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15076

Living Room / Re: December has arrived...Are YOU Prepared for Christmas?!

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 09:35 PM »

Cranioscopical, shame on you!!
You guys don't know to create a new holiday tradition do you?

Let me start describing the new DC'er holiday of Codystmus:

• Starting on December 15 of each year, create a special place in your house for the Codystmus offering plate.
• Place some representation of Cody the bird on the plate -- either have a child in your house draw a picture of Cody or make a clay model of him, etc.
• On that plate, on each day from December 15 to December 25, each member of your household will place one piece of candy, preferably chocolate, on the plate (when no one else is around to see), and take one for themselves that someone else has left.
• This symbolizes the mysterious offerings of candy to Cody the bird, which appear and dissapear while no one is looking, and the idea of random exchanges of small gifts between people based on trust and non-greediness.
• On the last day, December 25.. well i'm not sure what should happen then..

ps. I know the name sucks, if anyone can think of a better one it would be appreciated.

15077

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 09:02 PM »

The thing is, all joking aside.. Only kids can draw such wonderful pictures.  It's the same reason it's so nice to listen to little kids talk.. You just cannot fake that as an adult.. It's just so charming and good 

ps. is it just my imagination or does it look like baby Jesus is in a space capsule.  maybe your son knows something about the origin of mankind that we do not..

15078

Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 06:03 PM »

there's nothing new to read in the article so it really doesn't add anything to the debate.

15079

Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 03:27 PM »

Interesting reading.. We are definitely entering a confusing twilight zone phase here..

For about six months, I've pondered writing this post asking the dreaded Google question. Following yesterday's announcement that the European Union has opened a Google antitrust investigation, I can wait no longer. My life, and perhaps yours, is enmeshed in Google products and services. If there is a devil, a Great Satan of modern technology companies, Google is it. I sold my soul to Google for free services, which are disrupting -- some would say destroying -- businesses that produce valuable content and other intellectual property. In the 1970s, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates warned of the very problem Google is creating today: Making things that are inherently valuable nearly worthless.

The problem is simple: Google's business model is fundamentally about free. Someone else pays to produce content or other valuable intellectual property, around which Google wraps search keywords, adverts and services. The information giant doesn't produce content, but its entire business model is about cannibalizing others' valuable intellectual property.... content creators are compelled to give away their stuff for less and often for free. If not, the content becomes invisible to the Internet -- or at least to the majority of people who use Google search and other services.

http://www.betanews....t-it-back/1291225210

15080

Living Room / Re: DC-IRLG December 31st in Champaign IL, USA

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 03:03 PM »

 

15081

Living Room / Re: December has arrived...Are YOU Prepared for Christmas?!

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 01:02 PM »

I think we DC'ers need to invent our own holiday tradition and that revolves around Cody.
It probably needs to involve hiding gold covered chocolate coins around the house.

15082

Living Room / DC-IRLG December 31st in Champaign IL, USA

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 12:03 PM »

DC-IRLG = DonationCoder In Real Life Gathering - December 31st, 2010

I've tried this before and no one shows up but that won't stop me from trying again.  By all means if you have a real party to attend, do that instead.

We will meet at my house for a board/card game marathon, as well as food and drinks.  All ages are welcome. No social skills are required.


When: December 31st (New Years Eve, Friday Evening)
Where: My house in Champaign, IL, USA.
Send me a message if you intend to come and i'll send you details.

15083

Official Announcements / Re: November 2010 Giveaway and Discount - e2 Text Editor - Winners Posted

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 11:15 AM »

Note that the 30% e2 discount is still valid but will expire in a few days, sometime around December 3rd i think.

15084

Official Announcements / Re: November 2010 Giveaway and Discount - e2 Text Editor - Winners Posted

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 11:12 AM »

Winners of the November 2010 Giveaway Drawing

November 2010 Giveaway Drawing

Supporting Members, you've got until the last day of the month to take advantage of this month's Discounts..

This Month's Special Discounts and Giveaways:

• E2 Text Editor (30% discount)

Winners of 'E2 Text Editor' (5):

• kyrathaba
• timns
• phitsc
• Perry Mowbray
• mrHappy

All winners are now being notified by email to their forum email address.  If you haven't received an email but your name is listed above, check spam filters and forum email address, and then mail [email protected] and let us know you never got any mail.  It can take a few days for companies to send you your serial number; if a few days pass and you haven't received it - send a reminder to the company email as noted in your winning notification email, or to us by replying to the email you received or to us directly.

Curious about how we award prizes?  See https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1684.0 for a discussion about our custom prize optimizer utility. Winning something one month reduces your chances of winning the next month, and being helpful on the forum slightly increases your chances.

15085

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.89.01 - Nov 21, 2010

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 07:40 AM »

now that is nice to hear 

15086

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: For Coders: How to signal FARR to release and reload plugins programatically

« Last post by mouser on December 01, 2010, 07:32 AM »

By the way, I was able to install plugins by completely closing FARR (by calling FARR.exe -exit) and then restarting it. But that just doesn't seem  as elegant (seeing that you don't do it with DCUpdater).

ah.. you made me realize.. i can just add commandline args to let you tell farr to unload and reload plugins.. in fact knowing me i probably already did and just forgot..

15087

Living Room / Re: The SSL certificate industry is a messy business

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 10:58 PM »

damn app is ahead of me once again.

15088

Living Room / Re: The SSL certificate industry is a messy business

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 09:27 PM »

I think we are going to try StartSSL at DC soon.  I will report on how well it goes.  It looks like they have some neat features and so far i've been really impressed with them.

A comparison chart from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia....ates_for_web_servers

15089

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 06:45 PM »

nice!
now ask him to draw a scene with you and Cody at the computer.

15090

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: For Coders: How to signal FARR to release and reload plugins programatically

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 05:40 PM »

Do you send the message to FARR's main window? How do you get that from DCUpdater?

yes.
i use some c++ classes that look up a Process ID given an application exe name, and then find the window corresponding to that Process ID.
there may be an inno setup addon that will do this, but it's not in default inno setup.

however, i can provide a smallish (50k or so) dll that you can call from inno setup that will find the process by name and send it the signal, and show how that can be used from inno setup if you like.  i actually use this in all my installers to send a signal and actually CLOSE a running application during installation/uninstallation.

15091

FARR Plugins and Aliases / For Coders: How to signal FARR to release and reload plugins programatically

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 02:59 PM »

If you want to build an installer for your plugin, the following info may be useful.
Though i think it would be even more useful if we wrote a generic installer for plugins and added a way for FARR itself to guide user through installing a plugin in a less error-prone manner than is currently required.

But anyway:

• If you want to signal FARR to *UNLOAD* all plugins, in preparation for updating a dll that might currently be in use, send the FARR process the windows message WMUSER with WPARAM=98 and LPARAM=97.  You would normally do that BEFORE you try to install or replace any dll.
• Then to signal FARR that the installation is completed and that FARR should *reload* its plugins, send the windows message WMUSER with WPARAM=98 and LPARAM=98.  You would normally do this after your installer has finished.

This is the exactly the procedure that DcUpdater uses when updating plugins.

15092

Find And Run Robot / Re: Open search results in windows explorer

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 02:53 PM »

ah that makes sense -- thanks for sharing the solution. 

15093

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: cross-platform puzzle game - WhirlyWord

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 02:29 PM »

im sad to see twiggles and cobbe are not in their rightful place next to the wheels though..

15094

Find And Run Robot / Re: Problem with icons

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 02:25 PM »

sounds like a general problem with setting the default application to open certain files.
you should be able to change that by right clicking and saying "open with.." and then setting a new default.

15095

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: cross-platform puzzle game - WhirlyWord

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 02:00 PM »

wow that is really clever.. and interesting.

it could REALLY do with a tutorial/instructions.

this seems like a really novel word game to me.. and one of those things that those word game playing lovers would trample over their first born kids to play.

15096

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games - Dixit

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 01:48 PM »

My next micro-review is for first impressions of: Dixit




Dixit is really more of a card and party game than a board game.  The concept is very simply, players (or teams) take turns coming up with an ambiguous description of a hidden card in their hand, and other players try to choose cards from their own hands that best match the description.  Then all cards are shuffled and laid out on the table and everyone tries to guess which card the player originally described.  A simple scoring system advances pawns on a board.

I brought dixit to a family gathering last week that had players ranging from 7 to 70, and everyone got a big kick out of it.

Why is it a perfect game for family gatherings:

• Super easy to teach and transport
• Plays fast and everyone is involved and engaged every moment of play.
• Little or no real competition, very lighthearted and entertaining; no one really has to care about winning and losing.
• Little kids love the artwork, adults like coming up with clever clues.
• Older players who *enjoy* deep thinking can get satisfaction from thinking hard about clues and details.
• Fosters discussion and chatting about the clues and pictures.
• Fun when people don't agree with each other

Game Designer Interests

• Clever scoring rule that ensures people come up with ambiguous but reasonable description clues.

Summary:

I'm sure groups of adults would enjoy this, but I definitely think that Dixit (and its expansion Dixit 2) is a perfect game for family gatherings, especially when you have a variety of ages including very young (6yrs or so) kids.  I highly recommend it.

Final Rating: 9 of 10

15097

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Updated: GooglePlus - View Google search results in FARR as you type

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 01:34 PM »

ahhh good catch!

15098

Screenshot Captor / Re: Capturing screenshot

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 01:01 PM »

thanks, i will check into it.. the scrolling capture feature of Screenshot Captor badly needs an update.

15099

Living Room / Re: Amazon's Kindle eBook Reader

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 12:56 PM »

I bought my daughter a 2nd generation Kindle, as a Christmas gift.

I really think these things make awesome gifts for kids.. unlike a cell phone or computer, they are purely constructive things.  there is a reasonable chance that your child will not use it much, but there is 0 chance that it will be used to waste their minds away.  And if it does catch their interest, it will open up a huge world of amazing free classic literature to them.

15100

Official Announcements / Re: Preparing for a new master DonationCoder server

« Last post by mouser on November 30, 2010, 12:51 PM »

I believe it's vmware ESX.. but gothic can fill us in on all the details.