Topics

1

Living Room / Some photos from our last walk

« on: September 14, 2015, 12:49 AM »

Sandi and I have just come back from 14 days walking (Newcastle to Sydney), which is in preparation for our walk up through the Australian Alps (Victoria to Canberra). That walk will be over 700km, this one was just 250km.

But a few photos from this walk: http://bit.ly/1McthSj

2

Living Room / OK: I need some pointers for a web new project

« on: August 29, 2014, 07:25 AM »

How to explain? I need to produce a web page/site crafted for a touch (mobile) environment.

The basis will be a page with a scenic photograph with links to other sites.

What I want to do is have something like an image map so that visitors can see the opportunity to follow a link and follow it if they chose. Because touch has no hover or mouseOver my desktop standards of tooltip and imagemap title fail. I'm wondering about something like a map pin (graphic) over the image as the 'prompt' that there's something there... and click opens a jQuery tooltip? but not sure where to start or if there are other possibilities?

Then (once that's sorted) I'd like to be able to have something like a vote up / vote down functionality to the links. Come to think about it, I'd like to have comments too, but it'd be horrid if it got spammy, so I don't know if there are some smarts that could be employed? Can you limit by location? The site will be accessed via mobile from the same location.

And for extra points: what's the easiest way to allow users to share a photo they've just taken on their phone? I mean upload to the site... and again, I wouldn't want it to get spammy.

All pointers gratefully received!     It's for a new piece I'm planning for an outdoor sculpture exhibition

3

Living Room / Hardware Hackers - Need your advice

« on: August 12, 2014, 11:49 PM »

I'm tossing around an idea for a piece for a local exhibition, which will be based around the idea of a photo-booth.

I've done similar things, though at closed functions, where I've written a script to manage the import and mashing together of photos... but this is a bit different.

The basic concept is to have a photo-booth with indwelling computer to manage the taking and displaying of photos (at least that's where I started).


The process would be something like:
1. When computer ready display green light at Go Button
2. User composes themselves and presses Go Button
3. Light displays Red
4. Audio: "1 - 2 - 3 - Smile!"
5. Camera takes photo and saves it
6. Prints receipt
7. Light displays Green
8. Runs image manipulation script
9. Displays image on external display

What I've got no idea about is:

• the ability to provide a button that starts a process on the computer (I'm thinking that sounds like a mouse?)
• the ability to do the green / red lights

4

Living Room / Coming up for a breath...

« on: July 23, 2014, 10:56 PM »

Had my head down, this piece has taken way longer than I thought, but I'm very happy with it (apart from the out-of-the-box credits, but I was rushing at that stage...). I still need to do a voice-over (I've performed it a couple of times now: there are subtitles atm).

for your enjoyment:

It was actually a birthday present for Sandi (wife), which was a couple of weeks late in the end

5

Living Room / Another Piece for another Son & Daughter-in-Law's Wedding

« on: March 05, 2013, 05:27 AM »

It's just a month since I finished the first mosaic for my middle son (and now wife) and I've got the 3rd Son's done!

This one was quite different:
The PhotoMosaic was an image of Nathanael and Monica that was made up of photos of their friends and family (that sounds familiar, right?).
In the end I had 1,645 photos to work with. The finished image was then colour separated into four separate images comprising the C, M, Y
& K layers and then each printed onto A1 transparent sheets. These four A1 transparent sheets were then cut into either 8 landscape tiles
or 9 portrait tiles, giving 34 tiles in total. These 34 tiles were then put into envelopes (with instructions) and compiled on the day by
the guests, in a slightly random order, giving a slightly random development of the final image: Cyan on Magenta creates a different
colour to Cyan on Yellow.

Confused? The printer was too, so I created this example to show the printer (and others) so they'd get the idea what I was planning:

If you want to read the story behind the mosaic, it's written up in this blog post.

I put together an actual time-lapse of the mosaic construction:

If you'd like to compare my mock-up with what really happened I did a shortened time-lapse of just the changes here.

The PhotoMosaic is up on my site as an Interactive Mosaic as well.

Actually, I have a question for any web devs who might know: the Interactive bit is a thumbnail mouseover on an imagemap (through js) with an anchor link to fullsized image that's displayed in a fancybox pop-up. Works fine in Chrome and FireFox but IE (up to fails when clicking on the imagemap to open the image in fancybox. Love an idea or two to get me going... or an idea to work around it?

6

Living Room / The Piece for my Son (and Daughter-in-Law)'s Wedding

« on: January 28, 2013, 05:10 AM »

I'm just taking a quick breather from my creative endeavours, as I've just got one off my plate; and I thought you'd be interested in what's keeping me busy...

If any of you followed my links to my Bushwalking Mosaics you'll understand where the inspiration for the piece came from, and if you're interested you can read more of the why and how here:

I've pulled out the end tile of the animation as the final PhotoMosaic. On the site I've added an interactive version where all the tiles are available as a pop-up thumbnail and full size image; not that you'll know anyone .

Watch the video first!

So... that's one son down and one more to go (youngest son has his wedding in under 4 weeks)       I think I've got his piece under control...

7

General Software Discussion / File sharing advice

« on: December 06, 2012, 10:24 PM »

I've got my head buried deep into some art works I'm doing for two of my sons who are getting married next year.... actually, that's only a month or so away 

Anyway... for the first son's wedding I'm setting up a computer and projector with the intention (hope) that the guests will donate their photos that they've taken on the day to a running live photo mosaic.

So far I've got scripts running that:
1. Watch for insertion of a removable drive
2. Copy photos taken today of the card / drive onto the computer
3. ImageMagick resizes and auto-rotates
4. Photo mosaic software generates new mosaics as the photo numbers increase (in groups)
5. Slide show is regenerated when a new mosaic is created.

The scripts run well and the resulting slideshow is an evolving image made up of the mosaic tiles that over time gets more and more defined to the base image. 

OK... so what's the problem??

In this day and age I'm wondering if many people will have brought their phones (not cameras -- I've got a good array of card readers) and I'm not sure what the best way for people to get their photos off their phones and onto my hard drive is....  I don't have a smart phone, so have no idea 

I don't mind multiple methods... just needs to be as easy as possible.

Thanks

8

Living Room / The Bibbulmun Track: There and Back again in 100,000 words (or less)

« on: July 15, 2012, 12:49 AM »

Last year our respective works graciously allowed Sandi and I (Sandi is my wife) to take leave to walk the Bibbulmun Track: We were absent for a couple of months (most of the time putting one foot in front of the other on the track), and  last week I posted the last day of our walk diary on our Blog and a short summary. It's been 8 months since finishing the walk, 10 months after starting the walk and an amazing 16 months since starting the initial planning.  During the break we diarised 44,416 words and took 9,621 photographs (most of which were on the track): these have been turned into 58 Blog Posts with 99,500 words and 4,359 photographs (no wonder it's taken 8 months and forced me to become a recluse ;-) ).
 
Experiences like the Bibbulmun are important for our sanity (…well, what we’ve got left).

I am overwhelmed by the numbers of our experience though:

1	journey
2	people
12	camp grounds
35	kg food eaten
53	overnights
143	SPOT messages
316	hours of walking
1,021	kilometres of track
5,223	total $cost
9,106	photographs taken
44,416	words written
49,036	metres skipped down
49,407	metres trudged up
90,919	GPS points recorded
1,215,573	footsteps walked

Everything is collated on our Bibbulmun page: The Bibbulmun Track :: The Mowbray Version, which has a lot of stuff on it (both fun and helpful - just in case you may need it)!  The walk is grouped into the 8 weeks, and the 4K of photos have been published into subject albums: Flora (North & South), Orchids, Fauna, The Track, Trees (and Stumps), Fungi and Panoramas.

Some time ago I shared our time-lapse (from these slides), which was lots of fun, and generated quite a bit of comment – it does reveal our feelings at the beginning and end of the day:

Thanks to everyone for their support and interest (Mouser -- you were very quickly off the mark  ): it was great fun and lots of fun remembering too…  Like I wrote in Albany "The walk has finished ... I hope it doesn't end" 

9

General Software Discussion / Experts opinion on very odd Camera -> Card -> File Copy corruptions

« on: November 11, 2011, 03:27 PM »

I'm on Win7 Professional SP1 64bit, lots of RAM (don't laugh Nudone), and a SONY CyberShot camera.

After my recent short walk I have 3 16Gb SD cards full of photos, which I moved to my computer with MultiComander. The first two cards went flawlessly, but I've run into dreadful issues with the third, where the images are corrupt. Well, corrupt on the first copy/move (mostly).

What I did, which is what I've always done (maybe not any more though  ), is to move the files from the card to the computer. Some of the moved files ended up like this (reduced): . The regularity of a file being corrupted increased during the move opperation (that is, it was maybe 1 in 20 at the beginning and 1 in 3 at the end). I may attach other examples, but some of them look they have multiple layers overwritten with mismatched origin points (ie offset). I used EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard 5.0.1 to recover the deleted (when moved) files, and mostly they seem to be OK: . But sometimes the files are also corrupt on the card, iterestingly mostly different to the file that was moved, but the same as what was recovered. I also tried Recuva, but Recuva found 3169 files as Easeus found 9442 files, which seemed to give me greater ability to find a non-currupted file. BUT, what is also extremely odd is that sometimes the recovered file on the HDD is not the same as what is on the card, and when recovered individually.

Now, what that implies to me is:

• The original move produced some corrupted files. Caused by?
  
  • MultiCommander?
  • Windows?
  • Hard Drive?
• The camera wrote corrupted files.
  
  • Bad Card? But it's not consistent?
  • Naughty camera? It's not the most perfect environment for a camera in the hot and cold, sometimes rain, and jolted when I fell over... But the timing of the corrupt files doesn't correspond with any of those events.
  • The recovered files may not have been the final file the camera wrote? Maybe the camera used the card as a temporary storage when combining images?
  • The recovered files are not named the same as what was moved, so I'm not sure what that means?  

If a JPEG expert is interested they can access the original, non-reduced, files for comparison here (warning - they are large files). When I edited them with IrfanView (eg to resize), IrfanView would complain that the file format was corrupt: extra data where it shouldn't be, or missing data; which to me sounds like the file has been written incorrectly (either by camera or software during the copy):

• DSC01272_bad.JPG
• 2011-10-17_11-11_FILE2171.JPG

I'm going through, slowly, and re-copying them when necessary and I think that in the end I should not have lost very many images (though with 9,500 I can afford to lose some and not be too upset  ), but the why of this problem is troubling me... anyone with any ideas?

The main lesson I learned is that Move as a file action is not the best idea when there are lots of files and it may be best to check first before removing them from the origin location (but in my defense: this is the first time that something like this has ever happened).

10

Living Room / I know I've got a dose of absenteeism... but it's going to get worse

« on: August 29, 2011, 10:44 PM »

Sandi and I are 78 hours from flying out to Western Australia and the start of a 1,000 km walk from Perth to Albany. The Bibbulmun Track is well known, and getting more so; I'm not sure how we came across it now, but it feels like we've been working toward this point for about a year.

We've been in active planning for the last 6 months, and actively training for the last 4 weeks, and at the moment I'm at fever pitch and hardly able to control myself with the excitement (or is it nerves?).

Anyway, we'll be gone for just over 2 months and completely out of communication (to tell the truth, the planning and training has been so intense that I feel that I've not been on the same planet this year: I haven't kept up with NANY at all, and don't even get to read my feeds properly, all my little projects are lying at the bottom of the hard drive...).  Actually, we will be communicating: we carry a SPOT Messenger that acts both as a EPIRB and a satellite messenger, so we'll be communicating our current location -- this will be displayed on our site: mitupela.net/gnw/bibbulmun.html, as well as FaceBook and Twitter (if you're interested). 

It's at this point you stop and ask yourself "Why the hell are we taking leave without pay to spend two months walking 1,000 km in Western Australia's sun, wind and rain?" The answer is complex, and simple: We both enjoy getting away, into the Australian bush, by ourselves and our God. The solitude and isolation that blooms into a deep belonging and closeness feeds both us and our relationship. The simplicity of reducing your day to putting one foot in front of the other generates a buoyancy in our spirits.

Of course, putting your foot in front of the other 1.3 million times is something we've not done before in one go so it'll be interesting to see what lies in the unknown beyond our previous boundaries.

All the best for the next two months whilst we're away!

11

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: Wrap Up

« on: January 09, 2011, 07:59 PM »

The NANY Year End Event at DonationCoder.com

NANY stands for "New Apps for the New Year", and the NANY event represents the playful and generous spirit of the DonationCoder.com site and the people who visit it.

During the NANY event coders of all abilities are invited to create a new free application or web service for the public.  The event culminates in a month long celebration of software on DonationCoder.com.  Read more:

• About the Donationcoder.com site
• About the NANY 2011 event

As of today, you can watch video screencasts of each of the 30+ NANY entries from this year, and download and use any of the brand new applications!

Start with these entries
There are some real showstoppers here -- some very polished cute little programs and some unique power tools.

JottiQ
JottiQ is a very polished application that makes it more convenient to use Jotti's malware scan website, an online service optimized for one-by-one scanning of files using multiple antivirus engines.  Allows you to queue up multiple files and easily identify files deemed suspicious by multiple engines.

The Bard
Power tool for organizing your soundeffect library - Quickly preview/move/copy large numbers of audio files into your favourite custom folders.

AskaPic.com (forum post)
AskApic is a new web site where people can post images ask questions about them -- where are they from, what are they of, etc.  Community driven with tons of features including tagging, friending, slideshows, etc.

Webcam Video Diary
Highly configurable program to help you quickly record, label, annotate, and manage videos and photos from your webcam throughout the day.  Supports standard file formats and configurable file/directory naming patterns, custom hotkeys, and can stay resident in the system tray when not in use.

Snap DB
Simple, portable, minimalist flat-file database application with as-you-type search and filtering.  Includes import and export functionality.  Best of all, the viewer utility can be packaged with a data file and sent to friends for easy portable sharing of data.

List Numberer
Quickly number a text list in many different formats with easy input / output through the clipboard.  Perfect for when you want to create a text list of items using custom numbering, padding, etc.

Ten Timer
Ten Timer allows easy timing of ten different items in one easy-to-use window.  Remembers timer labels and makes it easy to keep track of many timer events all in one window.

Quick Cliq
Quick Cliq speeds up your daily computer activities by giving you links to folders, files, programs, URLs and command line operations.  It also offers window management, extreme clipboard manipulation, and note taking capabilities.  All of this is provided in a compact menu that you can show anywhere and within any application or window through customizable hot keys and mouse gestures.

Color Warlock
Browse and create custom named-color pallettes.  Colors can be selected by name or hex codes for use when coding.  Palettes can be easily switched between and shared amongst co-workers.

Ethervane Radio
Minimalistic internet radio player with an international internet radio database supporting instant search.  You can mark stations as favorites to quickly keep track of your favorite stations.  Lots of possibilities for future development and perfect when you don't want the bloat of the big media players.

Auspex
Auspex performs text Replacements, Completions and Corrections in any application using predefined rules and intelligent learning for frequently used words and phrases.  Includes clipboard functions and other productivity tools.

Speed Monitor
Continuously tracks the loading speed of a set of multiple web pages you specify.  Easily control the polling interval and track how fast certain servers and web pages respond over the course of a day or week.  Perfect for spotting occasional random slowdowns.

SpeedTracker
Continuously tracks the loading speed of a set of multiple web pages you specify.  Easily control the polling interval and track how fast certain servers and web pages respond over the course of a day or week.  Perfect for spotting occasional random slowdowns.

Duplicate Photo Finder
Compares files from one or two folders for duplicate images (only jpg supported) using different techniques including file size, file hash and pixel data.  The duplicate result set allows you quickly delete duplicates.  Includes source code(!).

TaskDaddy
Automates MS Outlook task creation.  TaskDaddy takes a single line of input from you and turns it into an Outlook task without having to open the full interface of Outlook.  TaskDaddy can also be used from the command line by more experienced users.

WhirlyWord
A unique slot-machine inspired word game where you spin tumblers to create words.  WhirlyWord is written in cross-platform java that will run from your browser.

Cautomaton
A unique and advanced tool for triggering right-click context menus through a non-interactive command line tool.  Extremely useful for advanced users who need to invoke a right-click operation on a file from another application or script.

UserQuotes.com Web Service (forum post)
A new website that allows collaborative management of quotes/reviews about your products, anonymous user feedback and comment display on your website.  An extremely useful tool for web masters -- though still in very early beta stage of development.

Card Creator
A very easy to use tool that lets you combine several photos into a greeting card using various templates.  This is an early release and printing from the application is not available yet.

DCDisplay
A full screen comic/magazine viewer inspired by CDisplay.  See forum post (above) for links to free comics to download.  Note: the installer is a bit flakey.

After you've checked out the above entries you might want to check out these
Some of these may appeal to a narrower audience, or be a little rough around the edges, and some might be considered proof-of-concept prototypes.

NetLaunch
NetLaunch is designed for use on a computer (probably a netbook), which is often going in and out of wireless access.  The idea is that NetLaunch will sit as a background agent, and check network status.  On status change, the program will launch/quit programs depending on user-defined rules.  Still needs a bit of polishing.

Park Cursor Aside
Whenever you type on keyboard or in an edit box, Park Cursor Aside automatically parks (moves) the cursor aside to a defined screen position, so that your view of the document is not blocked by the mouse cursor.

BlackJack in C# with source code
The classic Black Jack game.  The C# Source code is included for coders to extend and build on this blackjack program.



LinkToText
Let's you keep notes associated with web page URLs in Firefox or Internet Explorer, and shows them in a standalone application window when you visit a site.

Llama Tray
A small utility that sits in your system tray and shows a random quote, poem, or joke from a system tray menu on request.

NANY Excuse Manager
An inside joke for NANY participants: it lets coders submit excuses for being late presenting their entries.

Partial Download
Command line utility that downloads first few bytes of given URL.  Could be useful for partially downloading a huge movie file and checking it for it worthiness before downloading the full thing.

Treat Yourself Nicely
An unfinished system tray utility that you query when you want to have a snack -- if you don't wait long enough you will be denied.

UpdateVersion
UpdateVersion is a command line tool for programmers, that can update some target files (pad files, dcupdate files, versioninfo files) with the actual version and release date information extracted from a source executable file.

VeggieSquares
An early version of an educational children's game/toy, where kids lay out vegetables in a garden and learn about companion planting techniques.  Author asks for more feedback for future feature ideas.

WordCaster
Proof of concept utility that checks definitions on multiple sites at the same time and displays them in a single window.

Crush Sniffer
This is a proof-of-concept pair of Linux and Windows tools that go hand in hand and let you examine some common log files from your Linux system on a Windows pc.



Goodness
Goodness is a Chrome extension designed to block certain sites from being visited -- to help you control your bad urges.



FScript2
FScript2 is an advanced plugin wrapper for Find and Run Robot that allows coders to write plugins in Javascript.  NOTE: FScript version 2 is a major attempt to simplify updating but it is still in a very experimental alpha stage and shouldn't be used unless you are an early beta tester/developer.

12

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: The Event Closes

« on: January 01, 2011, 09:53 AM »

DonationCoder's
New Year
Software Celebration

Welcome to DonationCoder's month long Super Celebration of Software!

N.A.N.Y. 2011
NANY '11 has closed and we're busily going through the entries with a fine tooth comb to package them up for the grand unveiling toward the end of January 2011. In the meantime you can see all the Entries on the NANY 2011 board.

We tried something new with this year's NANY: in an effort to maximise the fun and productivity of the event we decided to start NANY midway through the year giving the coders the ability to start the process early and aim to build a substantial new project. And it's certainly been exciting to see activity increase on the NANY board through the year. Many coders posted Teasers both to whet the appetites of the members and to get feedback on their projects.

The end of the year is often a hectic time, which only increases the challenge to complete the NANY Entry. Some Pledges have been fulfilled early whilst others have had to be withdrawn due to other commitments and other Pledges have remained open or not progressed past the Teaser stage but will hopefully be developed later.

From my perspective NANY 2011 has been a wonderful success that has allowed greater flexibility in the Event. 47 Pledges through the year is huge, and to get 31 completed NANY's is an awesome achievement that the DC community can be very proud about!

Releases

• NANY 2011 Release: AskAPic.com
• NANY 2011 Release: Auspex
• NANY 2011 Release: Bard
• NANY 2011 Release: BlackJack
• NANY 2011 Release: CardCreator
• NANY 2011 Release: Cautomaton
• NANY 2011 Release: Color Warlock
• NANY 2011 Release: Crush Sniffer
• NANY 2011 Release: DCDisplay
• NANY 2011 Release: Duplicate Photo Deleter
• NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
• NANY 2011 Release: FindColor
• NANY 2011 Release: Goodness
• NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ
• NANY 2011 Release: LinkToText
• NANY 2011 Release: List Numberer
• NANY 2011 Release: Llama Tray
• NANY 2011 Release: NANY Excuse Manager
• NANY 2011 Release: NetLauncher
• NANY 2011 Release: Park Cursor Aside
• NANY 2011 Release: Partial Download
• NANY 2011 Release: Quick Cliq
• NANY 2011 Release: Snap DB
• NANY 2011 Release: Speed Monitor
• NANY 2011 Release: TaskDaddy
• NANY 2011 Release: Ten Timer
• NANY 2011 Release: Treat Yourself Nicely
• NANY 2011 Release: UpdateVersion
• NANY 2011 Release: UQ Web Service
• NANY 2011 Release: Webcam Diary
• NANY 2011 Release: WordCaster

Teasers (Unfinished - though look out for updates and late completions)

• NANY 2011 Teaser: ContactFX
• NANY 2011 Teaser: Scion Character Manager
• NANY 2011 Teaser: SpeedTracker
• NANY 2011 Teaser: WhirlyWord

Pledges (Unfinished)

• NANY 2011 Pledge: Backup Verification Utility
• NANY 2011 Pledge: FScript2
• NANY 2011 Pledge: MyHelp
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Reliable File Watcher Batcher Robot
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Teddy Pro
• NANY 2011 Pledge: VegieWorld

Withdrawn Pledges

• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: Apps Something
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: Backup Verification Utility
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: Deozone
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: Dominion Rules Character Creator
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: LogFileParser
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: ProtoCards
• NANY 2011 Withdrawn: SAMSA

Huge Software Give-a-way

As part of the New Year Celebration we've been joined by some very generous software developers who are offering full licenses to their professional programmes! This software has been specially selected to enable our hard working coders (and their helpers) to produce high quality packages.

• Help & Manual Pro: Documentation Authoring
• Dr Explain: Help Authoring
• Axialis IconWorkshop Professional: Icon Creation
• Camtasia Studio 7: Screen recorder
• BB FlashBack Pro: Screen recorder
• Sagelight Image Editor: Graphics Editor

More details will be posted in the next couple of days...

A Word About DonationCoder

DonationCoder.com is a site for people who love computer software, and like the idea of supporting each other's work through donations - it's funded entirely by individuals who join the site. Since its founding in 2005, the site has grown steadily and has well over 200,000 registered members from around the world. Of course it's free to sign up at our site and join in on the community forums. Our DonationCredits system was designed to make it as easy as possible for users to make small donations to specific authors and fellow site members (read more about our DonationCredits here: https://www.donationcoder.com/Donate/Credits.php).

The programmers at DonationCoder.com are dedicated to providing professional quality software and professional quality support; other DonationCoder.com members are active in the forums reviewing and discussing all types of computer and software issues.

The New Apps for the New Year event was started as a fun way of celebrating the New Year. Dubbed NANY (New Apps for the New Year), this experiment has become a yearly tradition on the site, and represents the playful and generous spirit of the site and the people who visit it.  The event celebrates the joy of programming and is open to coders of any ability, whether they are regular members of the site or not.  All participants receive a mug featuring our beloved bird/duck mascot Cody -- there are no winners or losers.

13

General Software Discussion / The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain what went wrong

« on: December 05, 2010, 06:05 AM »

from 37signals.com

7 very interesting (and honest) insights from creators that pulled the plug, including:

• Verifiable (shut down August 1, 2010)
• Wesabe (shut down June 30, 2010)
• Storytlr (shut down February 24, 2009)
• TwitApps (shut down September 13, 2009)
• Vox (shut down September 20, 2010)
• Swivel (shut down summer of 2010)
• EventVue (shut down February 5, 2010)

The comments are interesting too, including this one:

David Andersen 05 Dec 10
@ Jim Jones – hoping a number of random volunteers will do quality work that you’d normally have to pay for and then use that output to make some sort of profit is ridiculous. That and ‘crowdsourcing’ is just a hyperbolic, ******** term that pseudo-hipsters like to use.

14

General Software Discussion / Open Icon Library

« on: October 27, 2010, 07:40 AM »

I've just found the Open Icon Library, which looks to be an interesting and worthwhile project!

Project Information

Online Icon Gallery: Browse the icon library online

About this project:

A free and open Icon collection. Over 10,000 Unique Icons. Free for anyone to use on you computer, website or any other project. The library is not a theme. Its a centralized source for icons to cover all your needs. The goal is to cover all common apps, operating systems, mimetypes, devices, and country flags.

Whats included:

2272 application icons
258 International flags icons
238 Device icons
69 Operating system icons
731 Mimetype icons
596 Action icons
273 Status icons
Open Icon Library-full v0.10

Statistics:

Total icons: 137,396
Unique icons: 10,787
Unique PNG: 10,489
Unique SVG: 3,723
Open Icon Library-full v0.10

Goals:

Offer a consolidated source of icons for people to custimise there desktop, as they wish, without relying of a single theme.

Offer a free resource for developers looking for icons to use in there free/open projects.

Free/Open Source Icons:

All these are icons are free and open source. That means they are free to use, modify, and redistribute, without any cost. They can be used for commercial and non-commercial projects or products, royalty free. The only requirement is that they remain free and open source, and you have to give credit where credit is due. So if you use the icons in your project, you have to offer the icons or any derivatives of the icons with the same free/open license. How to use free/open icons

Public Domain Icons:

Some of our icons are Public domain. They can be use, modify, and redistribute, without any restrictions. They can be used for commercial and non-commercial projects or products, royalty free. For more info See: Wikipedia: Public Domain

15

DC Website Help and Extras / What's "leet" got to do with posts?

« on: October 13, 2010, 10:29 PM »

16

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: Official Update Thread

« on: September 03, 2010, 12:53 AM »

NANY 2011: Event Update

NANY 2011 is a bit of an experiment this year, in an effort to maximise the fun and productivity of the event we decided to start NANY midway through the year giving the coders the ability to start the process early and aim to build a substantial new project.

We are now halfway through the event and to date we've seen a steady rate of Pledges and a great deal of activity around the Entrants who have released Teasers and opened up their projects for forum discussions.

NANY Pledges
NANY Entrants pledge that they are going to release a new application for the New Year at some stage before December by posting a Pledge Thread on the NANY 2011 Board, instructions can be found here.

To date we've had 27 Pledges!


The NANY challenge, although competed by individuals or groups, is performed in the midst of the community and offers the DonationCoder community ample opportunity to get involved with the event through the N.A.N.Y. 2011 forum. Find a project that interests you and get involved with its development: feature discussions, bug testing and Teaser feedback. It's great to see the development of general forum interest as the event progresses:


It's exciting to see the NANY pledges capture the interest of the DC Community, in particular TaskDaddy and Auspex have generated a lot of discussion!

Teasers: Feedback Required
Teasers are a way for the NANY Entrants to give prospective users the opportunity to play with an early build and hopefully get some valuable feedback for the development.

• Webcam Diary
  Mouser decided on this application based on a Poll -- now he's asking for feedback on what features users want in a Webcam Recording/Diary Utility. Now is the perfect opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this application's development!
• DCDisplay
  DCDisplay will be a replacement for CDisplay (which hasn't been worked on for years).
• Scion Character Manager
  An electronic character sheet for a RPG called Scion that tracks character stats, calculates dice pools for all the basic actions, and allows the user to add their own actions, weapons, purviews, knacks, and rules that get auto calculated.
• TaskDaddy
  TaskDaddy takes a single line of input from you and turns it into an Outlook task without having to open the full interface of Outlook. It's intended to be a quick way to input tasks. It is inspired by Bob Menke's Add Task script, written in VBScript. It works as both a GUI and a command line tool. DaddyDave also has a Features Poll to get user feedback on Future / Missing features.
• NetLaunch (Now with GUI!)
  Netlaunch is a program to launch applications based on Network status.   It functions in both Agent (GUI) and command-line form.
• Auspex - a Windows Productivity App
  Auspex will present the busy PC user with several enhanced input features: Replacements, Completions, Corrections, Runs and the Big Clipper.
• ContactFX 0.0.2.0
  A versatile Addressbook and Contacts editor with FARR integration.

Are you a Coder just itching to get in on the act?
We've had specific requests for an enterprising entrant who's keen to fulfil someone else's dream. If you're keen to participate but are looking for an idea why not check these out and contact the author for more details?

• A proper sync and communication tool for Thunderbird/lightning
• a personal spending habit report tool.
• current active printer for the window in focus
• simple kiosk-like interface for browsing and switching between different full screen applications
• Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools -> Full Post: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=21494.0
• Utility to truly hide network icon in system tray.

Volunteers
Anyone can get involved with the NANY event by offering their talents to the hard working entrants to help with the ancillary aspects of their entries. Volunteering on NANY projects is a great way for everyone to get involved with the Event, coders and non-coders alike!

We also have some great tools to give-away to help you get the job done:

• Help & Manual Pro: Documentation Authoring
• Dr Explain: Help Authoring
• Axialis IconWorkshop Professional: Icon Creation
• Camtasia Studio 7: Screen recorder
• BB FlashBack Pro: Screen recorder

Add your name to the list and get involved over in this thread: NANY 2011 :: Calling All Volunteers and Entrants wanting a hand

If you can help with the following specific requests please get in touch with the Entrant directly (and let me know if you want to take advantage of the software give-away):

• Graphic designer for a iPhone app
• Phrase writer for a children's game
• Firefox, Safari and Opera users for testing a browser based game.
• Game graphics (simple, retro feel).
• Icon designer.
• a walkthrough with images or videos, taking someone through all of the steps in giving their program update support using the DcUpdater / DcuHelper tools.

Alphabetical List of Pledges

• NANY 2011 Pledge: <name redacted>
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Auspex - a Windows Productivity App
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Backup Verification Utility
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Bard - Organise your audio library
• NANY 2011 Teaser: Cautomaton
• NANY 2011 Teaser: ContactFX 0.0.2.0
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Crazy URL Thing (aka SAMSA)
• NANY 2011 Release: Crush Sniffer
• NANY 2011 Teaser: DCDisplay
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Dominion Rules Character Creator
• NANY 2011 Pledge: List Numberer
• NANY 2011 Pledge: LogFileParser
• NANY 2011 Teaser: NetLaunch (Now with GUI!)
• NANY 2011 Pledge: ProtoCards
• NANY 2011 Release: Quick Cliq
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Reliable File Watcher Batcher Robot
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Scion Character Manager
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Search Packer (probably)
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Something cross-platform
• NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Teddy Pro
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Ten Timer
• NANY 2011 Release: UpdateVersion
• NANY 2011 Pledge: UQ Web Service
• NANY 2011 Pledge: VeggieWorld - Children's Game
• NANY 2011 Pledge: Webcam Diary
• NANY 2011 Teaser: WhirlyWord - cross-platform puzzle game

17

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: Calling All Volunteers and Entrants wanting a hand

« on: June 19, 2010, 08:50 PM »

We are keen to see the NANY Entrants get the most out of this event and really be able to showcase their programmes. Sometimes it's the little things, like a custom icon, or the tedious, such as help authoring, but all the added extras in a software release help to make the package more user friendly and usable - which is the ultimate aim, after all.

Volunteers
We encourage all our members to get involved with the community nature of the NANY event by offering their talents to the hard working entrants to help with the ancillary aspects of their entries. Volunteering on NANY projects is a great way for everyone to get involved with the Event, coders and non-coders alike!

What can a NANY Volunteer do?
In reality, they can do anything that's required. Some ideas are:

• Team up with a coder:
  
  • help plan and design an application
  • create a coding team
• Help Authoring
• Create Icons / Graphics
• Create SplashScreen
• Create Screencast Video
• Create DCUpdater File
• Create Sounds / Music
• Beta Testers
• Create Web Page
• Text reviewer / editor
• Translations

Current Offers
If you are an Entrant in this year's NANY, why not spread the joy by getting some extra help? PM the volunteer directly and negotiate what you'd like them to do: don't forget to credit your volunteers on your NANY entry page  

• Help Authoring / Documentation
  • SleepingWolf
  • Target
  • cjseymour
• Screencast Video
  
  • cjseymour [BB FlashBack Pro]
• Translation
  
  • adi_barb
    
    • Romanian
    • Italian
    • French
    • Spanish
• Testing
  
  • steeladept
  • Target
  • tomos
  • cjseymour
  • adi_barb
• Development Design / Review
  
  • cjseymour

• Icon Creation / Manipulation
  
  • h8ghmaintenance
• WebSite Programming / Authoring
  Don't forget that all NANY Entrants can get free space on DonationCoder.com to host a site for their Entry!
  
  • adi_barb

Special NANY Volunteer
We will be creating screencasts of this year's programmes again as part of the DC evaluation, so help with that testing and video production would be appreciated as well. If you're interested in this aspect please PM me directly.

For anyone wanting to volunteer their services we've had some very generous donations of software for that will help get the job done:

• Help & Manual Pro: Documentation Authoring
• Dr Explain: Help Authoring
• Axialis IconWorkshop Professional: Icon Creation
• Camtasia Studio 7: Screen recorder
• BB FlashBack Pro: Screen recorder
• SandboxIE: Sandbox-based Isolation (12 Month Personal License) -- Unfortunately these Licenses have been withdrawn due to a little confusion.

At this stage we're looking at First Come - First Served: The software offered are full version licences and yours to keep! You of course do not have to request one of the programmes when you volunteer if you're happy using your current software, but if any of the software titles will help then it's our pleasure to help you in your endeavours.

Instructions

• If you have a skill, or skills, to offer the NANY Entrants reply to this post and list what skills you'd like to offer.
• If you'd like to take advantage of the software give-away PM me after you've posted your offer
• A NANY Entrant who can use your assistance will get in contact you (maybe PM is best?) and detail what they need.
• If you agree to help you will be listed as a volunteer on their project page.
• If accepting that request alters your offer of assistance you should edit your reply as required. It's pointless knocking back requests if you've had your available time taken!
• Offering and accepting NANY Volunteering services is a serious undertaking, you're entering into a type of partnership with the entrant, so it should not be taken lightly; though it doesn't need to be a huge task either.
• You can volunteer on as many entries as you like!

18

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 Teaser Update: ContactFX 0.0.2.0

« on: May 13, 2010, 12:15 AM »

NANY 2011 Entry Information

Application Name	ContactFX
Version	0.0.2.0
Short Description	A versatile Addressbook and Contacts editor with FARR integration.
Supported OSes	Windows with .Net installed
Web Page	blog posts
Download Link	Main panel complete!!. Additional Files: : DisplayName demonstrating dynamic field linking. : Demonstrating user Fields.
System Requirements	.Net Should be portable
Version History	2010-10-13 ContactFX 0.0.2.0.zip (230.54 kB - downloaded 1167 times.) 2010-10-08 0.0.1.17 2010-09-30 0.0.1.13: Snippet for Comment 2010-09-17 0.0.1.9: Snippet for Comment 2010-08-17 0.0.1.3: Snippet for Comment
Author	Perry Mowbray

Description
ContactFX (Cfx) will be an Addressbook programme with the following functionality (in impressive graphic format  ):



Features

Here's where I'm planning to go with Cfx:

• Flexible editing and viewing options.
  
  • Flexible card layout for each contact
  • Contacts can have a little or a lot of data: only see the fields with data.
• Flexible import and export: very easy to get contacts both in and out of Contactfx in various formats.
• Off-line access: not dependant on a website or web application.
• Non-Cfx dependant search [e.g. via FARR]: FARR integration (FARRCfx) will give Contactfx very flexible system integration on the desktop.
• Non-Contactfx dependant access [e.g. via HTML on USB]: can take address book anywhere and access just via a browser.

Possible Features

• User defined fields and controls
• Contact templates
• FTP to private webspace
• Automated purchase and sending of birthday presents  

Screenshots



FARRCfx
Some preliminary screenshots:

FARRCfx Menu


Display Contact


Usage
Installation
Should be portable, so just unzip somewhere and run  

Using the Application
When the application runs it sits itself down in the System Tray, to open the Addressbook window use the context menu or double-click on the icon.

At the moment all you can do is:

• Addressbook
  
  • Create a new contact
    
    • Add fields to the Contact by dragging from the Control Pallet
    • Edit the fields
      
      • Add values
      • Use functions currently:
        
        • Initialise
        • UCase
        • Join
        • Ternary
        • Conditional Pad
        • see this post for more details on functions
      • Link Fields: Field links and functions give a powerful ability to automate contact records. To see this in action unzip JimsDisplayName.zip (0.28 kB - downloaded 977 times.) into the userFields subFolder; this file will modify the default displayName field so that it dynamically aggregates the other name fields. See this post.
      • User Fields: these are not fully implemented, but if you'd like a preview / play unzip TimsNickName.zip (0.29 kB - downloaded 980 times.) into the userFields subFolder to create a new Nickname field. You can also make copies to create other new fields: make sure you give each a unique name otherwise you'll just be modifying an existing field.
      • Edit labels (via context menu)
      • Set width
      • Set layout (fill width | add linebreak )
      • save it back to the addressbook
  • Open thus created contacts to view or edit
• Settings
  
  • Change the few settings that are currently available (more will come)
• About
  
  • Show the About window
  • Follow some of the links  

ContactFX is designed to be flexible by the user, with as few "rules" about how to set out any Contact. So although I've designated some suitable uses for the various parts of the Contact window, they wont be enforced in any way: each Contact's layout could be unique if that's what you wanted. Hopefully it'll become clearer when I've got a bit more functionality implemented, but I hope you get the idea.



But the basic idea is that there will be the following types of containers:

• Main Panel
  
  • Any field can be inserted into any panel, and a contact could just consist of one field in the main panel
  • The main panel can be thought of comprising uncategorised fields (ie general information)
• Lists Panel
  
  • A number of list panels can be added
  • Useful for displaying lists of fields:
    
    • Links
    • Social Network sites
    • Related Contacts
• Tab Panel
  
  • A number of Tab Pages can be added to the Tab Panel
  • Tab Pages add a category to the fields contained on the page
  • For example:
    
    • Home
    • Work
  • But could also be any other non-standard category
• Notes Panel
  
  • A number of notes panels can be added
  • Although any field can be added to a notes panel, the default layout will be full width.
  • A notes field can be used to display plain text. The notes field will have extra functionality, including:
    
    • Roll-up to Title
    • Link to file

A mockup can be found on Cacoo.


Roadmap
This is the tentative roadmap that I'm working toward on my slow march to a 0.1 beta version  

• Version 0.0.2: Basic Window Framework - Main Panel
  
  • Name Fields (display name, first name, additional name, family name, formatted name)
  • Drag and Drop (Move / Copy / Link )
  • Copy & Paste
  • Portable Configuration
  • Command-line (-tray hides to tray on startup)
  • Language Files (see \Settings\Language\English.xml)
• Version 0.0.3: Lists Panel
  
  • List panels
  • WebLink fields
• Version 0.0.4: Tab Panel
  
  • Tab Pages
  • Address Fields (POB, Extended, Street, Locality, Region)
  • Categorization / Type Fields & Settings
• Version 0.0.5: Notes Panel
  
  • Note Lists
  • Note Fields (Internal / External)
  • Tag Fields
• Version 0.0.6: Integration Functionality
  
  • Command-line Options
  • FarrCfx
  • Addressbook Search / Filter
• Version 0.0.7: Data Fields
  
  • Add remaining Data Fields
  • User Fields
  • User Field Editor
• Version 0.0.8: File Functionality
  
  • Save / Import / Export
  • Upload to FTP
  • Backup

Uninstallation
Should be able to just delete the files (although there will be some settings in the users directory).

Known Issues
Please remember that this application is still very much in development and most things don't work at the moment


...you can also check for random postings on my blog as well.

19

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: Entry Ideas & Requests

« on: May 12, 2010, 11:41 PM »

NANY has always been a community event, and this thread is about helping users connect with coders:

• If you are a user with an application that you've always wanted to see coded then this is the place to mention it and discuss it. Hopefully a coder will wander by and get as excited about it as you are and it will materialize this coming New Year!
• If you are a coder looking for a new idea for this year's NANY then this may well be the perfect place: the ideas hear already have some user interest and people who are interested in its development.

When a coder decides to develop an idea from this thread, they should mention that here with a link to the Pledge Thread where further discussion can continue.

20

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 :: Announcement

« on: May 12, 2010, 11:30 PM »

N.A.N.Y. 2011
New Apps for the New Year

NANY has for some years been the premier software event on DonationCoder where we've seen 100's of new applications released for the New Year for the simple but glorious pleasure of the Cody Mug; from its humble beginnings in its inaugural year of 2007 to the big events of 2009 & 2010. NANY is a community event where coders pit their skills against the clock and DC members join in with suggestions, testing and help with other aspects of the entry such as graphics, icons, translations and help documentation.

This year we are broadening the event, reducing the complexity and rules whilst providing the same encouragement to software authors of all types and backgrounds to successfully complete the NANY 2011 challenge. You can form a team to work on the one project, you can re-write one of your old applications, publish an online web service script, you can write a plug-in for another programme: you can almost do whatever you like as long as it's new, yours and free.

This year the opportunity exists for coders to start the process early and aim to build a substantial new project for release as part of NANY.  We will try our best to feature large applications appropriately and get them the attention they deserve. It's never too early to start planning and discussing your NANY 2011 entries, and although you can pledge as late as December, we encourage you to pledge early and enter into the NANY Community spirit and take advantage of the vast resources available to you on DonationCoder.

Instructions

• Pledge that you are participating in NANY 2011 by starting a New Thread on the NANY 2011 Board. This thread will eventually contain the released version of your software. Your thread can also be used for suggestions, ideas, bug testing and reviews if needed, up to release.
• The software can be anything!
  
  • Game, productivity application, utility, web script, etc.; for any OS, for any device, for any purpose; big or small, full-featured or simple (Though this year we've made lots of time available and we'd really like to see some larger, full-featured releases!).
  • It needs to be free for personal use, donationware, or open source -- and be a program that hasn't been previously made public.
  • You retain all rights to your software.
• Post the Release Version to your Pledge Thread before the end of the year.
• After January 1 we will evaluate, package and publish the entries on various sites, such as Newsletters and YouTube videos.

Volunteers
We ask that non-coder volunteers become part of the Event and offer their services to help the coders with things like beta testing, feature suggestion, graphics/icon development, etc. We've had some very generous donations of software that will be given to our very generous volunteers that will make the best use of their time... more details later.

Entry Ideas
The NANY 2011 Ideas Thread is located here. It's a great place to put your idea for that app you were always wanting (but too afraid to ask); and if you're a coder, then it's a wonderful resource of ideas that already have user interest.

21

Site/Forum Features / NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

« on: April 14, 2010, 09:50 AM »

NANY 2011 :: A New Concept

NANY has always had two purposes:

• To encourage anyone who is interested in coding to create something new, for the pure fun of it.
• To provide motivation and a platform for coders who want to work hard to create a useful new application for others to use, and help them spread the word about it.

It's not always easy to organize NANY in a way that makes sense for both of these purposes -- so in 2011 we are planning to try something new.  In addition to the existing NANY set-up we are going to create a new category for Entrants who want to submit a more significant application, which will have a more rigorous set of guidelines for successful entries.  We are calling this category First Class entries.

We still strongly encourage everyone who is interested in creating something new for the New Year to participate, whether serious or fun, big or small, application or game, novice or professional programmer.  But those who want some motivation and encouragement to create something really special, with wide appeal and extra promotion, are encouraged to pledge a NANY First Class entry.

NANY entries that qualify as First Class entries will be featured more prominently in our wrap-ups and in our presentations to other sites as they'll have the widest appeal, ease of use and clarity of documentation.  In other words, the "First Class" applications will be the applications that we feel most comfortable recommending to people who have never heard about DonationCoder.com, and which we think are ready for wide promotion to the general public.

While anyone can submit a NANY entry, the "First Class" entries will also require:

• Clear instructions for installation and use (help files or readme's etc.)
• Earlier pledging of the author's desire to participate.
• Initial Submission well before the deadline so that we can help test and provide feedback.
• Most of all, a commitment from the author to incorporating feedback and suggestions from testers prior to the deadline.
• More time spent by the author on polishing the application so that it is suitable for a general audience.
• Will almost always be more substantial applications that require more development time, and will exceed the normal scope of a Coding Snack.

It is our intention to keep the same spirit of NANY that we have always:

• A fun and rewarding event for everyone involved.
• Encouragement to everyone who wants to participate to participate, regardless of coding experience.
• Trying not to have winners and losers.
• All entrants that Pledge and Submit by the due dates "winning" a NANY prize.

This new concept has been the focus of much, and at times, intense discussion.  We think/hope we've struck a good balance between the original NANY spirit and the need for improvement.  But NANY is all about you, the DC members: This is your opportunity to give us your feedback on the new ideas and influence its implementation...

22

DcUpdater / Issues with 1.26.01

« on: April 09, 2010, 04:47 AM »

A couple of things that I hope I can get sorted -- when updating the last TimeZone I ran into these issues:

1. Double Clicking on the dcUpdater file could not install

Note the missing "Installation To:" even though the following was set in the dcUpdater file:

Code: Text [Select]

1. <InstallDirectory>Plugins</InstallDirectory>
2.   <BaseDirectory>Find and Run Robot</BaseDirectory>

2. Running dcUpdater from Start Menu produces a lot of duplicate files

I've mentioned this before, but not sure if I'm doing something not entirely right?

3. Signalling FARR

Code: Text [Select]

1. <SignalForUpdate>FindAndRunRobot.exe</SignalForUpdate>

I thought the above would signal FARR to reload the plugin? I'm (almost) sure that didn't happen. It's meant to reload and run through the Init isn't it??

Anyway... I was hoping to cure my confusion...

23

Found Deals and Discounts / Resolver One (BDJ 11 Feb for 60% Discount)

« on: February 08, 2010, 06:01 AM »

I'd be interested in other people's opinion in this, it seems to be a spreadsheet on Python.

http://www.bitsdujou...ftware/resolver-one/

I looked at it a long time ago and was impressed, though I didn't dig very deep. Did anybody else??

I also wondered if it was a soft beginning into Python??

I'm not really sure I'm up for $100 for a spreadsheet but $40 for a great spreadsheet with powerful programming abilities may be different... would I end up ditching Excel (at home)?

24

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / NANY 2010 - Wrap Up

« on: January 04, 2010, 08:10 AM »

The NANY Challenge 2010 :: Wrap Up

Every year on DonationCoder, we run a special community event called "NANY: New Apps for the New Year".  And once again the event has proven to be great fun and exciting for everyone involved -- we've watched as coders of all levels pit their skills against themselves, as they worked to fulfill their NANY Pledge and release a new free application by the first of the new year.

A total of 23 coders pledged to release a new free application by the 1st of the new year.  And in the end there were 26 NANY Releases (and several small mini-releases).

As we always do in this event, we saw a wide range of submissions, from full professional-quality applications, to small toy experiments by novice coders, and everything in-between.  And all of the releases are now available and free for public use -- just click on a link below to go to the release page and download link.

This year we've also tried something new -- we've made screencast videos of most of the entries so you can take a look at the entries in action without ever leaving this page.

General Interest Entries
These General Interest applications should be of interest to all computer users of any experience level.

Anuran
Anuran is a rotating, automatic-prompting personal text log.  All files are stored as plain text for easy manipulation, and the program includes powerful search functionality and archiving features.

This is one of my favorite entries; it's a really elegant and unobtrusive tool for keeping track of time spent on a project and quick notes. -- mouser

What's My Share?
What's my share is an online web page that lets you put in a total amount, a list of people and their percentages, and then it will calculate how much each person owes.  Includes features for automatic normalization and easy equalized splitting.

This is another one of my favorites; takes a simple idea and implements it perfectly, with a few cool new twists -- mouser

Piggy Banks
Piggy Banks makes it easy for you to keep track of 'fund' accounts where a little money is put away each day.  For example, your family might decide that every day $1 will be put aside to help pay for a new board game.  Piggy Banks will make it easy to see how much money is saved up in the board game fund at any time.

ClipTrap
ClipTrap watches the clipboard and accumulates clipboard-copied text in its window.  A minimalist clipboard tool which can often be more useful than the big boys -- it simply appends each new clip into the memo for subsequent use.

Bestimate
Bestimate is a utility designed to help you become more accurate and realistic about your predictions and promises.  Add items like "Number of pages I will write this week" or "Number of pounds i will lose this month", and provide your predicted/promised values.  Then, at the end of the time period, record your actual achieved values.  Bestimate keeps track of how far off you were from your initial prediction/promise.

SubDiv
SubDiv was built to organize folders that are constantly being filled with new content, such as a 'Downloads' folder.  When you are continually throwing files from the Internet into a folder on your computer, that folder becomes very disorganized -- SubDiv will take those files and put them into folders based on the day they were created.

Find and Run Robot (FARR) Plugins
All these Entries are Find and Run Robot (FARR) Plugins, and therefore require the main FARR program to be installed in order to use them.

FarrWebMetaSearch
FarrWebMetaSearch is a generic web retrieval FARR plugin -- it performs live search-as-you-type seearching of certain websites and parses results for display in standard list mode.  You can even add your own custom regular-expression based search configurations to query new websites.

FARRSpell
This is a plugin for Find and Run Robot to help people who quickly need to spell a word or look up synonyms.

FARR Plugin ProcessInfo
This is a plugin to display information about running processes either on the PC or a remote PC.  

Games
These applications are for fun and entertainment!

Leap of Faith
This is a proof-of-concept platformer game where the goal is to climb to the top of the screen and reach the exit, while the world shifts all around you.

Twigatelle
Twigatelle is a simple game developed in Java inspired by any number of those pachinko-type games where little thingies bounce around hitting other thingies in a slightly hypnotic way.

Special Purpose
These Special Purpose applications are generally for the more experienced user, either because of the purpose of the application or the expertise required to install/run the application.

Page Countster
The application is a small, portable, fast, & simple to operate programme that reports on network printers: model, page counts, serial numbers & etc.

This program stirred up a lot of interest on various blogs when it was first previewed and seems to have been a big hit and satisfied a real need out there -- mouser

LittleRunner
A little application for runners to help them log their runs and track their performance over time.  

Multiboot ISO Maker
Multiboot ISO Maker is a very powerful graphical front end for creating multiboot ISO images. It uses the free mkisoft back end and supports all mkisofs options.

Create Dummy File
This is a program for creating large dummy files in several different ways.  One notable feature is the ability to fill the free space on a USB disk, so that it's hard for malware to put new files on the drive.

Reimbursement Tracker
This is a tool created to help a user manage his/her reimbursable expenses and designed to create an attractive, easy to read, and easy for the boss to understand list. It has the ability to print, or to print a professional-looking receipt to a thermal printer (receipt printer) or normal printer.

SwoopoSpy
SwoopoSpy keeps track of several auctions at once on the Swoopo auction site.

Startup Bully
Every once in awhile you come across an otherwise good application with one single nasty little fault: Every time you run it, it insists on sticking a shortcut file in your Startup folder and has no option to opt out of this behavior. You delete the shortcut and the next time you run the application it comes right back. Startup Bully will opt out for you by removing this unwanted shortcut each time you run the offending application.


TrayUpTime
Small utility to place an icon in the system tray which shows the system up time as a tooltip when you hover over it with the mouse.

j2key
A small autohotkey app that lets you map your typical 10-button joypad (think dualshock clone) to keyboard keys. Nothing too fancy, but if you open the thing up you'll see it's pretty easy to solder buttons. I used to use this when doing kiosks (is far easier than mapping a keyboard).


DupFind
DupFind is a cross-platform Python script that will search for the duplicate files on your harddrives. Because it is a Python script it will run on any OS where Python is installed.




Open Menu
By providing a single, controlled specification for restaurant menus Open Menu will ensure that restaurant menus can be easily shared and used by others. From Restaurant Locaters based on a menu item to tools for finding restaurants based on what you're looking to spend, Open Menu provides the foundation for such tools.  Includes an online tool for creating menus in the xml-based OMF format.




Library Management System
Library Management System is a web-based tool written in Python for keeping track of your personal book collection and who you've loaned copies of your books to.  NOTE: Requires a webserver with WSGI and SSL capabilities (such as Apache with mod_wsgi and mod_ssl) and lxml and python-amazon-product-api packages for Amazon support.




Crush MCP
This program is an early proof-of-concept tool for monitoring launched applications and reporting when new ones are found running.  It's not yet suitable for real deployment but suggestions are welcome from the author.

Artwinauto BlitzType
BlitzType is an early alpha build of a utility that aims to perform autocompletion of frequently typed words and phrases and abbreviations, by automatically learning and saving repeated phrases as the user types. Not yet suitable for real deployment, but suggestions are welcomed by the author.

fenixContacts
FenixContacts is a customizable contacts book with support for completely customizable fields.  Still in early development but the author welcomes feature suggestions.

Mini NANY Submissions
Mini NANYs are submissions that don't quite meet the normal criteria for full NANY entries -- such as small scripts or early tests.

You can find the mini-nany entries scattered throughout the NANY 2010 forum section, including:

• Gobbledegook: Mix up your sentences and keep readability.
• Gamers Alarm Clock: GAC is a simple alarm clock, albeit with a slight twist.
• Miranda Alias pack for FARR: Let's you control Miranda with FARR.
• DisablePortableAppSplashScreen: Disables the splash screen of Portable Apps
• BigTimer: A small timer app with big top left corner digits
• VideoJug.com downloader: download videos from the site
• World Cup Predictor 2010: An update of the 2006 betting adviser

The Head-in-the-Clouds Gang Visits DonationCoder.com
Throughout the course of the NANY event, we were thrilled that cartoonist, coder, and dc member Tim S. not only submitted an entry but also created some great web comic strips to share with us.

Relive Twiggles NANY journey:

• Follow the Yellow Brick Code
• Technology Boom
• The Pursuit of Sappyness
• Round and Round She Goes
• Plight Before Christmas
• Whats in a Name

What is NANY?

New Apps for the New Year (NANY) is an annual event at DonationCoder where we ask coders of all skill levels to Pledge that they will release a new free application before the new year. The rules are very simple and are posted in the Instructions Thread.

There is always a lot of interest from the general computing public who are keen to offer suggestions and ideas for possible projects; the 2010 Suggestion Thread contained lots of discussion and ideas for this year's projects.

This year we had 29 people make a pledge in the Pledges Thread, 23 of whom were successful in posting their application on the NANY Boards before New Year.

Feedback can be given to the coder through his NANY post, and the NANY board generally stays pretty active through the year as coders polish their entries and implement new suggestions from users.

NANY events were held previously in 2009, 2008 and 2007. The next NANY event will open in November 2010 -- please join us!!

THANKS!

My sincere thanks to everyone who participated:

• Entrants
• Volunteers
• DC Members who tested and gave valuable feedback and suggestions
• And the others NANY Team members: mouser, nudone, hamradio; without whom I'd look more nonproductive and unprofessional.
• Thanks to Head in the Clouds for allowing us this view into the whole NANY process!

-Perry Mowbray, NANY 2010 Coordinator

25

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / NANY 2010 - The Event Concludes

« on: January 01, 2010, 05:34 AM »

NANY 2010 has just completed...

2010 has dawned with 26 new applications for the New Year! Congratulations to all our coders and members who have worked so hard to make NANY 2010 a success.

A full wrap of the Event will be coming shortly, but just to whet your appetite, the 26 Successful Entries in this year's NANY are:
General Interest Entries

• Anuran (1.0.12): A really nicely done, professional, rotating, automatic-prompting personal text log  - great for keeping track of projects you are working on or taking quick notes.
• What's My Share? (1.0): Have you ever needed to divide up an expense among a group of people? Or split up some reward? The What's My Share online web page uses javascript to make it easy.  Clever, easy to use, and elegant.
• Piggy Banks (1.0.1 ): Neat rainy-day-type fund tracker with a twist.
• ClipTrap (1.0.0): Minimalist aggregator of text copied to the clipboard - simple but useful.
• Bestimate (1.0.1): A small utility designed to help you become more accurate and realistic about your predictions and promises - just a fun little tool for those of us who tend to be overly optimistic about our abilities.
• SubDiv (1.0): Automatically sort files into subfolders based on date - no options, nothing fancy - but useful for people with folders full of unsorted images or other files.

Plugins for Find and Run Robot (FARR)

• FarrWebMetaSearch (0.9.1): A powerful FARR plugin used to query results from a web page live as you type and display them in list form.
• FARRSpell: A slick plugin for FARR that will spellcheck words and list synonyms.
• FARR Plugin ProcessInfo (1.0.0): A FARR plugin to display information about running processes.

Game Prototypes

• Leap of Faith (1.2009.12.31): A cute little platformer game with no enemies.
• Twigatelle (0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1): Twigatelle is a pachinko-style game that Twiggles (of the Head in the Clouds web comic) is developing in order to make $1million or more from winning the NANY competition. No-one has yet dared to correct his misunderstanding of how NANY works.

Special Purpose

• Page Countster: A professional network printer management tool which reports on ink levels and more.
• LittleRunner (1.0): An easy to use runner's database.
• Multiboot ISO Maker (Alpha 7): A serious tool for making sophisticated multi-bood cds.
• Create Dummy File (1.001): Creates files of varying size - specialized for filling up removable usb drives for security reasons.
• Startup Bully (1.0.0.2): Removes Startup folder shortcuts made by misbehaving applications
• SwoopoSpy (0.85): Spy on your Swoopo Auctions
• TrayUpTime: A system tray icon which shows the system up time as a tooltip.
• j2key: A small autohotkey app that lets you map your typical 10-button joypad (think dualshock clone) to keyboard keys.
• DupFind (0.9): A simple cross-platform gui duplicate file finder (written in Python -- source only download).
• OMF (1.0): A new website detailing an open specification for restaurant menus so they can be easily shared, searched and used.
• Library Management System (0.7):  A python powered, browser-based application for library management (has some pre-requisites).
• Crush MCP (1.0): An early prototype of a security tool to report on running processes.
• Artwinauto BlitzType (0.9): An early prototype of an auto-completion typing tool.
• Reimbursement Tracker (0.3.5): Early version of a tool to help manage a list of reimbursements, with support for printing to a thermal printer.
• fenixContacts (0.9pre2): Early version of a customisable contacts book