smtm --- A global stock ticker for X11 and Windoze 1. Introduction smtm, which is a not overly clever acronym for Show Me The Money, is a financial ticker and portfolio application for quotes from exchanges around the world (provided they are carried on Yahoo!). It creates and automatically updates a window with quotes from Yahoo! Finance. It can also display the entire variety of charts available at Yahoo! Finance. When called with one or several symbols, it displays these selected stocks. When smtm is called without arguments, it reads the symbols tickers from a file, by default ~/.smtmrc. This file can be created explicitly by calling the Save option from the File menu. Beyond stocks, smtm can also display currencies (from the Philadephia exchange), US mutual funds, options on US stocks, several precious metals and quite possibly more; see the Yahoo! Finance website for full information. 2. How to get started Built using Perl/Tk it requires at least the following modules Date::Manip Finance::YahooQuote LWP::UserAgent MIME::Base64 HTML::Parser Tk all of which are readily available for most Unix variants, Linux distributions and the ActiveState Perl implementation common on win*. Debian users just say 'apt-get install smtm'. For others, and following Perl convention, the installation should work as perl Makefile.PL # optionally "perl Makefile.PL verbose" make make test # the tests are somewhat limited make install but I do not test this regularly as I install the Debian packages myself. 3. How to use it 'smtm --help' gives a brief synopis, 'perldoc smtm' shows the full manual page. Several options are available and can be set from both a resource file ~/.smtmrc, the command-line and the menus once smtm is running. Additional resource files, e.g. for additional portfolios, are available in the examples/ directory of the source distribution. But the simplest case is possibly to just supply ticker symbols on the command-line: 'smtm DELL IBM MSFT'. 4. Disclaimer (taken straight from the GPL) NO WARRANTY 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. In short: if it breaks, you can keep the pieces. This is Free Software, use it as you see fit, but don't come running or screaming if it doesn't work as intended. 5. Copyright Copyright (C) 1999 - 2004 Dirk Eddelbuettel This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.