Google had an event about their Google Chrome OS today.. Anyone read any good write-ups? Here's one from Gizmodo entitled "Everything You Need to Know About Chrome OS"


http://gizmodo.com/540850...d-to-know-about-chrome-os

I've seen several shareware programs double and triple their prices recently and I'm shocked that they have the chutzpah. Here's the latest in my inbox:

The guys at IDM want $280 for a lifetime license now, hey, but it's on sale for $180 if you hurry. All hail donationware, freeware, and a bunch of open source apps, otherwise, I'm saying a big "Hell naw" to these prices. Sorry folks, I have a limit, and lately I'd rather pay the bills.

I'm wondering if disk defragmentation programs like PerfectDisk, Diskkeeper etc takes the thoughts expressed in the articles below into consideration when defragging and deciding where to place files.

"Big=fast
Most people keep less than 80 GB of data, including the operating system and their applications, on their hard drive. So why should they buy a 500 MB, 1 or even 2 TB hard drive?

One simple reason: speed. That big hard drive will give you this snappiest performance this side of a solid-state disk.

For many applications, even faster than a costly SSD. For a lot less money.

Why?"

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=686&tag=nl.e550

I'm a big fan of BareGrep Pro by Bare Metal Software, a truly excellent visual grep.  I didn't expect much when I downloaded the freeware Hound from Jimmy the Fork.  Indeed it won't replace BareGrep Pro.  But I was impressed when I turned it loose on a directory that happened to have some PDFs in it, and found Hound's status bar saying things like "Examining PDF", "Converting PDF to plain text," and giving a grep-like posting. I don't know how it does it, and didn't check for absolute accuracy, but the set of results it gave looked right.

Nice bit of humour on that site, too.  E.g., his duplicate file finder is called Dolly, with a picture of a sheep  

http://www.jimmythefork.com

I thought I might start a thread about choosing a complete pc package for a relative, or advising them on what to do.

Actually I should say that there is no reason that the posts here wouldn't be suitable in advising anyone here on how to buy a complete system for themselves, it's just i thought it might be useful to start a thread specifically focused on figuring out a really simple one-stop-shop place to get a complete computer system with the least amount of confusion and risk.

And I thought it would be useful to have a thread to talk about general issues of helping out a relative to pick a new computer setup.

The latest edition of Ehtyar's Tech News Weekly has hit the stands!
Table of Contents:

• 1. Truly Malicious IPhone Malware Now Out in the Wild
• 2. SPDY: Google Wants to Speed Up the Web by Ditching HTTP
• 3. Intel and AMD Bury the Hatchet Under $1.25 Billion in Cash
• 4. Wikipedia Sued for Publishing Convicted Murderer's Name
• 5. Attackers Conceal Exploit Sites With Twitter API
• 6. Microsoft Defends Hotmail's Cookie Requirement
• 7. MS Forensics Tool Leaks Onto the Web
• 8. Using Photosynthesis to Power Hydrogen Production
• 9. Christopher Walken Performs Lady Gaga's Poker Face

There are quite a few useful sites where a company or individual can post about a programming project they are willing to pay to have implemented, places like rentacoder.

More and more I find myself, as a programmer, in the opposite position - I have a programming project that I have already implemented an initial version of on my own time, and am pleased enough with it to think it deserves further development.  DC has provided such a wonderful place in terms of being able to get some support to work on these kinds of programs.  But there are also times when it's not real a DC-centric project and I can't afford to keep working on it on my own time -- and i don't have the skills or inclination to try to market it or find traditional funding.

I'm sure other programmers at DC may find themselves in similar situations sometimes.

So while I know this is a long shot, I wonder if anyone had any ideas about how a programmer might find and connect with someone who would be interested in funding additional development of an existing project and handle the business end of things, in return for partial ownership, etc.?

Just stumpled across this site noupe.com which has some excellent concise articles and roundups about web design tools and libraries (jquery, css, ajax, etc.); i was looking for jquery plugins and they have a few really nice suggestions.

http://www.noupe.com

We'll dispense with the unnecessary "Google is evil, despite what they say" diatribe and get right to the good stuff: Google have opened up a new programming language that they're calling Google 'Go'. It's based heavily on C but it looks to me like it's a little more "functional" in terms of syntax. Their goals were apparently faster compile times (were they thinking of C or C++?) and a more expessive syntax (hence the "functional" bit I guess).

Ars (as usual) has a good write-up here, and the official site is here. I haven't had a chance to try it myself, but if anyone else has please let us know what you thought.

A Google TechTalk has been posted here.

Greetings folks.

I am sorry and I meant no disrespect in getting this notice here at DonationCoder.com sooner, but good lord have I been busy..

To the meat of the situation:
Rainmeter 1.1 has been released and is better than ever.

Downloads and more information at:
http://www.rainmeter.net

I've always been a huge fan of movie or tv series marathons, which go on for tens of hours.. I find them extremely calming and comforting, the fact that they just go on an on.. Often i only pay attention to bits and pieces as i'm working -- i like to have something on in the background while i work.

Anyway, i've discovered a few of these series that you can watch online if you are a member of netflix, and i thought i'd share them, and ask for other suggestions of related shows.  These are all available to watch online:

The latest edition of Ehtyar's Tech News Weekly has hit the airwaves.
Today's table of contents:

• 1. Dutch Hacker Holds Jailbroken IPhones "hostage" for €5
• 2. Google Gives You A Privacy Dashboard To Show Just How Much It Knows About You
• 3. Bizarre Legal Defense After EMI Sues Over Beatles MP3 Sales
• 4. Competition is Gouging Phone Users (For the Aussies - Thanks 4wd)
• 5. TLS Negotiation Flaw Published
• 6. Web Open Font Format Backed by Mozilla, Type Foundries
• 7. Complete Genomics Produces a Cheap—well, $5,000—human Genome
• 8. Secret Knock Detecting Lock

1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings everyone and welcome to yet another edition of the DC newsletter.  It's been 40 days since the last newsletter -- well off of our goal of getting a newsletter out at least once a month (preferably twice a month).  So go make yourself a hot cup of tea and prepare to spend some time going through this edition, because it's big and full of some real gems.

Because of the large number of items in the newsletter this time, I'll try to keep the editorial short.  I did want to mention a few things, though.  First, long time members of the forum know about the big event on the site that gets the most attention each year: NANY (New Apps for the New Year).  NANY is really a celebration of software and programming -- we ask all coders who hang out at the forum (new coders are welcome!) to release a brand new freeware/donationware program on January 1st.  Actually, most of the activity happens in December as coders pledge to release something and we try to coordinate all of the participants.  Keeping with the spirit of the site, there are no winners or prizes, but we do try to make sure every coder gets some exposure and a commemorative mug celebrating the event.  It's great fun for new and old coders alike.  We've just started the NANY 2010 section on the forum and I encourage you to stop by and get a good seat for the show.

Second, I wanted to mention a new and very cool website created by longtime DC member Chris Hanscom.  It's called Plarker, a site where people can create maps of their favorite places and share them.  The main thing I want to say is that we want to hear from more of you about projects that you are working on, computer-related or not.  In a world in which corporations buy their way into people's consciousness with marketing dollars, we need to support the small and lesser known projects in which DC members and friends are engaged.  Don't be shy to post about stuff that you are working on and to ask for feedback.

Third, in that spirit, I want to tell you about a new website that I just finished and am opening to the public. It's called "The Tree Form Machine" and is based on a desktop application that I wrote quite a while ago called "The Form letter Machine."  The basic idea of the website is to make it possible for users to create interactive forms that people can use to prepare documents by simply marking checkboxes and mixing and matching paragraphs.  I'm hoping that it will be useful for people who want to create easily-customizable legal documents, form letters, support replies, etc.  The desktop program was pretty much a niche product and judging from the near unanimous yawns of disinterest in the website I expect nothing different from the website.  But if it sounds like something you might be interested in, please please do drop by and see if you can create something interesting with it.  Nothing would make me happier than to see someone create a cool form or two that actually has some value to someone.

Fourth, I just want to highlight a nice blog entry I stumbled across, written by someone who discovered the Coding Snacks section of our forum and wrote about his experience of requesting a custom program and having DC member Skwire code it for him.  It brought a smile to my face.