To anyone wondering, no my "Realistic Billing" hack is not yet available.  I had planned to release it back when FreeTime was out and then again when Apartment Life came.  But I never finished it 100%.  For those curious minds out there, it is basically a Mini Expansion Pack that adds a water/power/trash usage tracking system, power/water outages where real objects in your game will shutoff or power down on the fly (imagine all of the lights going out and your food in the fridge spoiling when you don't pay the electric bill), water/power/trash-pickup billing, massive fixes to bugs with trash bins in general, realistic property tax billing, and a huge pile of other neat things.  It required over 50x more hacking and custom code than all my other hacks combined.  So you can see why it takes me so long to finish, but I hope to have it available very soon.

  Only vehicles can use garage doors

* Requires     : Nightlife and/or Apartment Life
* Compatibility: Apartment Life, Mansion & Garden Stuff
* Modifications: Semi-Global (affects all electric garage doors)
* Hack Version#: 1.0

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
Prevents both human Sims and pet Sims from using the electric garage door as a means to enter the garage and/or the house.  They will now be required to use a normal door to enter.  So be sure that the electric door is not the ONLY means of entering the house or garage.  Otherwise, humans and pets could become trapped in the garage after their vehicle drives in!

Effects
~~~~~~~
Vehicles are now the only objects that can open the garage door.  It is most highly recommended that you use this hack along with my "Realistic Billing" hack.  It prevents pedestrians from using electric garage doors to enter your home or garage.  Because every time the garage door opens, it uses electricity which increases your electric bill.  And there is no reason for the lazy Sims to use the electric garage door when a REAL WOODEN DOOR is just a few feet away!

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.

That would be fun to see. Someone else even said the same thing at another forum. But I think it would be rather difficult to make such a mod, since it might need custom animations and poses. It's a nice idea though!

As the readme file already says, it does conflict with Visitor Controller. I've never used it because I like getting visitors. So I don't know if you can use both together. There is even a separate hack by someone on this site for children staying longer. Maybe that will work with my hack.

 Better Rod Humble visit

* Requires     : FreeTime
* Compatibility: FreeTime, Apartment Life
* Modifications: Global (affects all lots)
* Hack Version#: 1.0

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
* You must also download the following addon for this hack to work correctly:

  df_budget_transact_addon.package
  http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=94483

Charges your household $1595 Simoleons for the items left by Rod Humble.

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.

:pickme:  Write restaurant guide fix

* Requires     : FreeTime & Nightlife
* Compatibility: FreeTime, Apartment Life
* Modifications: Semi-Global (affects all computers)
* Hack Version#: 1.0

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
:topic cl: This fix is no longer needed if you installed AL patch #2 v1.16.0.194.

Re-enables the sadly missing "Write Restaurant Guide" interaction for computers on Apartment lots.

The fix is not needed for FreeTime alone, since the guide works fine on that Expansion Pack.  Only Apartment Life or higher Expansions will need this fix.

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.

Hopefully this new version fixes the problem that Menaceman44 was having.

New version is available to fix one problem.

You can put the file in Downloads, but you do not need to extract the 2 test archives.

I am sure you know about how to select a pet and then hold the mouse over the life stage icon (above the date/time on the user interface bar). But that only shows how many days are left in that life stage.

If you wanted to know the exact number of days that the pet has been alive, I don't think there is a way to check that inside of the the game. Maybe SimPE can show you though.

No toddlers, puppies, or kittens can go on Bon Voyage vacations. It might be possible to allow that using a different hack, but then you would probably want to add cribs to all the hotels or else the toddlers could not sleep anywhere. Or just use vacation homes instead of hotels.

I forgot there was one by Inge, though that one is missing an extra file that my new one has.  Not sure if the Inge one will mess up the ages in certain situations by missing that file, but better safe than sorry.

so you can find my own version here.
http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=95658

and here is a link for the Pet naming hack.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=207539

 Dog and cat pet age duration

* Requires     : Pets
* Compatibility: Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, FreeTime, Apartment Life, & Teen Style Stuff, Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff, IKEA Home Stuff
* Modifications: Global (affects all pets on all lots)
* Hack Version#: 1.0

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
Do you find that your pets live too long?  Or maybe they don't live long enough for your Sims to fully enjoy them?

Maybe you wish your pet could be a cute little puppy or kitten for just a little bit longer.  Or perhaps you have grown tired of that old dog laying around the house for 7 years always on the brink of death.

This hack decreases the lifespan of pets for their adult and elder life stages.  Without a hack, pets can live up to 41 years which is very unrealistic compared to real life where most pets are lucky to reach even 15-20.  The human ages in the game are more realistic, being 60-70 on average.  So the hack is decreasing (by default) the pet ages for the sake of realism and to make the game more enjoyable (not having a house full of pets that seem to live forever).

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.

 Allow puppy kitten toddler riders

* Requires     : Pets or any later pack
* Compatibility: The Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open For Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Store Edition, FreeTime, Apartment Life, Mansion & Garden Stuff, all Stuff Packs
* Modifications: Global (affects all lots)
* Hack Version#: 1.0

Update ( 05/08/2009 )
~~~~~~
Compatibility fixes for InTeenimater are now available as separate downloads.

zdf_compatible_apktr_InTeenimater_B.rar is for InTeenimater without the BackToSchool FlavorPak
zdf_compatible_apktr_zInTeenimater_BackToSchool.rar is for InTeenimater with the BackToSchool FlavorPak

Only use one of these fixes, not both!!!
Each one has a README.TXT file explaining how to use it.

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
* You must also download the following addon for this hack to work correctly:

  df_game_edition_addon.package
  http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=94482

Permits a puppy or kitten to ride in a vehicle, to walk with you to a community lot, and to travel back home with you.  Also has the same effects for toddlers.

WARNING: This hack will add Puppies, Kittens, and Toddlers to the list of available passengers when you call a taxi or choose to drive an owned vehicle.  Puppies, Kittens, and Toddlers also move very very very slowly, so it might take a while for them to travel to the vehicle to get in!

But hack is also configurable to allow you to turn off either Puppy/Kitten or Toddler riders, if you only want to allow 1 type (either Pets or Humans).

UPDATE April 03, 2009
Use SNS-AL.rar if you have Seasons, Bon Voyage, FreeTime, Apartment Life, and/or Mansion & Garden Stuff.

Use PETS.rar if you haven't installed any of the 5 packs above (SNS/BV/FT/AL/M&G).

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.

 Pet modifications

* Requires     : Pets
* Compatibility: The Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open For Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Store Edition, FreeTime, Apartment Life, Mansion & Garden Stuff, all Stuff Packs
* Modifications: Global (affects all lots)
* Hack Version#: 1.2

Update ( 04/12/2009 )
~~~~~~
1.2
- Fixes issue with the "Greet Everyone" interaction, when a puppy or kitten is part of the group waiting to be greeted (it was causing an animation error)

1.1
- Adds 4 new options to the _CONFIG file, so you must overwrite the old one!
- Fixes issue that prevents both wolves and skunks from showing up on all lots
- Adds ability to prevent wolf & skunk visitors on Residential Lots
- Fixes issue of strays walking by home lots way too often (way way more than a non-hacked game), instead of only visiting a small percentage of the time

Quick Info
~~~~~~~~~~
* You must also download the following addon for this hack to work correctly:

  df_game_edition_addon.package
  http://www.insimenator.org/index.php?topic=94482

WARNING: The default configuration will create many more stray pets in your game.  This behavior was chosen on purpose because I love pets and I especially love strays.  Read this whole file and pay close attention to the Customizing section.  There are instructions for restoring the options back to the game defaults in order to prevent more strays from being created, if you so desire.

There are 2 other hacks available that I recommend you look for.  The first is a Pet Name hack (should be called Live.package), which gives a wider variety of random pet names to strays.  And the second is a Pet Age hack, which either increases or decreases the number of years in each stage of a pet's life.  I think pets live too long and I always find myself waiting for the elders to die.

If you want to use either of those other hacks, you should install them before running the game with my hack because my hack does generate new strays by default.  These new strays will pick up any changes made by those other 2 hacks.

A huge number of fixes and changes are included with my hack:

- Allows owned pets to visit all lots without their owners

- Allows Puppies & Kittens to show up as visitors on all lots

- Allows Sims to adopt stray Puppies & Kittens

- Enables randomization of the age (life stage) of newly created stray pets

- Allows pets from the "adoption pool" to visit lots (disabled by default)

- Allows pets in "shop display cases" to visit lots (disabled by default)

- Allows increase or decrease of the maximum number of stray pets created

- By default, increases the maximum number of stray pets to 20 dogs and 15 cats

- Speeds up selection of home walkbys on the order of thousands of times faster!

- Alters Walkby behavior to no longer favor unknown Sims (now it is random)

- Allows Young Adult Sims as walkbys on non-college residential lots

- Allows all Sims, instead of just Young Adults and College Professors, as walkbys on college residential lots (disabled by default)

- Allows Pets, Wolves, & Skunks as walkbys on all college lots

- Allows Downtownies as walkbys on non-Downtown residential lots

- Allows Pets as walkbys on college Secret Society lots (disabled by default)

- Allows Pets, Wolves, & Skunks as walkbys on Vacation House (residential) lots

- Prevents the following interactions from aborting when used with visiting (non-controllable) Puppies & Kittens on all lots:Bond, Adopt, Play With, Greet, Chase Off, Nuzzle

- Allows Puppies & Kittens to travel to and from Community Lots with your Sims (but requires a separate hack: df_allow_puppy_kitten_toddler_riders.package)

* Check out the readme.txt file for more information.