Topics

3776

Coding Snack Guidelines / POST ICONS: what they mean

« on: April 30, 2005, 02:54 PM »

Exclamation Point Icons will be used for administration messages here.

Normal Note icons will be used for Ideas.

Question Marks will be used when an app seems promising.
Thumbs up means a coder has started programming it.
Thumbs Down will be used when an app is deemed not codable as a snack, or superceded by existing freeware.

Smiley face will be used when an app has been coded to perform this function, and is available for download.

3777

General Software Discussion / Supercharge Your Software - PC World Article of little utils

« on: April 30, 2005, 04:16 AM »

Supercharge Your Software
 
Ever wish your favorite program could do a little more? These 65-plus add-ons enhance Windows, Office, browsers, e-mail clients, and other packages with powerful new features.

From the May 2005 issue of PC World magazine

http://www.pcworld.c...d,119982,pg,1,00.asp

3778

Coding Snack Guidelines / CODERS: READ IN and POST HERE

« on: April 29, 2005, 12:18 PM »

If you are a programmer who might be interested in fielding some requests for quick applications in the Coding Snack section, you might want to make a little post here talking about the kinds of apps you would be most interested in doing.

Any programs you code will be hosted by us as freeware and we would be happy to put a link back to your site and include a direct click link to let people make a donation to you.

3779

Coding Snack Guidelines / FIRST CODING SNACKS WEEKEND 4/30/05 !!!

« on: April 29, 2005, 10:59 AM »

Ok everyone,

This is our first Coding Snacks Weekend, let's make it good!

Try to come up with some fun, silly, useful, or useless ideas for programs!

We wil have some guest programmers stopping by to see if there is anything worth coding.

Remember, post each idea to it's own new thread and start your topics with with IDEA:


And if you are a coder who wants to make a post talking about the kind of apps you would like to field requests for, make a post on the "CODERS: POST HERE" thread.

3780

Coding Snack Guidelines / When writing code means you've failed.. READ IN

« on: April 29, 2005, 04:02 AM »

In a recent post on his Coding Horror blog (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/), Jeff Atwood describes well the idea that so much of what gets coded these days has already been written previously by others, and exists in a cleaner better form.  The problem is finding it, modifying it, and learning how to use it.

Please make an effort to try to find existing programs that do what you are asking for before you post an Idea request; this section is not meant to be a coding excercise, so if the program already exists (as freeware), then there is little point having someone here re-implement it.

And we could probably use help from readers in locating existing programs that do what a requester is asking for.  so if someone posts a request and you can find an existing program that does what they are asking for, please post a follow up.

3781

Best Text Editor / Heard back from IDM - no discount

« on: April 28, 2005, 08:01 PM »

Just an fyi -

Despite an initial conversation with IDM (the maker of UltraEdit) that sounded like a discount might be in the offering, i'm sorry to announce that a discount will not be available.

I recontacted them today to follow up on a conversation last week and was told that they don't really have the technical ability to offer such discounts at this time, which strikes me as kind of bizarre given my experience with other companies, but there you have it (I was also told that they are very busy and might be some kind of something worked out sometime in the future, for what that's worth).

If price is a real issue for you, the review lists some great freeware alternatives; if you like one of the other text editors, don't hesistate to email the author and ask them nicely if they might be willing to give you a discount.  You'd be surprised at how many companies will give you a discount if you ask nicely (it helps if you have a reason for asking).

If they give you a discount you might ask them if they want to make the discount publicly announced here on this forum for anyone who finds ultraedit priced too high.

3782

Coding Snack Guidelines / What kinds of programs can be coded in a few hours? READ IN

« on: April 28, 2005, 12:25 PM »

This question is going to be hard to answer, and i suspect that many non-programmers will have a hard time figuring out what would be a reasonable request.

Let me try to give some thoughts, and anyone else can jump in and offer their 2 cents.

A commandline tool without a graphical user interface, is always going to be much faster to code, plus they are more easily coded in any language and easier to make cross platform compatible.

Certain programming languages are more suitable than others for very rapid development.  So-called RAD tools like delphi, visual basic are going to be well suited for coding GUI apps very rapidly.  Scripting languages like perl and python are also good candidates for rapidly coding powerful small programs (though less suitable for gui stuff).  Such tools can make it possible to code programs that need to do things like connect to the web, using libraries and components.

A major issue that will affect whether a request can be coded quickly will be the extent to which the programmer already has some partial code that does some part of the request.

In short, the best approach is to think small, and expect that the coder may have to make some compromises and refine your suggestions to narrow the scope of the program to something that is achievable in a short timeframe.

3783

Living Room / New smilies

« on: April 28, 2005, 06:13 AM »

When you make a new post you should now see a new [more] link next to the smiley icons, which will open a page wiith a bunch more images, for those who like such things.
if anyone wants some icons/smileys/images added to that page just email them to me.

Keep in mind this is a giant page of images, so if you are on dialup, you probably dont want to click it.

3784

Coding Snack Guidelines / READ THIS FIRST: Welcome to Coding Snacks - Instructions

« on: April 27, 2005, 07:32 PM »

Welcome to the new Coding Snacks section of the forum!

The idea of this section is for users to try to come up with ideas for very simple programs that can be coded in a few hours, and have these ideas implemented by coders.  Ideas can be silly, useless, whatever, as long as they are interesting in some way and won't take more than a few hours to code.

You may post ideas at any time, and coders may implement these ideas at any time, but we will be devoting a few days at the end of each month to Coding Snack Days where we will draw attention to and really focus on submissions.


So, if you have an idea for a tiny app, please post it on its own thread, where others can help you clarify and refine it and determine whether it can be coded in a short amount of time, and if not, how it could be modified, and start your thread Subject with IDEA:
Please be specific, list urls to similar programs that already exist and how what you want is different.

Note: this is not a competition to see what programmer can do the best job of coding a request!  Rather, the aim is to implement lots of fun, silly, quick ideas for programs.  So I encourage coders to work on requests that no other coder is working on, rather than have 10 coders implementing duplicate things.  There are no special requirements for coders - any visitor to the forum who has some programming experience is welcome to join in.


See subsequent posts for more information on submitting finished programs.

And remember, post each idea on its own thread.

3785

Living Room / irc channel #donationcoder has been open for a month

« on: April 27, 2005, 06:14 AM »

we have an irc channel #donationcoder on efnet that has been open for a while now,
in case anyone has missed this.. very quiet at the moment; im in there constantly.

if anyone is interested in chatting over irc and needs a tutorial, maybe someone can post a good link.

3786

Living Room / "new post" icons

« on: April 27, 2005, 04:42 AM »

the board software we use here (www.simplemachines.org), behaves kind of strange with regarding to indicating new posts in a section;
after you visit a section, even if you dont read the new messages, the icon changes on the forum header so that it no longer looks like there are new posts.  anyone else besides me notice this? i think we will write a mod to the forum to fix this.

3787

UrlSnooper / downloading from cspan

« on: April 27, 2005, 04:11 AM »

i use project url snooper with streambox vcr to record shows from cspan every day.
if anyone needs help doing it just let me know; great way to watch hearings.

3788

Living Room / BACK FROM THE 10th CIRCLE OF HELL WITH FULLY RESTORED FORUM/BLOGS

« on: April 26, 2005, 07:08 PM »

well...
it's been a painful 15 hours.. but i think we are just about back to where we were 24 hours ago, without any loss of data.
the server we were hosted on had a drive replaced without notice, and accounts were replaced with data that was over a week old.  it looked reallllly touch and go for a while, but we're now back to where we were with no loss of posts.

lesson #1 -> don't just back up the mysql forum databases once per week - i will setup a daily cron job to do it from now on.

lesson #2 -> i'll save it for my blog on friday... or for a further post after i get some sleep.

3789

ProcessTamer / BetaNews listing

« on: April 25, 2005, 03:08 PM »

Latest version of ProcessTamer was listed on BetaNews today (http://fileforum.bet...s_Tamer/1111857421/1).

Betanews is a great site that announces beta releases of applications, along with user comments about the programs.

if you love software but don't visit betanews daily (http://www.betanews.com), then 2 things are true:
1) you're missing out
2) you're not visiting the DonationCoder.com links page (https://www.donation...com/Links/index.html)

no excuse for either of these..

3790

General Review Discussion / Years on awards?

« on: April 25, 2005, 04:54 AM »

should we put the current Year on the award images? ie not simply "Best Text Editor" but "Best Text Editor - 2005" etc.
in anticipation that the choices may change over time.

3791

Living Room / There will be no review on 4/30 - intead we play the new 2-5 hour coding game

« on: April 24, 2005, 10:45 AM »

on 4/30 there will be no software review/award, instead we will our first 2-5 hour coding contest/game, as described in separate thread.

3792

Best Text Editor / Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 08:49 AM »

ok, ftp servers are going to be done in a future week.

this week's review will be BEST TEXT EDITOR.

Some candidates:
 ulraedit, http://www.ultraedit.com
 notetab, http://www.notetab.com
 textpad, http://www.textpad.com
 editpad, http://www.editpadpro.com
 metapad, http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad

other free and open source text editor favorite suggestions are desired..

3793

Unfinished Requests / early thread about coding snacks idea

« on: April 21, 2005, 03:26 PM »

can we have a monthly contest for who can come up with the most fun idea for a utility/game that takes no more than 2-5 hours to write?
people can submit ideas whenever they get one, and on the last day of each month, a winner idea will be chosen that can be programmed in two hours or less.   totally useless insane ideas are acceptable.  maybe we can get more programmer's to join in and then we could have more than 1 winner each month..  what do you think?  i'll try to bring in a couple more programmers if we get some fun ideas.

ok first contest is for end of this month.. so you guys have 10 days to think of a useless ridiculous app or game that can be written in 2-5 hours. the less time the better..  winner gets to name the program and put their icon/picture name in the about box or something. and winning programs will be uploaded for everyone to try out.  person who suggested the idea can write up a little description and web page for the program.

do we need a name for this game... The Five Hour Fiasco?

3794

Mouser's Zone / launcher tool

« on: April 21, 2005, 03:22 PM »

one of the tools i've been wanting to write for a while is a launch bar.

ie like quicklaunch bar, or True Launch Bar, or Advanced Launcher.

i'm not much on fancy mac osx dock bar looking things, so it would be kinda plain looking..

anyone here use a launch bar and find themselves wishing it had some features it doesnt?

3795

General Software Discussion / anyone using a nice weather tray tool?

« on: April 21, 2005, 03:17 PM »

ive been using weatherpulse, pretty remarkable and free.
i also have weather watcher installed, also free.

3796

General Software Discussion / my favorite free (open source even) virtual desktop tool

« on: April 20, 2005, 01:35 PM »

http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

it just got a new website on sourceforge.
been using this program for years, works great.

ps i use the "Low Profile" icon set, and i configure hotkeys as alt+1 through alt+9 for selecting between 9 desktops.

3797

Backup Guide / Info about Handy Backup added to backup guide

« on: April 20, 2005, 04:37 AM »

the backup guide has been updated with a discussion of Handy Backup: http://www.handyback...p.com/pro/index.html


Handy Backup Pro shares almost all of the functionality of Genie Backup Pro, and looks to be an excellent backup program. It is priced at $57 (as of 4/20/05), and a trial version is available for download. Handy approaches some things differently than Genie which may be more appealing depending on your requirements. Backup sets can be created in zip-file compatible format, which can be extremely useful. It is capable of exluding folders based on pattern match, which is something we lamented the absence of in Genie. It also has a job-centric user interface, which we also think is better than the wizard approach taken by Genie. Handy also has a very nice log panel which shows operations as they are performed, which is very nice.

However, the main reason we cannot recommend Handy at this time is the operation of its incremental/versioned backup mode. This is the feature we think is most important and we were not able to convince it to stop backing up all files each time, as opposed to just changed files. Handy also has no support for browsing and restoring files from older snapshots (though because the files are in zip format you can go investigate the files yourself). If these issues were fixed, Handy could easily take over the #1 slot in our document backup award category. And the value of backing up files in zip format may in fact be more important to you than built-in support for viewing/extracting/searching older snapshots. Just make sure you try out the incremental mode and that it works for you.

3798

BrowserTraySwitch / BrowserTraySwitch tweaks+observations

« on: April 19, 2005, 09:00 AM »

i've noticed some interesting things when testing on dif plaforms and with various dif file extensions.. different browsers use some different strange tricks for different files.

two things: don't be surprised if after you set a browser to be default, the browser itself still reports that its not the default browser, even when it behaves as if it is.  you can try letting it set itsefl to default once, but if it always pops this up when you change browsers back and forth, then just disable the "check if default" for the browser, since its never going to be satisfied; browsertrayswitch doesnt try to change every possible registry setting that a browser might look for in order to satisfy itself.

ive noticed on a new virtual machine that mozilla was complaining about double clicking on .url files, untill i let it make itself the default browser once; after that i could use browsertrayswitch to switch between browsers and double click .urls without issue.

so when in doubt, let each browser make itself the default once - this may let them set up the uniquely wierd settings they want.  BrowserTraySwitch should thereafter be able to switch between them without issue.

3799

DesktopCoral / DesktopCoral 1.00.04 BETA DOWNLOAD?

« on: April 18, 2005, 08:32 AM »

Ok guys,

i've tried to address the problems and version 1.00.04 is now available in members only section.
it includes hopefully a fix for icon positioning.  hopefully it wont make your icons randomly dance around the screen.

3800

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Nice Program that Review Missed: Copernic Tracker

« on: April 18, 2005, 12:58 AM »

A very nice program that the review missed: Copernic Tracker
http://www.copernic....s/tracker/index.html

The user interface is one of the most elegant i've seen - very modern and elegant.

It's a very friendly program, but also quite powerful.  It has very flexible scheduling and a very very cool set of options for notifying you when pages change (very cool little fade-in window).

Copernic has a page login feature, an ability to POST data, and a custom user agent (though no custom referer).  These are very welcome features though they cannot compare to the equivelent features in Website Watcher.

The one thing sadly missing from Copernic Tracker is the same thing missing from Chek&Get, which is the ability to specify avoid and watch string patterns, which we have found is critical to avoiding spurious changes in pages due to advertisements, etc.

There is one place where Copernic Tracker really blows away the other programs -  an incredibly wonderful feature where you can easily switch between views of older versions of a page.  Check&get has the ability to save older copies but no other tool that i've seen does this as well as Copernic Tracker.

This is a great feature, and if you're in a situation where it would be useful to easily switch among several of the past versions of a page, Copernic Tracker may be exactly what you are looking for.

As of 4/18/05, Copernic Tracker is $50.
Copernic also makes a bunch of other highly respected programs, including powerful Desktop and Internet Search tools.

Homepage: http://www.copernic....s/tracker/index.html
Trial Download: http://www.copernic....racker-download.html
Screenshots: http://www.copernic....er-screen-shots.html
Demo Movie: http://www.copernic....acker/tour/demo.html
Feature List: http://www.copernic....racker-features.html


---

btw - I have updated the review to add this new program, and have started a new procedure; the archive index will now list the date of last modification of any review ( https://www.donation...s/Archive/index.html ) and reviews themselves will have a sidebar entry at top left with version change info, so you can quickly view modifications.

ps. - Thank you to the person who alerted me that our review missed this program; if anyone ever finds a program we missed do not hesitate to mail me or post on the forum, and as we have said before, feel free to let companies know if you think they would like to make a post in our forums saying why they think we misunderstood or underrated a feature of their program.