Widget Watch: BSOD

Our friends at Download Squad beat me to this one yesterday.

Here's a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Widget that Mac users can trigger when they are feeling unsure of their choice in computing platforms. It's only a few days old and it's already been updated to version 0.2b!

You're familiar with the BSOD, right? No? Well just have a look around your Windows-infested office and you'll probably catch a few glimpses of it per day. Here's a reference shot for you:

bsod widget

I originally saw the inspiration for it on Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus, who got it from BBSpot... and then I promptly forgot about it until today. BBSpot inspired the widget with a mock interview with Phil Schiller, who was satirically "quoted" as saying "What started with Windows file-sharing compatibility that only partly works is further improved with the BSOD widget. We at Apple understand that we need to increase our perception of unreliability if we are to compete with Windows in the workplace. The BSOD widget is big step in that direction."

Of course the main difference between a real Windows BSOD and the BSOD widget is that you can activate the widget when you want to take a break - not when Windows wants to take a break.

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Our friends at Download Squad beat me to this one yesterday. Here's a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Widget that Mac users can trigger when...

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Chris K

I guess I'm not in such a minority... I have two home PCs running 24/7. Niether has crashed/rebooted spontaneously. Ever. When I had Linux on my workstation a couple years ago, it crasehd a few times with sound card (Creative) problems. Before that, I had Win2k on the computer, and it was never rebooted except for hardware upgrades. I'd regularly go three months or more without a reboot. My Mac mini on the other hand? It froze a few times in the first weekend I owned it, and I can make it freeze on demand, merely by ripping a scrached CD in iTunes. Hard freeze; I have to turn power OFF. Which is bad when you borrow (often scratched) CDs from the library! And of course iTunes no longer recognizes blank CD-Rs for me anymore, but that's a whole other issue.

August 11 2005 at 12:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Marcello

eh... well... as i mac enthusiast i feel a bit ashamed to admit this, but in the last 4 year's i've been using win2k pro here at work, and the BSOD (or any other of whole system crash) appeared just a handful of times, on machines that are turned on 24/7 and are under heavy load when in use. the same goes for my XP at home, even if it's bloated with tons of crappy warez it still manages to crash rarely and when it does it's usually due to the CPU overheating, not to the OS itself. on the other hand the crappy 10.4.0 and 10.4.1 kept crashing on me, or at least restarting the dock app. later versions work much better. M

August 11 2005 at 5:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Joel

XP and the ilk do not crash with a "Blue Screen" by default anymore, unless you tell it to do so in the control panels. Instead, the default setting is to reboot (if possible) - without warning/indication. One may say they never see a BSOD; but that does not necessarily mean XP never crashes.

August 11 2005 at 5:09 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christopher

That's great, thanks! ;-) Chris http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

August 11 2005 at 2:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MannyV

You know, I've been using XP for a while now, and I don't get BSOD's anymore. What happens instead is the freaking box just freezes, and I have to press the reset button. Progress? I suppose it is.

August 11 2005 at 1:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steve M

Funny, but as for truth in advertising, I have used Windows XP for four years now, on multiple Desktops and a laptop, as of yet I have never experienced a single BSOD. Now, with Windows 95/98 I admit it did happen once or twice a year, but then so do kernel panics in Linux and Mac OS X...

August 11 2005 at 1:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rob Knight

Gets my vote: Most Awesome No-Purpose Widget of All Time. No, no, simply greatest widget ever.

August 11 2005 at 12:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply