Messages

76

Living Room / Re: Earthquake

« on: April 20, 2008, 06:55 AM »

...I was taught this by the prettiest little Mexican girl you would ever want to meet back when my babe magnet still functioned...

-oldfart (April 20, 2008, 05:14 AM)

Hmmm, I don't think mine ever had enough windings!

Ken

77

General Software Discussion / Re: The great free screen capture shootout for Windows! (Screenshot Captor gets nod)

« on: April 19, 2008, 01:36 PM »

DonationCoder's Screenshot Captor won the recommendation for Best Screenshot tool for Advanced Users (for Personal Users since it's judged to be non-free for commercial use, which is true for non-small-home-businesses).

http://maximillianx....apture-shootout.html

(see attachment in previous post)

-mouser (April 17, 2008, 11:34 PM)

You mean Mouser's Screenshot Captor.
Ken

78

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« on: March 19, 2008, 08:22 PM »

You're welcome, of course, Jesse. Thanks for the positive feedback on the review. I hope everyone finds the review helpful and informative. Good luck to everyone on the licenses for giveaway.

Ken

79

Mini-Reviews by Members / MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« on: March 17, 2008, 02:04 PM »

Linkman - a Bookmark Management Program from Outer Technologies

Basic Info

App Name	Linkman
App URL	http://www.outertech.com/
App Version Reviewed	7.20
Test System Specs	Gateway Laptop, 2GB RAM, Pentium M (Dothan) 2.13 GHz processor
Supported OSes	Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista
Support Methods	Announcement List, FAQ, Support E-Mail
Upgrade Policy	All version 7 updates free. Users of Version 5 and 6 can upgrade for $19.
Trial Version Available?	Yes, 30 day
Pricing Scheme	$39
Reviewer Donation Link	Donate to KenR, the person who wrote this review
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	REVIEWER: Standard User. No ownership of product nor profit from it.

Intro:

Linkman is a standalone or browser independent bookmark organizer and search tool. You enter bookmarks into it and organize them in any way you want. You create folders to organize them in, much like you would create folders in which to organize your files. You can import bookmarks from all the popular browsers and some bookmark organizers.

Linkman really begins to shine though once the bookmarks are entered. First off, Linkman will validate the bookmarks, similar to Martin Aignesberger's AM-Deadlink utility. In addition to making sure the links still work, Linkman will download the description and keywords from the website. This makes it easier to find the link when you are searching if you can't remember the bookmark name.

All bookmarks have a name, path (url), keywords and description (both from website), comment (notes you enter about this bookmark), and six user defined fields, giving you more than enough ways to catalog, organize, and describe your bookmarks. Once your links are set up, you type what you are looking for: either the bookmark name or information in any of the other bookmark fields that you specify. All bookmarks are initially listed, but unrelated ones disappear as you type, leaving only the one(s) that meet your criteria. You then tell Linkman to launch the bookmark(s) and it will open whatever browser you specify and load the bookmark(s).

The user interface is extremely configurable. The program has a main interface and a toolbar. You can keep the toolbar on the desktop or hide it altogether. Both the main interface and the toolbar can be changed considerably in their appearance. Additionally, adjustable system-wide hotkeys make program behavior easier to control. There is also a toolbar for internet explorer. Additionally, there is a 90-page manual in pdf format that you can download from the website which thoroughly explains how to use the program.

For example, I use Ctrl-Shift-Bksp to bring up the main program UI rather than using the toolbar, primarily because of screen space limits, then type in the bookmark information I want. When I see the bookmark(s) I want, I double click on it/them and Linkman loads the url(s) in Firefox.

Image Notes: The first image shows the main user interface. The second, third, fourth images show the toolbar: as a floating window, docked on the bottom of the screen, and minimized to a single line above the taskbar, respectively. Images 2, 3, and 4 are shown in relation to the remainder of the display to reveal perspective.

http://www.outertech.com/

Who is this app designed for:

Linkman is intended for anyone with a large bookmark collection. It allows you to easily organize your bookmarks, quickly find the one your looking for, and launch it/them with your browser of choice. Hence, it can be used by beginners and power-users as well. You can simply enter (import) your bookmarks, adjust the preferences so the program works the way you want it to, search for your bookmarks, and browse them. Alternatively, you can create a complex folder structure and use the 6 user defined fields to organize the bookmarks in a highly sophisticated manner. You can also enter remarks in the comments field that will show up in searches. You can specify which field(s) you want to include in the search.

The Good

Linkman performs an incredible number of tasks, only a small fraction of which are discussed in this review and the reader is referred to the program's website and/or the aforementioned manual. Arguably, Linkman's most impressive feature is the sheer speed at which it searches for information. I had about 1000 bookmarks with the website's keywords and description with which I was working. When searching for information, results were presented immediately after I pressed each character. Linkman will even perform "fuzzy" searches. According to Linkman's homepage, Linkman is compatible with "...Internet Explorer 3.x-7.x, Firefox 1.x-3.x, Netscape 3.x-7.x, Mozilla 1.x, SeaMonkey 1.x, Opera 4.x-9x, Avant Browser, Neoplanet, Netcaptor, MyIE2, [and] SlimBrowser...".

The configurability is remarkable. The main interface and toolbar can be used separately or in combination. The main screen has two treeviews of bookmarks, each of which can be used for examining url properties or queries. You can select which fields you see and make consecutive bookmarks a different color. You can export the links to other programs and even create new export templates that allow you to export the links in a pattern that you define. For example, I created a new template to transfer my bookmarks to Surfulater. This allowed me to perform the transfer without losing the information from the keywords and description fields.

Linkman is still in active development. The last release of the program was on Feb 11, 2008. I exchanged emails with Linkman's developer several times. Each time he responded to me quickly with helpful and personable responses. After several of these exchanges, I told the developer about Donation Coder. I am very excited to announce that in response to these discussions, in April, the developer will donate 10 licences for and list with a 30% discount, Linkman and CachemanXP, a program for optimizing the functioning of Windows XP.

The needs improvement section

To some people, Linkman's biggest problem is the fact that it does not have an internal browser and that you must use it with another program. The fact that Linkman works with every popular browser mitigates this issue to some degree, however.

Before going on, I should say that I found no real problems with the program given it's current function. What I would like to see though is an expansion of its function. Linkman is one of several bookmark organizers. Other similar programs are Link Commander, and Kaylon's PowerMarks (PowerMarks has been marked for "End of Life as of Feb 1). These programs are all desiged for organizing, searching, and launching bookmarks.

A related set of programs is designed to check websites and see if they have changed. Website-Watcher and Check & Get are examples of this type of program. While Linkman also has this ability to see if a website has changed, its feature set in this domain is far more restricted. Check & Get's website indicates that you can use it to organize your bookmarks. While it is true that both Check & Get and Website-Watcher can be used to organize bookmarks, their searching features are far less developed.

What I would love to see is an integration of these two classes of software. While Check & Get currently comes the closest to this as it stands, I prefer to use Website-Watcher and Linkman for these tasks. That means I need to keep the links synchronized between these two programs, but it gives me tremendous flexibility in website monitoring and organization/searching of bookmarks.

Why I think you should use this product

I believe you should use this program if you have a lot of bookmarks you want to organize, if you have trouble finding the bookmark you want, if you have numerous programs that you want to synchronize the bookmarks between, or if you need to search your bookmarks to locate the one(s) that you want. In all of these circumstances, Linkman allows you to perform the task quickly and easily. On the other hand, if you just have a few sites you visit and have no problem keeping track of your bookmarks, then you probably don't need Linkman or any other bookmark manager.

How does it compare to similar apps

I have looked at numerous bookmark programs and found Linkman superior to the others. It is lightning fast, more customizable, and has features others don't, such as the toolbar, the ability to create export templates, user defined fields to identify, categorize, and track bookmarks, and many other features. It is one of the few remaining programs that is still in development and has a recent release version. The developer of this program has always responded to me within a few hours whereas neither of the developers of other programs ever has.

Conclusions

In my opinion, there is no competition between Linkman and the competitors. The program does more and does it better. The support is rapid and actually pleasant. The program remains in development with a responsive developer. It is compatible with virtually every browser and can import from some bookmark management programs and export to other programs as well. The interface has a main interface window and a toolbar allowing you to use the program and access your links about any way you want. We will also be having a discount and some license giveaways.

I could go on and on extolling the features and wonders of Linkman. Instead though, download a fully functional copy of Linkman directly from the its homepage. You can work with it for 30 days and see what you think of it. You might need to cut that time down a bit though to capitalize on the 30% discount, which happens to be perfectly timed with DonationCoder's fundraiser. If you've gotten this far in my review, I'm sure you realize that I believe this program is outstanding and exactly the type of software that people come to DonationCoder to find out about. I recommend it without hesitation or reservation.

The author wishes to thank TucknDar for his editorial suggestions.

80

Living Room / JayIsGames.com: Casual Gameplay Design Competition #5

« on: March 17, 2008, 09:54 AM »

This game design competition is one of the very best flash game competitions on the web. This year's theme is "upgrade". Check it out!

• All entries are available to play immediately.
• Each entry is represented by an icon on the left.
• Clicking an icon will reveal more information about the game. Click the "Play" button that appears to play it.
• A section for comments will also appear, so please provide your wonderful feedback and constructive criticism to the game designers as the JIG community is known for.
• The competition period will span 3 weeks and all of your plays of each game will be counted toward the $1,000 Viral Prize, awarded to the game with the most plays at the end of the competition period.

http://jayisgames.com/cgdc5/

81

Living Room / Re: Who else is sick of difficult word verifications on the web?

« on: March 17, 2008, 09:30 AM »

What are the alternatives? I can think of a few but surely the people who implement captcha must have thought of them too?
The problem with any alternatives that if they're used that is rolled out of millions of people then it's very difficult. On your personal site you can stop spam by asking what color grass is, but as soon as yahoo does that then it's worth for people to automate it. I guess if OpenId was more userfriendly then it would be worth using that instead. or Cardspace.

-justice (March 17, 2008, 05:05 AM)

Justice:
I hate having to buy and use security products too. I'm not saying they are not important or that there is not a need for them, I'm just saying that I dislike them.

Ken

82

Living Room / Find the forum post you're looking for with TWING

« on: March 17, 2008, 09:02 AM »

Twing might help you find the information you are seeking when you recall it was posted in a forum, but you can't recall much else.

Twing is a new search engine that indexes almost 5,000 online forums, on subjects ranging from the very general (arts and entertainment) to the extremely specific (Scottish Snooker). On top of its search features, it also has a 1990's-Yahoo!-style directory organized by topic, and a collection of trends and toplists called the Community Buzz Directory...Twing has some interesting tools for tracking the hottest links and conversations. Most popular links, threads, and forums are all ranked, and RSS feeds are available for each. Twing says that the most popular thread on the Internet right now is called "longest ever thread." While we don't doubt this is accurate, we'll leave it up to you to decide how practical you find it...

http://www.downloads...ine-for-forum-posts/

83

Living Room / Small World: Check out these Images of the Microscopic World

« on: March 17, 2008, 08:53 AM »

Here is a site devoted to the microscopic world, a place that has always held a special fascination to me. See what you think about the captured images.

Small World is regarded as the leading forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope. For over 30 years, Nikon has rewarded the world's best photomicrographers who make critically important scientific contributions to life sciences, bio-research and materials science.

http://www.nikonsmal...g=year&year=2005

from http://www.cynical-c.com/

84

Living Room / THEBLOG WEEMADE: A kids artwork sharing site

« on: March 17, 2008, 08:30 AM »

A nice, safe place for kids to upload their drawings and share with others.

Welcome to THEBLOG WEEMADE!
Here at THEBLOG WEEMADE, we find the artwork and creativity of kids inspiring, thought provoking, entertaining, and unpretentious. We think that reminding ourselves how children see the world is a valuable and enlightening process.
THEBLOG WEEMADE is a user-generated showcase. We accept posts from anyone and everyone. Scan and post your children's artwork or your own artwork from when you were child. Found artwork. Anything! ...

http://theblog.weemade.com/

85

Living Room / Re: Who else is sick of difficult word verifications on the web?

« on: March 17, 2008, 01:12 AM »

OMG superboy, me me me me me. I despise the damn things. I wish people had never started using them. On several occasions, I have just given up on whatever I was trying to do.

I can't remember the last time I saw a topic that so made me want to bitch! Congratulations?!

Ken

86

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: March 13, 2008, 04:38 PM »

the website for Search GT
http://www.search-gt.com/
says - "Completely integrated into Windows Explorer"

can anyone say what that means... context menu or ..??

-tomos (March 13, 2008, 04:27 PM)

LOL at Darwin

Tomos, it means that it is integrated into the explorer window itself, which is NOT good for people who use other file managers.

Darwin, to give you some perspective, I search 3 hard drives for "batc". I terminated the search after several minutes in DOpus. In Search GT, it took 1/2 of one second!!!!!

Ken

87

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: March 13, 2008, 03:57 PM »

I am VERY impressed with the speed of today's offer from Bits du Jour: Search GT. ($10)

The program is quite new and you will probably miss some features for some time. It will not yet search the content of the files, nor any emails, and you will have to wait for the next version to search for folder names. It is merely a plain old fashion search engine. But: the SPEED! Be aware that this is done without any indexing at all!!-

-Curt (March 13, 2008, 11:57 AM)

Wow Curt, you were right about the speed. It is staggering for something that does no indexing. Thanks for your post about it.

Ken

88

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Scanahand RC1 Released

« on: February 14, 2008, 01:05 PM »

Erwin,
maybe you could create a download section on your site where users could share their created fonts.

-mouser (February 14, 2008, 12:53 PM)

I think that is a fantastic idea mouser! Then the lazy and unproductive (KenR) could benefit from the hard work of others. I hope Erwin likes the idea.

Ken

Edit: I guess I got this one in a bit late.

89

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Scanahand RC1 Released

« on: February 14, 2008, 11:50 AM »

OOOOooooohhhh, darnit!

I was hoping be the first to respond and congratulate you Erwin. Oh well, Congratulations on what I'm sure is another great program.

Let me say to others though, I think I have all of High-Logic's software and love it. Top quality stuff. I sure am glad I have a tablet pc (unlike jgpaiva) so I can really get going fast with the software.

Ken

90

Living Room / Re: Would anyone want a free DonationCoder.com bumper sticker?

« on: February 14, 2008, 09:20 AM »

I agree with what everyone has said:
  I am happy to advertise for DC
  I think an electrostatic window sticker is the best option
  It would be fun to have nick or something personal on them
  <Everything else>

Ken

91

General Software Discussion / Re: Spam filtering

« on: February 07, 2008, 04:47 PM »

Most recently, I have been using Antispam Sniper (http://www.antispamsniper.com/).

-KenR (January 28, 2008, 06:19 PM)

KenR,

I use TheBat! too, but on Win98.  I don't think AntiSpamSniper works on Win9x?  At least they don't mention it on the site, only WinNT onwards.

Are you using the free version or the payware one?

-rjbull (January 29, 2008, 10:39 AM)

My apologies for not seeing your message message sooner. I use the pay version and really like it. The free version might be as good, but I got the shareware one.

Ken

92

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« on: February 01, 2008, 04:37 PM »

JG,
This November I will have had mine for 4 years. I think IRC is teh best place to do it, so let me know when you have some time and I'll happily tell you as much as you want to know.

Ken

93

General Software Discussion / Re: Spam filtering

« on: January 28, 2008, 06:19 PM »

Most recently, I have been using Antispam Sniper (http://www.antispamsniper.com/). It uses multiple techniques like the others mentioned and was nearly 100% accurate after some training. It was developed for the Bat, but they have recently developed versions for other email programs, such as Outlook.

Ken

94

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Agenda At Once v3.0 final - finally :)

« on: January 28, 2008, 02:25 PM »

Thank you both for kind words and useful comments!

Agenda at Once looks great. I use a Palm hand held computer which contains a lot of this information. This hand held came with a windows program (Palm Desktop) that works in concert with it.

-KenR (January 27, 2008, 08:41 PM)

Yes, synchronization with various product is planned as a next major improvement. Actually, we would like to straighten up any possible problems with this initial release before we start developing this. According to poll among beta testers, support for MS Outlook and Palm are first to be implemented.

-vradmilovic (January 28, 2008, 05:24 AM)

Wow, that's great! I'm tired of using the stagnant, unchanging Palm Desktop software and can't wait until you implement the necessary features. Please let me know if you need any beta testers for Palm devices. I'll be glad to help in any way that I am able.

By the way, there is a chance I will be switching to a BlackBerry phone with built-in schedule software, like the Treo I have now. Will Agenda At Once interface with those devices and other "smart phones" as well?

Thanks, Ken

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with AnVir Security Suite?

« on: January 28, 2008, 02:09 PM »

I bought this AnVir Security Suite few months ago. It is nice app I like it very much
I don't rely on its antivirus engine, but startup monitor and task manager are fine! 

-maks13 (January 28, 2008, 06:20 AM)

Thanks for the input Maks13. I have never seen any other program that provides as much information about processes and programs as it does.

Ken

96

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Agenda At Once v3.0 final - finally :)

« on: January 27, 2008, 08:41 PM »

Hi Vladimir.

Agenda at Once looks great. I use a Palm hand held computer which contains a lot of this information. This hand held came with a windows program (Palm Desktop) that works in concert with it. The Palm desktop and hand held computer will transfer information back and forth (sync) so both have the same information. Since I use the Palm, I need to stick with programs that will sync like this. Does Agenda at Once sync with the palm or any other hand held computers? If not, is that in the future for the program?

Thanks, Ken Reeder

97

Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners

« on: January 27, 2008, 06:48 PM »

Wow. Lots of new voices. Welcome and congratulations to all of you. I hope you all come to like DC as much as I have.

Ken

98

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with AnVir Security Suite?

« on: January 27, 2008, 02:05 PM »

link please.

-mouser (January 27, 2008, 01:30 PM)

http://www.anvir.com/securitysuite/

This is NOT the Avira AntiVir software, but Nosh got it right. The above link will take you directly to the page for the security suite. Also, this program is not freeware. The cost is $39.95 and you can download a 20-day demo version.

Ken

99

General Software Discussion / Anyone familiar with AnVir Security Suite?

« on: January 27, 2008, 01:15 PM »

Hi all. I recently discovered this program. It seems to have some very useful features, but I have never heard anything about it. I would appreciate any information about this program anyone would be willing to contribute.

Thanks, Ken

100

Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners

« on: January 27, 2008, 12:40 PM »

Congratulations to all the winners. I hope everyone enjoys their new software!

In the midst of all the excitement and enthusiasm, I would humbly request that people keep in mind THIS MONTH's giveaway is in preparation for the site's upcoming fundraiser. As the name suggests, DonationCoder requires us to give in order to keep doing what it has been.

Please consider contributing financially in addition to the other ways you contribute to the site.

Thanks, Ken