Recent Posts

14076

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Using Skype to Monitor Remote Systems

« Last post by mouser on March 06, 2011, 10:34 AM »

Cool stuff, i didn't realize how easy it was to interface code to skype.. makes one think of other program ideas..

14077

Official Announcements / Fundraiser Day 6 - Part 1 - HowTo Posted

« Last post by mouser on March 06, 2011, 10:28 AM »

Day 6 of the fundraiser.. Last night we reached our goal of $6,000 raised (!).  Thank you to everyone who donated.  That's enough to pay for a full year of our deluxe hosting for the site.  As we did two years ago during the last fundraiser, we've extended the range of the thermometer and will keep going for the remainder of March -- hoping to break $10k.  I hope you will join us if you haven't already (if you have donated during the fundraiser, why not post to this thread and say hello).

For today's fundraiser release, DC member timns (famous creator of the awesome Head in the Clouds web comic) has posted an interesting How To guide for "Using Skype to Monitor Remote Systems".

We provide a little network of servers that host several web services with various API's. Obviously, as part of this we have to offer support and are committed to fairly aggressive SLA's.  In order to help with this, I decided to implement a continual monitoring system to alert us of any systems falling over in our little farm. Being on a limited budget and an inveterate code tinkerer, I set up a little project to see if I could rustle something up. As far as I am aware, this is a novel approach to real-time systems monitoring. A sort of "poor man's Tivoli" if you like.

I tend to avoid anything that reminds me of a phone, but I have recently come to appreciate the value of skype as a tool for collaboration over long distances.

Click here to read the full HowTo now..

14078

Site/Forum Features / Re: Badge/Award Mod Rewritten

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 02:18 PM »

anyone willing to make a badge for mini-review writers?

14079

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY MUGs

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 12:18 PM »

Still lots of mugs went out that we haven't seen photos of!  Come one people, post some photos.  If you are camera shy, just post a photo of your mug held up to the outdoor landscape so we can see the area you live without seeing your face.

14080

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 11:01 AM »

We just passed the $6,000 goal -- the fundraiser is a success!!!



But let's not stop while we are going strong -- I've extended the thermometer range to $10,000.  That's a bit ambitious but let's see if we can make it and give more people a chance to become part of the family and share in the experience of donating

14081

Official Announcements / Re: Official Fundraiser Blog Day by Day

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 08:20 AM »

Ok day 5 of the fundraiser.  We're at $5,900 donated by 269 individuals.  Almost at our $6,000 goal -- if we reach that we will extend the thermometer range and keep going!

Today for the fundraiser celebration we have a new mini-review, by DC member Tomos, of a new program called Scrivner, which is still in beta:

Scrivener is a tool for writers. It's basically an rich text outliner with a very nice gui, and the ability to show/edit summaries of a folder's content (the corkboard), and of course the ability to export/compile all those entries as one document (images not supported)

It is still in beta. Initial impressions are good, but I have been able to crash it by importing an image (I have yet to see can I reproduce that), and I have found a bunch of minor bugs. In general it seems well behaved though and very usable.

• Read the full mini-review: here.

14082

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 08:14 AM »

Almost reached the fundraiser goal!


I guess we will extend the range of the thermometer if we make it! Yes!

14083

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 08:13 AM »

Welcome AAT!

When I saw your nickname and your quote:

Keep walking … ahead

It made me think of the "AT-AT" machine from Star Wars:

14084

PopUp Wisdom / Re: Unknown software exception - Windows 7

« Last post by mouser on March 05, 2011, 07:59 AM »

No reason it shouldn't work on windows 7, i'll test it today and see if i can reproduce and fix.
If i have trouble reproducing i might ask you to send me your settings file for the program.

14085

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 10:36 PM »

Crack the case will start in [countdown=3,4,2011,23,0]Already Started[/countdown].  Join the chat channel to play (click chat button above or join #donationcoder on efnet using a standard irc client).

14086

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 08:52 PM »

Now that's an awesome first post 

14087

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:09 PM »

Welcome Sreedhav!! 

14088

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 05:55 PM »

I can do the 7th.

14089

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 04:05 PM »

I think we will plan on playing Crack the Case Live and Online in the DonationCoder IRC channel tonight (friday mar 4, 2011), at sometime around 11PM server time (USA Central Standard time).

Everyone is welcome.

14090

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 02:50 PM »

I don't think there is a perfect way to handle such cases because you don't know ahead of time how far the tangential point is going to continue.
If you can catch it before people post back on the original topic its easy to split the thread -- but it's harder when there are mutiple discussions going on at once.

Thread seems ok to me as it is -- unless a thread is meant to serve as a permanent reference for something, i don't think its so bad when it drifts around.

Do you think it's worth splitting some posts off unto their own threads?

14091

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 10:08 AM »

Yes, let me give some thought and write up a little post reply later today about what I think are the key features it has to have.  I think my concerns are almost entirely around making it easy to maintain and update the content.

14092

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 08:23 AM »

I'm not a huge fan of development by committee -- but I am a fan of getting tons of input from everyone and then having one or two people try to put together one coherent solution that addresses the important concerns raised.

Regarding the software repository I was simply suggesting that because I don't yet have a feel for what a coherent solution would look like, I am a little bit hesitant to have app or anyone go spend a lot of time on something that may not get used, unless they are very comfortable with the idea that they are just implementing something for us to look at and consider, and not necessarily use in the end.

14093

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:51 AM »

Agreed with what everyone says, but with one major caveat, that relates to this project and others: Some of us have very different attitudes about creating something that does not get used.

• If you are the kind of person who works on things like this and enjoys the experience and is happy to have spent the time on it even if it does not get used, then there is no reason not to work on it.
• But if you are the kind of person who would be upset if you spent days/weeks/months on a project only to find out that it's not quite the right solution and won't be used, then you need to be MUCH MUCH more careful about coordinating the time you spent with others, to make sure that you are working on something that will in fact get used.
• The middle ground here is the person who will be upset if it doesn't get used, but is a gambler and is banking on the gamble that their work will get used when it's finally unveiled in it's finished state.  This is almost always the worst choice you can make.

So figure out which kind of person you are and coordinate on that basis.  Doing research on different possible solutions is *always* helpful.  I'm just cautioning against spending too much time implementing something specific at this point, because i think there are quite a few tricky details about getting this right, and if we're going to go to the trouble of fixing this deficiency on DC, I'd like us to find a really good solution to it.

14094

Official Announcements / Re: UnReplied Topic Fridays on the DonationCoder.com Forums (URT-Fri)

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:41 AM »

Ok, the first URT-Fri is in effect!!

It's the day when we try to pitch in and reply to any recent and unanswered topics that may have slipped through the cracks in the past week.

• Visit the unreplied topic page: here.

(ps. if there aren't enough entries on that page you can view unreplied topics that are older or are by older members)

14095

Site/Forum Features / MOVED: UnReplied Topic Fridays on the DonationCoder.com Forums (URT-Fri)

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:39 AM »

This topic has been moved to Official Announcements.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25897.0

14096

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:19 AM »

Awesome work Ath! 
I've added it to the fundraiser blog.

Looks very promising to me. 

14097

Official Announcements / Fundraiser Day 4 - Part 1 - New Coding Snack Release: WinButtons

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 07:12 AM »

Ok it's day 4 of the fundraiser.  We're at $5,270 donated by 239 individuals.  Not bad!

Yesterday I talked a little about the different areas on the website, including the Coding Snacks section of the forum, where anyone can post a request for a program that they would like to see created, and where coders implement those ideas as freeware.

Today's "Fundraiser Release of the Day" is the results of a Coding Snack request.

As described in this thread, WinButtons is a program launcher with large buttons, designed for touch screen displays.  It was released today by DC member Ath, based on a request from back in January of this year.

You can learn more about WinButtons, download it (exe and source code), and request new features, all on:

• WinButtons forum thread.

14098

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2011, 02:23 AM »

New CHS version is almost ready to upload; probably tomorrow.  it has ordering functionality and some other stuff.  getting back into the swing of working on it, so expect more updates more frequently.

14099

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 03, 2011, 02:15 PM »

I think what he was saying is to expand the scale of the thermometer if we reach $6,000 and keep the fundraiser going throughout the month, something i think we should do.  Just remember, donations won't continue at anything close to this initial pace; most of the donations so far have come people responding to the special fundraiser email/newsletter that went out over the last couple days.

14100

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by mouser on March 03, 2011, 01:45 PM »

I love seeing all the different people on this thread, both the old timers and the new members -- thank you oakvillan, muadib, TAF2000, Rambo54, insert_nick!

Big thanks also to Ishan at the ILoveFreeSoftware site: