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Newsletter for February 16th, 2009 - Codename "Forum Valentines"
mouser:
Newsletter for February 16th, 2009Codename "Forum Valentines"
"If you read nothing else on our site, read our blog"
(new rss feed with images)
1. Newsletter Editorial
Greetings and welcome to another edition of the newsletter. With only 28 days, February has always seemed like a bit of a rip-off to me compared to the other months. Let's just try to make the best of it by keeping busy. If you're feeling like you need a bit of balance after Valentine's Day, I posted a link to a free mp3 album by one of my very favorite Singer/Songwriters, Edith Frost. And If you have a significant other maybe you can let us know in the forum if you exchanged some special gifts? If not, and you're feeling like you need some cheering up, don't miss the silly humour thread for a few good laughs (see section 3 below).
If you have young kids, you should check out a pair of programs made by dc members recently, designed to let the young ones pound away on the keyboard and amuse themselves. One is called "Crazy Little Fingers", and was coded for our recent NANY programming challenge, and another is called "Teddy" and was coded in the last week or two as a programming experiment. Crazy Little Fingers shows pictures of animals and objects matching the keys pressed; "Teddy" plays different drumkit sounds for each key. Both make it easy for you to customize using your own photos and sounds.
And for forum regulars, I've been hard at work in the last two weeks working on new forum features; see section 3 below for more details.
* A free album of music from Edith Frost - one of my favorite singers
* Teddy - A simple drum machine - toy for kids
* Crazy Little Fingers - toy for kids
2. Your Participation Requested
No matter what your level of computer knowledge, or how long you've been a DC member, we'd love to have you participate on the forum. See the links below for some good places to jump in and make your first post.
* Cleaning Inside the Case?
* What are you getting for your Special Other for Valentines Day?
* Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me
* Why Computers Can't Kill Post-Its ? MIT research
* How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?
* Creating a partition on an external HD for an encrypted Volume
* Post your NANY 2009 Mug/Shirt Pics here..
3. New Forum Features
I've been hard at work in the last two weeks working on new forum features that have been requested for quite some time. You can now mark threads on the forum to ignore and rate topics as well as bookmark them. A new award/badge system makes it fun to see who has participated in different activities. And if you haven't placed your pin on the new member map yet, please do so (and if you are paranoid about big brother finding you just place it where you wished you could go on vacation).
* New Ignore Thread and Bookmark/Rating Forum Mod
* New Badge/Award Forum Mod
* New.. Follow DonationCoder on Twitter and Friendfeed
* Forum Signatures now not shown if you have under a certain number of posts
* The DC Member Map is Back - Place your pin and help us cover the globe (where are our Japanese members!?)
4. General Software Discussion
It's probably fair to say that the majority of the discussions on DonationCoder.com are about computer software. Below are some noteworthy threads about general software issues posted to DC since the last newsletter.
* Summarizers - Copernic, Intellexer?
* Games for Linux
* PDF creation command line tool -- Does one exist?
* Wanted: line highlighter
* Suggestions for a Quick & Easy ircd for my private LAN
* Linux finance management program (ALA Quicken?)
* Department of Defense launches open source site Forge.mil
5. Specific Software Discussion
The previous section collected recent threads about general software issues. This section collects thread about specific programs posted to the forum since the last newsletter:
* Organize your desktop icons with Stardock Fence
* timeEdition - This one looks good and syncs with Google Calendar and Outlook
* Screen2Exe - FREE and pretty clever screen casting software
* Nice Twitter app for Vista, looks like AIM
* Postbox - a new Mozilla-based email client
* Make Firefox 3 load faster
* Searching through page content in Firefox Bookmarks
6. DC Updates and Member Coding
In each newsletter we highlight some of the software coded by DC members that is available on Donationcoder.
* Screenshot Captor v2.47.01 Beta Released
* Interviews with some of the NANY Developers
* BatteryDeley: Low laptop battery alert
* Nag@Me - very simple reminder application
* Finally perfected my download commenter after only 8 years
* FARR plugin: Bakko
* FARR plugin : FFTab allow to switch firefox tab
7. Mini-Reviews by Members
We encourage forum members to post quick mini-reviews of software they discover. Since the last newsletter we've had quite a few new ones.
* Mini-Review of Quick Shutdown
* Mini-Review of Direct Folders
* Game Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening
* Mini-Review of Find&Run Robot
* Mini-Review of GTAIV for PC [Ranting]
8. Fun and Games
If you've read the newsletter up to this point, take a break and check out some of the lighter fare from the forum - humour, videos, and games..
* silly humor - post 'em here!
* [NSFW - Parody] Sony Releases New Piece Of Technology
* Mastermind: World Conqueror - Flash game
* Stop-motion videos
* JayIsGames.com Post Results of Their Best Casual Games of 2008 Awards
9. Coding Snack Requests?
Coding snacks are treats for the software aficionado. If there's some tool that you've been looking for without success, you have nothing to lose by asking... Post a clear description of what you're wanting and one of Donationcoder's resident coding gurus might just take up the challenge. Here are some of the notable requests being discussed currently.
* IDEA: autooglefriend AHK script
* IDEA: "push" alternative to "copy" in context menu
* IDEA: Tiny taskbar clock for secondary screen
* IDEA: Remember removed programs
10. Developer's Corner
If you're not a developer, don't be put off by the title of this section. There is likely something of interest to you on the Developer's Corner. It's more than just a forum for the discussion of software development, it's also where we discuss web design, entrepreneurial struggles, and general productivity issues. And it's great to see that the section has been pretty active over the last few months -- keep it up people!
* Programming Paradigms - Free Video Courses
* Two in-depth articles for developers and open source enthusiasts
* Web Page Layout Debate: Tables vs. CSS
* Right Brain Applications - Harder to Code, Under-Appreciated?
* My google page rank dropped to 0, anyone have any ideas why?
* What would you like to see in our next Getting Organized Experiment?
11. News You Can Use
DC Member Ehtyar has taken to producing wonderfully weekly summaries of important tech/computer/security news articles that he comes across on the web. A big hit on the forum. How is he able to keep up this pace and when will he collapse from exhaustion? We are all waiting to find out.
* Tech News Weekly: Edition 05-09
* Tech News Weekly: Edition 06-09
* Tech News Weekly: Edition 07-09
Ehtyar:
Yaaay, new newsletter :) Ty Mouse Man :Thmbsup:
Ehtyar.
housetier:
February has always seemed like a bit of a rip-off
-mouser (February 16, 2009, 01:56 AM)
--- End quote ---
According to Garfield, February is "the Monday of the months", and you know how Garfield loves Mondays :)
zridling:
It's pretty amazing to see the cumulative output of a month's worth of DonationCoder.com. And this is only a fractional amount of the content traffic on here. Great tease to lure you to areas I seldom explore.
Darwin:
Couldn't agree more, Zaine. Great newsletter, mouser :Thmbsup: Digesting all of the threads that I missed on my own now... and folllowing links to other threads and information that they point to...
Happy, happy, joy, joy :)
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