Recent Posts

1476

Site/Forum Features / Re: Going to try google adsense on the pages for 1 week

« Last post by urlwolf on December 30, 2006, 06:44 AM »

Mouser,

I'd say go for it. It looks like community sites will be all the craze in 2007. This site contains excellent content; it'd be stupid not to make enough money to pay rent while offering good content, while others pocket a lot of money for similar ideas but implemented in a 'me too' way. Also, the new cash could make for new features that benefit all the posters; it may help you think bigger.

Just my 2c.

1477

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by urlwolf on December 28, 2006, 05:20 AM »

Just wanted to drop a note on connectedText, a personal wiki system.

http://www.connectedtext.com/

The nice advantage over other notetakers and wiki systems is that it lets you see a graphical view of your notes (how they connect to each other) in some kind of concept map.



If you don't like to write wiki syntax, this is not for you.

Version 2.0.0.8. It contains some new features like:
Clipboard catcher: create automatically new topics as you copy text to Windows clipboard;
Support for Flash animations;
Support for AVI and MPEG movies;
Improved HTML paste. Convert HTML tags to ConnectedText marks. Automatically capture images from Internet.
Improved handling of files;
Consult the Change Log for complete information. Thanks for reporting and helping us track down bugs.

1478

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by urlwolf on December 28, 2006, 05:15 AM »

Personally, it would be very nice if a notetaking application included a powerful outliner instead of the rtf ordered list options that are normally offered (bullet list, numbered list).  A popular outliner in the past was ECCO's feature.  NDX cards also has a nice outliner.  However, for the most part, it is not the definitive feature of a notetaking application, but more of a nice luxury to have.

-superboyac (December 11, 2006, 04:56 PM)

OneNote does that! Bestest outliner ever (it does not only the typical vertical outliner, but horizontal as well. The witdth of the text box eseasily changeable, and you can start writing anywhere on the screen. It can be reduced to a tiny window, and still be useful (good for notes).

1479

General Software Discussion / Re: i need an email stripper

« Last post by urlwolf on December 27, 2006, 06:13 AM »

I'd say have a look at regular expressions. See if you can implement something that filters dollar ammounts, (e.g. \$\d+) out of the plain text of the email. Problem is, you'll have to download the entire email text, then filter locally (unless you have access to the gmail server ), so I don't think this solution is feasible. Plus of course, each regular expression will be highly specific to the bank email format, and it will break havoc on any other email... so you should make sure it gets applied to only mail from bank.

Hope that helps.

1480

General Software Discussion / Re: Batch Image Converter

« Last post by urlwolf on December 22, 2006, 05:05 AM »

glad you liked it

1481

General Software Discussion / Re: need: a program to track the exact time that you spend on each webpage

« Last post by urlwolf on December 21, 2006, 06:45 AM »

Thanks Tomos, good pointer. I tried titleLog, but the url is not kept... a bit difficult to map the page title to the url. A mod to titleLog might be possible.

Ahk'd be the fastest, but it's not cross-platform. The idea is that this program could be run by many different people independently of what OS/browser they are using.

1482

General Software Discussion / Re: Batch Image Converter

« Last post by urlwolf on December 21, 2006, 06:40 AM »

I've only used it for resizing pictures in batch, but BIMP lite did the trick for me:
http://cerebralsyner...download.php?view.52

1483

General Software Discussion / need: a program to track the exact time that you spend on each webpage

« Last post by urlwolf on December 20, 2006, 01:45 PM »

Hi,

I need a program to track the exact time that you spend on each webpage. This is partially acomplished by my current tracker, visual timeAnalyzer (www.neuber.com/timeanalyzer/index.html)... but I need to have detailed statistics and have them in a format that I can process afterwards (e.g., plain text).

I want to complement a really nice new finding: a proxy-based program that can save to disk each and every page you have visited.
http://www.proxy-off...m/private/index.html
Unfortunately, time information is not kept.

Ideally, I'd like to find something system-independent, free, and if possible, open source. But this is just the icing on the cake.

I'm planning to use this for a really cool experiment (more to come soon!).

Any recommendations?

1484

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / What tools are you using for GOE. My list

« Last post by urlwolf on December 20, 2006, 10:47 AM »

I though It'd be a good idea to share what tools we are using in getting organized.
I'll start.

My Tools
   Onenote office.microsoft.com/onenote
to write prose, and as a journal. I take notes here about things that I think when reading papers; chuncks of text from the paper, my comments, graphs, etc. Only part of them end up in an actual paper. Best outliner ever.
   
   ToDoList http://www.codeproje.../tools/ToDoList2.asp
      for project management because of time handling. I'm trying to implement closed lists here. This is mostly a planning tool: I want to see how many hours (estimated) I need to complete each project. Each task should be doable, with action verbs (see 43folders post on verbs for todo lists). No goals here. The total number of hours left is displayed at the top of the tree, and I use that to see if I'm making progress. That is why it is important that the stuff in TodoList is a closed list: otherwise, I know I'll add more tasks, and the counter will go up.
      
      All tasks in this list should have a time assigned.
   
   QuickNote http://www.heise.de/ct/activaid/
                  This is a small notepad-like application written in ahk. It comes bundled with activaid.
      Small tasks that come to mind, INBOX: use the "write it and forget it till tomorrow": E.g.of tasks, browse for a tablet pc, post DC. I batch those and do them when doing 'recreational' surfing. This, I do in a completely separated context, (e.g., outside my place: I'm working from home now), to make sure that there is a clear enviromental separation. QuickNote is like scratch paper, nothing stays there permanently. Quicknote is also good for next actions (it is done by date). Ideally, I should follow a 'do it tomorrow' approach in quickNote.
   
   mindMaps/concept maps http://vue.uit.tufts.edu
      Currently torn between oneNote and mind mapping. I started using mindJet MindManager, but I found that (for concept maps) VUE is better. It's one of the few java applications that I like and use.
      
   
   Calendar
      Agenda at once, but it's losing importance

EDIT: Tracking time with time keeper http://www.crypto-ce...html/timekeeper.html

Your choices?

1485

General Software Discussion / Re: moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 20, 2006, 05:52 AM »

Ok more news.

The #3 developer was ill.
He sent an email and couldn't get to the office in a while.
This is why I didn't want to blame anyone (or badmouth) any product.

So people, (mostly people doing the Getting Organized experiment) give timeKeeper a try, it works and it's just what I needed... to have a log of the task I do. I'll even help loggin how much you spend sleeping, eating, walking the dog

1486

General Software Discussion / Re: moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 19, 2006, 11:16 AM »

Ok, but be warned:
(1) the site really looks dangerously like "deadware inside". I should have not bought it by the looks of the site, but the app is really neat.
(2) The author may come back from the dead anytime and send me the license (so don't flame her/him just yet):

http://www.crypto-ce...html/timekeeper.html

1487

General Software Discussion / Re: moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 19, 2006, 07:26 AM »

News: it seems that a refund is on the way for #3.

However, I'd prefer to be able to use the app! I couldn't find anything similar. And it is pretty obscure, so now I don't think there'd be w4r3z copy. Well, back to searching for the perfect app... or maybe time to do a similar ahk hack would be faster ?

1488

General Software Discussion / Re: moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 18, 2006, 01:32 PM »

well, case 2 is pretty much closed. No problem. Normally, if the freeware version is really that good and the shareware one doesn't offer any advantage, the market should take care of it. But this is normally not the case.

Anyway, I'm more interested in the other two cases.

1489

General Software Discussion / Re: moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 18, 2006, 12:36 PM »

Well, since "better" is subjective, let's say that the free product cover the same needs. This is a tough one to ellaborate without talking about an specific example.

1490

Living Room / Are there small XVGA+ (1400 x 1050) TFTs?

« Last post by urlwolf on December 18, 2006, 11:43 AM »

Hi

I'm surprised that laptops with XVGA+ screens are common (1400 x 1050), in really small formats (e.g., 14", 15")... but a stand-alone monitor of that size and resolution is hard (impossible?) to find. I wonder why large stand-alone monitors (19") have really bad resolutions normally, lower than those laptop screens. The laptop screens must be cheap; in dell, adding a higher res. screen is like 50$.

However, of you want (1400 x 1050) in a non-laptop screen, you have you fork out quite a lot of money (more so in Europe!).

Why is that?
I'm considering using 2 laptop screens as a better solution (tiny pixels, best resolution overall, portable, and not so bright!: I hate the newer over-300cd/cm2 monitors!).

Any recommendations about how to go about it?

1491

General Software Discussion / moral behaviour in the shareware industry

« Last post by urlwolf on December 18, 2006, 11:38 AM »

Hi,

Since we all know how wrong it is to pirate soft,  and the media keep reminding us of the poor little software companies that get harmed when each human being fires a P2P program... let me try to put the argument upside down.

I don't want to badmouth any company publicly right now... But here are a few examples of bad behavior from a company towards a user (me).

(1) company X sells a product that requires server interaction. After selling the software and supporting it properly for a year or so, the server doesn't respond, rendering the software useless.

(2) Company Y sells a product. You can get a much better one in all aspects for free, but of course it's too late for a refund.

(3) Company Z has a webpage that looks like not being updated much. User tries the app, and it's good. It smells like deadware, but there are no alternatives. He buys the product... or at least pays for it. The code to unlock the app (license) never gets delivered. The company that deals with CC transactions is contacted, but doesn't respond either.

Of course, sending mails to support was tried and got no answer.

One funny advantage of ecommerce is that you can set up shop, then die, and the merchandise may still be selling for a while

What do you think?
What is the correct action in each of these cases?

Since DC proudly helps users make good software decisions, I may think about disclosing company X, Y, and Z's names. But I want to know what your feeling about it is first.

1492

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: The Holy Grail of text reading on a PC

« Last post by urlwolf on December 18, 2006, 10:20 AM »

Hey Skrommel,

Where do you get neoSpeech? In their page:
http://www.neospeech...rt/download/list.php
They ask you many questions about what sounds like an API for their system. Do they have a standalone application?

1493

Official Announcements / Re: DonationCoder.com has just reached 50 000 members!

« Last post by urlwolf on December 17, 2006, 07:37 AM »

Congrats to DC and mouser ... keep it up!

1494

Developer's Corner / Re: What Programming Language have you USED THE MOST over the past 12 months?

« Last post by urlwolf on December 11, 2006, 05:51 AM »

R for me:
www.R-project.org

and a bit of actionscript and VB.

1495

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: The Holy Grail of text reading on a PC

« Last post by urlwolf on December 07, 2006, 06:10 AM »

I would *LOVE* an app like that displaying pdfs and html at least. Other than adobe, there is no pdf scrolling apps that I know off. and I do use opera for HTML. This would be a killer app. I'd be willing to pay top donationCoder credits to whoever gets this done (if it's possible at all!).

1496

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by urlwolf on December 04, 2006, 12:51 PM »

hmm, I too uninstalled texNotes too quickly. Maybe I'll give it another go... in 2007

Right now, I use a combination of oneNote and mind Maps (!). Really effective for organizing/preparing large papers.

I think mind maps have a bright future for notetaking.

1497

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: more fasting: No newly installed apps till 2007; limiting internet intake to 1h/

« Last post by urlwolf on December 04, 2006, 05:04 AM »

Hey App,

Good to know that things are working better for you now. The first software fast I did I wanted to 'convert' the extra time into short stories... one a month to be systematic. It didn't happen. I just translated an old one. so I stilll 'owe' myself 2 stories.

Writing is freaking hard most of the time. I have found that mindmaps help me to position ideas together, so if I work on a mindmap first the writing is faster and almost painless. I think the visual part of mindmaps help reducing working memory load.

@Tomos:
Yes Forster likes journaling a lot. I tried a smaller version (10 min a day, first thing in the morning) but it's hard to keep up Actually, right now I don't think I'm using ANY time management system

1498

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / more fasting: No newly installed apps till 2007; limiting internet intake to 1h/

« Last post by urlwolf on December 03, 2006, 02:15 PM »

Hi,

I'm not getting some goals for this year, so I'm cutting down (again) on two things that take lots of time: finding and testing apps, and aimless browsing.

So I'm declaring some more fasting: No newly installed apps till 2007; limiting internet intake to 1h/day.

Let see how it works. I'll still look at the forum, but won't post much.

BTW, RSS feeds are an important time waster too. I have 67; do we need to read that much What is the proportion signal/noise? Is reading about productivity really paying off?

1499

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: Tracks: Doing Things Properly (via David Allen)

« Last post by urlwolf on December 03, 2006, 06:34 AM »

Dunno, why be limited to a web interface when you run an app on your own computer? portability?

1500

Living Room / Re: Nice New Blog by DC member on "Social Computation and Creativity"

« Last post by urlwolf on December 01, 2006, 09:41 AM »

Sounds interesting. I just added the RSS to my daily read feed.

-tinjaw (November 30, 2006, 10:43 AM)

me too.