Overview
Installation
What's New?
Usage
Feedback
FAQ
History
The Future
Acknowledgements
Support
Legal
AutoInsult is a silly little program that generates insults for you in either an Arabian, a Shakespearean or a modern style. It then copies them into the clipboard so that you can paste them wherever you deem appropriate.
Users can specify the number of insults to generate, the level of offensiveness, and various other options.
All the word resources are stored in an external file, which will allow for easy upgrade and possibly multi-language support in the future.
AutoInsult requires no special installation. Extract the files to their own directory, and run AutoInsult.exe. You may want to put a shortcut to it on your desktop or in your start menu.
AutoInsult will not touch your registry, so to uninstall it you just delete the directory again.
There's not a lot too it, really. Choose the type of insult you want from the tabs at the top (Arabian, Shakespearean or modern). An insult will be generated.
You can then hit "Again Please!" to generate another. When you have the perfect insult, press "Copy to Clipboard" to (gasp!) copy it to the clipboard. What you do with it after that is up to you.
Click "About" to call up an "About" box which, amongst other things, will allow to you jump straight to my web site or send me some mail.
Use the "More" button to view and set the following options:
Some people have been offended by parts of AutoInsult, mainly by the Modern style. This is ok, not everyone's humour overlaps completely. Some people find the Arabian and Shakespearean styles funny, but not the Modern style. Because of this I have built in an option to disable or enable it. In the future I plan to have word sets that will be enabled or disabled for the Arabian style, but for now, the insult level only controls whether or not the Modern style insult tab is displayed or not.
I value your feedback! I really want to hear if you like AutoInsult, or if you have a suggestion to improve it. Please add an entry at the AutoInsult feedback page, or else mail me at software.JonRB@dial.pipex.com
This section answers frequently asked questions (FAQs). Some of these questions are real ones that people have actually asked me, others are ones that I think may be asked.
So what will AutoInsult do for me?
It generates insults for you in a variety of styles.
Why?
Why not?
No, really. Why did you write it?
I'd had an amusing email insult war with some colleagues at work. I remembered an insult program I had seen many years ago (c. 1985) and did a web search that evening to see what I could come up with (see Acknowledgements). I found resource material for the Shakespearean insults, an Arabian insult generator and that was about it. So I decided to write my own.
Its just kind of grown from there.
What on earth would I use it for?
If you can't think of a reason, then this program is not for you it seems. J
I ran it and was deeply insulted by it all.
Well, it is a program that generates insults, after all. Seriously, if this genuinely offends you, then I'm terribly sorry. Please accept my apologies, delete the program, and forget that it ever happened. (Some people reckon I should just say "get a sense of humour" here, but everyone has a different sense of humour, and some people really don't find it funny. Ah well)
I wasn't insulted on the whole, but I think some of the words should be removed.
As I said, people's sense of humour, and what they consider acceptable and unacceptable vary enormously. Its an age-old problem of censorship - just where do you draw the line. I hope I have drawn the line at downright offensiveness, but some people are almost certain to disagree. If you find that AutoInsult generates something you find unpleasant, even on the lowest offensiveness level, then just use the "Again Please!" button to generate another. Chances are it'll be something you find acceptable.
I wasn't the least bit insulted. In fact, I thought it was all a bit tame
As I've pointed out in the previous few answers, everyone's sense of humour is different. In order to keep the appeal of AutoInsult as wide as possible I have drawn a fairly conservative line on the level of offensiveness. This was one of the things that the review by Ziff-Davies praised AutoInsult on. If I had made it more offensive I would have run the risk of sites like ZD-Net refusing to carry it. I'm sure that once the registered user utilities are released, word files with more "liberated" word sets will begin to be available from other people. However I will not be responsible for them, nor necessarily condone any of their content.
I'm getting an error that says that I have an obsolete or incompatible insultdata.dat file Any ideas?
This error message should only fire if you have an insultdata.dat file from the v3.0 Beta versions instead of the current one. You should delete any existing files before extracting the latest version to your AutoInsult directory.
However, a handful of people have reported this error even when they have never had a previous version. I've been unable to reproduce this error yet. However, several users have offered very plausible suggestions. Greg Akerson has suggested that some unzippers that do not correctly handle long filenames are truncating insultdata.dat to insultda.dat, whilst Paul Russillo has suggested that a missing insultdata.dat will also show the error.
The current version (v3.01) is more specific about any errors it encounters when opening insultdata.dat, so this should shed a bit more light on the matter.
Hey, a lot of the spellings are wrong!
Since I'm British, I used a UK dictionary to spell-check the words in the program. I may release an American English version in the future (see The Future), but for now, consider it payback time for all the programs out there that assume that American English is the de facto standard for spelling. J
This documentation seems a little over the top for such a silly program
That's true. But a large proportion of it was cut & pasted from the documentation of one of my other programs (RemoteShutdown)
What happened to all the combo boxes / drop lists for the words between versions 2.01 and 3.0?
They had to go I'm afraid. When I added the Arabian style it became clear that there was no room to carry on using the drop lists as the Arabian style uses 5 fields, and I also needed the space to display the multiple lines of insults since v3.0 generates more than one insult at a time. I may add them back in at a future date if people miss them a lot.
I want to add my own words! How can I do it?
I'm planning to tidy up and release the companion application to AutoInsult that allows me to create and edit the insultdata.dat file that v3.x uses. This will be available to registered users when AutoInsult becomes shareware (see The Future)
Why don't you add the <add insult style here> style?
I'm always open to suggestions, but I'll require hard examples, preferably lots. The style must also follow a set formula too. At the moment the formula is to pick one word from each of a number of columns in order to generate a new sentence. For instance, the modern style is "You <column1> <column2> <column3> <column4>".
If I incorporate your suggestion in AutoInsult then you'll get credit for it.
When its says you can copy the insults to the clipboard to use later, what / where is this clipboard?
I can't believe I have been asked this question several times, but maybe its just a case of knowing what the clipboard is, but not knowing that it is called the clipboard.
When you select some text and say "cut" or "copy" then the test is stored in the Windows Clipboard. When you choose "paste" in an application (like your Word Processor or an email) then the stored text is copied in at the point where your cursor is. AutoInsult replaces whatever is in the clipboard with your insults, so you can choose "paste" (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V) and have your insults pasted in.
I want more information about AutoInsult / you haven't answered my question. What do I do now?
If you still have questions about AutoInsult then feel free to email me at software.JonRB@dial.pipex.com and I'll do my best to answer your question. Please see the support section of this document for more information before you do this.
I emailed you ages ago. Why don't you reply / bring out a new version immediately / come round and clean my house for me?
Well, as you've probably noticed, AutoInsult is freeware. This is because I hold down a full-time programmer's job, and I just do these freeware utilities because I'm sad and have a hobby that is the same as my job. I'll get round to it when I feel like it. You get what you pay for with freeware. Having said that, most bug reports result in a fix fairly quickly - usually within a few days. But that isn't a promise.
Sometimes mail goes into my "reply to later" folder and gets forgotten. If I haven't replied after a week or so then try sending again. I try to reply to every mail I get.
You're my hero! Will you marry me?
Well, provided you're female and single then I'd love to hear from you. Otherwise I'll have to decline. Do feel free to send me money though. J
|
Version |
Date |
Reason |
|
v1.0 |
06-May-98 |
Internal release. Only did Shakespearean insults |
|
v2.0 |
08-May-98 |
1st external release. Does both Shakespearean and modern insults, and has my standard "About" box, documentation, etc. |
|
v2.01 |
09-May-98 |
Realised that v2.0 had been incorrectly labelled as v1.0 (ie. I forgot to update the version number). |
|
v3.0 Beta3 |
28-May-98 |
Arabian insult style added, along with various options like number of insults, default tab, etc. |
|
v3.0 Beta4 |
29-May-98 |
Limited release with far more data. Only thing outstanding before release is a decent picture for Arabian insults. |
|
v3.0 |
5-Jun-98 |
Added tooltips, navigation buttons, a proper picture for Arabian, more words, and fixed a bug |
|
v3.01 |
18-Jun-98 |
This release |
I may add the following features in the future:
The next version of AutoInsult may well be shareware. The actual core program (AutoInsult.exe) will remain freeware. However, users who choose to register will receive several companion utilities. These will include an ActiveX version (for inclusion in client-side web pages, or embedded in your own applications), a command-line version (for server-side web pages, CGI scripts, etc.), and a utility to allow you to create and edit your own data files.
Registered users will also be notified of new versions as soon as they are available.
I anticipate the registration fee as being in the region of ú12 (UK pounds) or $20 (US Dollars) for a single license. You'll be able to register on-line with your credit card.
Whether or not I actually implement any or all of the above will depend on the amount of feedback I get from people, so make sure you email me!
The resources for the Shakespearean insults were found on the web. There are many sites that generate these insults. Some sites credit Jerry Maguire of Center Grove High School, Greenwood Indiana, as being the originator of the list of words.
A proportion of the modern words came from an old MS-DOS program called Insults from the Modern Advisory Institute, Utah (Freeware, © 1983-1985). Incredibly I still had a copy of it on a floppy disk.
Likewise a proportion (but not all) of the Arabian insult words came from Paul Levin. Visit his Arabian Insult page at http://www.cris.com/~pelevin/insults.shtml
All the other words came from my own sick head, I'm afraid.
The picture for the Arabian style came from http://www.internet-stuff.com/multimedia_gallery/index.html and was submitted by berliner@home.com. As far as I am aware all the pictures I have used are royalty-free and have no restrictions that prevent me from including them in this application.
I consider all the words to be in the Public Domain (especially the modern and Arabian ones, which are all either in the dictionary or recognised as being in common verbal usage) and do not feel that I have infringed anyone's copyright. If you disagree then please contact me.
By releasing this software as FREEWARE I am not committing myself to providing any support for it. My feeling is that if you get something for free you shouldn't feel that you then have the right to demand more stuff (like support).
However, I am willing to provide limited email support at my discretion. Please mail me at software.JonRB@dial.pipex.com stating your problem, with as much detail as possible. I'm afraid that emails that simply say "your software doesn't work" will not help much. I will look into the problem and may provide a workaround or bug fix.
I am afraid that I am not willing to provide any support via phone or fax, even if you phone me or otherwise pay for the call. I really don't appreciate people in different time zones phoning me in the middle of the night.
Before emailing, be sure to check http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/jonrb/AutoInsult.html for the latest version of AutoInsult.
This program is released as FREEWARE. As such it may be used free of charge for personal use. Its use for commercial or academic purposes is prohibited without the author's express (and prior) permission.
This software is provided "as is". I take no responsibility for any loss, damage, heartache or problems it may cause, and make no guarantees as to its fitness of purpose. I have tried to ensure that it is as bug-free as possible, but again cannot guarantee that it is nor take responsibility for any damages that either directly or indirectly result. There are no warranties, either expressed or implied with this software.
You may freely distribute this software so long as either the original zip file or the files contained within it are distributed together and are not modified in any way. You may not sell this software to anyone, and may not charge anyone for distributing it. It may not be bundled in any CD or compilation without the author's prior written permission.
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, Jon Roch-Berry. All rights reserved. All registered trademarks are recognised as belonging to their respective owners.