I love this app, always amazing, registered user here.

Problems with cpu hogging ? renice it permanently (shell commands):

$ cd /Applications/NewsTicker.app/Contents/MacOS/
$ mv NewsTicker NewsTicker_bin
$ pico NewsTicker

In that file enter the following, then hit Ctrl-X to quit and save:

#!/bin/tcsh
nice /Applications/NewsTicker.app/Contents/MacOS/NewsTicker_bin

Once you have quit pico, make sure you

chmod a+rx NewsTicker

This will cause the NewsTicker binary to start in what's called nice mode, which means it will re-prioritize itself to a lower CPU priority and leave more time for other apps. On a fast computer you probably won't even notice the slow-down in NewsTicker, but you likely will notice the slight speed-up in other apps.

Note : this isn't the developers "fault" since Apple should have an API set out for nice binaries...IMHO