13. Conan the Librarian X 1.2 - quietude enforcer

Requirements: Mac OS 10.3 or later

Conan the Librarian X is "a torture tool. Conan tells you to shut up when the incoming sound on your built in microphone reaches certain levels. This is a port of a very, very old System 7 extension for the Macintosh. It was one of my favorite useless apps for the Classic Mac OS."

"Ideally, you should install this app on the Mac of someone you hate. I have a list of 67 people, personally. Once installed on the Macintosh of your foe, double click the icon to launch. It runs as a faceless background application, so it will look as if nothing has happened. When running, Conan the Librarian listens in on the built in microphone. When the sound level gets to a certain point, it will tell you to shut up. The more sound that comes in, the angrier the Governor gets. If you need to kill the application because your life is being threatened, open up a Terminal window and type in the following command: killall QUIT "Conan The Librarian" If Conan is too sensitive to sounds, try lowering the Input Volume in the System Preferences (under Sound->Input)."

DOWNLOAD CONAN THE LIBRARIAN X 1.2

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14. LunaMenu 1.2 - moon-phase monitor

Requirements: Mac OS 10.4 or later

LunaMenu is "a simple menu bar item that displays an icon of the current phase of the moon. You can also opt to have a floating moon on your desktop, and there's a window with a detailed summary of the current moon phase. Double click to install. It will appear as if nothing has happened. Look in your menu bar, toward the upper right of your monitor, for a little icon of the moon."

"Why is LunaMenu? Me nerdly. I'm milking the new moon phase calculations library I ported for all it's worth."

DOWNLOAD LUNAMENU 1.2

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15. X-Mas Tree 1.4 - yule love this one

Requirements: Mac OS 10.4 or later

X-Mas Tree is "a Christmas tree for your Mac."

"Why is X-MasTree? Because I'm a sucker for shiny lights. Double click the icon to launch. There are many options, including which color lights to display, lighting modes (static, blinking or fading), a few ornaments, and a badge displaying days left until Christmas. WARNING: setting the lighting mode to 'fade' will beat the living snot out of your CPU."

For information about how to make your own custom ornaments for X-Mas tree, check out "A note about adding custom ornaments to X-MasTree" (nifty name, eh?), at the bottom of this page.

DOWNLOAD X-MAS TREE 1.4

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16. AAPLStockDock 2.3 - Apple stock ticker

Requirements: Mac OS 10.4

"AAPLStockDock is a pretty lame stock ticker for one company only: Apple Computer (stock symbol AAPL). It grabs the latest AAPL stock quote and displays it in the dock, and in a floating window if you choose. I really have no idea why I wrote this app in the first place, I'm practically a commie. Why I rewrote it is anyone's guess."

"Just double click the AAPLStockDock application to start. Then AAPLStockDock will download the latest AAPL stock quote and display it in the dock, and in the floating window, if you have it open. The apple is color coded to reflect changes to the stock value. When the stock value is going up, the apple is green. When the stock value is going down, the apple is red. If the stock value has not changed, the apple is blue. If the stock value is unknown (first download, etc), the apple will be yellow."

DOWNLOAD AAPLSTOCKDOCK 2.3

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