The Dreaded Nerd Riot

Cupertino, CA - Silicon Valley was set ablaze today, as thousands of nerds took to the streets in protest of the Apple iPad’s weeklong delay from “end of March” to “beginning of April”. The bespectacled crowd of awkward protestors, some carrying damning placards, made its way across town in an aimless, enraged march, obstructing traffic and chanting very verbose slogans.

What seemed at first to be a peaceful protest, calling quietly for Apple to revert to the iPad’s original March release date, took a grim turn at 12:34pm, when the sun was reportedly at its zenith.

“I guess they just hadn’t ever [been] in daylight that long before,” shrugs shocked witness Hal Jargonson. “One second, they was singing about Flash support or some such, and the next bricks was flying through the windows of my [expletive] grocery-store!”

Sweaty, malcontent, and bewildered by the sheer size of the world outside of their homes, the frenzied iPad supporters turned on each-other in what police described as a “nerd riot”.

By the time first-responders were on the scene, witnesses say it was far too late. After an initial burst of animal energy, during which time they overturned cars, smashed windows, and broke the multi-touch sensor on several iPhones, the nerds had all collapsed from massive heat exhaustion, and pre-emptive bruising.

“The smell was overpowering,” recalls Ken “Zip” Stillwater, S.W.A.T., “I had to turn the crowd-suppressing hose on them, for Pete’s sake.”

Currently, most of the nerds are resting comfortably at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Santa Clara, a facility better equipped to minister to their birdlike physique. No charges have been filed as of print time, with unsubstantiated reports circulating that the event might be ruled an Act Of God.

A similar nerd riot in Toronto, Canada over the iPad’s end-of-April Canadian release was similarly excused, despite the 43 counts of manslaughter.

“The onus of responsibility here lies on the shoulders of Steve Jobs,” says Crown Prosecutor Liam Rogers, over Skype, “if the nerds wanted to be held accountable for their own actions, they wouldn’t have made him their king.”

When reached for comment regarding these nerd-related tragedies, Steve Jobs gave routers a succinct response.

“This is but a taste of the iPad’s true power. Steel yourselves, my children. Steel yourselves.”

Our Kind Of Backpack (TM)

Below are Professor Wickman’s recommendations:

1. Organizing your email is huge. Your workflow in Apple Mail will serve you till the ripe old age of thirty. Create both regular and Smart mailboxes to help you parse and organize your incoming email, and make sure you’re set up with an IMAP Gmail account, instead of the older POP format, so your computer talks intelligently to the server, and doesn’t just drag mail one way in a messy, abrasive net.

2. For word-processing, presentation creation and spread-sheets, iWork is an amazing toolset. It’s a hundred bucks cheaper than Microsoft Office, but has all the same functions, and more! Plus, some outlets will give it out for free with the Back-to-school purchase of a Macbook. Useful!
   
3. Snow Leopard was released at the end of August, and for just 35 dollars (the amount any given student wastes on friday night drinks), it will significantly boost your machine’s speed and performance. Technically, you can even upgrade from Tiger with the 35-dollar disc, but you didn’t hear it from me.

4. The AppleStore extends a discount to students purchasing new MacBooks during back-to-school. Combined with one of their payment plans, this could put a machine in your hands in time for the first lecture. Trust me – school goes a lot smoother with a laptop in your bag instead of ten binders.

5. Of course, owning a MacBook shouldn’t just be about taking notes. If you and your friends are watching videos, and finding that the screen dims every two minutes, a handy free application called “Caffeine” from Lighthead will solve this for you. Just click on the little coffee cup to fill it, and your screen won’t dim till you empty the cup. Handy!

6. Backup your data! Leopard and Snow Leopard both come with Time Machine – a simple and phenomenally useful backup tool. If you can afford to grab a $150 external hard-drive, having the peace of mind backups provide is a no-brainer.

7. Surf on over to www.apple.com/pro/tips or drop by Macinhome’s own tip page, to get the most out of your Mac.

8. The iPhone 3G has dropped down to $99 a unit, as long as you sign your livelihood away for a 3-year plan – and why not? This device is incredibly handy for taking your contacts and calendars with you everywhere you go. Email and maps don’t hurt either, if one can afford a data plan.

9. Tofu is a handy Application that reformats text documents to make them more readable. Handy when decoding illegible junk from your prof.

10. Finally, once you do grab that affordable iPhone, here are three handy Apps for students to carry with them on the go:
    MobileTranslator - will help you with your language requirement. Translate any word into any language
    Convert – will convert any value into its equivalent in another denomination.
    Cambridge Talking Dictionary – a dictionary that speaks the words you want aloud.

Go forth, children, and be fruitful in your quests for knowledge. And let that fruit be an Apple.