Bill Karsh makes his living writing Macintosh source code, so when his wife saw him waiting a dog's age just to get on America Online, she demanded, "Why don't you do something about it?" Within hours, Karsh wrote a script that blocks new art downloads from AOL and replaces them with generic icons. Dubbed ArtValve, the Mac shareware eliminates the long wait for exploring art-intensive areas. At first, corporate AOL complained about ArtValve, but the company has allowed Karsh to distribute his new 2.1 version on the Mac Utilities Forum.
"Not many people mail me the US$5 price of the shareware," Karsh admits. "I just enjoy looking for ways to circumvent AOL problems."
SCANS
Art Shutoff Valve
