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                           P I X I E   S W A R M

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Welcome to the wonderful world of third party screen savers!


Contents
~~~~~~~~
You should have received a ZIP file that contained these file:

PIXSWARM.SCR  The actual screen saver.
README.TXT    This file that you are reading.
REGISTER.TXT  A registration form that you should fill out and send in
              along with your registration fee.


Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~
To put it simply.. nothing special.

This screen saver is of the standard Windows type. It should run on any
computer that is capable of running Windows 3.1, which is required. A
minimum of 256 colors is recommended. No disk space is required other than
the space the program itself occupies. There are no special memory
requirements either (Pixies are small and don't take much memory.)


Quick and easy install
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To install the screen saver, all you need to do is copy the PIXSWARM.SCR
file to your Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS ).

To use the screen saver, run the Control Panel from the Main group and
open the Desktop icon. The 'Pixie Swarm' item should appear in the list of
available screen savers. Select it and click the OK button. 


Distribution
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know you're probably thinking "Wow! This is so cool! I want to give this
to all of my friends and post it on all of my favorite BBS's!". Even
though you got this for free, it is copyrighted and you may not continue
to use it for free or to distribute it in any form except for the original
unmodified ZIP file. The term 'shareware' means that you get to try it for
free and if you like it and want to continue to use it, you must pay for
it. With that said, feel free to hand out copies of the original ZIP file
at your next party and upload it to every BBS on the planet.

The registered version is, of course, copyrighted and cannot be distrubed
at all.

Pixie Swarm                                                        Page 2


What do these controls mean?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The three ways to change the way the screen saver looks are Number of
Pixies, Pixie Speed, Frames Per Second.

Number of Pixies: 1 - 512
  This is fairly self-explanatory. The control is exponential, meaning that
  the small numbers will change by small amounts and the large numbers will
  change by large amounts.

Pixie Speed: 0.5 - 2
  When the pixies fly faster, the streaks they leave behind get longer. If
  you want to make the streaks longer, speed them up. To make them shorter,
  slow them down. The value can be adjusted from half of the normal speed to
  double the normal speed. When there are more pixies, the normal speed is
  slower (this is because it is so crowded and they don't want to crash into
  each other.)

Frames Per Second: 20 - 100
  This is the number of times per second that the pixies will be moved. Keep
  in mind that your system may only be able to handle a certain number of
  pixies at a certain number of frames per second. If you are using 128
  pixies, you may only be able to draw 20 frames per second. Increasing the
  value past 20 will have no effect.

By default, the pixies are in color, but you may limit them to only white
by unchecking the Color checkbox.


Password protection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This screen saver uses the standard method for password protection. If the
Password Protected checkbox is checked, you will be prompted for a
password in order to turn off the screen saver and return to your work (or
whatever else you were playing).

Of course you will need to set your password. Clicking the Set Password
button will allow you to change the password. You will have to know the
previous password if there was one and you will have to type the new
password twice to be sure you did not mistype it.

Pixie Swarm                                                        Page 3


Ubiquitous shareware plea for money
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every piece of shareware has to have some reason for you to register the
package besides the whole being-honest-by-paying-for-my-hard-work thing. I
did not want to limit the functionallity of the screen saver (since there
isn't much to limit in the first place), so the torture for using the
unregistered version is a dialog that appears when you try to configure
the screen saver. This dialog cannot be dismissed for 10 seconds. After
the excruciating waiting period, you can click the button and continue on
to the setup dialog.

The reward for registering your copy of the screen saver is the
elimination of this dialog, free updates to future versions as well as
special 'previous customer' pricing on other newly released products as
they become available.


How do I register this thing?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's quite simple really.. you send me the registration fee in U.S.
currency (check or money order) along with a properly filled out
registration form (just print out the REGISTER.TXT file) and I send you a
disk with the registered version on it. If you have a Compuserve account
and prefer not to wait axiously at your mailbox, I can E-mail a zip file
to you.


Contact information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Send any questions or comments to one of these addresses:

Khouri Giordano

Compuserve: 70564,2541
  Internet: 70564.2541@compuserve.com
Snail Mail: 26 Woods End Road North
            Dix Hills, NY 11746