WCITYMIKE  Ah, the comment form ate the URL. Let's try it on a separate line:

http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/stanza_purchase_cost  
(Version 1.0b18)

WCITYMIKE  At , they state Stanza is currently free in both desktop and iPhone form.  
(Version 1.0b18)

WCITYMIKE  Quinn is an excellent freeware tetromino game that offers network tournaments, customizable pieces, etc., etc. I'm curious as to the profit model of this application: what makes this worth paying for, in light of the excellent free option already out there and well-established?  
(Version 2.7.1)

WCITYMIKE  This plugin for Google Notifier addresses your concerns about it not using Growl:

http://wafflesoftware.net/googlegrowl/  
(Version 1.10.4.676)

WCITYMIKE  Hold down Command and Option, and pick Preferences from the menu. You'll be presented with a Preference dialog with two fields. In the first, type "AutocheckInterval" (with that specific capitalization). In the second, type "1". It now will check every minute.  
(Version 1.10.4.676)

WCITYMIKE  You say "and that's on a 30" monitor." By saying that, are you suggesting that 30" is somehow to be considered a small monitor?  
(Version 1.1)

WCITYMIKE  I can't say I'm a fan of Lighthead Software. Caffeine's latest icon incarnation is horrible: you are supposed to look at the very small pixel area of a coffee cup and go, "Is that full, or empty?" Its prior incarnation -- a black Zzz that either had an X over it (i.e. no sleep) or did not -- was easily identifiable at a moment's glance, and also fit in with the diagrammatic and black feel of most other menu bar icons. So, I sent a handful of very obsequious support e-mails, spaced evenly quite a long time: might you be willing to send me a copy of the old application? Or, failing that, on a larger scale, might you be willing to offer the older icon to those of us who want it via a preferences choice? I never heard a response. Then, one day, I learned that some URL hacking revealed the earlier version of Caffeine I needed. To clarify: it was on their site all along. All they would have had to do to make my day is to just once respond to the e-mail by mailing me its URL; it wouldn't have required any particular effort to make new things available. They completely ignored a (potential) customer's requests, requests that I then learned would have taken them nearly zero effort to answer. The mark of a truly sucky company, in my opinion.

P.S. For those of you who want the older icon: download http://files.lightheadsw.com/releases/com.lightheadsw.Caffeine/Caffeine1.0.zip and extract active.png, hiliteactive.png, hilited.png and inactive.png from it.  
(Version 1.1)

WCITYMIKE  Looks like it's not even a Bare Bones product anymore. I'll be keeping an eye on the product because of its former grandeur, but the product essentially outright died, due to it being pretty much abandoned by BBSW for years and years (without them even having the courtesy of telling their users it was a dead product, maintaining the pretense it was still alive and being worked upon) ... and in the interim, the entire world of e-mail has made huge, giant leaps forward. I'll be downloading it to see what the 2.2 iteration turned out to be like, but I don't expect much from this formerly notable client. The changes would have to be mindboggingly and unexpectedly revolutionary.  
(Version 2.2)

WCITYMIKE  This application no longer functions. It causes the Leopard Finder to crash (EXC_BAD_ACCESS, KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE). The website shows no signs of having been touched in a very long time: the screenshots on that page look like they're from Cheetah, for Pete's sake.  
(Version 1.6.1)

WCITYMIKE  That's a problem unique to you. Works fine for me.  
(Version 0.1)

WCITYMIKE  Um, this is not a free product ...  
(Version 5.0.3.4)

WCITYMIKE  Very unimpressive. Crashed each time I tried to move the time cursor to another time, and doesn't offer "float on top." Using Fluid on the Hulu website actually offers more features, aside from the Apple remote control -- so that's a fairly sad commentary on this offering.  
(Version 0.9.0)

WCITYMIKE  QUITE nice. Thank you, and thank you for making it freeware.  
(Version 0.9.7)

WCITYMIKE  My fault; this is the wrong app. My comment refers to the version that WeatherBug offers for the menu bar.  
(Version 1.1.1)

WCITYMIKE  If, after installing this, your system doesn't go to sleep immediately when you tell it to, but hangs on a black screen for a while, it is this application's fault. Console logs list the app along with a "PM notification timeout".  
(Version 1.1.1)

WCITYMIKE  Does what it says it will. Quite nice.  
(Version 0.3.7)

WCITYMIKE  If you're the kind of person who checks their system logs, the "Debugger() was called!" messages that are spamming your logs are due to this latest version of Flash -- Adobe developers let it leave the station with some debugging code still in there.  
(Version 10.0.12.36)

WCITYMIKE  Because Meteorologist makes the source code available, you can download it, rip out the NSLog lines that are spamming the system.log, and recompile it. I did this -- with little technical know-how, although it does require a little study -- and now have a blissfully quiet Meteorologist.  
(Version 1.4.8)

WCITYMIKE  Now Shareware. Somehow I'm not surprised -- I don't think Peter Mauer will have a freeware app left in his stable once he's done. Shame.  
(Version 2.0.1)

WCITYMIKE  Hear hear.  
(Version 2.6.3)

WCITYMIKE  Yes.  
(Version 1.3)

WCITYMIKE  Wish this could be done without APE ... no way I'm letting that awful thing anywhere near my system.  
(Version 1.3)

WCITYMIKE  Thank you!  
(Version 1.2)

WCITYMIKE  There was a freeware app which did this in the same way, called iTunesRating, but it was never updated for Macintel and was a real memory hog. Great to see this!  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  Okay, now that we know it's possible, someone needs to figure out what this app does and post it as a hint somewhere.  
(Version 10.5.2)

WCITYMIKE  I'm so glad this app exists, but I must admit, iTunesRating had an interface which was **slightly** more convenient -- clicking on the menu bar icon gave you a choice of menu items:

*

**

***

****

*****

This was more convenient because it was a one-click affair. Click the icon, drag down to select the menu item, let go, and you're good.

This app essentially requires two clicks.

Trust me, I'm grateful! Just saying this is one point where it could be touched up a little bit.  
(Version 0.4)

WCITYMIKE  Yup. Same kernel panics here.  
(Version 1.6.6b3)

WCITYMIKE  Try disabling drag-and-drop within your Netflix account.  
(Version 2.6.3)

WCITYMIKE  The new icon is *horrid* and very non-functional. It was easy to tell at a quick glance whether your Mac was sleeping before. Now, you have to squint and try to figure out if the cup's full or not. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!  
(Version 1.0.1)

WCITYMIKE  Doesn't build on Leopard:

ld: library not found for -lcrt1.10.5.o  
(Version 1.2)

WCITYMIKE  Just got Life Balance spam in my inbox which contains a claim that blows me away:

"The releases on Windows and Palm are free updates, the Mac release is a paid upgrade. [...] Give yourself a prezzie that will support everything else you need to get done during this busy holiday season.

"Upgrade now to version 4 from version 3.x for Mac for a limited time for just $52.95."

First, they have the chutzpah to bill a point upgrade as number jump ... and then they're trying to charge $53 for it?!?!

Llamagraphics is getting more and more and more laughable.

I mean, WOW. I've gotten ticked off at developers before, but I've never seen a company shoot itself in the foot THIS well.

Bye-bye, Llamagraphics!  
(Version 4.0.4)

WCITYMIKE  Zarvox already exists -- he's an Apple voice. Plus, I'd not be surprised if Zarvox is trademarked by Apple.

Gotta love the flood of crap apps put up on MacUpdate by this developer. Clue: RealBASIC does not a software developer make.  
(Version 1.1)

WCITYMIKE  I don't mind the inherent concept of supporting Panic; they are good Mac developers, and Transmit is still a valued part of my app stable.

However, this pricing was a major mistake I'll not support with my dollars. The "upgrade" price is a mere $5 off the cost of it new, and is double the cost of buying CandyBar 2 new. I frankly predict that Panic has just lost a large portion of its CandyBar subscribers.

I really have no use for Pixadex. If its integration is the cause for the skyrocketing price, it was a poor move by Panic.

Mac developers earn our goodwill by good products, but they can just as easily lose our goodwill via stunts like this.  
(Version 3.0)

WCITYMIKE  A long time ago, I bought Life Balance. As the commenter below me said, after an incredibly long amount of development time, they have now rolled out a point upgrade and billed it as an integer upgrade -- the "improved" feature set should make this 3.3 or 3.5, not 4.0.

The sad fact is that Llamagraphics appears to be a company that thinks an absolutely glacial, plodding development cycle is sufficient enough to keep them competitive in the virtually EXPLODING world of webapps and apps that manage to-dos.

If you don't even try, you might as well give up and go home.  
(Version 4.0.3)

WCITYMIKE  Your entire anecdote kind of shows a big weakness in the whole system, doesn't it?  
(Version 2.0)

WCITYMIKE  I'm pretty sure Leopard now does this natively.  
(Version 2.5)

WCITYMIKE  It appears that v2.2.2 is not compatible with Leopard. I hope the developer will release a compatible version shortly.  
(Version 2.2.2)

WCITYMIKE  Mozilla's Webrunner -- free. Various WebKit-based solo browsers for Gmail, etc. locatable on the Web -- free. But there are fellow Mac users who unfortunately will pay this shyster $20.  
(Version 1.0.4)

WCITYMIKE  I'd love to use Transmission -- it seems the most "together" of the clients. However, after using it for a bit, I noticed that most torrent providers blocked the app due to some "impolite" behavior by the program. Has that been rectified? It's the application's only fatal liability ... but it _is_ fatal 'til fixed.  
(Version 0.90)

WCITYMIKE  Ah, thanks; read your response too quickly, and missed that.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  Thanks for your response. Would you be the recipient of an e-mail sent to macupdate@macupdate.com? If so, I did send messages there ... I'm not sure why you wouldn't have received them.

I've tried it with a Windows OS and Firefox and MSIE, and with a Mac OS and Safari and Firefox -- none of the four combinations work. I'm fairly sure it's broken.

Any idea who I might get in touch with to debug the situation? Your help -- even if it's just getting me in touch with the right person -- would be appreciated.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  Probably because the King James Version is in the public domain -- thus no license needs to be paid. Most other recent translations are under copyright.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  Ah, heck, I thought this was going to show up as a reply to the MacUpdate Admin's comment in the other thread. Durn it.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  Glad you liked the comment. :)

While I have you in this thread, I was wondering ... I've shot you quite a few e-mails at macupdate@macupdate.com about a bug on the profile page, but never heard back. There seems to be no way to effectively upload a picture to your profile. You can use 'Browse' to select a file to upload, but if you hit 'Save Changes,' it does not appear to upload the file.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  "Instead of simply being a recording of someone reading the Bible, theWord uses Apple's powerful voice synthesis to 'read' the Bible to you."

NOT a selling point.  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  SMARTReporter: free, MacUpdate profile not full of complaints.

SMART Utility: $20, MacUpdate profile *is* full of complaints.

Wonder which way I'll be going.  
(Version 1.0.3)

WCITYMIKE  From http://www.tivolovers.com/2007/08/10/schedules-direct-announces-pricing/:

"Schedules Direct has to pay TMS [Tribune Media Services] for the data, so they’re not going to provide it free."

"Schedules Direct is incorporated as a non-profit group and they plan to apply for federal 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. This is a community based effort designed to fill the hole left by Z2L and to keep MythTV, GB-PVR, and other systems working."

"As I posted before, this is their board:

Isaac Richards, Chairman (MythTV)

Robert Eden (XMLTV)

Daniel Kristjansson (MythTV)

Kevin Odorczyk (MacProgGuide)

Chris Petersen (Mythtv)"

I think the reason they don't go with the freebie XML stuff is because it doesn't have the data people call upon for these gadgets.  
(Version 1.81)

WCITYMIKE  I'm not sure I understand the business model of a $9 Shareware product exclusive to a discontinued Apple application suite.  
(Version 1.4.1)

WCITYMIKE  Fire is officially dead (I'm not on the team, just reposting it here):

"We are saddened to announce that there will be no future versions of Fire. There are several reasons for this end, but the most notable is the loss of developers. Fire's development had dwindled to few developers who do not wish to continue the project alone. In addition, another major contributing factor is the fact that all but one of Fire's IM libraries is no longer in active development.

"The good news is that two of Fire's developers have joined the Adium team and have written a transition path. Adium 1.0, upon first launch, will import your Fire accounts, away messages, groups, buddies, and logs into Adium. For future updates and IM needs, we suggest that you look at Adium.  
(Version 1.5.6)

WCITYMIKE  Are the people at Logitech so very clueless about Macintosh computers that they'd install Unsanity's Application Enhancer without so much as a 'by your leave'? I kept wondering why iTunes was crashing, Path Finder was crashing, Firefox was crashing. I was thinking such a widespread and random problem meant a hardware problem. Imagine my fury when I examined an error report and found com.unsanity.ape as one of the threads running at crash. Thanks, Logitech, for making me live with three or four weeks worth of random application crashes. And actual thanks to those here who spoke of Steermouse as a pleasant replacement; so far today I'm quite pleased with it.  
(Version 2.1.3)

WCITYMIKE  At both 3:45 am and 6:45 am, this program woke my computer out of a sound sleep -- and me out of a sound sleep -- to ring the 45-past-the-hour chime.

Guess what got tossed in my Mac's trashcan this morning? Just guess. Come on. Bet you only need one.  
(Version 1.0.1)

WCITYMIKE  Will this show individual letters, as opposed to just key combinations? For example, were I to type the letters W-H-A-T-D-O-Y-O-U-M-E-A-N-1-2-0-0-0-0-D-I-A-R-I-E-S -A-R-E-G-O-N-E-B-E-C-A-U-S-E-Y-O-U-D-O-N-T-K-E-E-P -B-A-C-K-U-P-S", would the individual letters display on the screen as they were typed?  
(Version 0.7.3)

WCITYMIKE  Wow! What an amazing upgrade! A restored 30-day expiration dialog and updated documentation! (I'm not kidding. That's the extent of the upgrade.)  
(Version 3.2.9)

WCITYMIKE  Hm. Four dollars for something Apple builds into the system. (System Profiler, click on "Applications" item beneath "System," look at the 'Kind' column.) Greedy a bit, are we?  
(Version 1.2c)

WCITYMIKE  Hmm. Stuffit Expander: free. BOMArchiveHelper: built-in. Compress: free. $20 to Pizza Hut or to buy free functionality. Wonder which way I'm gonna go.  
(Version 1.2)

WCITYMIKE  The app is temporarily available due to a lawsuit from The Tetris Company. If anyone knows a good lawyer who'd be willing to take the case for the hell of it, e-mail the developer at chris.wells@gmail.com.  
(Version 3.3.3)

WCITYMIKE  Life Balance appears to be pretty much in a case of feature- and code-freeze, and there doesn't appear to be any interest in rolling out any substantial overhaul or new features in the application. An especially amazing attitude on the part of its developers given the recent focus in the world of power users over productivity and other such things. Nowadays, pretty much a non-starter -- not even worth your time. And this is from someone who, long ago, registered the durn thing. (Oh, llamas -- PLEASE prove me wrong.)  
(Version 3.2.6)

WCITYMIKE  As someone elsewhere said, you have to love an application that is designed to improve your concentration on applications that gives you a pop-up reminder every five minutes. ;-)  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  A great app. But not one worth $30. Sad to see Peter sold this app, and furthermore sorry to see that SmileOnYourMac decided to try to chop off Mac users' limbs.  
(Version 1.3)

WCITYMIKE  ALERT! CAUTION! This upload appears to be the first Shareware release at $29.95. Do not upgrade if you do not want to lose your freeware copy!  
(Version 1.3)

WCITYMIKE  Quite nice, very pretty, but not really useful until it understands and imports GED files, a standard class-platform genealogical file format for almost every single genealogy program out there.  
(Version 1.2.1)

WCITYMIKE  Installed fine on my iMac. This firmware update seems to add the "washing the dishes" option, also known as the "kitchen sink" option, wherein your computer gains mobility and does your dirty dishes. Is an Apple dishwasher next?  
(Version 1.0)

WCITYMIKE  How about an Intel Mac port?  
(Version 1.0.2)

WCITYMIKE  I agree with the others who remark that it's difficult to find a reason to pay for the functionality in this program, when it is less than what is offered by TextWrangler free.  
(Version 1.1.2)

WCITYMIKE  I never saw the sense in trying to sell an application designed to format a plain text e-mail that arrives in your inbox free.

This appears to be one of those cases where the designers in question misunderstand the value of releasing free software to the community. If this had been given away free from the beginning, it would have had a substantially beneficial effect on the Mac community's goodwill in its perception of him, most likely boosting his reputation (or "whuffie," as the erstwhile ranter Cory Doctorow might put it).

Trying to charge $10 for this functionality is just SAD.  
(Version 1.0.4)