Messages

201

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.5 - May 16, 2007

« on: May 16, 2007, 05:56 AM »

YOU MADE ME DO IT, lanux128!!      





v1.1.5

Changes:

1. Move mouse cursor to the exact top-left corner of the screen to hide notification window instantly. ^YES!
2. Multiple user options added
3. Displays "Last Checked on" time in tray icon tooltip
4. Notifies connection error

202

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Forum Random Quotes Generator - salting your forum signature with wits

« on: May 15, 2007, 07:44 AM »

Thanks for the tip jgpaiva 

I'm afraid caching/re-validating could be more costly in terms of sys resource usage, with this script. Because the Text-to-image converter that is hosted on dc server simple grabs a <450 chars string from user server and output a 0.5-2kb image straightaway. If the script is now required to compare text, cache/revalidate images, there'd be much work for it to do, and it still has to output the 0.5-2kb image anyway. 

203

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.4 - May 13, 2007

« on: May 15, 2007, 06:34 AM »

You have it, app103! Download the new version 1.1.41.

Nice idea indeed. Ty! 

204

General Software Discussion / Re: TRUSTED Download Manager discussion

« on: May 15, 2007, 03:51 AM »

Free Download Manager and Internet Download Manager (shareware)

205

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Forum Random Quotes Generator - salting your forum signature with wits

« on: May 15, 2007, 12:57 AM »

Cool I just created a quotes file and it has been added to my signature as you can now see!   

-hamradio (May 14, 2007, 11:27 PM)

Awesome! And thanks for using the script!

It's fun to read words of wisdom! 

206

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Forum Random Quotes Generator - salting your forum signature with wits

« on: May 15, 2007, 12:52 AM »

Mouser, u scared me!

do i understand that your running the script off mrcody, and each time a quote needs to be shown, your mycody.com hosted script re-downloads the quote file from users pc, and picks one and displays it.. each time?

that's soooo untrue (otherwise plz rename my forum name to wordsucker  )! It fetches only a string with maximum length of 450 characters from the user server (consumes very little bandwidth). And the script on mrcody.com will stop running after 3 seconds of execution, so there's even less chance it could overload servers.

set_time_limit(3);
$len_limit = 450;

Remember the Random quote picker on the user server is responsible for picking out a single quote every time it runs. 

It is so designed that the user will not need PHP GD2 library on his server in order to get the thing to work (just call the text-to-image converter on mrcody.com to do the job), while offering the flexibility for him to script his own random quote generator (he may prefer getting quotes from mysql, adding more ASCII flavors to the end output quote, etc.)

207

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Forum Random Quotes Generator - salting your forum signature with wits

« on: May 14, 2007, 12:10 AM »

This is a php script that randomly picks out a quote from your quotes collection and display it in image format on forums (i.e. DonationCoder.com ). Every time a visitor views your forum profile or signature below your post, he sees a random fun quote. It's fairly customizable and super easy to use.


See it in action:





How it works

Two components powers this script:
1. Text-to-image converter, which converts a text string into image that displays in your forum signature.  (can be found in qb.zip)
2. Random quote picker, which picks out a quote from your quotes collection and feed it to text-to-image converter   (can be found in myquotes.zip)



Requirements
You need to have ftp write access to a web server that supports PHP, otherwise I'll be very happy to receive "please include this FUN quote" requests from you.



Installation and Usage

1. The no-brainer way, no php knowledge required

Download myquotes.zip, uncompress and upload files to your web server (e.g. http://yoursite.com/myquotes/), add quotes to quotes.txt (sample provided), one quote per line.

Modify your forum signature to display the random quote image, by adding these lines:

[Select]

[b]Random Quote:[/b]
[img]http://www.mrcody.com/qb/q.php?u=yoursite.com/myquotes/[/img]

5 mins that's all it takes to get it working.


2. If you decide to hack the script...

The Text-to-image converter and Random quote picker scripts are now "sold separately" , for I'm reluctant to complicate things for people with no php knowledge - this way they only have to deal with one php file (which works right out of the box) and one plain text file that contains quotes.

You may want to seriously customize the script, plz feel absolutely free to do so.

Note: your web server PHP engine must be compiled with GD2 library in order for the Text-to-image converter (q.php) to work.



Customization Options

There are many url parameter that you can make use of when calling the text-to-image converter script.

f - fontname  (e.g. default)
c - color code in hex  (e.g. 000000)
b - background color code in hex  (e.g. FFFFFF)
s - line spacing   (e.g. 3) (range = 1-5)
w - image width   (e.g. 500) (range = 200-600)
pt - top padding   (e.g. 3) (range = 0 - 10)
pl - left padding   (e.g. 1) (range = 0 - 10)
a - author line spacing   (e.g. 3) (range = 0 - 10)
i - image format   (e.g. 1) (default 0 = png, 1 = gif, 2 = jpeg)

u - url, without "http://"   (e.g. yoursite.com/myquotes/)


Note: we have a few fonts available for your choice:
default
courier
iso915   (not set to as default, but also recommended)
proggyclean
proggysquare
trisk
reize


Usage:

[Select]

[img]http://mrcody.com/qb/q.php?u=yoursite.com/myquotes/[/img]

[img]http://mrcody.com/qb/q.php?u=yoursite.com/myquotes/&s=3&c=999999&pt=4&f=iso915[/img]

[img]http://www.mrcody.com/qb/q.php?u=www.mrcody.com/myquotes&c=222222&b=e9f2fe&pl=3&pt=4[/img] <-- that's what i have in my forum signature.

How to add quotes to quotes.txt

One quote per line. Text is to be auto-wrapped by the script so dont worry about line wrapping. Two consecutive vertical bars || represents a hard line break.

Example:
"There is Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows CE... So we have Windows CEMENT"||-- Joto






Author's note:

You are allowed to download, use and modify the script in anyway you like. And as long as you don't post ASCII porn and is a member of DonationCoder.com, you are allowed to call the text-to-image converter script on www.mrcody.com for free. 

I'd really LOVE to see more dynamic fun quotes (not at all necessarily from DC members) in forum signatures here everyday!!

208

Site/Forum Features / Re: Converting threads for offline reading?

« on: May 13, 2007, 09:50 PM »

For DC Fans: Bring DC Forum to your Desktop for searching/browsing/etc.

Finding stuff on DC is now a piece of cake to me.

btw, I'll upload most up-to-date dc forum archive soon. Stay tuned!

209

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.4 - May 13, 2007

« on: May 13, 2007, 12:58 PM »

btw, the links open in IE eventhough my default browser is Firefox..

-lanux128 (May 13, 2007, 10:42 AM)

R u sure? If u are already using the latest version (v1.1.4), then congratulations you have found a bug for me to fix! 

210

General Software Discussion / Re: .Net Framework

« on: May 13, 2007, 06:49 AM »

It's just like vb runtime and java runtime environment, or even Adobe flash player plugin for your browsers.

".net applications (and thus .net framework 2) are becoming more and more popular; if you install new software on a fairly regular basis you are going to need to install it sooner or later" -- Mouser

To learn more about it, read http://en.wikipedia..../wiki/.net_framework

I was told I needed it to run ie7, yet I am running ie 7 without it.

Perhaps Windows Update has already installed it for you (clandestinely! without your knowledge!), but no worries, it won't harm your PC.

211

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.4 - May 13, 2007

« on: May 13, 2007, 04:22 AM »

btw, v1.1.4 allows you to read posts in their entirety inside the notifier.

212

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.39 - January 30, 2007

« on: May 13, 2007, 04:06 AM »

New version v1.1.4 uploaded! 

Changes:

1. Links embedded in posts now open in default browser (instead of IE)

Yuck!

-app103 (April 21, 2007, 07:39 AM)

2. Autorun at startup option now modifies registry settings in CurrentUser only.
3. Use less system resources.

As for "Ability to mark a post as read.", I'm not able to tell the notifier to read your firefox forum logon cookie/credential.

213

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« on: May 13, 2007, 01:21 AM »

Plz help contribute to the database (i.e. msg me) if you've got ideas, erotic or not! 

214

General Software Discussion / MOVED: Super Flexible File Synchronizer v3.40 (on discount)

« on: May 12, 2007, 10:55 PM »

This topic has been moved to General Discount Discussion.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8509.0

215

General Software Discussion / Re: BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

« on: May 12, 2007, 02:00 AM »

Well is that not stating the obvious. How many spammers would engage in IRC chat with ADM? Is he that dumb or new to the game?

How many spammers would engage in IRC chat with ADM and admit he spammed? Probability theories fail in this case. He joined IRC and admitted "we spammed", well maybe it only happens every 100-200 years but it did. Perhaps our forum thread threated the reputation of his product and he was forced to defend it no matter how.


Showing of technically solid, black and white, indisputable evidence is less and less likely to be to a practical approach to identifying spyware today.

The intelligence of malware authors should not be underestimated. They are getting smarter by the hour. Malware does not have to behave badly and get caught right after you install it, otherwise it will become antivirus fodder very soon. It does not have to display ads to you upon launch everytime so you'd be figuring out how to get rid of it. It does not even have to play nasty on you until the developer decides that his user base has reached a certain level that it becomes profitable to enable the dormant spyware module. And you will be there frantically looking for the culprit among your recently installed apps.

Sometimes we just have to take all aspects of the matter (technical or not) into consideration, couple with some not-so-absolutely-sufficient technical evidence - to make a judgment.

So users: Take some hints if you can!

Happens every day all over the place so I dont know why so upset.

AFAIK, we have folks here who use Orbit Downloader, some of whom even defended the program upon revelation of potential spyware activities and offered advice to the developer. It is my belief that they deserve to be better informed.

216

General Software Discussion / Re: BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

« on: May 11, 2007, 10:16 PM »

Anyways....I don't understand why all the posting on forums when it's free. What is the purpose? I don't know.

No spyware/adware on earth charges you a dime. What's the purpose of exposing their nasty tricks?

217

General Software Discussion / Re: BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

« on: May 11, 2007, 10:15 PM »

How is the chronology in this?

Spamming started from November 09, 2006 here on DC forums (their sites were registered on October 17 2006, according to WHOIS) when a guy related to the team posted about OrbitDownloader.

Spamming resumes on May 10, 2007.

How you know spamming is sponsored?

1. Overwhelming feedbacks from search engines

Take one search query for example:  http://www.google.co...mp;sa=N&filter=0


2. Forum IP and email records





(click on the following usernames to read their last posts)

elva7025 is the first guy who posted a series of messages promoting OrbitDownloader on DC forums. We had to delete all of them but one, which was later moved to Announce Your Products section.

fishathome looks like an innonent user and supporter of Orbit Downloader but he happened to share the same ip with elva7025. 

orbitdev claims to be "the team leader of Orbit Downloader's develop tem"  but he happened to share the same ip with elva7025 and fishathome.    Interestingly, he introduced himself to us on the forum.

It's quite obviously that elva7025, fishathome, and orbitdev are the same guy who registered a couple of dummy accounts on the forum and played as puppet master hands from behind, is it not the case? Proxies that he used wouldn't help hide his identity.

Now we have Amabel who really likes the new IE7Pro... u get the idea.

Should I replace the words "endorsed and sponsored" with "directly involved", to be more accurate? 


3. orbitdev, the team leader admitted on IRC that he spammed. (read chat logs above)

If you are not sure about the scope of their spamming activities, check out "user" reviews and comments on download sites like download.com and softpedia.com. And moreover, Google it - there's just too much to miss.

218

General Software Discussion / Re: BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

« on: May 11, 2007, 07:35 PM »

And what being more disturbing is that so far their products (downloader and IE extension) directly connects to the Internet to work.

219

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: orbit downloader 1.0-the fastest free download manager.

« on: May 11, 2007, 07:26 PM »

Read discussion here for more information:

BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

220

General Software Discussion / BEWARE: IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader

« on: May 11, 2007, 07:22 PM »

Especially if you are already using IE7Pro and/or OrbitDownloader, please read in!

Refer to the following two threads on the forum to see why I made this post:
IE7Pro : An ultimate Add-On for IE7
orbit downloader 1.0-the fastest free download manager

IE7Pro and OrbitDownloader are developed by the same team if you have a look at their about us pages and my snapshots of domain whois info  - YES you are right, they are spamming our forums again and propagating their "user testimonials" all over the net. As a friend of mine has duly pointed out, they have flooded the web with advertising to the point that it drowns out all complaints, google it and you won't possibly miss their spams. Given overwhelming evidence, I'm pretty sure that these activities are officially endorsed and sponsored. Orbitdownloader.com, which hosts a previous unknown product, gets a Google PageRank of 6 in such a short period (the site was created on 17-Oct-06, according to WHOIS)

WHOIS info:



There is not even a slightest chance I might be tempted to try these products out and I'd like to further inform folks here of these unethical marketing behaviors of the same origin. Why would you support products whose developers have more incentives to advertising in almost any way, acceptable or not, than to perfect their products and genuinely support their users (just have a look at their forums).

I hope you guys have not left this thread behind: orbit downloader 1.0-the fastest free download manager. The heated discussion ensued a wave of unethical marketing on the dc forums that promoted the product as a disguised satisfied user. It's still extremely easy to find out heaps and heaps of homebrew reviews, comments, and ratings on OrbitDownloader that people would not normally have given out for the less-than-stellar product.

I believe we were very happy to welcome the leading developer, Daniel Fang (read his self-introduction post) to the forum when he said to us on the IRC channel "we learn an lesson to be an polite software" and admitted "We spamming the review site".

Yes, it's often hard to get the word out esp. when you have a new product and are, unfortunately, short on cash to advertise it (and that's one of the reasons we created the Announce Your Software/Service/Product section to help software authors), but the IE7Pro and Orbitdownloader team has overdone their tricks, repeatedly (IE7Pro is their most recent product being promoted very unethically), to a degree that disgusts me irregardless of all kind considerations.

OrbitDownloader talks on DC IRC channel (excerpted from public chat logs, download the attached zip for complete logs):

Spoiler

Nov 13 00:51:46 *   Developer is now known as orbitdev
Nov 13 00:52:17 <mouser>   
Nov 13 00:53:07 <orbitdev>   We spamming the review site, and some one follow us spamming orbit are malware...
Nov 13 00:53:32 <orbitdev>   We will do more anti-virus/adware scaner check more.


Nov 15 05:29:10 <orbitdev>   mouser: is there any guide about how to promote an personal software..
Nov 15 05:29:20 <orbitdev>   mouser: I want have an look.


Nov 15 20:10:49 *   orbitdev ([email protected]) has joined #donationcoder
Nov 15 20:11:08 <Dell[a]>   hi orbitdev
Nov 15 20:11:15 <orbitdev>   hi Dell..
Nov 15 20:16:32 <app>   hi orbitdev
Nov 15 20:17:12 <orbitdev>   hi app
Nov 15 20:19:06 <mouser>   hi orbit
Nov 15 20:19:21 <mouser>   orbit i think you  have some enemies, thought im not sure why
Nov 15 20:22:15 <orbitdev>   you mean the anti-orbit post?
Nov 15 20:22:24 <mouser>   i dont mean on dc
Nov 15 20:22:30 <orbitdev>   some are our own problem's
Nov 15 20:23:08 <orbitdev>   the other's may be the competitor's post..
Nov 15 20:23:17 <orbitdev>   dunno clearly.
Nov 15 20:23:19 <orbitdev>   mouser:
Nov 15 20:23:30 <orbitdev>   mouser: ask you an serious question
Nov 15 20:23:43 <mouser>   one person entered this channel before and yelled at us for supporting orbit download spyware
Nov 15 20:23:54 <orbitdev>   mouser: how to promote an software over the intenet?
Nov 15 20:23:57 <orbitdev>   ...
Nov 15 20:24:03 <mouser>   and another posted on betanews a comment mad at donationcoder and mentioned we support orbit spyware
Nov 15 20:24:13 <orbitdev>   sorry to bother you ...
Nov 15 20:24:17 <mouser>   is ok
Nov 15 20:24:33 <orbitdev>   I feel very very sorry about this.
Nov 15 20:24:35 <mouser>   just dont prove us fools by making spyware/adware!
Nov 15 20:24:40 <orbitdev>   yeah.
Nov 15 20:24:43 <orbitdev>   I promise.
Nov 15 20:24:55 <mouser>   then you have no need to apologize and we welcome you
Nov 15 20:25:32 <orbitdev>   mouser: Is there any typical method to promote software?
Nov 15 20:25:43 <mouser>   none of us here are very good at software promotion im afraid
Nov 15 20:25:50 <orbitdev>   mouser: I only know to submit it to every download site.
Nov 15 20:25:54 <mouser>   yeah
Nov 15 20:25:56 <orbitdev>   mouser: without spam.
Nov 15 20:26:10 <mouser>   well lets see..
Nov 15 20:26:19 <orbitdev>   mouser: another things I know is to develop some unique feature
Nov 15 20:26:21 <mouser>   you are making a blog, thats good
Nov 15 20:26:31 <mouser>   yes main thing is keep developing the software
Nov 15 20:26:36 <mouser>   over time people will see you are serious
Nov 15 20:26:41 <orbitdev>   mouser: let the user have to use your product.
Nov 15 20:26:44 <mouser>   and more will go take a look and try it
Nov 15 20:43:07 <mouser>   orbit i only know of 2 ways to get attention for a program
Nov 15 20:43:14 <mouser>   3 ways really
Nov 15 20:43:17 <mouser>   1) buy advertising
Nov 15 20:43:39 <mouser>   2) keep working on your product and improving it and it will eventually get mentioned by blogs and other sites
Nov 15 20:43:54 <mouser>   (involves luck and waiting)
Nov 15 20:44:10 <mouser>   3) have friends in high places who will talk about your stuff
Nov 15 20:44:24 <mouser>   #2 is the one most of us have to live with
Nov 15 20:44:32 <mouser>   since we are not rich and dont have powerful friends
Nov 15 20:44:50 <mouser>   so i can only suggest you keep working and improving
Nov 15 20:45:08 <orbitdev>   yeah...
Nov 15 20:45:10 <mouser>   and think about stuff you might add that would make it unique and useful
Nov 15 20:45:21 <orbitdev>   en
Nov 15 20:46:33 <orbitdev>   the only thing we can do is to continue increase the quality of our product.
Nov 15 20:46:47 <orbitdev>   and learning the rules from you & other guys.
Nov 15 20:48:12 <mouser>   #1 rule -> enjoy what you are doing
Nov 15 20:50:45 <mouser>   if you want to talk to us about your plans for future of your website
Nov 15 20:50:49 <mouser>   like you were saying before
Nov 15 20:51:03 <mouser>   we might be able to give you suggestions and ideas
Nov 15 20:52:17 <orbitdev>   en
Nov 15 20:53:32 <orbitdev>   our website still in very early stage. just an video clips aggregator. after we have the first beta version, I will invite you to have an look.
Nov 15 20:54:03 <mouser>   sounds good


Nov 17 01:35:53 <Orbitdev>   mouser: we make the final decision base on your advice, terminate orbitnet after orbitgui quit, and you can disable orbitnet through options menu/installation menu, Becasue of this, we delay the 1.0.0.3 release date . Because of the weekend, we will release it in the next thuesday.
Nov 17 01:36:26 <Orbitdev>   mouser: We learn an lesson to be an polite software

- Anderson


[edited to fix a link]

221

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« on: May 10, 2007, 10:24 PM »

Ajax live suggest has just been added to freethesaurus.net. Hope you all like it!

To enable/disable it, simply toggle between show/hide live suggestions on the top right. Live suggest is not enabled by default.

222

General Software Discussion / Re: IE7Pro : An ultimate Add-On for IE7

« on: May 10, 2007, 04:59 AM »

Hi, Amabel, next time you post this somewhere else, plz make sure you customize text so that it appears less like spam. 

http://www.google.co...mp;sa=N&filter=0

And you may want to protect your site privacy as well. 

http://whois.domaintools.com/ie7pro.com

223

Official Announcements / FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« on: May 07, 2007, 07:17 PM »

FreeThesaurus.net is a new online thesaurus service offered by DonationCoder.com, for English language lovers around the globe in their continuous quest for the right words.

It's the online brother of our Mobysaurus, with much more frequent updates, and displays no error message when you are found guilty of not using Windows.

Two of the major features in Mobysaurus are also offered on FreeThesaurus.net:

• Highlighting and linking synonyms that are themselves main entries  - you'll see words with dotted, khaki underlines that are clickable.
• Headword suggestions - the part starts with 'Main entries similar to...' at the bottom of the results page, in which it displays a number of related main entries that may also interest you.

I hope you will like it more than many other thesaurus sites out there that will show you less entries than ads and bloat up the page so it takes quite a few seconds to load. After all, when you are looking for synonyms, you just want to see relevant words and you want them now, is it not? 

This is my first php+mysql project (before this there was hmmm, nothing, nil, zero, nada) and I'm still very inexperienced in web programming. Thanks to mouser for offering me his huge helping hand during development. And if you come across any bugs plz do let me know! 

224

Living Room / Re: Solving an hibernation-related problem on a XP Home PC

« on: May 07, 2007, 05:50 PM »

Have u looked into your Power Options (in control panel)?

225

Living Room / Re: For DC Fans: Bring DC Forum to your Desktop for searching/browsing/etc.

« on: April 28, 2007, 05:47 PM »

Does this forum downloading wind up costing Mouser some money?

-mrainey (April 28, 2007, 03:55 PM)

Yes, he's complaining to me about huge financial loss! 

j/k. Every time the crawler is at work, both DC and I lose 1GB of available monthly allocated bandwidth, but that's no big deal at all.