Adam's last post got me thinking about the use of Eye Candy in software.
What do the group think are good and bad examples of effects or eye candy.
For example ( this is going to be a popular one I feel )
I absolutely hate the dog that appears when searching for a file in Windows XP (Spot I think it's called), it adds nothing to the search functionality and just wastes some screen estate.
On the same OS I quite like the transparent mail notification that appears when Outlook 2003 receives a new mail (if you haven't seen it, it pops up above the system tray with a brief summary of the incoming mail over the active windows but transparent enough to still see the active window through it) It's pretty handy as it usually catches my eye and appears for long enough and with enough information for me to make a judgement as to whether it's a mail I need to deal with now or leave for later.