AppleOff 1.2

Hackit98 Productions
Rating: (four burnt toasts)

Jeffrey Holcombe
685 Providence Main St NW Apt 230
Huntsville, AL 35806
US

Collateral damage:
Possibly corrupt system

[ Disclaimer ]
The user is responsible for files that are deleted. The maker of this application can not, and will not in any way, be responsible for any files that are deleted. More so, the maker of this application is in no way liable for any other behavior, or any event and / or action, resulting from the use of this application.
 - AppleOff 1.2 documentation

We have a new genius amongst us. Just when most of the enlightened thought this era of useless AppleScript wrappers for trivial Unix command line tools was at an end, here comes another blazing a path of glory. Heads up, for here comes Jeffrey Holcombe with 'AppleOff', a one of a kind app that even with the high noise level out there still manages to be outstanding.

Unbelievably enough this thing comes in BIN format and mounts automatically, something all of us really love. It starts as 131,456 bytes and becomes 139,897 bytes expanded with some extra treats thrown in.

The contraption is set up as a document based Cocoa app so it can edit ALL files.

    <key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleTypeMIMETypes</key>
            <array>
                <string>****</string>
            </array>
            <key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
            <string>MyDocumentType</string>
            <key>CFBundleTypeOSTypes</key>
            <array>
                <string>****</string>
            </array>
            <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
            <string>Editor</string>
            <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key>
            <true/>
            <key>NSPersistentStoreTypeKey</key>
            <string>Binary</string>
        </dict>
    </array>

That pretty well covers it. And what would we have without the following? [Real code?]

    <key>NSAppleScriptEnabled</key>
    <string>YESYESYESYESYES</string>

But hey, this contraption is not only AppleScript cruft - it's also Java! Woo hooey - and what were we going to do?

It's too early for you to know, so it will save until the end of the article.

This guy's got so much junk in here it's not funny. Again, if you knew what he was trying to do...

The help directory's 'images' subfolder is totally empty - oops...

And how does this critter get the admin password to the Unix tools? Doth one dare run this 'application' to find out? Not on your life. What does it matter anyway?

And what was this monster trying to do? It's time to reveal.

Laughs on You

This is what it does. Ponder. Really really ponder.

Not to be exhaustive but:

• 'Live Dangerously'? Oh really? And as opposed to what? 'Delete ALL files that start with a period'? Hello? Perhaps someone thinks 'dot' files on most anyone's system are just junk and can be thrown away? Heaven help anyone using this option.
  
  And that is 'dangerous' as opposed to just deleting resource fork files, .DS_Store, and - .Trashes? Does the author even know what .Trashes is? He had one in his own DMG setup - why didn't he just delete it?

• 'Suppress Error Dialogs for Missing Folders'? This must be a fast app. Reckon on an entire weekend for a single run. But wait for it gets worse: see below.

• Backslash as component separator? Are we coming from Windoze perchance?

• 'Scan Interval'? Meaning this contraption is going to run all the time? Talk about hysterical.

And it's all a bunch of Unix command lines wrapped elegantly (as always) in AppleScript. It's here to save you.

MacUpdate Comments

Just supposing for a moment that this was a stable, reliable application... Would it be worth it? No, it would not - but it's not stable or reliable either.

And if Hackit has left you out of their plans because you haven't swallowed the Tiger koolaid yet, paste the following into your terminal window:

echo -n 'CLIX cleaning .DS_Store files... ';sudo find / -name \.DS_Store -exec rm -f {} \;;echo done.

Or just download CLIX, instead of accumulating several handfuls of applications like this one.

There's a reason all those files begin with '.' Because you're not supposed to see them or interfere with them.

sends me an error...

AppleScript Error: File my machine:users:jeffholcombe:library:application support:appleOff:output.txt wasn't found. (-43)

I get the same errors...

Same error here... please fix the bug if it is one... btw, thanks for the nice program!

sh: line 1: /Users/jeffholcombe/Library/Application Support/AppleOff/output.txt: No such file or directory (1)

Same here

sh: line 1: /Users/jeffholcombe/Library/Application Support/AppleOff/output.txt: No such file or directory (1)

Avoid this application. It does not work.

The user path error has been corrected 100%, guaranteed. The version and details are still the same, but the build date for the app should reflect 8/4/05.

Unfortunately, you may have to set your folders and toolbar settings back up, but this will be the last time. No major changes planned for the future.

The next update should include more output details, among other tweaks, as requested.

this never works, constant script errors. useless.

Excellent, useful program!

Crapware! Constant errors!

Earlier version occasionally works but this version displays error messages rendering it useless for the described task. It's a good application if the developer will only address the errors. Still using the earlier version with significant success to spite having to run it a few times to achieve its goal.

Externals

An ACP user posted a comment when finding this product.

For goodness' sake, this can't be said too often:

MAC USERS NEED TO GET A GRIP.

No wonder Windows users laugh at them. (I'll say nothing about the Unix guys.) OK, it is a smart move to buy a machine with OS X and get on the other side of the fence, but if you pay up for stuff that merely does what you could do for yourself in Terminal you just admit that you are an example of the proverbial clueless 'Maccie'.

Quote:

'Optionally can be set to delete all files that start with a period.'

Extremely unwise. Do you know what files you'll be deleting? No? OK, then don't.

Quote:

'Automatically scans folders to remove the following files: .DS_Store, ._*, .Trashes.'

.Trashes? WTF?

.DS-Store. Oh, OK - I'm sick of this already. Apple shouldn't be dropping these files on the hard disk in the first place, but it's not a big deal. They do no harm. If you want them gone, don't use this and don't use the other program some equally clueless person below mentions. Open Terminal. You'll find it in 'Utilities' which is in 'Applications'. Type this:

sudo find / -name \.DS_Store -exec rm -f {} \;

Oh, while you're there, you could do this, too:

sudo find / -name \.localized -exec rm -f {} \;

There. Not so hard was it? Not even for a Maccie. Put your wallet back in your pocket and go and buy a drink with the money you saved.

Coda

So Jeremy (Jeffrey whatever) decides one day he'd like a little hack to do this and do that. He's not a programmer, but he can whip it together with a little AppleScript. He knows his Unix - or enough to use the commands he wants to wrap. And so he puts it together. Like a ricer.

That's innocent enough. But as the performance of this app shows, there are some things - especially file system types of 'some things' - that are best left to professionals, just as there are in the automotive industry.

And then there's the security risk in giving an admin password to an AppleScript kiddie.

But the real shame is watching people flock to a makeshift - and potentially dangerous - 'hack' because they can't type a single line of text. When the hackers finally strike at OS X it's going to be a massacre because these people are not only inexcusably clueless, they're proud of it: 'it's a Mac thing'.

At the end of the day it's like those bus people say.

'Leave the driving to us.'

AppleOff 1.2: Living Dangerously ›