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Last post Author Topic: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread  (Read 34885 times)

mouser

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This thread is for discussing the discounts and giveaways in the April 2018 Fundraiser.

The discounts can be found here: https://www.donation...fundraiser/discounts
And the giveaway entry form here: https://www.donation.../fundraiser/giveaway
« Last Edit: April 02, 2018, 12:33 PM by mouser »

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2018, 07:03 AM »
The giveaway drawing entry is now closed, results will be posted soon.
The discounts will be valid until the end of April.

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2018, 07:55 AM »
Winners of the April 2018 DonationCoder Fundraiser Giveaway Drawing


April 2018 Fundraiser Giveaway Drawing Results

Reminder: You have until the last day of the month to take advantage of this month's Discounts..

Software given away:



Winners of 'Atomic Scribbler' (4):
  • ks*@wo*.co*
  • rs*@fr*.hu*
  • sa*@ar*.ca*
  • me*@df*.us*
Winners of 'Beyond Compare 4 Pro' (5):
  • ef*@gm*.co*
  • ef*@gm*.co*
  • dr*@mo*.fi*
  • re*@gm*.ne*
  • to*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'DisplayFusion' (5):
  • tm*@gm*.co*
  • ja*@gm*.co*
  • as*@sh*.ca*
  • kM*@us*.ne*
  • 1r*@co*.ne*
Winners of 'Bvckup 2' (5):
  • pe*@gm*.co*
  • x5*@sn*.co*
  • dj*@id*.ne*
  • jk*@co*.ne*
  • do*@su*.co*
Winners of 'Cinta Notes' (3):
  • ac*@be*.ne*
  • ns*@ur*.co*
  • ab*@zi*.nl*
Winners of 'DoogiePim' (10):
  • In*@Ke*.ie*
  • ms*@fa*.ne*
  • bi*@sk*.or*
  • mi*@gm*.co*
  • je*@gm*.co*
  • Do*@ya*.ru*
  • df*@ya*.co*
  • tn*@ho*.co*
  • lu*@ya*.au*
  • Ri*@ya*.co*
Winners of 'HD Sentinel Pro' (5):
  • ty*@ya*.co*
  • br*@gm*.co*
  • al*@po*.ne*
  • pa*@xs*.nl*
  • jd*@ya*.co*
Winners of 'Help+Manual 7 Professional including Premium Pack' (3):
  • ma*@m-r-d.de
  • ad*@do*.co*
  • ha*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'IDM UltraEdit' (5):
  • al*@gm*.co*
  • at*@gm*.co*
  • do*@nh*.uk*
  • do*@ma*.co*
  • da*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'JAlbum' (10):
  • vh*@gm*.co*
  • gu*@ve*.ne*
  • gr*@bt*.co*
  • cy*@gm*.co*
  • al*@ho*.co*
  • eh*@gm*.de*
  • ni*@nt*.co*
  • if*@gm*.co*
  • jo*@pu*.se*
  • am*@ho*.co*
Winners of 'Jutoh' (4):
  • do*@ya*.co*
  • ms*@se*.co*
  • wo*@ya*.co*
  • Gr*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'Macrium Reflect 7 Home' (5):
  • co*@ya*.co*
  • wr*@gm*.co*
  • cm*@co*.ne*
  • ro*@co*.ne*
  • Ri*@ma*.co*
Winners of 'PrintableCal' (10):
  • st*@sa*.ne*
  • pa*@ya*.co*
  • um*@gm*.co*
  • ja*@ho*.co*
  • ma*@ho*.co*
  • mc*@ho*.co*
  • ch*@gm*.co*
  • ma*@fi*.co*
  • Da*@ms*.co*
  • rp*@ar*.es*
Winners of 'ProWritingAid' (2):
  • sh*@gm*.co*
  • ch*@ch*.co*
Winners of 'TheBat! v8 Professional' (5):
  • fe*@ch*.ne*
  • sy*@gm*.co*
  • ch*@gm*.co*
  • er*@er*.co*
  • ch*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'SmartEdit (standalone)' (1):
  • st*@so*.co*
Winners of 'Softmaker Office Professional and Softmaker FlexiPDF Professional' (10):
  • wa*@co*.ne*
  • gr*@ru*.co*
  • tm*@fa*.fm*
  • on*@gm*.co*
  • fi*@su*.ne*
  • da*@ch*.or*
  • ho*@gm*.co*
  • tu*@gm*.co*
  • or*@gm*.co*
  • qb*@te*.ne*
Winners of 'Techsmith's Camtasia' (2):
  • ab*@wh*.co*
  • wz*@ha*.co*
Winners of 'Terragen 4' (1):
  • sp*@po*.or*
Winners of 'The Journal' (3):
  • la*@gm*.co*
  • lu*@gm*.co*
  • re*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'VueMinder' (5):
  • g8*@ya*.co*
  • Da*@gm*.co*
  • ru*@ya*.co*
  • ma*@gm*.co*
  • mi*@te*.ne*
Winners of 'VMWare Workstation' (3):
  • pr*@st*.co*
  • so*@fw*.me*
  • ma*@ib*.co*
Winners of 'Website Watcher' (5):
  • cl*@gm*.co*
  • Ja*@gm*.co*
  • mb*@wi*.co*
  • do*@wa*.co*
  • mp*@ya*.co*
Winners of 'Write!' (5):
  • ga*@gm*.co*
  • hi*@sc*.ne*
  • jc*@gm*.co*
  • he*@gm*.co*
  • ba*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'Writer's Cafe' (4):
  • mi*@gm*.co*
  • dc*@gm*.co*
  • et*@ch*.co*
  • wi*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'Zentimo' (5):
  • th*@co*.ne*
  • Pa*@nt*.co*
  • ga*@gm*.co*
  • no*@ya*.co*
  • pl*@gm*.co*
Winners of 'ZeusEdit' (2):
  • ge*@gm*.co*
  • ma*@gm*.co*


All winners are now being notified by email to their forum submitted email address.  If you haven't received an email but think you might be in the list above, check spam filters, and then mail [email protected] and let us know you never got any mail.  It can take a few days for companies to send you your serial number; if a few days pass and you haven't received it - send a reminder to the company email as noted in your winning notification email, or to us by replying to the email you received or to us directly.

Curious about how we award prizes?  See https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1684.0 for a discussion about our custom prize optimizer utility. Winning something one month reduces your chances of winning the next month, and being helpful on the forum slightly increases your chances.



I have just sent out the result emails to everyone who entered, and to the companies who donated software for us to give away.

Here's are some statistics from the giveaway:
  • 325 people entered.
  • 127 pieces of software (prizes) were given out.
  • My optimizer program ran for 5+ hours in its search for the best assignment of prizes to maximize happiness (see this thread for more about the prize optimizer).
  • Supporting members of the site were given a weight of 1 and non-supporters a weight of 0.25.  Prize assignments were otherwise randomly assigned to maximize happiness as described above.

A huge thanks is due to DC members wraith808 and Cranioscopical for lining up all of these giveaways and discounts.

And speaking of discounts, there are big discounts available on almost all of the programs in the giveaway, throughout the month of April.  You can get the discount codes and links here: https://www.donation...fundraiser/discounts



Note also that we may have a second (much smaller) giveaway at the end of the month, so stay tuned...
« Last Edit: April 11, 2018, 06:06 PM by mouser »

rgdot

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2018, 08:31 AM »
Thanks mouser, wraith808, Cranioscopical and the software companies  :up:

apankrat

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2018, 08:52 AM »
My optimizer program ran for 5+ hours in its search for the best assignment of prizes to maximize happiness.

I wonder who got stuck with the lowest happiness score... :)
Alex

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2018, 08:57 AM »
Well it tries to maximize overall happiness... About 200 people won nothing, so they share maximum unhappiness presumably..

coderjohn

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2018, 09:05 AM »
Wow, I won something!  I never win!  (well... maybe I don't enter for many things...).  Anyway, thanks, mouser, and also wraith808 and Cranioscopical for working out the givaways and discount!  :-)
Thanks, DonationCoder!  :-)

SeaBix

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2018, 09:16 AM »
Thanks Mouser and Camtasia. I must have died and gone to heaven. A great product!

Jibz

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2018, 09:41 AM »
My optimizer program ran for 5+ hours in its search for the best assignment of prizes to maximize happiness

I think that is a testament to how hard mouser tries to make everybody happy :-*. Thanks to DonationCoder and the people who made all this happen :Thmbsup:.

ccdrop

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2018, 11:06 AM »
Well it tries to maximize overall happiness... About 200 people won nothing, so they share maximum unhappiness presumably..

Indeed I was one of those 200.  :(
But at least I know it was a well throughout program and not lottery fixing which makes me a little less than maximum unhappy. XD

ccdrop

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2018, 11:32 AM »
Thinking about it after reading this thread I may have been my own bad luck setter depending on how the algorithm really works.
I had assumed what it would do is more of a lottery so a person would be picked at random and than it would go down the list of their software picks to give them their "most happy pick" based on what software was left. Now that I really think about what "Maximized" happiness really means I realize my odds of winning anything were extremely low since I only had one thing at 100% as I had carefully scaled only a single item for each % chance.

I now think that the way it probably worked is that it lumped the highest happiness together and than pulled a random person out of each of the highest pools. So given that there was likely many people with 100% for every single item really that means I probably only had once chance of actually winning something and than simply ignored for all the rest of the drawings. XP

gaelle

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2018, 11:43 AM »
Thank you Mouser, HamsterCoders an DonationCoder :)
I'm very happy to win Write!   :Thmbsup:

Ath

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2018, 01:18 PM »
Another winner here! Thanks to all involved, and the special selection process, for picking me my optimum prize :Thmbsup:

MJK

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2018, 03:22 PM »
Wow - it's MANY decades since I won anything - until TODAY!

Very many thanks to Mouser, wraith808, Cranioscopical, and all the suppliers.

  - Mike

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2018, 04:41 PM »
I had assumed what it would do is more of a lottery so a person would be picked at random and than it would go down the list of their software picks to give them their "most happy pick" based on what software was left. Now that I really think about what "Maximized" happiness really means I realize my odds of winning anything were extremely low since I only had one thing at 100% as I had carefully scaled only a single item for each % chance.

I now think that the way it probably worked is that it lumped the highest happiness together and than pulled a random person out of each of the highest pools. So given that there was likely many people with 100% for every single item really that means I probably only had once chance of actually winning something and than simply ignored for all the rest of the drawings. XP

Your analysis is mostly correct.

Let me explain a bit more about the optimization function (though I should probably post it on the thread about the optimizer).

First thing to realize is that it only looks at each person's relative ratings.  So if one person rates a total of 3 items A,B,C at values 1,2,3 and another person rates those same items at 10,20,30 -- they will be treated identically (assuming they have rated nothing else above 0).  However if one person rated A,B,C,D at 1,2,3,100 and another person 10,20,30,100 then their ratings are completely different.  In other words, ratings are "normalized".

So now let's go to your example, where you had one prize (A) at 100, and some others (say B,C,D) at less than 100.  To the optimizer this meant that you would only be at maximum 100% happiness if you won prize A, and less than that for winning any other prize.  The optimizer is trying to maximize the summed happiness of all entrants.  Now imagine there was just one other person in the giveaway who also rated A at 100, and rated everything else at 0.  If there was only 1 of the A prize, they would get it, and you would get something else.  That's because the optimizer would discover that it had to give the other person prize A to give them any happiness, and you would be "partially" happy with one of the other prizes.

Now to your point, if from the remaining prizes, there was someone else for each who had rated that remaining prize their top prize, they would go to those people before going to you, since for you those other prizes were less than maximally rated.

If there are enough people that maximally rate each prize, then that will always be the way the prizes will be distributed -- so that each prize goes to someone who rated it maximally (and randomly tied people selected randomly).  Actually this is not quite true -- there can be cases where it may have to give two people sub-optimal prizes rather than give one person their maximal prize and another person nothing.  In practice some prizes go to people who rated them sub-maximally.

So, on one hand rating a single prize at a 100 and everything else at 0, is a way to maximize your chance of winning that prize -- HOWEVER, you are then in a random draw against everyone else who did the same thing (as everyone in that group has equal chance of winning one of them), and you are guaranteed never to win anything else.  So you are least likely to win anything.  Rating everything equally is the most likely way to win something.. As the optimizer will find that awarding you any prize will "maximize" your happiness.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2018, 04:50 PM by mouser »

beethoven

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #15 on: April 11, 2018, 04:52 PM »
 :) Maximum Happiness here and thank you for the great software.

Just one question - I noticed that the email contained a reference to
For help please directly contact: spam@XXXXXXUNREALLOOKINGEMAILXXXXX
which startled me, initially wondering if the email was real and legit. Can you provide some info what their role is in this?
« Last Edit: April 11, 2018, 05:01 PM by mouser »

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2018, 05:01 PM »
For help please directly contact: spam@XXXXXXUNREALLOOKINGEMAILXXXXX
which startled me, initially wondering if the email was real and legit. Can you provide some info what their role is in this?

I agree that email address is startling.  But it happens to be the real email address of none other than our own dc member apankrat, the author of Bvckup2. Strange but true.

I'm not sure he will want his email address posted publicly so i'll edit it out of your post. 

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2018, 05:07 PM »
I'm not sure there is any real way to "game" the optimizer, in any real sense.  I think the main lesson is to rate items accurately according to your preferences.  The one thing you could do if you wanted to maximize your chances of winning anything and didn't care about what you won, you would rate everything equally.  But who is so crazy to not care about what they win?

A common scenario is that there are a group of people who identify the most expensive items and rate them as their top items (and possibly rate nothing else); this means that for such prizes it's essentially a random draw between those people, with most winning nothing.

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #18 on: April 11, 2018, 05:24 PM »
I have updated the result post to show all prizes and a sanitized (for privacy reasons) list of all winners.

mouser

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #19 on: April 11, 2018, 05:29 PM »
If you truly like the software you won, it would be nice if you posted a little mini-review about it, as a way of saying thank you to the company that donated it for us to give away.

beethoven

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #20 on: April 11, 2018, 05:30 PM »
Sorry Mouser and Apankrat for quoting the email address - I thought it was some other feature you guys were using to reduced spam or similar. I even tried to look up the domain but now realise I need new glasses as I read honeypot.org and that confused me even more  :o

rgdot

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #21 on: April 11, 2018, 07:11 PM »
If you truly like the software you won, it would be nice if you posted a little mini-review about it, as a way of saying thank you to the company that donated it for us to give away.

Good idea, will after a few days of using it.

Cloq

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #22 on: April 11, 2018, 09:35 PM »
To the 200 almost Happiness players, grab a drink and toast the winners.  :-*

4wd

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #23 on: April 11, 2018, 10:13 PM »
Thank you mouser, wraith, cranio, and the software companies (especially IDM) !


Chris_BiteSpire

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Re: Fundraiser 2018 Discounts and Giveaways Discussion Thread
« Reply #24 on: April 12, 2018, 04:47 AM »
Hi everyone. Chris here.
I'm the creator and developer of doogiePIM (one of the pieces of software in the Fundraiser giveaway and discount).

I just want to say congratulations to all the winners and to Mouser for organising all this.  I'm so happy the goal was reached and hope the future is equally as exciting.

To the users of doogiePIM; I hope you'll enjoy my software for many days to come. If you don't enjoy it or there's something not quite right with it, please let me know. I love feedback, especially when it adds to the quality and usability for the benefit of others.

To everyone, enjoy this wonderful forum and let the good times roll.  :Thmbsup:

Chris
Amateur Potato Enthusiast  8)