Topics

376

Living Room / World's First Flying Car Prepares for Take-off

« on: January 11, 2009, 06:08 PM »

Contrary to reports by The Onion that no flying cars exist or are being built, the Times Online is reporting that flying cars could be available as soon as 18 months from now.

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it’s both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time.

from http://drudgereport.com/

377

Multi Photo Quotes / LOLMouser Media Pack for Multi Photo Quotes

« on: January 11, 2009, 01:44 PM »

Announcing the LOLMouser Media Pack Add-On Extraordinaire for Multi Photo Quotes!

If you're not sure what a LOLMouser is, basically it's just a DonationCoder themed LOLCat. Images for this media pack were taken from the LOLMouser thread.



Download it.

378

General Software Discussion / Electronic Arts (Compliment)

« on: January 10, 2009, 07:23 PM »

Dear EA,

Thank you for your wonderful support! You have fixed my problem entirely!

In the process of following the latest troubleshooting steps, I followed the directions very carefully. I made a copy of My Spore Creations and then manually eradicated every last trace of Spore from my system as per your instructions, with the exception of the My Spore Creations backup, of course. Isn't this long entire process of removing everything from all these obscure locations on my hard drive and from within the registry supposed to be done by the uninstaller? Alas, I admit my own shameful ignorance in comparison to the great intelligence of EA's tech support and dutifully followed all instructions you have so generously imparted upon me.

Then I reinstalled Spore, signed into my Spore account and attempted to install the patch. It was here that my own stupidity temporarily foiled my progress.

In my foolishness, I launched the game and allowed it to download the patch. I don't think the crashing problem wanted to be solved, because it made every effort to keep me from patching the game, starting first by purposely limiting the bandwidth allowed from your servers to my computer. Nevertheless, I persisted and waited about 45 minutes for the patch to finish downloading. Take that! I thought my victory was close at hand. The game asked me if I wanted to install the patch, and naturally I said I did. But then the wily game crash retaliated by giving me an error saying the patch could not be installed. I knew this wasn't OK, but I clicked the OK button anyway and it brought me back to the main menu. This was indeed a tricky beast to slay, and I figured I would have to resort to tricky tactics as well.

I was wise to this particular trick, as I had similar problems the first time I tried to patch the game from 1.0 to 1.1. So I checked the cache folders for the EA Download Manager, but to my chagrin they were empty (just as they were the last time I encountered this problem). At this point I began to wonder why I even had that useless EADM installed. It never seems to do anything. Unwilling to spend another 45 minutes downloading a patch that won't install again, I retreated from my attack and accepted defeat. For the time being! The crashing bugs may have won the battle, but I knew that through following your enlightened instructions, even a simple fool like me would be able to win the war!

Today I decided to give it another try and had a much more successful experience. I must have caught the bugs off guard as they didn't have time to limit my bandwidth or keep the patch from installing. The patch downloaded from within the game in about 10 minutes and installed correctly without a hitch. At this point I realized it was practically guaranteed to be blue skies and vast space from here on out! So I launched the game again, or maybe it automatically launched itself, I can't quite recall at this stage. (I hope you don't hold it against a simpleminded idiot like myself that I don't remember this exact detail.) I let the intro movie play and allowed the game to log me in to the Spore servers. Success after success!

All that was left for me to do to ensure my victory over the bugs was to load my game and see if these extraordinarily complex troubleshooting steps actually allowed me to visit my home planet without crashing the game. It was at this point when the crashing bugs revealed the aces up their sleeves. There was no saved game to load.

Apparently, if you only back up the contents of My Spore Creations, which consist of various image files and videos of your creations, it doesn't actually back up the save data for the game!

"Oh no!" I thought, "I've lost all of my saved games and hours spent building, creating, exploring, expanding, etc." And with a heavy heart I felt the hopelessness of defeat.

I began to ask myself questions such as: How could the brilliance of EA Tech Support have failed me? How could the well trained, highly educated, unimaginably omniscient technicians at EA have failed me?

It took quite some time to understand, but the gears started turning, and the fleas jumped off my head as the temperature began to rise to uncomfortable levels they weren't accustomed to, and I realized that you had not failed me. You are, in fact, saviors! You absolutely solved the problem beyond a shadow of a doubt!

Now, forgive me for being a little bit slow. As I alluded to earlier, I'm not the sharpest spoon in the drawer. But what I eventually realized was that with no saved game data to load, there was absolutely no way the game could crash when I visited my home planet. I don't even have a home planet anymore! Indeed, as I let it sit here on the main menu, showing the spiral galaxy and six uninhabited planets on which to start new games, the application is very stable and it does not appear as though it will crash any time soon.

Victory is ours! Your plan was incomprehensible genius! I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Will you please forgive my unfaithfulness?

Forgive me if this is out of place, as I would never assume to understand your brilliance, but I think I have an even better method to keep the game from ever crashing again. If I just follow the steps you outlined previously, except just stop before reinstalling the game, I'll have no game to crash either! No home planet, no game, no crashes! It's absolutely brilliant.

Though there is one area of your ingenious plan that I could use a little more clarification on. Without a home planet and without a game, what am I supposed to do with those tiny little images of my creations that I backed up? The game (I haven't eradicated every last trace of it from my system again yet) doesn't even recognize half of them as being my creations anymore, and they won't really do anything neat like they did when I spent so many hours building, creating, and perfecting them. I'm almost beginning to think I should just delete these as well, but I know, with your unending intelligence, that you told me to back them up for a reason. Please shed some light on a poor halfwit who lacks the understanding.

I praise you for your incredible and undeniably great wisdom! You have helped me so much, every step of the way. I am completely and absolutely satisfied in every way possible, thanks to your generous support. You have my eternal gratitude.

Thankful always,
Deozaan

379

General Software Discussion / Electronic Arts (Complaint)

« on: December 21, 2008, 11:07 PM »

EDIT: I'm a born-again believer in EA. They're the best in existence.

380

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / NANY 2009 Release: HexCards

« on: December 12, 2008, 01:51 AM »

NANY 2009 Entry Information

Application Name	HexCards
Version	1.08.2008.12.30
Short Description	Card "Battle" Game
Supported OSes	Windows 98 or newer
Web Page	http://hex.deozaan.com/
Download Link	HexCards (Windows)
System Requirements	Minimum 500 MHz processor 256 MB RAM Windows 98 OpenGL or DirectX compatible accelerated 3D video card Recommended 1.0 GHz processor 512 MB RAM Windows XP nVidia or ATI accelerated 3D video card
Version History	v1.08.2008.12.30 - Final NANY 2009 Release. Game now highlights winner and automatically starts a new game. v0.07.2008.12.11 - Fixed the code to find and store adjacent tiles. Game logic now automatically captures cards. v0.06.2008.11.08 - Game board now creates an extra ring of hex tiles for walls. v0.05.2008.10.11 - More data is stored to make it easier to find adjacent cards/tiles. v0.04.2008.10.08 - Coded to dynamically create board of any size. (alternate board sizes not implemented) v0.03.2008.10.07 - Coded to dynamically scale graphics sizes based on tile size. v0.02.2008.10.06 - Streamlined creation of hex shapes for various uses (playing cards, board tiles, hand tiles, etc.). v0.01.2008.10.05 - First playable prototype.
Author	Deozaan

Description
HexCards is a card game in which two players strategically place hexagonal cards on a playing field to capture the other's cards. Each of the six sides of each card is assigned a numeric value ranging from 1 to 10 (10 is displayed as an "A"). When you place a card on the playing field, you can capture cards in adjacent tiles if the value for that specific side is larger than the value on the adjacent card's side. Watch the video tutorial for a demonstration with instructions for more information.

Features

• It's playable.

Screenshots

The start of a new game.


A game ending in a draw (both players have 4 cards).

Usage
Installation
Unzip into desired directory and run hexCards.exe.

Using the Application
If you're not sure how to play, check out the video tutorial.

Uninstallation
Delete HexCards directory.
It may also save a few kb of harmless data into the Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Craven Entertainment\HexCards\ directory.

Known Issues
No known bugs.

381

Living Room / Funny, Strange, and Confusing Error Messages

« on: December 07, 2008, 08:15 AM »

I thought for certain that we had a thread like this before but I couldn't find it. And rather than resurrect two similar threads from last year (here and here) I decided to start a new one.

The general idea of this thread is to post screen shots of any genuine error messages you've come across that are funny, strange, absolutely not at all helpful, or even confusing. I'll start off.

I encountered this one a few days ago. I can't remember what application I was running at the time, but I think it was one of those free MMO games.



This one I got a couple years ago and once again I can't remember what application it came from.



And finally, this is one I didn't personally witness, but an online friend of mine sent me the image of this even more years ago. I believe this was a message that occurred during the installation of some software he owned.

382

Found Deals and Discounts / Half-Life 10 Year Anniversary Sale: $1 (Ends Friday Nov. 21)

« on: November 20, 2008, 06:34 PM »

Steam is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Half-Life by reducing the price of Half-Life 1 to just $0.98. As someone who absolutely loved the original Half-Life but for some reason never finished it, I'll be snatching up this deal! UPDATE: The deal has ended.. Sorry if you missed out!

Here's an excerpt from my review from The Best Games You've Never Played thread:

Half-Life 1 was incredible to me because it was the first FPS game (I know of) that actually had a real story about why you were going around killing things. It was the total opposite of the macho FPS "Bad Dude" games of the day like Doom, Quake, or Duke Nukem 3D. You weren't there because you were a tough mofo and the world/universe relied on you for its survival. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and you're just trying to get out alive. You don't even start out with a weapon. When you first encounter the enemies, you've got to RUN! Plus, the way it loaded sections of the game kept you interested in the story because you were always trying to survive one disaster after another. There was no transition between levels where you could look at your statistics and save and rest and relax. It would have made a great sci-fi book (or dare I say movie?) if properly adapted.

-https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=11606.msg104034#msg104034

Why are you still reading this? Hurry up and buy it!

383

Living Room / R.I.P. Michael Crichton

« on: November 06, 2008, 09:18 PM »

One of my favorite authors has unexpectedly passed away today.

Michael Crichton, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of NBC's ER, has died. He was 66.

In a statement, his family calls his death unexpected, but said he had been privately battling cancer.

Read the rest at USMagazine.com

I have read many of his books and they helped shape my imagination and perception. I will greatly miss reading new work from him.

384

Living Room / Swoopo - A New Take on Online Auctions, or a Scam?

« on: November 02, 2008, 01:28 PM »

For what is probably the first time in my life, I just saw an ad banner that interested me enough to find out more information about the product being advertised. The "product" is called Swoopo, and it is an online auction site unlike any other I've seen before.

From staring at it for the past 10 minutes trying to understand how it works, this is my observation:

Auctions have a continuous countdown timer to when the auction will end. However, this is actually the part that is vastly different from traditional auction websites. The timers are relatively short, and are based on the current bid for the item. So for instance, I'm looking at a Nintendo Wii that is currently going for $0.60. That's right. 60 cents. And the countdown timer appears to be 30 minutes until the end of the auction.

But here's the thing: Each time someone bids, it resets the timer. And actually, someone just bid on the Wii, and now it is going for $0.75 and the timer is now 15 minutes until the end of the auction. And it continues like this. As the bid increases, the time on the countdown timer decreases, until some of the auctions are down to 10 or 15 seconds for each bid.

And to prevent an auction lasting forever, there is a final ending time for the auction. This Wii auction is scheduled to end, at the latest, on December 2nd, if people keep bidding until then.



So it actually sounded fun and unique enough that I decided to sign up and try it out. And that's when I learned about the one "feature" that, to me, makes it sound too much like a scam than a real auction site.

You see, in order to place any bid on any item, you need to pay $1 for each bid. (Basically, you buy bids in advance.) That, to me, brings up too many questions about whether these other bidders are even real people, or just auto-bots made by Swoopo to artificially inflate the bid price and make you pay another $1 to bid again.

I can tell by some strange English sentences on the site that it's based in a foreign country. (Looks like Germany, after some research.) Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's just a side-effect of being inundated with spam that I'm always a little wary of professional looking sites with strange English translations.

Looks too much like a scam when their main source of revenue is to have people buy lots of bids instead of buying lots of products. Too much of a conflict of interests for it to seem ethical to me. I suggest you take a look at it if you want to just see what I'm talking about, but don't say I didn't warn you if you try to buy something and end up paying more on your bids than what you actually paid for the item.

In conclusion: Avoid it!


P.S. They also operate under http://www.swoopo.co.uk, http://www.swoopo.de, http://www.swoopo.es, and http://www.swoopo.at

385

Living Room / Math Homework and Q*bert.

« on: October 24, 2008, 04:46 AM »

@!#?@! I've been staring at this Pascal's Triangle^w for so long that I'm starting to see Q*bert^w in it!

386

Living Room / Real Life Tron on an Apple IIgs

« on: October 20, 2008, 02:55 PM »

An amazing true story of Tron:

One day, when Marco and I were playing against two computer opponents, we forced one of the AI cycles to trap itself between its own walls and the bottom game border.  Sensing an impending crash, it fired a missile, just like it always did whenever it was trapped.  But this time was different – instead of firing at another trail, it fired at the game border, which looked like any other light cycle trail as far as the computer was concerned.  The missile impacted with the border, leaving a cycle-sized hole, and the computer promptly took the exit and left the main playing field.  Puzzled, we watched as the cycle drove through the scoring display at the bottom of the screen.  It easily avoided the score digits and then drove off the screen altogether.

Shortly after, the system crashed.

Our minds reeled as we tried to understand what we had just seen.  The computer had found a way to get out of the game.  When a cycle left the game screen, it escaped into computer memory – just like in the movie.

Click to read more about the event and the explanation of how/why this happened.

from AIGameDev.com

387

General Software Discussion / Third Party Check Disk replacement?

« on: October 14, 2008, 09:44 PM »

I've been experimenting with TrueCrypt, or at least attempting to, but it keeps telling me that my hard drive has a bad block. I've run check disk twice and it never finds any problems. TrueCrypt specifically mentions that check disk may not even see the bad block and I should try to find a third party solution.

Any tips or suggestions for such a solution?

388

Living Room / PRO-IP Act signed into Law

« on: October 13, 2008, 08:13 PM »

What the smurf is my government doing? The RIAA and the MPAA have won a major advantage in screwing over everyday citizens like you and me with the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act that was signed into law today.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush signed into law on Monday a controversial bill that would stiffen penalties for movie and music piracy at the federal level.

The law creates an intellectual property czar who will report directly to the president on how to better protect copyrights both domestically and internationally. The Justice Department had argued that the creation of this position would undermine its authority.

-http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE49C7EI20081013

For an in depth perspective on the PRO-IP Act, read Law of the Game on Joystiq.

The PRO-IP Act does three things, generally: 1) it increases the penalties for infringement by expanding what is considered a 'work;' 2) it broadens the ability of the government to permanently seize goods; and 3) it creates an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a new cabinet position whose sole job is to increase intellectual property enforcement. In short, it's a load of bad news for consumers, but really, it's not that much good news for many intellectual property owners either, as I'll explain.

[...]

I hesitate to think what might happen if a machinima is made from a game using the licensed soundtrack in absence of a Machinima Rule from the developer. Not only could the machinima maker be looking at issues from both the game developer and the musicians, but so could anyone who downloads the video.

-http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/10/lgj-the-pro-ip-act-and-gaming/

Sounds like it's time to start using TrueCrypt for your PC that doesn't even leave your house!

from Joystiq

389

Living Room / Malware Tricks: Skype Edition

« on: October 13, 2008, 02:18 PM »

I just got an IM on Skype from some random user trying to sound like an official service by being named Online Monitor ®:

[1:01:12 PM] Online Monitor ® says: WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
=============================

ATTENTION ! Security Center has detected
malware on your computer !

Affected Software:

Microsoft Windows Vista
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft Windows Win98
Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Impact of Vulnerability: Remote Code Execution / Virus Infection /
Unexpected shutdowns

Recommendation: Users running vulnerable version should install a repair
utility immediately

Your system IS affected, download the patch from the address below !
Failure to do so may result in severe computer malfunction.

[link removed]

I don't know how common things like this are on other IM clients (since I only use Gtalk) but I thought people should be made aware. I also took this opportunity to educate my wife about things like this to make sure she doesn't unwittingly click the link.

More info about this particular occurrence here: Skype Security Blog

Note that the link in my scam was different than the one posted on the Security Blog.

390

Living Room / The 150 Best Online Flash Games

« on: October 07, 2008, 03:06 AM »

Tech Cult has compiled a list of the 150 best Flash games. As a testament to the quality of this list, many of these have already been mentioned on DonationCoder!

It was a long and exhausting task: playing hundreds of online games for hours in a row, day after day. It was hard, but someone had to do it.

The result is the list that you will find below. Enjoy!

-http://www.techcult.com/the-150-best-online-flash-games/

image courtesy of xkcd

from http://techcult.com/

391

DC Gamer Club / TIGSource Demake Competition Results

« on: October 06, 2008, 06:42 PM »

The good folks over at The Independent Gaming Source have announced the results of their recent Demake Competition.

If you're like me, you may be wondering what a "demake" is. Well, the word comes from the idea of reversing the process of "a remake" by taking a newer game and "demaking" it into a retro, ~8-bit style game.

TIGSource Demake Competition Results

The top 3 games are:

• Soundless Mountain II - (demake of Silent Hill 2)
• Gang Garrison II - (demake of Team Fortress 2)
• Aquarium - (demake of Aquaria)

392

Developer's Corner / Universe Project

« on: September 20, 2008, 07:11 PM »

Mouser got me started a gaming project earlier this summer which I'm just calling "Universe" for now. It's a two-dimensional space game heavily inspired by (mouser's personal favorite) Escape Velocity Nova (EV Nova), the Star Control Trilogy (specifically StarCon 2 & StarCon 3), and other space games I've played over the years.

It's still very early in its development--just an alpha demo right now--but at least it's interactive. And that's a lot farther than I ever got with Docoto Defense.

What happened to Docoto Defense, anyway?

In short: It was too overwhelming and I was too unfamiliar with the tools I had.

Most of the time spent while "working on" Docoto Defense I was actually going through broken tutorials and poor documentation. The project was much too ambitious for my skills and I quickly became overwhelmed with all the things I had to do without knowing how to do them.

Not to mention that a couple months into the project trying to learn the coding process for TGB I decided to change to TGE, basically starting the process all over again, only to finally revert back to TGB when I found out that TGE was going to be so much harder.

So anyway, it's just an alpha demo right now but I'd love to get feedback on controls and things when I release new builds. I'd really like to get some comments on the blog as direct feedback for each new build, but if you just comment back here that would be fine too.

Other info: Universe is set up to work with DCUpdater to download newest versions. I also have a tiny banner in my signature that links to the site and has the date of the latest update. But if you are the kind of person who would never remember to check back at the site or never run DCUpdater, you can also subscribe to the RSS Feed of all the updates.

In case you missed the link above, the website is http://universe.deozaan.com/.

393

Living Room / I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« on: September 16, 2008, 02:08 AM »

I was just talking in the DonationCoder IRC channel and a rather obvious fact became an epiphany to me! A "mouser" is a cat! How come nobody thought of a LOLCat before where the cat is Mouser? Here's mine:



Put words in mouser's mouth, or just keep it DonationCoder themed, and make your own LOLMouser. You can use I Can Haz Cheezburger's LOL Builder if you don't have the tools or pictures to do your own.

Once you've made your LOLMouser, take a screenshot or save the image and upload it to this thread as an attachment so it doesn't steal bandwidth from other sites or mysteriously disappear!

394

DC Gamer Club / Try out the Spore Prototypes

« on: September 11, 2008, 10:58 PM »

Whether you can't afford it, don't think your computer could handle it, or if you're just plain curious to see what the developers used to prototype the final version of Spore, I'm here to tell you about the 12 prototypes available for download and try out from the Spore website.

Click the picture to download the prototypes.

from Joystiq

395

General Software Discussion / G.ho.st - A Free Virtual PC/WebOS

« on: September 09, 2008, 10:16 PM »

While browsing topics and following links from the 10 Things IT Won't Tell You thread, I came across a mention of this website/service which is currently in public alpha. Here's a small excerpt from the Key Features page:

•  Access your desktop, files, apps and settings from any Internet browser
•  Desktop and apps run without the need for installation or updating
•  Customize your desktop and choose from 20+ available languages
•  G.ho.st has chosen the very best available storage service for your precious data - Amazon Web Services
•  5GB professionally hosted and backed-up disk space
•  Many file types can be viewed or edited online with a simple double-click
•  Upload and sync your documents, photos and music easily using the G.ho.st Upload Download Utility, Sync program or FTP
•  Manage smart shortcuts called Tagged Things to Web resources - webmarks (URLs), files, photos, videos, music, products
•  Single sign-on to other services such as Google Docs using My Logins

-http://www.g.ho.st/home/KeyFeatures.jsp

You also get an e-mail address username(at)g.ho.st and you can easily access your WebOS just by typing in g.ho.st?username in your browser. It seems like a pretty neat idea to me even if it's not all that useful at this point in time. And by the way, this is being posted from the G.ho.st browser inside my G.ho.st Virtual PC.

Resized screenshot of the desktop:


FULL DISCLOSURE: If you sign up for an account and use my username (Deozaan) as the person who referred you, I get an additional 1GB of storage space. None of the links in this post automatically indicate me as a referrer, so you'd have to manually enter in my g.ho.st e-mail address for me to benefit from you signing up for an account. And I'd sure appreciate it if you did.

396

DC Gamer Club / Spore: The Evolution of the Crocidius (and other creations by Deozaan)

« on: September 08, 2008, 07:20 PM »

Yes, it's another Spore topic. This one shows the different iterations for my creature called the Crocidius.

[EDIT]Added thumbnail images which link to the corresponding Sporepedia website. And I've been adding more creations in this same thread.[/EDIT]

Unfortunately it only seems to save my final creature from the Cell stage, so it's missing several generations from the Cell stage.

Without further ado, I present:

Squigglyzonk:


Sproingyzoink:

Hi-Res images of Sproingyzoink

Gangly Stick:

Hi-Res image of Gangly Stick

Aahzoid:

Hi-Res images of Aahzoid

Aahzoid Pervectium:

Hi-Res image of Aahzoid Pervectium

Terrorgator:

Hi-Res image of Terrorgator

Fearalligator:

Hi-Res images of Fearalligator

Fearalligator Rex:

Hi-Res images of Fearalligator Rex

Crocidius:

Hi-Res images of Crocidius

397

Living Room / A heartwarming video with a big kitty!

« on: July 31, 2008, 01:38 AM »

This is so cute!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U

Read more about this true story at Wikipedia, Snopes, and from the Born Free Foundation (who helped Christian learn to live in the wild). Also, the Born Free website has the uncut ending of the documentary.

398

DcUpdater / DcUpdater Feature Requests

« on: July 30, 2008, 11:46 PM »

Hi mouser,

I really like DcUpdater. I think it is really useful and a great way to stay updated with DC software. Here are a couple of things I think would help improve the program:

1) Fix file association with .dcupdate so that the following happens when they are opened separately from the program:

• Either a forwarder file is created (like what happens when you register one with dcuhelper) or the path to the dcupdate file is added to the Extra Update Files list.
• DcUpdater is run normally.

This way when you open a .dcupdate file, you still see all of the other updates you can check/get and the application is automatically registered in DcUpdater from then on.

2) A commandline method (usable with dcuhelper) to show a dialog box saying no new updates were found. This dialog should require the user to click OK before closing out of the updater completely/automatically.

3) Change the name in the task bar from DcUppdater to something better. I'm a grammar nazi and I can't stand it being spelled like that! I still like DCAppdater (DC Application Updater) that was suggested a year ago when you found out about the Vista problems.

4) Room for a real, detailed description of the application. Maybe when it is clicked it expands a bit, kind of like Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Along with this, information about the changes in the latest version.

5) A way to filter/sort applications by website, author, or something along those lines. It would be neat to be able to expand or collapse sections for Mouser's Software, Skrommel's 1-Hour Software, etc. This should also be available in the "Available for Installation" tab.

Speaking of which, I also have a question about adding programs to the "Available for Installation" list. I found out I could do that by making a .dcupdate file with the Local version # of "not installed" but how does it know for sure if the application isn't really installed?

For example, if I have 5 applications that all use DcUpdater, and with a download of any software I include .dcupdate files to add the other 4 apps to the Available for Installation list to make it easy for users of my software to find my other great products, is there a way to check to see if DcUpdater already has update files for those apps so it doesn't make DcUpdater think that only 1 of my apps are installed even if the user has 4 of the 5?

How does it currently work with the ones you've got in that list now?

399

Living Room / Universe Sandbox

« on: July 28, 2008, 03:13 PM »

I found this a couple of days ago from Play This Thing.

Smash planets together, introduce rogue stars, and build new worlds from spinning discs of debris. Fire a moon into a planet or destroy everything you've created with a super massive black hole.

You can simulate and interact with:

* Our solar system: the 8 planets,160+ moons, and hundreds of asteroids
* Nearest 1000 stars to our Sun
* Our local group of galaxies
* An unlimited number of fictional scenarios

Tinker with your creation or sit back and watch the effects of gravity unfold. It's fun, accessible, and easy to use.

-http://universesandbox.com/

It's pretty fun to play around with. The trial version allows you to play around for 60 minutes before locking out some features. I'm not sure what the exact term is, but the software appears to be (required) donationware to me. You can pay whatever you think it's worth to you for a personal license. If your payment is $25 or more then he will send you a pair of Red & Blue 3D glasses which can be used with this software.

Be sure to check out the video!

Universe Sandbox

400

General Software Discussion / System Restore Trojan?

« on: June 27, 2008, 06:33 PM »

How is this even possible? These are hidden, protected OS files/folders.



EDIT: Please note that D: is the new drive that has only had the contents of the old drive copied over to it. Though I suppose this quarantine was made before the old drive started failing, and it is just remembering the location the file used to be at.