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Nothing like a political post to derail and suck all the fun out of a nice thread 

I nominate Zaine to be the official full-time DonationCoder.com movie reviewer.

Although... ALL screenshots were moved; also the ones I created a minute ago...

that should not have happened -- i'll double check it.

[Newsletter for May 27, 2013]

Newsletter for May 27, 2013

"Codename: Ready the Cody-Mobile!"

1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings dear readers, it's been 2 months since the last newsletter, so we have a full plate today.  I'll start as I normally do, with some abashed self-promotion.

First up is call for assistance in funding the purchase of a "Cody Mobile" (just a fancy term for a cheap used car to be adorned with a DonationCoder decal).  A grand total of $307 has been raised so far -- so any bit you can add will help.

Next up is a long blog post I've written on the idea of putting advertisements on the DonationCoder.com website, and some thoughts on the Project Wonderful ad service vs Google Adsense; we occasionally experiment with putting ads on the website and we're doing so again through June.  I'm going to try to write some more longer original essays on the site, and hopefully with your encouragement see if we can't get a few more DC regulars to do the same.

You'll also find in this newsletter some interesting project announcements from members of our forum.  In section 4 you'll find links to a very cool new open source music learning tool called Musicope by forum member czb and a fun science fiction magazine by forum member TaoPhoenix, as well as several new small coding snacks.  And don't mix the new invention we came up with in the long-running gadget thread (section 2).

Finally, I want to reach out to those of you who might have never posted on our forum -- and ask you to take a leap and make a post.  Everyone is welcome on our site and doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are -- and if you aren't sure where to start, check out the "User-to-User" items below.  We're still a small community site whose value depends on user participation. I know I speak for everyone on the site when I say that seeing a first post from a new member is one of our favorite things.

• Micro-Fundraiser for the Official DonationCoder CodyMobile!
• Some thoughts on the Project Wonderful Ad Network and web advertising in general

2. User-to-User: Your Input Requested

We love nothing more than having interesting discussions on our forum -- and we love when new people participate in the discussions.  In each newsletter we try to highlight a few topics that we think might interest casual readers and that are good candidates for making your first post.

• The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!
• What are Your Favorite YouTube Channels? Here are Mine for Board Games
• Gadget Weekends - we even invented something new this weekend
• Movies or films you've seen lately?
• Recommend free image hosting site?
• Have you ever gone Geocaching or Letterboxing?
• Best method for a dead simple web site?
• Help needed with computer hardware problem
• Some guidelines and rules about posting on the forum

3. DonationCoder Software Updates

There have been a few updates to some of the DonationCoder-hosted software applications since the last newsletter, plus a bunch of updates by DC member Skwire, our resident speed-coder.

• Clipboard Help and Spell - v2.18 - compatibility fixes
• Screenshot Captor - v4.3 - various fixes
• Multi Photo Quotes - v2.02 - various fixes
• Multi Photo Quotes Builder - v1.03 - updated with latest MPQ
• Progress Bars of Life - Version 1.03 - See also skwire's barbecue below
• Skwire New Release: sStockQuote
• Skwire Update: Barbecue
• Skwire Update: SFV Ninja
• Skwire Update: Ten Timer
• Skwire Update: tiffInfoGUI

4. Member Reviews, Projects, Software Releases, and Announcements

We love to keep up with projects that our members are working on, and hearing what our forum members think of software they use, and we've got some new DC member projects to tell you about since the last newsletter, including a very cool new open source music game by DC member czb.  If you're working on something interesting -- let us know!

• Musicope.com: online open-source piano game
• Aphelion Science Fiction Fantasy Horror Webzine
• RegaLink - a todo list for urls to visit
• RPG Solo: An online solo role-playing tool
• Scrubby - simply clean clipboard of formatting
• Reus Mini-Review - a new god game
• Coding Snack: Copy one particular file into every folder in a subdirectory
• Coding Snack: Group of Excel files in folder, send all first rows to a text file (or other)
• Coding Snack: Absolutely Basic Count-up Timer (ABC Timer)
• Coding Snack: All devices hooked up to my router copied to a CSV log file
• FARR plugin: Google Translate.
• FARR plugin: GoogleSearch

5. Entertainment and Humour

You've made it half way through the newsletter, so let's have a break.  Go make yourself a healthy snack (in honor of the 30-day DonationCoder health challenge), and check out these fun websites and videos!

• Gorgeous "House Sigils" graphics
• Worst Client Comments Turned Into Posters
• Your weekend cheer: Russian dashcams capture human kindness
• Geoguessr game: I'm addicted.
• Luxembourg cybersecurity team takes on China's hacker unit - and wins!
• Infamous Game Dwarf Fortress on Ars Technica
• The Upcoming Death of upcoming.org
• Camera technology - Impressive resolution of photography of a crowd scene.
• Giraffe's swim
• One year without the internet: An Interesting Read
• Cool visualization of dial-up modem sounds and what they mean

6. Software Discussion

The Software Discussion section is one of the most active areas of the DC forum; some of the more interesting posts since the last newsletter are listed here.

• Raymond.cc compares antivirus memory usage
• Which file format is more accurate to save webpages?
• Simple File Transfer Options
• My (not so good) experience with backblaze
• Information Manager / Database for daily record of mood and health?
• Independent desktop shopping compare software?
• Video conferencing tools?
• Proofed! Microsoft is actively scanning Skype traffic and uses the data
• Adobe drops the gauntlet - going forward it's cloud - or nothing.
• Recommendation for mosaic/tiled live screensaver that reads folders of pictures?
• InCtrl X: Monitor Changes to Your System
• Problems after you install Microsoft's security update 2823324
• Office 2013 drops cleartype, fonts a disaster. Any way to fix it?
• Gnome-Pie: a circular 'dock' type launcher for Linux
• MasterSeeker - Fast File Search Engine
• Office Web Viewer: View Office documents in a browser
• Public preview of Excel GeoFlow - 3D cartographically distributed data maps.

7. Website Discoveries, Debates, Essays, Discussions

What's new in cyberspace? What exciting new sites have been discovered by forum members?  What's the current hot topic and debate? Read on to find out...

• Shell Extension City Freeware Website Comeback
• The 21 worst tech habits [PCWORLD]
• Discourse in Practice
• Crowdscribed.com
• 7 Online Multi-Engine Antivirus Scanners to Scan Suspicious Files
• Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other cryptocurrencies
• SAP to bring in autistic workers as software testers and programmers
• Patreon is a new crowd source funding platform for content creators
• Getting Things Done revisited
• Now you can "Log-In with PayPal"
• SSD's - How They Work Plus Tips

8. Developer's Corner

This section highlights some discussions that might be relevant for not just for coders and developers, but also people interested in entrepreneurial issues.

• URL for Youtube Video to Start at Particular Time (and other tips?)
• Beating ridiculous IP infringement claims by doing things stupidly
• Prenda Law shall troll no more.
• Why are there no sites to shame and punish companies that spammers promote?
• Fixing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600
• Some thoughts on the Project Wonderful Ad Network and web advertising in general
• Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet
• Quick blog/site (for images) where I'm contactable without having to join?
• AHK tutorial for absolute AHK beginners
• Looking for voice acting service
• Ghost - a new "just blogging" platform now fully funded on Kickstarter
• An End To The Aggregation Debate?

Thanks for sharing this! 

Thanks for sharing this!! 

When DonationCoder.com opened it's doors in March of 2005, one of the sites that was most welcoming and supportive of us was Shell Extension City.  Many of our early and most enthusiastic supporters found us through the Shell City website.

Shell City was one of the best places to discover new small freeware tools coded by small developers.  It's always been a no-nonsense style site -- the front page just lists short paragraphs about newly discovered freeware with a link to the author's page.  Part of it's appeal was that a small developer could email bob the site admin and tell him about their software, and if Bob thought it was worth passing along, up would go a nice paragraph about your tool.


Anyway, throughout the years Shell Extension City has gone through some quiet periods, but today a post on the forum has announced they are attempting a comeback! Yay!

You can read the relaunch announcement: Here.

Sounds like from the relaunch announcement that there will probably be a few bumps in the road as they get the old content and structure cleaned up, So make sure you go check them out regularly.  

[attach=1]
http://www.shellcity.net

haven't tried taking out all gfx cards... but I have switched it out to no avail.  Do you think that it might be the card slot or something?

when diagnosing computer problems -- the technique is remove and swap everything you possibly can.  you want to eliminate possibilities.  so if there are cards you can remove, remove 'em!

It's certainly possible that it's the CPU, though more likely the motherboard.  I guess my answer would depend chiefly on the age of the CPU.  If you think you might be ready to upgrade the CPU anyway in the next year then yeah, go for it.

[Perhaps what we should do is just add some big bold text at the top stating that the review is X years old and out of date.]

I feel your pain in terms of the reviews being out of date.

I'll just expand a bit on what wraith said.

When we jumped into doing our reviews we tried to be really comprehensive and opinionated.

That combination was on one hand quite useful to readers -- as it really sought to evaluate programs deeply and make a serious recommendation to people to help them make a choice.  As Wraith said, we get absolutely no compensation of any sort from companies whose products we reviewed.

But such an approach proved very hard to maintain in the long run -- first because trying to keep such reviews up to date was just a task that was beyond our volunteer efforts.  And second because the reviews were so opinionated, trying to update them to reflect changing opinions or the opinions of anyone but the original author was impractical.

As such -- those reviews need to be viewed as snapshots in time of one person's evaluation of things as they stood at the time of the review.

One of the reasons we've stopped focusing on reviews was a recognition of how difficult it was for these reviews to hold up after a couple of years.

Instead we've shifted to more focused shorter read-written "mini-reviews" of programs that you can find posted on the forum.

At some point we may just remove the big reviews from the site entirely -- though they still do serve as a useful starting point for people who don't know what features they should be looking for, etc.

Perhaps what we should do is just add some big bold text at the top stating that the review is X years old and out of date.

I've spent some time thinking of ways to improve this.. but I haven't yet brought these ideas to life.

After my "bag holder opener" gadget post, DC members ewemoa, app103, and I were brainstorming about ways to use existing kitchen tools to hold open bags more effectively.

I believe we came up with an ideal solution, which is to use some thin flexible plasting cutting mats, and roll them up and place them INSIDE the bag like an expanding tube.

[attach=2]
[attach=3]

The solution is pretty great because:

• It maximally holds open the bag (this is a huge advantage over the gadget, which only holds open the bag a tiny bit).
• It takes up NO storage space (compared to gadget which does) and requires no setup.
• It is super easy to clean and acts like a funnel.
• Works on any size bag (you could even trim the plastic cutting mat to make a smaller size one for small quart bags.

Tips on buying the flexible cutting mats: Just make sure the ones you buy aren't too brittle (as you will have to roll them up) or completely limp/silicone (as you want them to try to unroll in the bag to provide tension). Some samples on Amazon.com:

[attach=1]
http://www.amazon.com/Cou...ng-Assorted/dp/B00337YF7Q
http://www.amazon.com/MIU...g-Board-Set/dp/B00011RTE8


As ewemoa has pointed out, one drawback of this approach is that you have to wash the cutting mat after use.  One alternative would be to use an INNER bag draped over the "tube".  That will work providing the mat is not too oversized.  Of course this will also work if you happen to have a pitcher of the right radius and height -- without need for mat at all.

[attach=4]

One of the key things about the digitial scales is that you can zero them out after you put a bowl on them -- the manual ones like the one you have their app make it harder to compensate for weight of container.

Elaborating on what 40hz said: After you eliminate the other possibilities by swapping the graphics card, ram, reseating all cables, and resetting the bios, the next logical step is probably to just *assume* that the motherboard is the culprit, and replace it.

[NOTE: SEE ALTERNATE INVENTION IN POST BELOW BEFORE BUYING THIS]

Nice. I have a kitchen scale too but i can never find an excuse to use it..

You've inspired me to post about a very low-tech kitchen gadget that I occasionally have use of, a Bag-Holder-Opener:

[attach=1]

Useful for holding a bag open so you can use your hands to pour stuff into the bag.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQm5GJRLsk


NOTE: SEE ALTERNATE INVENTION IN POST BELOW BEFORE BUYING THIS

Glad to hear it 

I try to use existing libraries whenever i can, though it definitely has it's pros and cons.

The advantage is you usually can get work done faster.. The disadvantage is that when something doesn't work right, it's a pain to have to dig into someone else's code.

I'm always suspicious of RAM with these kinds of symptoms.
Sometimes it's just a matter of removing the ram and re-seating just one stick at a time.

not braindead -- your original points are still valid -- i should add some variable replacements to refer to the current drive for portable use.

it's just that on a new default portable install it should come up with "Screenshots" as the screenshot folder which is exactly what you wanted -- you just confused it when you put in your full path explicitly.

In the portable mode try just setting screenshot directory to: Screenshots

Please do install the new version, and let me know if the problem remains.

I see what you mean.  I don't think it's a new thing.. I think it has to do with CHS starting the focus in the search/filter edit box, and it must have behaved like this for quite some time.

Can you give me a little more background? Is this your first install of CHS? Or did you just upgrade and you're suddenly getting this error?
Are you using the portable version or the installer? What operating system?

A big thank you to Jesper and Hamradio and others for helping me test the new version and track down CHS bugs.

[v2.18.01 - May 18, 2013]

Bugfix update -- could be important for anyone using an app that has not behaved well with CHS (or other clipboard tools) in the past.

v2.18.01 - May 18, 2013

• [BugFix] Several bug fixes to try to handle applications that CHS has had trouble capturing from in the past (Zim Desktop) and that generate excessive clipboard messages, and to avoid delayed captures in Open Office / Libre Office due to a bug in those programs.
• [BugFix] Fixed disk-not-in-drive error and error creating initial database lock file that could happen on some startups.
• [Feature] Added option to check for updates at startup.

Is this a good time for me to plug the new background Patch tool in Screenshot Captor?
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