Jennifer

I remember my first time calling a 1-800 Mac shop. With my parents' credit card clutched in sweaty palms, I nervously waited for Jennifer, the sexy operator on the cover of the magazine, to answer the phone. 

"Tell me what you'd like," she purred, sending shivers down my spine. 

Overwhelmed with excitement, my breathing became increasingly heavy. I deepened my voice in a vain attempt to disguise my pubescence and spoke, "This is my first time." 

Jennifer replied, "That's okay, I can do all the talking. How would you like a nice new iMac? Would you like that? Yeah, I bet you'd like that." 

It felt awkward at first, but as time went by I was able to relax. I lost myself to Jennifer's reassuring voice, and in the end I was able to fulfill my order. That phone call ended up costing me $1,200, but it was worth every cent!

5300

On September 14, 1995, Apple stopped shipping the new PowerBook 5300 when at least two lithium-ion battery packs failed catastrophically at Apple's main campus while recharging. According to reports, at least one battery pack actually caught fire! This was enough for Apple to switch from lithium-ion batteries to nickel-metal-hydride, and keep the fire limited to FireWire PowerBooks.

Clippy

Microsoft is so confident with the ease-of-use of their next generation operating system, Windows XP, that they are retiring Clippy, the world's most annoying Help Menu sprite! Where will he go? What will he do? He could always help restart crashed iMacs. Or maybe Apple has work for him in the Floppy Ejection Department. 

Thank you, Christopher Argiropoulos, for the Clippy gag!

And the old Easter egg bonus "clip":

Shut Down

The Shut Down desk accessory was a System 7.5 Apple Menu Item that could instantly shut down your Macintosh. It came in handy when you were too lazy to switch over to the Finder to access the Shut Down command under the Special menu; or when you wanted to drive your roommate crazy by placing an alias to the Shut Down utility in his Startup Folder. There's nothing worse than a Mac that starts up and instantly shuts down ... except for a Mac that doesn't start up at all. Incidentally, there's a new utility that can do that, too. It's called Mac OS X beta.

Bundled

Just because it's free, that doesn't mean you should use it. Macintosh retail distributers like ClubMac, MacWarehouse, and MacZone often bundle software with their computers. This sounds like a good deal, but these seemingly innocuous packages, like Conflict Catcher and RAM Doubler, can cause more harm than good. MacCaveat Emptor!