Half Notes » christmas

Bradley, a commercial message

Nick — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:29:46 +0000

But not really a commercial. Just a simple song about a schoolyard spat unimproved by Santa’s Secret Valley. Those who brave this video will hear (pianoware and vocal) but not see me; titles and the lyric are the only imagery.

Christmas Trivia Screen Saver version 1.7

Nick — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:03:01 +0000

It seem that there are lots of folks who still like to have our Christmas Trivia Screen Saver running on some screen around the house during the holiday season, and we’re happy to continue to provide it as a free treat for Windows users. For several years, however, the screen saver has been in need of an overhaul to correct a number of small problems that cropped up with the release of successive versions of Windows.

The living-room scene in the Christmas Trivia Screen Saver

Now those problems have been addressed, and a new version of the screen saver is available for download effective immediately. If you already have the screen saver installed, we recommend that you explicitly uninstall it before installing. Please note that this release applies only to Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The main action in the Christmas Trivia Screen Saver is a quietly animated fireside scene with a flickering fire, twinkling Christmas lights, and a working grandfather clock. In the foreground is a table with a snack set out for Santa, though it’s not he who finds it and starts to nibble.

One of 60 trivia pages that appear at intervals in the screen saver

Every now and then, a page of easy-to-read text reveals a Christmas fact you probably didn’t know unless you hang around our trivia site at Christmas time. With sixty different pages to view, there are plenty of fascinating nuggets to keep you entertained throughout the season.

MIDI renderings of fifteen Christmas carol arrangements provide an uninterrupted soundtrack if desired. Settings to control the music, the frequency of the Christmas trivia, and more options are available through Windows’ display customization controls (see this PDF read-me file, also included in the download, for more details).

Download the screen saver. After downloading, open the file to install the software.

We hope you enjoy this screen saver, and we’d be delighted if you make it part of your end-of-year celebrations this year.

I Live At Santa’s House! v1.8

Nick — Wed, 12 May 2010 10:59:58 +0000

This new release of our Christmas game for ages 3-7 is an incremental upgrade to address a couple of long-outstanding issues.

1) The installer. Although our old installer worked reasonably well under all current Windows operating systems, including Windows 7, it fell short of full compatibility. An effect of the change is that saved games and other data are no longer stored under the Program Files folder, but under the public application data folder instead.

2) The configuration system. Configurations in I Live at Santa’s House! have two purposes: on the one hand, they allow certain customizations for one or more children individually; and on the other, they create separate identities for saving games. They are created with the Santa’s House configuration utility, SHC. Previously, creating a new configuration was too complex for many users to bother with, involving the manual creation and editing of a desktop shortcut, among other steps. Now it’s as easy as pie. We’ve added a manager for multiple configurations to SHC, and all the hard work is done for you.

For those who don’t know, I Live at Santa’s House! is one of our most popular games. It gives little ones a chance to find out what life is like for an elf living and working in Santa’s House at the North Pole. Testing toys, wrapping gifts and baking cookies are just a few of the activities an elf can enjoy, so it’s no wonder that this game has been a seasonal favorite for many families year after year. Kids love the idea of helping Santa, especially when it’s so much fun!