Holy Hannah, it's not really Friday the 13th, is it? Not that we're particularly superstitious here at the AtAT compound, mind you, but, you know, surviving an attack by an axe-wielding, hockey mask-wearing, nigh-unstoppable force of evil while employed as freewheeling strip Monopoly-playing camp counselors lo those many summers ago has made us a bit skittish. (Interesting note: we saw beneath that mask in our struggle to avoid dismemberment. It was Steve Ballmer. Aiiiieeeeeee!!!)

So anyway, yeah, we've come to associate this day with bad luck, negative karmic realignment, cosmically-inflicted evisceration-- call it what you will. Consequently, this is a day on which we traditionally avoid such fate-tempting activities as juggling live grenades, stuffing rabid wolverines down our pants, and-- riskiest of all-- completing big-ticket transactions over eBay. Don't get us wrong; we love eBay, but any system with an audience that big is going to attract at least a few bad eggs who are looking to rip you off on the purchase or sale of some easily-fenced Mac equipment.

Case in point: Eric Smith is a New Orleans college student who auctioned off his PowerBook with the intent of buying a new iBook with the proceeds. Lucky him-- he found a buyer in Chicago willing to pay $2900 for his TiBook, an AirPort Base Station, and other accessories. The only trouble was, "Steve Matthews" paid for the goodies COD with a forged cashier's check. D'oh! Suddenly Eric had a $3000 hole in his bank account just before Christmas, and-- more importantly-- no PowerBook. Oh, the depths to which some people will sink.

But if you're starting to get all depressed over the black moral state of the human condition, cheer up; this story has a happy ending. Sort of. See, Eric posted his tale of woe to the PowerPage, asking for people in Chicago to help him track down the guy who had scammed him out of three grand's worth of Mac gear. Well, the Mac community leapt to his aid, offering up any number of helpful suggestions, as well as heartwarming offers to beat the culprit senseless with a tire iron should his true identity ever be discovered.

Well, we don't want to ruin the whole rollicking tale of adventure and intrigue for you (which Eric has detailed on his own web page), so we'll just go ahead and spoil the ending. As faithful viewer Jailhouse Smythe reports, when they put their virtual heads together, PowerPage readers discovered that "Steve Matthews" was running a "massive counterfeiting scam" that had defrauded dozens of trusting eBayers; thanks to a pooling of resources and some serious 21st-century Hardy Boys action, Eric has reported to the PowerPage that the fiend was arrested yesterday. All's well that ends with the bad guy in stir.

Of course, that doesn't get Eric his PowerBook back, although the police are trying to recover it. But even if he never gets the goods or collects any damages, at least he can take a bit of solace in knowing that he put a scumbag behind bars-- the worst kind of scumbag, the kind that preys on the Mac community. The moral of the story? In Eric's own words: "When will criminals learn? You just shouldn't mess with Mac people." Amen to that. And can we just say that it's nice to know that Macfolk are willing to commit acts of violence and mayhem in support of their brethren? Now we know who to call the next time Steve "Jason" Ballmer starts sniffing around here with a machete.

And the stays of execution just keep on coming! Yesterday we mentioned reports that Quark was running damage control on its hideously late Mac OS X port of XPress by promising its biggest customers that they'll still be able to purchase Mac OS 9-booting Macs even after Apple releases newer Mac OS X-only hardware; however, there's no actual evidence that Apple is really on board with that little scheme, so for all we know Quark simply aims to buy up a slew of Power Macs itself and then resell them to any customers actually so married to Quark as to shell out good cash for outdated equipment. (No, we're not in the prepress business, but man, it just sounds a lot easier to switch to InDesign, doesn't it?)

Well, if you're rightly skeptical of any info issuing forth from a company headed up by Fred "Evil Macs Are Conspiring With Satan To Steal My Protective Tinfoil Hat" Ebrahimi, Think Secret now has word that Apple does plan to continue to offer Mac OS 9 hardware until June-- at least in the Education channel. See, XPress and ProTools aren't the only titles that are still mired in Mac OS 9; apparently there's a ton of educational software that's yet to be Carbonized, and until a certain list of core applications works properly in its new operating system, "Apple will continue to offer our Education customers some configurations of the current eMac, iBook, and CRT iMac product lines that will boot into Mac OS 9."

Of course, since Apple's "no more Mac OS 9 booting" edict only applies to new hardware released starting next month, that could simply indicate that Apple had no plans to update those particular product lines until June anyway, which is at least surely the case with the CRT iMac. At least, we surely don't anticipate any announcements along the lines of "Presenting the New G3 iMac: Now Mac OS X-Only, and Available in Your Choice of Three New Colors: Glistening Slug, Vegemite, or 'What's That Stain?' Yellow." But it's the not knowing for sure that makes this all so much fun, right?

Anyway, the report that Mac OS 9 is at least safe for the time being in the Education market allegedly comes from Apple itself, so it may be at least marginally more trustworthy than Quark's "hey, everything's just splefty" phone calls to its Mac-using customers. So those of you who are stalwartly opposed to everything Mac OS X stands for (hey, we can't imagine why, but then again, there are people out there who will voluntarily go see The Hot Chick, so anything's possible) now have another option if you need a new Mac next year: go back to school. Heck, everyone can use another degree or two.

Attention, all consumers: there are now just twelve shopping days left until Christmas, and it you're anything like us, you still have, oh, everyone left to shop for. It's not so much the money thing, or the getting up off the couch and doing it thing, but rather the "what the heck am I going to get everyone?" thing. Oh, sure, you may have plenty of ideas for your Mac-using friends and family members-- everybody needs a Kensington FlyLight, trust us-- but what about the Wintel users on your list? C'mon, statistically speaking you're going to need to get a present for at least one of those guys, and while it's a driverless USB device and therefore platform-independent, we're guessing that the elegance and inherent coolth of the FlyLight would be utterly lost on them.

Well, fear not, friends, because faithful viewer The Professor has tipped us off to a practical and affordable gift that's no doubt aesthetically aligned with the keen fashion sense of the average voluntary Wintel user. Take a gander at this thing, otherwise known as the Tiggon ScreenArena. Yes, folks, according to the company's press release, for a mere $19.99 you can turn your buddy's drab and boring Wintel into "a funky place to spend time." ScreenArena is a "colorful, stylish monitor attachment" that adds "iMac shaped good looks to the PC." Hmmm... we're looking at the pictures, we're looking at the QuickTime VR, and we're not following. What does ScreenArena do, exactly? "ScreenArena makes the computer look good," says Tiggon president Mal Bisker. Well, he can't be talking about that ugly thing stuck in front of the monitor-- unless perhaps it replaces the Windows interface with a nice black screen.

Scary looks aside, there's definitely one good thing about ScreenArena, which is that it comes with "a colorful storage tray for holding cellular phones, keys and other pocket items." So basically Tiggon has also made the PC useful-- albeit only as a place to keep your remote and your copy of TV Guide, but still, that is a useful function, and in that sense, Tiggon has managed to accomplish something that Microsoft has been attempting unsuccessfully for years.

Meanwhile, the press release also exclaims that "kids and teens are crazy about it!" However, what the press release doesn't state is what percentage of those kids and teens are either legally blind or high on crack. Jonathan Ive is spinning in his grave, and considering that the guy is still alive and healthy, that should really give you a sense of just how upset this has made him. Still, it's a perfect gift for the Wintel users in your life; they and the ScreenArena deserve each other. Why, we can just see their faces lighting up already!