The Maid is Dead! Long Live The Maid! - 25th May, 2004

A long, long time ago I wrote an application to assist people who downloaded entirely too many things and spent entirely too long installing all the crap they downloaded (Yes, it's crap, get over it). I never played the game much, but entirely too many people that have lived with me over the long, long time since ago have. Over the years it got larger with more features, more and more people used it, and I never once advertised it anywhere. Within 6 months after putting up this website, Sim File Maid was downloaded over 1,000,000 times. I stopped counting sometime in 2002 or early 2003 when the number was over 25,000,000.

I have received exactly 25,417 e-mails concerning Sim File Maid- My "Maid Box" was finally purged earlier today. Most of those messages were pleas/demands/rants for help. Fortunately, a good number of those were from happy users of my software who just wanted to thank me for my time and generosity (which were you, eh?). Starting in the summer of 2003, I included an install-time "license" that among other things asked people to stop bugging me, and to read the FAQ, Documentation, or find help in a forum somewhere. Not many people read it, as the license predicted. The software works fine as long as people follow instructions. Unfortunately, even the simple download page instructions defeated many a person.

So here we are. I've had several conversations with various people at Maxis, and The Sims 2 will contain installer technology obsoleting Sim File Maid. Hooray! Yay! So today, is Sim File Maid's final release, 2.2 Build 31 FINAL. Also, as of today, the Sim File Maid source code is available to anyone who wants it under the terms of the GPL. Check out the download page for more info.

Thanks so much to all of you who sent notes of appreciation, pictures, contributed language translations, etc. It was always grand knowing how much others cared.

Best Wishes,
Matthew Keller

 

Continue on to the old Sim File Maid website