Messages

126

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Machinarium Pirate Amnesty (for one week only)

« on: August 06, 2010, 05:57 AM »

Already own two copies of this - it is a fab game, with a gorgeous soundtrack.

127

Living Room / Re: JayIsGames.Com Casual Gameplay Design Competition #8 - Entries Now Playable!

« on: August 04, 2010, 08:24 AM »

Played a few of these now...

Rare Breeds: Petunias is amusing for a while. I tried to create the most warped flowers that I could and successfully engineered a stick, a blob, and something that looked like vomit.

Submachine seemed well put together, but it is too small to see the details clearly!

[Together] looked lovely, but catching the hearts felt like hard work after the first couple. In fact I never caught the 5th and quit the game!

Zoo Director is yuk! It really makes me appreciate all the Zoo Tycoons of this world!

128

Living Room / Re: You are Not So Smart: A Celebration of Delusion and the Anchoring Effect

« on: July 28, 2010, 10:04 AM »

I have just read and thoroughly enjoyed Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland, in which he covers the anchoring effect, and numerous other ways in which we succumb to irrational thinking.

129

fSekrit / Re: Option to use constant name in temp or set different temp folder?

« on: July 25, 2010, 11:33 AM »

I think I understand what you are asking.

I too have the same issue with the Defense+ component of Comodo Firewall. It is impossible to build a rule to allow fsekrit to access the temp files it reequires since the exe file is given a new randomly generated name each time.

As such I have to uncheck two boxes and click both when the program loads, and when it exits.

Not sure what the solution is, since I assume the random file name is done for security reasons.

130

General Software Discussion / Re: Whoa, this gal hates MS Office 2010 -- 5 Reasons Why You Don't Need It

« on: July 23, 2010, 07:03 AM »

I have to say that I like the ribbon! It is one of the reasons why I find it hard to switch to a free (or paid) alternative. A return to all those fiddly little buttons and endless menus seems like a backward step.

131

DC Gamer Club / Re: Alien Swarm - another free game from Valve

« on: July 22, 2010, 08:43 AM »

Had a lot of fun tonight finishing the campaign on Normal difficulty with mouser, Krishean, and Mizraim!

-Deozaan (July 22, 2010, 01:16 AM)

Wah! No fair! I want in to DoCO Steam... please
User = AmpaSteam

132

General Software Discussion / Re: how to monitor a website for changes? (moving from WebMon to web-based service)

« on: July 13, 2010, 01:22 PM »

How about a service like Page2RSS - monitors a webpage and creates an RSS feed to report changes.

133

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Listary – search all lists in Windows

« on: July 12, 2010, 06:59 AM »

Taking a look at this today, and the first thing I notice is a keyboard shortcut conflict between Listary and Xplorer2.

Xplorer2 uses Shift + Ctrl + [any letter] to jump to the drive of the letter specified.
eg. Shift + Ctrl + c goes to the root of C:

Several of these clash with default shortcuts in Listary > Copy file path, Favourites - Desktop etc.

I realise that these can be changed, but thought you should be aware, as this frustration is the very first thing I came across in what looks to be an interesting product!

Second thing I discovered was that I can't add my own favourites in the free edition. this is a great shame, since this feature is perhaps the one in which I am most interested, as Listary might be a replacement for my current dialog extender.

I understand that you need to keep some features back for the commercial version, but perhaps allowing 1 or 2 user defined favourites, to see how the system works, might be a better enticement to upgrade?

134

Living Room / Buy / build new system (from CCLOnline) - opinion sought

« on: June 13, 2010, 11:42 AM »

I am looking to replace my existing PC with something a bit newer and more powerful.

I have my eye on a Intel Core 2 Quad from CCLOnline.com for £499 (inc VAT)

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400
Memory: 4GB CCL Choice 800MHz DDR2
Motherboard: Asus P5KPL-AM SE 775
Hard Drive: 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C
Graphics Card: XFX ATI Radeon HD5670 1GB
Optical Drive: LG GH22NS50 22x DVDRW
Case: Xigmatek Asgard ATX Mid Tower Case
PSU: 460W CoolerMaster eXtreme Power Plus Power Supply

If I select the same components with the intention of building the system myself I would save something like £80... which I could use to upgrade some of the components...

Graphics Card: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB <- 2 steps up the ATI range
Motherboard: ASRock G41M-S Socket 775 <- Max RAM 8GB vs 4GB with original system
Hard disk: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green <- 64MB cache vs 8MB with original system
TOTAL: £502 (inc VAT)

My question: Any reason why I shouldn't build the upgraded version of the system as indicated above?

Edit: Fixed link - thanks Deozaan

135

General Software Discussion / Re: align specific text in MS Office

« on: June 02, 2010, 05:40 PM »

You need to increase the left indent of the paragraph - look here...

http://office.micros.../HP051884061033.aspx

136

Living Room / Re: Mouse annoyance - any ideas?

« on: May 23, 2010, 03:02 PM »

Are you sure it is the mouse generating the clicks? There are some malware programs / viruses which creates clicks randomly.

Try switching to another mouse for a while and see if the behaviour continues.

137

General Software Discussion / Re: Review of 7 Cloud Storage Services

« on: May 07, 2010, 05:55 AM »

It strikes me that one major failing of all these Cloud storage systems (for the average home user) is the painfully slow upload speed on ADSL connections.

Backing up 2GB of data at <32kb/s is no fun at all.

I guess in the future upload speeds will rise, but for now I will stick to USB Flash, CD/DVDs and external HDs.

138

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?

« on: May 07, 2010, 03:50 AM »

Since it is relevant to the thread I'll bump an idea which was last raise a year or two ago...

Please Mouser, can we have a way to integrate FARR and CHS?

(Cross link to previous threads asking similar things)

139

Site/Forum Features / Friendly 404

« on: April 24, 2010, 08:39 AM »

I mistyped the forum URL on a friend's PC as donationcoder.com/forum and got a rather plain and unhelpful 404 page not found.

I know it is a small thing, but couldn't we have a nicer error page, which lists the major areas of the site, tries to redirect (after a few seconds) to the most likely destination if it can easily be guessed (eg. forum -> forums!).

140

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Monkey Dash mini review

« on: April 13, 2010, 04:46 AM »

I'd love to hear what you think after a few games; just make sure you use the new banana rules (Better Bananas) rather than the original ones (The Advanced Game) as they are significantly better!

141

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Monkey Dash mini review

« on: April 11, 2010, 10:56 AM »

Nod5: Thanks for the awesome review. I am absolutely delighted that you are still enjoying the game.

I quite agree with your observations about how play style evolves as your experience of the game grows. I have been playing for two years now, and still make new discoveries!

I did spend some time trying  4 player versions, but never found one that I was happy with. However your suggestion of combining a pair of boards is very simple and I shall certainly give it a go

You don't mention the Better Bananas Variant... this is perhaps my favourite way to play the game - do you like this version?

iphigenie: The playtest version only contained the basic mechanics and did not include Power Cards or Bananas, both of which add a great deal to the game.

142

Living Room / Re: Need a new sound card (non Creative)

« on: April 09, 2010, 10:25 AM »

To my mind one of the biggest advantages of a "pro" soundcard is actually the breakout box which allows easy connection of mics, line-in, midi, through full size easy to access plugs. That is the reason I continue to use my Audigy - for now at least.

143

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: March 20, 2010, 08:23 PM »

Stick with this (despite the vacuous song and gratuitous overuse of AutoTune) as the video takes an unexpected and delightfully surreal twist (or two).

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=5GOZjlwIwfk

144

General Software Discussion / Re: I am having a senior moment

« on: March 09, 2010, 08:14 AM »

See this thread - https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=12649.0

Talks about FillCD, and includes an alternative, JamPacked, by DC member cbbibleboy, which I requested and embarrassingly never really tested out.  

145

Living Room / Re: How can we *share* Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

« on: February 09, 2010, 02:07 PM »

Having a good wikipedia entry might be good? see my update of this post.

146

Living Room / Re: Someone needs to expand our WikiPedia article

« on: February 09, 2010, 01:54 PM »

I am currently reading The World and Wikipedia: How We are Editing Reality and it has interested me in trying my hand at a little Wikipedia editing.

So, I have had a look at DCs wikipedia entry, and added a couple of notes to the discussion page.

Would be ideal if a few other DCers felt like collaborating and together we could start improving the page.

Update: DonationCoder's entry has been challenged and is proposed for deletion (in 7 days time!). The charge is "Web content with no indication of notability".

I'd like to think that the DC site, software and community are notable, but to be in the encyclopedia we need to demonstrate it by citing references from external sources.

Of course this is all my fault! By interacting with the existing page, it has been flagged to an admin, who has set the clock ticking! Ooops

Any volunteers? Head over to the discussion page and let's get going![/color]

147

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Faster boots combining hibernate and restart (Boot Snooze)

« on: February 08, 2010, 03:50 PM »

Excellent update - now does everything, for everybody!

148

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Faster boots combining hibernate and restart (Boot Snooze)

« on: February 06, 2010, 04:13 PM »

Thanks for the info (and continued interest!)

The curious thing is that if I copy this command into an AHK script and run it, the system hibernates just fine! So I am now very confused as to what is going on!!

Could it be that the value of Suspend_Method is getting lost / being corrupted along the way?
Or that the command is not being executed for some reason, and that BS simply closes / crashes?

Not sure how to test these ideas... do you have any thoughts.?

149

Living Room / Re: Browser Wars: Why did you choose yours?

« on: February 06, 2010, 03:02 PM »

I am a very content Opera user.

I know that some people take issue with their (somewhat short-sighted) policies regarding 3rd party apps, but I have never been affected by this. The most common frustration I see is that RoboForm can't integrate with Opera, but I don't need RoboForm...

Back when I began my interactions with the internet, and hence needed a large number of unique, secure passwords, I created a formula to enable the generation and easily recall of my login information. This has served me well for the past decade, and I see no real reason why it will cease to do so.

I do periodically use other browsers to see what they have to offer, but have always ended up back where I began, with Opera.

Recently Chrome, or more specifically one of the alternative Chrome builds such as ChromePlus or Iron, have grabbed my attention, and it seems possible that I may one day end up using one of these. But I would need to find a replacement for Opera's inbuilt mail system, something I find to be fast, usable and robust.

Again I have tried other email solutions, such as Outlook, Eudora and The Bat!, but prefer what Opera has to offer, without the need for a separate app.

I readily acknowledge that Opera has its shortcomings, and do choose not to use some of the less useful features, notably the inbuilt BitTorrent client (which has never worked well for me), widgets (I have never found ANY widget system appealing!) and Unite (which seems interesting, but as yet I can't find a use for it!).

Finally: I find that Opera does meet my needs regarding extensions: I use UserJavascript to change browser functionality, and block ads (or any other elements) that I don't want to see with UserCSS and the inbuilt URL filter.

150

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Faster boots combining hibernate and restart (Boot Snooze)

« on: February 06, 2010, 02:49 PM »

Is Boot Snooze an AHK app? Will you be releasing the source script?

I am still keen to understand why my PC will not Hibernate / Standby when initiated by BS, but will if performed manually. It seems odd that no-one else seems to be having this issue!

Perhaps a look at the source might allow me to do some experimenting of my own?