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10726

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / N.A.N.Y. - New Apps for the New Year - 2013

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 11:23 PM »

N.A.N.Y. 2013
New Apps for the New Year

Our annual NANY event is just around the corner -- it's where we celebrate the creation of new software by asking the coders who hang out on or visit DonationCoder to create some new piece of software that is free (at least for home use), and share it with the world.

We're pretty informal here, so your new creation could be a new website, a new desktop app, a new mobile app, a game, etc.  It could even be an addon for an existing tool, or maybe even a substantial new version of something you've created before.

NOTE: We don't want any rights to the software, or anything else from you and you can host it wherever you want.. This is just about trying to get a bunch of coders together to create stuff.

And I think this year we should say that NANY should be a celebration of new stuff created in the last twelve month, since the last NANY event, rather than what we have done in the past which is to ask people to only enter stuff created in the last couple months of the year..

We don't have prizes for the best entries -- NANY is an open celebration and everyone is welcome, whether you are a new coder or a long time pro.  The reward for submitting something is one of our prizes NANY mugs starring our mascot Cody the bird/duck.  Yes you can submit multiple entries, but you still only get one mug.

If you are a coder and need an idea, make a post in this section and tell people what kinds of ideas you are looking for.  Or if you're not a coder and have an idea you'd like someone to code, now would be a good time to post it.

And we strongly encourage (require) coders to start a new thread in this section, "pledging" the app they are going to release.


Let the games begin!!

10727

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Mugs, etc. -- All participants please read in

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 11:21 PM »

Anand that's a wonderful photo!!!

Somehow I never saw it until today!  

Thank you for sharing it with us.

10728

Living Room / Re: The Greatest Graphic Novel of All Time: Watchmen

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 10:09 PM »

My latest favorite: The Sixth Gun



Story is great and the art is absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful.  Sometimes I just stare at the background buildings and linger on them.

And if you are one of those people like me who loves the old spaghetti westerns, you are going to love this stuff.

10729

Living Room / Re: Apple Licenses Clock

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 07:57 PM »

Isn't that too similar to trying to copyright a "form"?

please don't give them any ideas.

10730

Find And Run Robot / Re: File path and icon issue, incorrect path "C:\Program Files (x86)\..."

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 10:01 AM »

Re-uploaded new version at same url, let's see if this one is a good compromise.


First private report from Vanav are that the new one is looking good!

10731

Living Room / Re: Remember to make full drive image backups

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 10:00 AM »

You know what thing we need to add to our "kit" of tools recommended for dealing with data loss situations is: A second PC.

A decade ago that advice would be impractical for most folks due to the price of computers.  But these days, having a second PC you can use to help you deal with data loss situationsis practical and extremely helpful -- i dare say essential.

Whether it's being able to surf the web, download stuff, burn cds, copy hard drives, etc., a second PC makes recovering from data loss a million times easier.

10732

Find And Run Robot / Re: File path and icon issue, incorrect path "C:\Program Files (x86)\..."

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2012, 09:28 AM »

That's what I was afraid of, ok one last idea to try.

10733

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Image Pasting Issue

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 07:18 PM »

I just want to add a couple more features before posting an official new release

10734

Living Room / Re: Remember to make full drive image backups

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 07:17 PM »

Also, mouser, why specifically recommend image-based backups?

I've always advocated for a dual approach to backups:

• Image entire drives once a month or so.
• Keep versioned backups of your documents on a daily basis.

And that remains the soundest advice.

Versioned backups are to protect you from something going wrong with one of your files.
Drive Images are to let you go back to a known good complete computer state.

I wouldn't ever go with just one.  If you don't do a lot of document creation/editing you could get away without the versioned backups as long as you drive image frequently and occasionally backup your documents to a usb stick, etc.

I'd hate to be without drive image backups though -- they let you get back up to a running state after a catastrophic hard drive crash or system-wide infection, etc.

10735

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I batch decompile icon files?

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:25 PM »

I wouldn't mind hearing about a tool that could batch cleanup .ico files as well (removing icons above or below a certain resolution).

10736

Find And Run Robot / Re: Directory filtering not working the way it used to

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:21 PM »

thanks for the report, that's quite odd.  i'll try to reproduce..
can you check to make sure in the alias that the space is really a space and that there is nothing at the end of the line..
that is, perhaps try editing that alias and re-saving it.

10737

Find And Run Robot / Re: File path and icon issue, incorrect path "C:\Program Files (x86)\..."

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:18 PM »

Can you guys try the new beta (2.203) and let me know if it fixes the icon problem (or makes it worse):
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

10738

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.200.01 - Sep 25, 2012

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:16 PM »

For those with bad icons on shortcut results can you try this beta:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

10739

Living Room / Re: Remember to make full drive image backups

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:15 PM »

How many levels of old backups is it recommended to keep?

as many as you have room for?

the important thing is to understand WHY you dont just want *one* backup -- and that's because it's too easy to end up in a situation where your one last backup was made AFTER the actual problem started -- or worse that it's damaged.

so ideally you'd like a bunch of backups made at different times, so that if you need to you have some options about how far back to restore.

10740

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.200.01 - Sep 25, 2012

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 01:29 PM »

Stay tuned I'm going to see if I can't release a beta version today to see if I can't fix this problem with missing shortcut icons.

10741

Living Room / Remember to make full drive image backups

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2012, 11:37 AM »

A family member recently got hit with a nasty malware virus (File Recovery Virus).
The steps required to remove it are numerous and painful, and there is no guarantee you'd get everything.

Let this be a reminder to everyone that the idea of removing all traces of a nasty malware/virus after you are exploited is at best a very troubling solution.

You cannot guarantee you won't be hit by one of these, but the best thing you can do if you are, is have a FULL DRIVE BACKUP on an external hard drive that you can restore, to put your machine back to where it was before the infection.

If you don't yet have a drive imaging tool and an external hard drive, go out and get these now.

It doesn't really matter which brand you use, and many of the external hard drives come with imaging software included.

Decide on a schedule (like once a month) to perform a full drive backup, and follow it religiously.

I'd also add that for optimum safety you probably want to keep that external drive disconnected when not being used for backup, to avoid the possibility that a really evil malware could wipe it -- though that's unlikely.


Bottom line -- put yourself in a position where you don't have to go through the hell of trying to clean your files of an infection and hope you can get all the bad stuff removed and never know for sure.  Have a drive image you are willing to go back to.

10742

General Software Discussion / Re: windows alternative to android document scanners (like camscanner or mdscan)

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2012, 04:39 PM »

there is a button on the sc toolbar for auto skew detection; you only have to manually rotate to correct mistakes.

10743

General Software Discussion / Re: windows alternative to android document scanners (like camscanner or mdscan)

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2012, 03:23 PM »

You could try my Screenshot Captor tool.

It's of course not designed primarily for this kind of use, but has a scanner toolbar with options to do much of what you are asking for, including automatic skew correction, automatic cropping, and quick enhancement.

This screencast video shows the scanner-related features in use:
https://www.donation...c/3ds/sc13/sc13.html

Note that Screenshot Captor does not care if you actually get the images from a scanner, or whether you just drag+drop them into the screenshot folder, etc., or what format the files are in.

There are also some excellent commercial tools for managing and manipulating scanned documents, like PaperPort.

10744

ProcessTamer / Re: PT doesn't change priority of a certain service by explicit rule

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2012, 01:03 PM »

Good questions.. I'm trying to remember if PT shows a balloon when changing priority according to explicit rule.. I'm not sure it does.
As far as why it works during manual rule, it may be that if PT is doing it initially, its happening before the program does it's initial initialization process which forces it's priority.

Of course the other possibility is that PT has a bug is somehow skipping the initial priority setting and never even trying to do it.  A PT update is long overdue -- I'm adding to my todo list to check into this and also log these events so that they are easier to diagnose.

10745

Living Room / Re: txtbeaglr - £10 electronic book

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2012, 11:55 AM »

Agree with 40hz -- it simply makes no sense to say it was cheaper to support bluetooth instead of usb.
It sounds like maybe they are going to charge for the service of uploading to the device?

Regardless, that's an insanely cheap price and the makers/hackers would have a field day of happiness with it if it really came out at that price.

10746

ProcessTamer / Re: PT doesn't change priority of a certain service by explicit rule

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2012, 11:54 AM »

I'm not sure the cause -- you aren't doing anything wrong, PT should change it automatically..
But Ath may be right -- it might be that PT is changing the priority as soon as the application starts, and then the application is changing it back.
It may be that PT needs to wait a little bit before making the initial priority change in order for it to keep.  Adding to my todo list.

10747

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - v3.08.01 - July 6, 2012

« Last post by mouser on October 12, 2012, 01:40 PM »

Absolutely there is.  Uncheck the checkbox labeled "Play Capture Sound" on the "Post-Capture Options" tab:

10748

Screenshot Captor / Re: Links to Reviews and Comments - Add yours!

« Last post by mouser on October 12, 2012, 10:45 AM »

Mentioned by Kim Komando's show today -- welcome all Kim Komando listeners/readers!

http://www.komando.c...tegory.aspx?id=13437

10749

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor Auto Upload/ftp/imageshack/dropbox/etc using ZUploader

« Last post by mouser on October 12, 2012, 10:01 AM »

Screenshot Captor has already been updated to work with the new incarnation of ZUploader, aka ShareX, and will automatically use it if it's installed.


Though I must admit this is the first i've heard of "ShareXMod" -- I don't know what the "Mod" part is.

Looks like I might have to update SC again to detect ShareXMod in addition to ShareX.

10750

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / NANY 2013 Pledge: File Verification Robot - CANCELED

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2012, 08:11 PM »

CANCELED.
I still have plans for this as part of a larger tool, just couldn't get it done for NANY.