Gather 'round, kids, gather 'round. I've got a story to tell. Grab a snack/drink, visit the head, this is going to be a bit longer than most.
I stumbled across donationcoder.com back in 2007 while looking for a way to grab media URLs direct instead of dealing with websites trying to obscure their file sources and prevent downloads. I started on autohotkey and somehow wound up here. I pretty quickly got distracted by things like Skrommel's software page and all the cool mini utilities on his page.
After bouncing into the forum and getting lost in there for a while, I stumbled across some reference to URL Snooper 2. The name alone piqued my interest considering why I wound up here to begin with. I opened a new tab and googled the name and, wonder of all wonders, it pointed me right back to DC.
I scrambled back to the previous tab and quickly located the page for it.
I don't think I read more than a paragraph before I was headed for the download link. Downloaded the installer, and turned it loose on my laptop. Roughly 2 minutes later, I was in love. It produced precisely what I was looking for, it was bug free, commercial quality, it was free to use, and was ridiculously simple to operate.
Let me tell you, if URL Snooper 2 had been a little run around car, I would have worn it the hell out. I used that program so much. Pretty sure I had it scripted to run with a hotkey combo. I'm reasonably certain that I used it to grab literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of direct URLs for multimedia files.
I have to pause here to give a little background. I am a commercial truck driver. Haven't always worked for the best companies. And back in those days my little family struggled. Not poor like eating ramen soup for 6 days towards the end of the month because the bills were coming due poor, but living in a mobile home and only eating out once a month and packing several days worth of pre-made frozen meals in my cooler in my rig because I couldn't afford to eat at truck stops(truck stop prices on everything are stupidly high, captive customers can't shop around). Needless to say, I couldn't justify paying for a DC license key.
I used URL Snooper 2 for about a year and found a forum thread about license keys. After reading it I got in touch with mouser and pleaded my case. He graciously accepted my story(pretty much what I said in the previous paragraph) and sent me a license key for free. Boom, nag screen gone. I made sure to say thanks and went back to downloading my vast and growing all the time library of MP3 files.
Fast forward to present day. I have changed companies a few times, worked my tail off, and now have what I like to call "discretionary income". I'm doing quite well and looking to be debt free in just a little over a year. Own a regular house in a nice neighborhood, couple of cars, you get the idea.
I still use that program from time to time although only occasionally now(there are extensions for Firefox that do the work for me, mostly), but I still use it. I decided to stop by a couple of days ago and see if it might have been upgraded to a new version. I still had the latest version, but seeing the donation link on the site made me pause. I thought "You know what, mouser sent you a key for free out of sheer kindness back when you couldn't afford to support the software you are using, but you really don't have an excuse any more. You waste more money than a single-user license just buying the odd gadget here and there. The whole 'poor' thing just doesn't fit you any more."
So, I decided to buy a license yesterday. I just wanted to tell my little story and say this to mouser:
Thank you for your kindness back when I needed help. It may not have seemed like any big deal to you at the time, but I assure you; it meant a lot to me. I didn't have anything to offer back then except gratitude. But now that things have changed for me, I'd like to support the software and the site. I'd have cheerfully paid twice the amount.
Thanks for reading, apologies for the literary masterpiece above, story time is over kids. G'night.
With very best wishes,
Jim
PS This is directed to the spoiled people-
Spoiler
It is saddening to see the utter lack of gratitude shown by a few in this thread. That immaturity, sense of entitlement, ignorance, and utter contempt for the hard work of others should take you far in life and I hope each and every one of you gets exactly what you deserve.
(Sorry mouser. I know I'm supposed to be nice, but I just had to say something. Edit if you think it necessary.)
Show Posts