. The bundle of applications at the end cost less than half what it would cost you to buy separately, so it’s a smokin’ deal. We’re all terribly sorry that you expected Adobe Photoshop to be included in the $49 bundle, but you’re an idiot and we’re all tired of seeing that sewer beneath your nose spewing silly requests and comments like that. If these bundles don’t include the application you desperately wanted, and you can’t believe the entire planet doesn’t use, I have a suggestion. Shut up and go buy that app directly from the developer. They could use the money. But please stop trying to convince reasonable people out there that the bundle would be so much better and you would actually buy it if it only included your favorite sticky-note app. Nobody is forcing you to buy the bundle, and nobody cares if you don’t. Wow, that felt good to get that off my chest. Here’s some more: Web petitioners: Apple didn’t add the ability to completely erase your drive, magically download a legal copy of Adobe Creative Suite and the latest OS update, and install it all on your Mac with the click of a single key. Start a Web petition – that’ll show ’em! Oh please, would you shut the hell up. Web petitions are probably the single most useless things you can do to affect change. Nobody but you and the five mouth-breather friends of yours actually see it, or care that it exists. Trust me when I tell you that Steve Jobs and all of Apple’s software engineers have better things to do with their time than worry if you’re unhappy with the lack of a Jedi-mind trick function in OSX. PC-centric journalists: 
Everyone knows the fastest way to get a ton of clicks on your article at a PC-centric Web site is to write an article blasting Apple for this, that or the other. If you want to take the cheap route to earn a living, go right ahead. But please know this, John C. Dvorak pioneered this method of promoting his writing many years ago. Heck, he built a career on bashing the Mac. But here’s the thing. He’s very good at it. He does his research, he’s got original thoughts on the matter, and he even has the nerve to make sense – even when we don’t agree with him. Heck, I love listening to his Cranky Geeks Podcast. You other hacks out there however, do not possess the same talent. So please, for the sake of the sanctity of the written word, shut the hell up. Your latest article comparing Mac OSX’s underpowered menubar clock, with it’s complete lack of features when compared to Vista’s built-in ability to download the launch codes for Triton missles directly from the Pentagon are not only pathetic attempts at gaining attention, but they stink of enough bullshit that it would choke a billygoat just eating a printout of your article. Please, add two years to the life of your keyboard, shut your stinking facial cavity. On the topic of software piracy: The growing trend among shareware developers is building-in software-piracy counter-measures. That’s fine. Do what you have to do. But do us all a favor and stop complaining about software pirates and how it’s hurting development and your ability to bring a great product to market. 
Piracy is a fact of our digital life. It’s not going away. You aren’t going to stop it. The people who pirate software aren’t potential customers anyway, so you aren’t losing sales. So please shut up about it already. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks and I don’t condone it. But crying about it isn’t going to sell your application, and neither is making it a pain in the behind for the legal buyer to work with your application. And to the small but vocal group of booger-eating software pirates who somehow justify in their pea-brained little head that’s it’s OK to pirate software for this, that, or whatever reason. Please shut your stinking pie-hole. You’re an idiot, and there’s nothing you little twerps can say that is going to convince any reasonable person that it is OK to steal software. Posting the fact that you frequently steal software in a Web forum and then justify it by saying “if I like it, I’ll buy it” is just comical, ludicrous and makes you look like a jackass. You’re the reason for “phoning home,” digital image activation, and all these other pain-in-the-ass activation schemes to begin with. We should sue the developer: Every time an application developer alters their user-agreement, changes the app icon, doesn’t upgrade fast enough, removes a feature, or heaven-forbid not add a feature you want (such as getting on it’s knees and piping you), some jerk-off pimple-squeezer in a Web forum threatens to contact their lawyer. Let’s set-aside the fact that none of these boneheads can break-away from washing the skidmarks out of their underwear long enough to get a job to afford paying a lawyer. Please tell me what school they went to where they learned that you can sue a software developer for not including a feature that they and four of their pantie-sniffing friends want. Where do they get the notion that you can sue a developer because they stopped making their favorite $9 program? Please, oh please – just shut up. Stop wasting our bandwidth. Microsoft: 
Your marketing claims of innovation, desire to help people do things, and overall capabilities are pathetic. You haven’t innovated anything since the initial release of Word and Excel on the Mac back in the early 80s. Your current business model of releasing increasingly bloated, buggy software filled with more features that nobody wants, is just digital noise. And don’t even get me started on the Zune. Puhleez!! You couldn’t innovate your way into a box, let alone out of one. The least you could do is shut the hell up and stop trying to spoon-feed us the idea that you’re innovative. Adobe-bashers: If you find yourself complaining about the cost of upgrading the Adobe Creative Suite once every two years, you can do many of us a favor and get out of the business. Or if financial constraints don’t allow that, you could just shut that deep and meaningless cavern just north of your chin. 
Look, the apps are expensive. They always have been. Just because the price went up $50 for five or seven top-notch applications that allow you to make thousands upon thousands of dollars per year doesn’t give you the right to cry, wine, complain and moan constantly in every Web forum you can find. And we certainly don’t want to follow your Tweets about it either. I make up the cost of the upgrade with about three hours of work. Just because you feel the need to own Photoshop to view the latest set of porn photos you downloaded while your daddy was outside changing the oil in his car, doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t manage the costs effectively. Oh, and with regard to the activation scheme Adobe uses to moderately curb piracy. Please stop acting like they’re requiring you to hack-off one of your testicles. It takes 2 seconds to click the button and get activated. It takes even less time for your to just shut the hell up. Web banners and other ads: I got an email from someone complaining about the Google ads on this site. Are you #$%&ing kidding me??? SHUT THE HELL UP! I could certainly sell more ads and load the site up with so many ads that it’s hard to see where the content is. But instead, some sites choose to show a few image sponsor ads and some Adsense in order to cover costs and maybe, just maybe, actually make a few bones. People that complain about advertising on Web sites are useless leaching trolls. And trust me when I tell you that we don’t really care if you delete our bookmarks. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t care for sites that go crazy with ads. But the fact is that running even a semi-popular site requires money and time. Both cost. If more people actually stopped blocking the ads and clicked one every once in a while, there would probably be less of them on the page to begin with. Most site owners would much rather not have the ads, but cmon, be realistic. Or, you know, at least shut up. RIAA (record labels): Please, shut the hell up and die. Nuff said.
