This is the one of several images in the series titled “Hidden Overlay Images”.

They use graphic card overlay to reveal the image.

Follow the instruction in the image; there are 2 version:

1. Windows Media Player
2. VLC Media Player

They have different overlay color, hence 2 versions.

It works only in Windows XP, and might work if you have Windows 7 or Vista WITHOUT aero and overlay turned ON

VLC Version:

Why don’t I have an Apple device? There are many reasons. Some reasons may not be up-to-date since I made my own Android news reading app, that filters out any news related to Apple and their products. You can download that feed reader here but you will need to insert unwanted keywords yourself, since under TOS of news websites, feeds need to be delivered to the reader unedited.

First of all, I do have to say they are great products, but being insulted by their campaigns and lies, I decided not to joint the cult. Please let me know where I am wrong and amaze me into buying an Apple product.

PS: I mixed here features of iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, and other Apple devices. If you do not know what sentence relates to what, do not join discussion since none of us will have benefit of your opinion.

1. A short story with some points. I am from Serbia/Bosnia, places where people let themselves be dragged into wars, but are otherwise pretty rational. Why would you pay double for the same performance, something you can not fix on any corner, you can not play DX games on, or install all the software you need?! Because of that, nobody was selling or buying Apple devices while I was growing up. So, I did not even see “the device Microsoft copied UI from” (Although I think XEROX was the first with GUI) before I moved to Austria to my M.A. studies. There, I saw devices where everything was flying around the screen, there was an icon bar that sucks-in the transparent program windows, and where icons eliminated the need for user imagination. I had to use it sometimes to check my email and I always thought how horrible UX was in those few minutes while looking for a internet browser, using a mouse with only one button, then clicking 100 times a popup reporting wrong google website certificate, and so on.
2. Then the “Switch to Mac” commercial started and I felt offended by all the lies presented there. “Mac versus PC”… Apple marketing department could have googled that “PC” stands for “Personal Computer”! If Mac is not a Personal Computer than what is it? Is it a public computer? I joke about that in parody iPoo Toilet I made. More about why I got offended there and said to myself not ever to buy Mac are among following lines.
3. I can “think differently” without Mac. How I understood that commercial, they wanted you to be rebel and buy Mac; now they want all of us to be the same and brand us.
4. I am not rebel, I like having options, I like having choice, I like to be independent. I also like being able to buy all sorts of cheap hardware and have drivers for it.
5. There is more software available for Windows than for OS X; and a larger rate Free-to-Paying apps for Android than for IOS!
6. I can get double the computing performance for the same money. I made a quick comparison here. What I want in computer is the performance and not something to show off with!
7. I will not invest one month of my life just to have something 1mm thinner; especially not if I am scarifying performance, and there are many TV shows comparing Macbook Air to other devices that did not leave me impressed to buy Air at all. By the way, there are even thinner laptops (For example Acer’s Aspire S5 is 2mm thinner than the Apple Macbook Air), tablets and phones than ones made by Apple, so that is not criteria either.
8. I am advanced user. You don’t need to make it easier for me. If you have problems figuring out how to setup printer or do X, please switch to Mac, or use it as an excuse to call handsome neighbor to take a look at you PC.
9. I can be artist, designer or whatever I want without Mac. Today everybody is a designer and I meet them way too often. They send me text without converting it to outlines and say my 10.000×7.000px image can not be printed on A5 because “it is only 72dpi”.
10. I do want to be an walking advertisement. I do not want to be branded. I do not wear Nike either, so it is not about Apple, but brands with large logo generally. Why don’t you wear a jacket with your school degree glowing, or list of languages you speak?! Are you more proud you bought an X product like million others than in something you have accomplished? You would rather be one of millions than one of a kind?!
11. I want to be able to fix or upgrade my computer myself, cheap and in 20 minutes. There are at least 5 PC hardware stores within 5 minute walking radius. My deadlines are safe even if piano falls on my computer in the middle of a project.
12. I do not want to use iTunes.
    
13. If you connect your iPhone to another computer (your GF’s, friend’s…) it just erases your media library (next few points from a friend who recently switched from iPhone to HTC with Android)
14. iPhone decides for you that a phone call is more important than the spreadsheet (or anything else) you are working on, so it just kills you application with unsaved changes.
15. I want to listen MP3 music on my phone. As I have heard it is not supported on iPhone. If it is an mp3 file it does not mean it is illegal! There are many bands releasing their albums under  Creative Commons license, and I want to listen to it.
16. He also said it was frustrated that you could not use your 32GB iPhone as a mobile storage device for your files.  Why would you have that much space if you can not use it?!
17. You can not pair your i* to other Bluetooth device for file transfer.
18. I do not want to ask developers of cool software “when will you release Mac version?”.
19. I do not want to jailbreak. There must be a reason why it is called jail-breaking! Do you feel imprisoned, have limited freedom… what?
20. I wont be part of any cult!
21. I do not want porn on my phone but I know I could have some if I wanted!
22. I do not play games on my computer, but if I wanted, I could!
23. If I wanted a device in color X, I can have it without switching to another OS.
    
24. I am able to use more than one button on any device, and I need mouse with at least 5 buttons.
25. You might say Macs are more than hardware, there is great OSX… but 98% of the time you are working, you do not interact with operating system, but with GUI of Photoshop, Aftereffects, text processor, 3ds Max (ups, not on Macs without Boot Camp, so you still need to emulate windows)
26. I like 3ds Max, I like power of DirectX…
27. The Mac OS does not have file extensions. As far as I can see, for every file it stores additional files for more information, for example the thumbnail image. Why?!!?
28. Malware… these are stories from ’90. There is Malware for Macs nowadays also.
29. I do not want to use iCloud. If the information in the newspapers is true, your data is not private there. They can browse through your data and delete it if they consider something suspicious

I did stop 2 friends from buying Apple computers, and helped 2 friends switch from iPhone to HTC and they are very happy.

I hope I did not offend anyone with this list! If you find something offensive or false, please let me know! I just want to start a conversation and learn something. Please use numbers when referring to something.

I am rational and open minded; please help me see where I am wrong, what is all the fuss about, what do I miss… Help me switch before they knock to my door, with a book with Steve Jobs’ biography, asking me: “May we talk about our lord?”

By the way, only on iPad and iPhone you can not enlarge images on this website for some reason… why??? I made this “lightbox” script, and I know it is clean. I would like your help since I Google said that at least 25% of you came on this website using iPad/iPhone to see the iPoo Toilet.

I recently joined this social network so considering I have about 10 days of experience I will try to sum up the pluses and minuses of it

PLUS

• Easy to get you micro-blogging audience. If you add a shared circle of 500 people, at least 50 will follow you back. I do not see the point in that yet, but maybe I will learn to appreciate it soon.
• Connected to you Google mail, YouTube account…
• Supports animated GIF images (Maybe this is also a minus)
• I like the new Google Search personalized results powered by Google+. If you build a circle of people whose opinion you appreciate, there can not be any more relevant search results than those.

MINUS

• Content – not original. I added 2500 people taking various shared circles (One click and you can follow up to 500 people recommended by someone) and most of the posts I see is sharing and re-sharing funny GIF animations. If I wanted to look at those I would go to websites and look at them. I have found very little content made by the users. The exception are photographers, you can find a lot of very creative photos. I can not compare social context for photographers on G+ to the same on Flickr since I am not on the second one for a long time.
• Google Talk problem – Suddenly all the contacts from Google Plus are on my Google Talk! I can not find my true friends there any more.
• Mobile phone – All the contacts are in sync with my HTC running Android. My Contact Storage is 26MB and counting. Since I still have device running Android 2.1, I have no space any more for apps, and I can not disable sync any more. I deleted Google Plus App, deleted  contact storage, and imported only my standard 300 contacts, but the sync just drags more and more from somewhere.
• UI design. Unlike Facebook where posts and comments are collapsed to a few rows of text, here you get the full text. Sometimes, you will see a post of 2 screens height which is unpractical to follow or scroll through. But, I have just learned the home screen shortcut keys ‘k’ and ‘j’ that helps you jump to next or previous post. Several more things are not quite the way I would like, and I will make a UI mockup when I find some time.

CONCLUSION

I did consider Google+ to be a “Facebook with Animated GIF support” but with its integration in search results I can see it is a part of a bigger picture. I am looking forward to seeing the way it is headed to.

Do you remember those retro gif banners flashing green-red: “Congratulations you are visitor number…”

I did rememer it when I first saw Airpush ads showing in notification area…

I would want to get money serving ads in my apps, but I would not poke someone in the eye in that effort, violate their ears and take 5 minutes of their time to search the way remove it ALONG with  the app that is causing it, even when not active! In my case it was the IPhone Keyboard Emulator…

To disable them permanently get your IMEI calling *#06# and enter it in

http://www.airpush.com/imei/

If you are android developer you could see this message in Developer Console

18 October 2011: Correction of active install count calculation

Open any android app on the market and you will see this is the graph of installations since they fixed the installation counter.

(Charts of 3 random apps from the market, each showing graph of the installation in the “last 30 days”)

If you started with development for android seeing 100.000 installation of many (free) apps, and thinking you can money either selling apps or with advertisements, think again. These numbers are apparently much lower. With these new information I would not even start with Android SDK.

From the developer perspective at this point I must say I am extremely dissatisfied with Android Market

I have just uploaded my new app RestFeed and here are Developer Console welcome messages:

• 25 October 2011 – Recently published apps not appearing in Android Market: We’re aware of reports from some developers that apps recently published don’t appear in Android Market
• 21 October 2011: Total install counts not updating in Developer Console
• 12 October 2011: Unable to view app list within Developer Console
• 18 October 2011: Correction of active install count calculation

Everything followed by:
“We’re investigating this issue and are striving to resolve it as soon as possible”

The app is here but nobody can get to it.