Twitterific is a great little Twitter client for Mac OS X. I use it for most of the day, almost all day. It makes my one-man-office here at Macrobyte feel a bit like I'm working in a big room full of friends and other developers.

The software is free if you don't mind seeing an ad once an hour. They show up in the same space as the "tweets" and can be skipped or ignored very easily. If you don't like the ads, you can register the software for $15. It's a good deal all around.

Some idiot unhappy person, however, has posted a hack that strips out the ads. People who use this hack are stealing money from the Icon Factory: they didn't pay for the software, and they're not showing the ads.

In response, I just registered my copy. They now have my $15.

The idiot gentleman who posted the hack is defending himself, as if he didn't do anything wrong. Here's how we (all Twitterific users, especially software developers) should respond:

1. Register your copy of Twitterific for $15
2. Post a note somewhere to let everybody know you've just registered your copy. (I put mine here, but that was probably overkill.)
3. Post something on your own weblog. Either point here, or reproduce something like these instructions.

Let's see if we can drum up at least a few hundred registrations for them, to show our support. Turn the idiot's bad behavior into something good for the Icon Factory.

Update 1: Some people think the hack never worked, and that it's just link bait for the idiot. Would be great if that's true, but it lets the air out of this particular challenge. ::shrug:: Oh well. At least our friends at the Icon Factory have seen that we will stand up for them. :-)

Update 2: He's definitely a nut. Some people report the hack never worked anyway. Others say it did.

Update 3 (final?): Sheesh, he's a scary nut. With a banana. Now I'm sorry I called him an idiot. Wouldn't have done that if I had known.

Update 4: Here's a MUCH SHORTER version of this story/challenge. Funny!