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14151

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

« Last post by mouser on March 01, 2011, 07:17 AM »

YAY!!

It's finally begun and we have our wonderful mascot Cody once again starring in his own little tale of illness and redemption in the site banner (thank you Nick for the wonderful images).

I'll be blogging about the fundraiser, and posting updates about the planned release of something new each day, on:

• The fundraiser start page

Help us spread the word about this to all of your friends and any sites you know about.

Let's make this a happy, celebratory event.  And let's once again make this an opportunity to welcome new people into the fold, welcome back old members, and look forward to ways we can make the site more useful to everyone.

And also.. THANK YOU.  Thank you to everyone who has made it so enjoyable and rewarding to hang out on the site.  There are so many good people here who have made life more interesting and who have contributed to the site -- it would be wrong to try to name them.  But it's to them that we owe thanks that the site is still here and still enjoyable to be a part of.

See you on the other side, and let's get Cody across the banner finish line early!  

14152

Official Announcements / Official Fundraiser Blog Day by Day

« Last post by mouser on March 01, 2011, 07:04 AM »

Greetings and salutations!  My name is Jesse Reichler and I've been helping to run the DonationCoder.com website since its opening 6 years ago in 2005. I'm writing today to ask you to reach into your pockets and make a financial contribution to the site.

Now don't get all grumpy and close this page just yet.. This fundraiser is a cause for celebration.

Why should you make a donation now? DonationCoder is a small site. For 6 years it has thrived, supported exclusively by small direct contributions made by normal users just like you. Unlike most of the internet, we have resisted trying to fund the site using advertisements. We enjoy the idea that all of our funding comes directly from our users.

But it hasn't been easy. We've recently upgraded to a bigger server to support the demands of our software downloads and discussion community, and to allow us to provide webspace for member projects.

We have worked hard over the years to earn your support. Much of what we do revolves around creating free software to share, and with our server costs at nearly $500 a month, we need your help now to raise funds for the upcoming year.

Will you please consider making a donation today to the site? You'll be joining over 8,000 other people who have donated to the site since our opening in 2005, and you'll be a part of something fun and different. You choose the amount -- no amount is too small or too large.

And while it's easiest to donate using a credit card, through paypal, amazon.com, or one of several shareware payment services -- we will accept donations of any form: cash, cookies, rare gems, precious metals, oil paintings, knitted cat socks, etc. Even just a postcard from across the globe saying good job.

We just ask that you do something, anything, to let us know that you want to see the site keep going.

And to try to sweeten the pot a little this year, we will be running a special giveaway at the end of the month for everyone who has donated, and we'll be giving away some things that we've never tried before -- including custom coding time on a project of your own invention, and some very sweet computer hardware. Stay tuned to the website for more details in the days that follow!

Ready to make that leap of faith and send us a few bucks? Just click the Donate button at the top of the page and you'll be done and feeling good in no time!

-jesse

14153

Site/Forum Features / Re: Suggestion for Modify of your last post

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 06:47 PM »

On second read-through i understand what you are saying..

When you say "treat your modification as if it were a new post" you mean just for the purposes of bumping it to the top and sending notifications.. Yeah let me give that some thought.

It just seems neater than having a run of posts by the same poster saying there's a new update.

that's a pretty good point.

What's the logic in not doing this if someone else was the last poster?

Update the original release-posting with all the extra features and options you have (you have it summed up in a readme, right?) *and* make a new post with just the stuff added this time.

-Ath

this is what i do, i update the first post and change the subject to signify the current release version number and date, and then make a reply post with the changelog for the latest release.

14154

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

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 06:40 PM »

sweet  

looks like you're going to have to schedule some more kids if you hope to have one for each mug.

14155

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 06:38 PM »

Actually I'm very happy to have this discussion during the fundraiser, i just need to clear it out from my mind while i'm trying to organize a few things for the start of the fundraiser so i don't get bogged down in it while i'm supposed to be writing the newsletter, etc.

14156

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

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 05:54 PM »

 
More NANY mug pics please! There are still a ton of people with mugs who haven't posted -- and they owe us a photo!

14157

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.91.01 - Feb 24, 2011

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 05:33 PM »

will be in next update (actually i think youll find it unofficially in current version if you redownload).

14158

Living Room / Re: Should I add ads to my website?

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 04:37 PM »

A year is a long commitment.  But if you can always cancel and refund their money without any hard feelings, then it's really not a problem and still seems easily worth a try.  The main thing i would be concerned with is making sure you can stop if it brings in no money.

Personally i don't see how there is any harm in putting ads on your website.. If it were a site where a single user is re-visiting it 100 times a day it could get annoying, but otherwise i don't see any harm at all.

14159

Living Room / Re: Should I add ads to my website?

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 04:19 PM »

To me this is a really easy answer and that is: YES, TRY IT!!

Try it and see what the results are.  Would be silly not to.

Only then will you get to the potentially much more difficult question of whether it's worth keeping an ad on your site.  That's when the hard question comes.

14160

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

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 04:15 PM »

1 - please remove the "moved" posts from there, they take a large percentage of the list
2 - maybe we could have a "show only topics started by new members" thing (where "new" would have some sensible definition), since most of the threads in that page are really started by

Done.  Makes it much easier to read now. 

It now defaults to showing only fairly recent posts (in last 60 days) by people who have made very few posts (less than 10); you can adjust these values.

14161

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

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 01:18 PM »

I will code the suggestions.

14162

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

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 12:43 PM »

There's a newish link at the top of the forum pages labeled (unreplied topics).

This page lists recent forum posts that have no replies yet.

Can I suggest that in an effort to make sure requests for help and other important posts don't get overlooked, that we start a regular thing where we ask regular members to browse those posts every friday and try to reply to any posts that seem like they could use a reply?

I might even modify that page so it highlights posts by new members -- since they are the ones more likely to need time-sensitive replies.

I suggest we call it "URT-Fri" because it sounds cool.

14163

Official Announcements / Re: Packet Loss at SoftLayer network making DC occasionally slow to load.. see in

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 12:01 PM »

One question, do you monitor Doco all the time or you found this from some other website monitoring apps data ? or from server admin ?

if i'm awake, i'm monitoring DC

14164

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.91.01 - Feb 24, 2011

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 10:36 AM »

Thanks for spotting that jinker; options will now be Ctr+Alt+O.

hubi, Ctrl+Alt+P is now splice hotkey.

14165

Official Announcements / Re: Packet Loss at SoftLayer network making DC occasionally slow to load.. see in

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 10:27 AM »

By the way, if you are curious about such things you can download a cool free utility for windows called WinMTR, which will show the route from your pc to the donationcoder server, and where the network is experiencing "packet loss" (loss of transmission data):

http://winmtr.net/

Sample screenshot showing Packet Loss to DonationCoder server this morning:

14166

Official Announcements / Packet Loss at SoftLayer network making DC occasionally slow to load.. see in

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 10:24 AM »

We've been experiencing random periods recently where the new website server is slow to access.

It actually has nothing to do with our server per se, it's a network issue at the SoftLayer data center in Seattle, and it seems to come and go.

I've added something to the bottom of each forum page that will show you how long it took our server to actually render and send you the page, and you should see that number very low (under half a second); any further delays are due not to our server but the connection to the larger SoftLayer network.

We have been fighting with SoftLayer for a couple of weeks now trying to get them to solve this problem which they seem perplexed about.. We won't give up until it's solved, please hang in there with us and know that it is only temporary.

14167

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 10:03 AM »

I think it's time for me at least to leave this thread alone for a while so that i can concentrate on some of the work that needs to be done for the fundraiser.  This particular discussion hasn't exactly been a welcome diversion or come at a particularly good time.. but i would like to return to the discussion of how to improve the site after things calm down a bit and i can focus more productively on what can be done to improve the site.

14168

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 09:59 AM »

Regarding "outing" people who wish to be anonymous -- I don't believe in it unless they are hurting someone, and lotus isn't.  So i suggest no one start trying to prove who someone is or isn't.

Lotus, I think it would be easier to talk with you and take your criticisms seriously if you didn't have multiple accounts and keep telling us about how you are really a long time member but don't want to say who you really are.  But if that's what you want to do, i don't think it's our job to try to figure out what other usernames you may have gone by here.  Though I don't see the point of it and I think it's in poor taste for you to keep talking about the fact that you are known here under a different name.

14169

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 09:53 AM »

This is more of a side note than anything, but lotus my experience has been that trying to predict or influence how other sites cover events is nearly universally impossible on the web.

We are living in an age where "viralness" seems to be the catchphrase and predominant phenomena around us.  That is.. we are dealing with an almost-winner-take-all chaotic system where only a few events become highlighted everywhere and most of the rest of what is created gets largely ignored -- and the deciding factors between what gets noticed and talked about vs what gets ignored -- are incredibly unpredictable and largely random.

This can be a very disconcerting feeling -- wondering why one thing is getting so much attention while another is not.

I'm trying to learn to be less bothered and more sanguine by this kind of randomness in the world, though it's not easy.  In the end the site exists to serve the needs of its participating and supporting members and it's hard to get too worked up about things that are out of our control, like what other sites decide to write up our events and how.

When you say:

I just have a inner feeling that this fundraiser is not well-timed to highlight anything and will likely make future one much less effective.

Look the economy is in tatters, it hasn't been a "good" time to have a fundraiser in two years.  But that's not the point.  Nor is the amount we raise the point.  This site isn't a coporation that has to make increasing profits or we'll go out of business.  We don't have shareholders making us do things we don't like in order to maximize profits.  We survive on the money we raise and the time and contributions of those who participate, and we adjust as needed as those factors ebb and flow.

We're having a fundraiser so we *PROUDLY* ask for the support and contributions of those who appreciate the site.  In fact we should probably get used to having these fundraisers at the same time every year, and view them as an opportunity to reach people and ask for them to be part of this experiment and improve it.

14170

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 08:43 AM »

Well if you have participated in the NANY events, then I guess the first thing to acknowledge at least is that you have participated in making the site a better place, and so you can't be faulted for just complaining and not participating.  There is no need for you to change your nickname -- your criticisms might have been received a little bit better if everyone could see that you weren't *just* complaining.

Please, acknowledge that NANY's been going down every year and last year's NANY 2011 is the most anti-climatic event ever hosted on DC

NANY was a ton of fun this year I thought, and a lot of coders participated.  Although a few apps got quite a bit of attention from external sites, in general it got less attention on external sites than have some past NANY events -- and that was unfortunate.  But that's something that's really hard for us to control.  DC doesn't advertise, we don't have a public relations department, etc.  We just don't have the time, money, or inclination for such things.  We rely on DC members to spread the word, etc., and we worked hard to spread the word about it.

In many ways DC is a small site, facing the same challenges to get recognized that all small sites face -- and we have to make choices about how we spend our limited time and resources.

Actually it's a little ironic that you are so against having a fundraiser, because the fundraiser is one of the few times when we actually make a real effort to get other sites to tell their members about us and to spread the word that what we do is worth supporting and contributing to.

If you posted some constructive suggestions about ways to improve the site and they weren't taken up, do what I do.. don't get discouraged and try again.  Sometimes we are a little thick headed here, and we're all juggling lots of things and working on different projects, and sometimes it takes a few tries to get something done.

14171

Screenshot Captor / Re: Great Scanner funtions in ScreenShotCaptor

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 07:42 AM »

I'm really glad the scanner functions were useful to you.

I find them especially useful for really quick common scanning uses.

Press button to scan image.  Press quick-skew adjustment button to fix tilt.

Then my favorite feature is not known by many, its the shift+alt+S shortcut that lets you select a region on the page and quickly save it to a new file; you can use that to really quickly carve up a scan into 5 or 6 different region files.  I use that all the time.

14172

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 28, 2011, 07:33 AM »

Lotus, the thing is -- most of the shortcomings of the site that you have pointed out are indeed things that DC *should* continue to work to try to improve and do better at.

An improvement of the review area, better organization of the site in general.. Yes, definitely.  More big apps released more frequently by more people? Yes! Less insular and more people participating, yes.  More attention to the site by the outside world, yes.  More attention for our events, yes.  More focus on championing the idea of donationware? yes.

And it seems like your main point recently is, something is not right that these things aren't happening fast enough -- and then critically you make the leap to say that because we aren't achieving "success" fast enough we should be ashamed to have a fundraiser and ask for people's help in keeping the site going.

You see where you lose me is -- if you want the site to get better, and do better, and get more participation, etc. -- and you realize that there are many people working hard here, wouldn't the right response be the opposite?  Shouldn't you be working hard to contribute to improve the site, and encourage more people to donate more frequently so that the concept of the site can succeed?

There are so many things we can do better here, and should work on.  But we also try to be a force for positive change and improvement -- and we try to support each other constructively.

That's why your posts are so jarring -- instead of looking at all of the good things we do and celebrating them and trying to help us figure out how to do better, you seem intent on making us feel bad for the things we haven't yet accomplished and insisting that we not ask for help until we achieve some higher level of "success".  

We'll have our ups and downs, as we always have.  We are in this for the long haul.  But we're going to continue to ask for people's support without shame -- both in terms of financial contributions and in terms of volunteering time and helping us spread the word.

14173

General Software Discussion / Re: I have to admit defeat ... I cannot format a hard drive ...

« Last post by mouser on February 27, 2011, 11:30 PM »

As 4wd points out -- it's at least possible that a 1TB drive is too large for an old pc and is confusing some hardware.  Is the bios seeing the proper size of the drive?

14174

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 27, 2011, 11:28 PM »

Maybe another way to look at your unhappiness with the site is like this:

Is DC a community for you -- that you are an active helping volunteer member of?  If so, then start contributing something to the site -- you want more reviews? so do I -- get off your butt and go write one to share with the rest of us.

Or is DC a company that you are planning on "hiring" to provide you with a service?  If you are viewing us as that, it's clear we are letting you down and we aren't performing as you desire.  With so many people we can't please everyone -- it seems like the thing for you to do is not pay us and look for a different company to hire for your needs.

Either way, I'd still be interested in hearing your ideas about ways to improve the site from your perspective -- but maybe in a more constructive way.

14175

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by mouser on February 27, 2011, 11:08 PM »

That's right!! But (at least) on the appearance, haven't you been promoting an idea, concept, and ideal of donationware that coders should buy into, since the creation of the site? Isn't it something that fundraising money is supposed to support?

I try very hard, constantly, to encouarge the idea of donationware, and to encourage people on the site to donate to the coders on this site who create stuff.

When i said that "i expected the forum would serve only as a place to get official support for the applications i had written"? -- i was explaining how in 2005 i really had no real hopes of other coders joining in and participating.. that has been an amazing wonderful development.  Then I spent a lot of time writing the DonationCredits system so people could support different coders and contributors.

The license keys have always been a controversial and complicated thing in terms of other users using them.. It's also an issue we've recently discussed here where you note that one idea i particularly like is doing away with the need for free license keys and moving to a model that asks for donations during updates, which would hopefully be easier for all coders to incorporate.

Look, i think the idea of promoting the idea of donationware is something we should and could do better with.. But this isn't a company.. If you think "we" should do a beter job of this kind of stuff, then pick up a writing instrument, and *YOU* do something about it.  The "we" in this site includes you and everyone else.  If you think more should be done -- then do it!  Or send a donation to people who are doing what you want.