Stick Software News 

December 2002 edition.  Copyright © 2002 Stick Software. 

A service of Stick Software, http://www.sticksoftware.com/
Contact Stick Software at our support email address

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Hi! It's time for another Stick Software newsletter (yes, it really has been more than a month!) The occasion this time is twofold: Christmas, and Measles. That's me in the photo at right, by the way, celebrating a very serious Christmas. And a quick disclaimer: we know not everybody celebrates Christmas. Please substitute the holiday of your choice or ignore this aspect of our newsletter entirely, as you see fit.

So, down to brass tacks. We'd like to encourage everybody to think of Stick Software as a source of Christmas presents (and we apologize for contributing to the commercialization of the whole affair :->). Our fun, silly, nifty apps would make perfect presents or stocking stuffers for children and adults alike, and since we don't use registration codes, the recipient of your gift can simply download the software and tell it they are already registered, hassle-free. It's too late for t-shirts you order to arrive on time, but you could order them and just give a "gift certificate" for them until they arrive in the mail.

Why are we doing this? Well, we could sure use the money. But in all honesty, we think our products are an easy, original and thoughtful gift for the OS X user you love. If you agree, please visit our store at kagi.com and place your gift order. If you would like us to send an e-mail to the recipient of the gift on December 25th (or the date of your choice), telling them what their present is and where to go to download it, just include their name and e-mail address in the comments field at the bottom of the order form.


Now, as far as Measles goes: despite the version number 2.0, this is a brand-new product for OS X. The original Measles was written many years ago now for the old Mac OS, and is lost in the mists of time, but we wanted to avoid any possible confusion. Let's do one of our standard product headers, just to stick with tradition.


Measles 2.0:  A bouncy desktop companion

Download Measles (516K disk image)
More Information on Measles
VersionTracker's Page on Measles
Price: $10 (Kagi) (PayPal)

Measles is a Mac OS X "desktop critter" that is both fun and useful. The "measles" in question are little bouncy spheres that travel around your desktop, bouncing off of windows and each other. They can have a wide variety of appearances, and they can make sounds when they bounce. You may be wondering where the "useful" part comes in; they can be configured to act as CPU monitors, changing color depending upon how busy your machine is. They can also change colors according to how much free memory you have, or how much free disk space is left on your boot drive, or how long your machine has been sitting idle without user input. But while they can be useful, they are mostly just plain silly fun!

Here are a few samples of what a measles might look like on your desktop:


      


Imagine them moving around and bouncing off things, and you have the general idea. As you can see, their appearance is very configurable; Measles has 10 color schemes and 18 fill pattern sets, to be precise, and that's not counting the appearances associated with performance monitoring and such.

We think Measles is quite possibly our most fun application yet; just the right balance of playfulness and unobtrusiveness, with lots of fun preferences, and even a tiny bit of usefulness thrown in (in the form of the performance monitoring feature). Check it out!


And that's the news

That's all for this newsletter; there's only so much we can do in one month :->. If you've got ideas, comments, bug reports, or anything else you'd like me to see, send a note to our support email address. I've got lots to do already, but I can always add items to my "to do" list.

Thanks for your support. Word of mouth is essential to our survival as a shareware developer. If you can help spread the word to your friends, your co-workers, or your favorite Mac OS X websites and newsletters, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
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This newsletter is provided as a service of Stick Software, http://www.sticksoftware.com/. If you are receiving this newsletter, you have either requested it, or you are a friend of the author, or a mistake has been made. In any event, you can contact us at our support email address and we will remove you from our list immediately. We are opposed to unsolicited commercial e-mail, and we apologize if this newsletter has been sent to you in error.