Yesterday, Linux Journal let me go crazy with an April Fool’s Day joke. I came up with the idea to switch our focus to an old operating system, BeOS, and pretended to seriously report on things pertaining to BeOS. The whole LJ crew got into the fun, and we ended up with quite a round of shenanigans throughout the day.
The downside is that I started working at Linux Journal a couple years too late. April Fool’s website spoofs aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, so the word didn’t get out like it might have even as little as one year ago. Still, it was incredibly fun, and for the most part was taken well by the audience. I particularly enjoyed writing the absurd little “articles” that posted on the front page. They’re very short, and linked below if anyone wants to see them:
- Video explaining the editorial shift
- Go Purple for Pentium Pro
- BeOS – The King of Recycling
- Antiquated Hardware Revitalized, Not Happy
- Bloggers are Bonkers for BeOS!
- BeOS Cluster Goes Live
- Sony Rumored to Buy BeOS
- NYC Subways Embed BeOS
- Operating System Programmers Flock to BeOS
The funniest part of the day was that a comment on the youtube video appreciated my humor, and thought my geeky hairdo was “staged” for the spoof. Uh… That’s just how my hair looks. 
Thanks to all that played along, and thanks to Linux Journal for allowing my idea to overtake the website.
#1 by Tania on April 2, 2008 - 11:23 am
Quote
It had me chuckling all day long.
#2 by Carlie on April 2, 2008 - 11:45 am
Quote
Man, your haircut is still making me laugh.
Errr, you know what I mean.
#3 by Nathan on April 2, 2008 - 12:34 pm
Quote
You mean I really didn’t win anything for my purpleness?
#4 by Shawn Powers on April 2, 2008 - 12:53 pm
Quote
Oh sure you did — make sure to read the fine print though…
#5 by Nathan on April 2, 2008 - 1:45 pm
Quote
Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’ve been trying to find a new look and I’m gonna take that picture with me to the barber shop.
#6 by Steve Buchheit on April 2, 2008 - 3:54 pm
Quote
BeOS! Ha! I remember that. It was the bees-knees. You know, until Apple bought NeXT and brought their developers back into the fold.
#7 by Wayne on April 2, 2008 - 5:01 pm
Quote
You had me fooled for 10 minutes or so. – my prank resulted in some prankster calling me on a TTY relay call about 30 minutes ago to give me a dose of my own medicine via the relay operator.
#8 by Jeri on April 2, 2008 - 7:08 pm
Quote
These are great! Thanks for posting a directory to all the articles.
I remember when Banyan and Novell were primary competitors in the networking arena… and MS the young up-and-comer.