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Newsletter for December 19, 2011 - "Snowy Feathers"

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mouser:
Newsletter for December 19, 2011"Codename: Snowy Feathers"



1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings and happy holidays!  It's 45 degrees here in Illinois as I write this -- a mild winter so far.  Personally I prefer to see a little snow on the ground in December.   There are about 12 days left until the new year (it takes 48 hours to send out the newsletter to all of you so your mileage may vary).  And that means less than 12 days until our year-end NANY event: New Apps for the New Year 2012.

You should know about NANY by now -- it's where we ask the coders of all skill levels who hang out on our site to try to release a new program to celebrate the upcoming year.  Some of the programs are just experiments, some are large full-featured applications.  The event is open to all coders, and there is no winner -- everyone who participates gets a coffee mug featuring our mascot Cody.  If you're a coder, or you know someone who is, there's still plenty of time to take part -- just drop by our forum and announce your intent to do so.

And please do join us on New Years to cheer on all of the participants!


2. NANY UPDATES

There have been quite a few new NANY updates and releases in the last couple of weeks, including a big one by me.  And probably a few more to come in the final days.  Take a few moments to browse some of the entries and offer some constructive suggestions to the coders.


* Visit the NANY 2012 Section of the forum to stay up to date
* Web Link Captor - Autosearch and List Builder (see below for more info)
* P-FANCI: Petition For A New Cody Image - Help us beg for a new drawing of Cody the DC Mascot
* NANY Folk, I can make your icon if you want...
* NANY 2012 Release: Tell When Done
* NANY 2012 Release: Stick A Note
* NANY 2012 Release: Fentwiss (a simple calculator / converter)
* NANY 2012 Release: Printer PaperSource Explorer 1.2.0.0
* NANY 2012 Release: Quicksilver Like launcher
* NANY 2012 Idea: GUI front end for my screensaver builder?
* NANY 2012 Release: NoteMe - Mail Myself
* NANY 2012 Release: Nea
* NANY 2012 Release: Treat Yourself Nicely (TYSON)
* NANY 2012 Release: Christian Prayer Minder
* NANY 2012 Release: EasyNotes (Beta)
* NANY 2012 Release: PDFInfoGUI
* NANY 2012 Release: GoogolBar
* NANY 2012 Release: Big Bang Theory Sound Quotes (for Android devices)
* NANY 2012 Release: Reverse Dictionary / Thesaurus (for Android devices)

3. DonationCoder Software Updates and Discussions

I hope you'll allow me the indulgence of talking a bit more about the substantial new application that I released as my NANY entry.  Web Link Captor will be publicly available on January 1st, but it already has a home page and a video overview, and anyone who wants to get early access can simply send me a message on the forum.  Web Link Captor takes a list of plaintext items, and builds an output document containing a list of url-linked results based on web searches for the items. It's a way to quickly build a clickable list of items from just their names, suitable for posting on your blog or a forum, etc.


* Web Link Captor Homepage
* Watch a video introduction to Web Link Captor

4. 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.


* Multiple monitors vs large monitor?
* Need Advice on a TV...
* Three little words
* I Have an Itch for a Video Camera...
* Community outsourcing... Awesome idea?
* Don't be a free user?
* Win7 -- to x64 or not to x64, that is the question

5. Mini-Reviews, Coding Snacks, and other DC Member Software Threads

The Coding Snacks section is one of the things that people love the most about DonationCoder -- it's where anyone can post a request for a custom piece of software -- and often find the requests granted overnight as one of the coders who inhabit our forum writes it as a free utility (lately DC member Skwire has been running circles around the rest of us, coding requests faster than lightning!)


* Coding Snack: Separate .txt file at any specified punctuation mark
* Coding Snack: Scud (RandomMediaLauncher) - enjoy your media collection in a fun way!
* Ultimate Windows Customise (Windows Club) - quick review
* WebcamVideoDiary - Instant Hit with the Kids
* FARR Plugin: ShowDesktop
* [Short Review] - Screenshot Captor v2.103.01
* Stickies review
* GameManager V3
* Quick review: Windows 7 Firewall Control (free version)
* Url Pack

6. Fun, Humor, and Amusements on the Web

You've made it half way through the newsletter, so let's have a break.  Go make yourself an egg cream soda, and check out these fun websites and videos!


* Baby Cody is going to Disney World
* Occupy Your Kids with Open Source Games during the Holidays
* Pretty cool idea for next Halloween...
* You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!
* Sintel - Open Source Development Powered Movie
* A light-field camera? Ok. This is very cool!
* Quietly brilliant piece of technology - the NEST thermostat

7. General Software Discussion

Almost half the posts on the DC forum take the form of general software discussions, questions, recommendations, etc. These posts wind up in the General Software Discussion section and make it one of the most active sections of the DC forum. This is a great resource if you're trying to solve a software or hardware-related problem. We get so much traffic on this board that we split the recent content into two sections in the newsletter - general software and specific software discussions.


* PC World: Free Downloads That Are Worth a Donation, Part 2 (Recommends a DC app)
* Freeware Genius: Comparison of 10 free OCR tools
* List of freeware and other releases from The Windows Club
* Any photo editor that will both combine/tile, and keep transparency?
* Software to make image collages, film strips, and other multi-image compositions
* Lightweight software for organizing notes offline? [Stickies, StickySorter]
* Easy Remote access to another PC?
* In search of ... universal download tracker
* Rename pdf, word, etc files based on their text content
* Make a music mix for burning on audio disc - software?

8. Specific Software Discussion

This section of the newsletter draws attention to some of the standout discussions about specific programs that have been started since the last newsletter.


* Service host Analyzer: handy security tool for svchost
* USB Disk Ejector
* Spamihiliator
* Software Shows How Much an Image Has Been Photoshopped
* New PortableApps
* AdBlock Plus To Not Block All Ads
* CNET Download Installer Changes

9. Developer's Corner

The title of this section shouldn't scare you off - there is definitely something of interest for everyone here! It's more than just a section for the discussion of software development, it's also where we discuss web design, entrepreneurial ideas, and general productivity issues.  It's great to see that the section has been pretty active recently.


* BugAid for C# - Add-in for Visual Studio that improves the debugging experience
* Herb Sutter's brief look at C++11
* A Brief Rant On the Future of Interaction Design
* Ribbon UI - is it really THAT good?
* Code Koans
* Scirra - Game Creation Tool
* Is Clojure the next C ?
* An iOS Developer Takes on Android

10. Website Discoveries, Debates, and 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...


* Products designed to fail, a documentary
* The Inside Story on How Microsoft's Tablet Didn't Happen?
* Is "Thank you for your service" enough for veterans?
* LHC Finds HBP? Or at least...they think they did...Awesome if confirmed!
* Google queries re new "2-step verification" / new style, etc
* Google-Funded Study Says Firefox Less Secure than Internet Explorer
* Why I stand up for Stallman
* Mike Halsey article on firmware upgrades/updates ...

tomos:
thanks mouser :Thmbsup:

shameedp:
thanks

tomos:
you know what's nice?

after a newsletter goes out, there's a lot more activity, and a lot of the threads mentioned in it get new posts.
(mind you, I think everyone's pretty busy this week...)

mouser:
Yes that's the best part about the newsletters -- it's especially great to see first time or rare posters join in the discussions.  :Thmbsup:

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