The other problem with a negative rating for sites that link to sales sites is most legitimate review sites use sales referrals to generate money to support their site. The idea itself is interesting though, as a possible component for an improved search engine.

- Oshyan

All snails have one leg/foot...

- Oshyan

Thank god for that! Cyberdiva, I'm curious to hear your continued thoughts on Win7 Starter vs. XP as you gain more experience. I already have a netbook with XP so it's not an immediate consideration for me, but I do often recommend purchases for others, and many people are interested in netbooks these days.

Josh, the default rendering method has been the same since XP I think. It probably should have changed with Vista, but I imagine it would be more likely with Win7 now being a lot more likable and, eventually, popular. In any case I will say the rendering method options are great to have, but I too find their adjustment to be a bit of a "black box", not knowing entirely what is best to choose...

- Oshyan

Here's a 2nd vote for an updated, 64bit compatible PAR app!

- Oshyan

These days it seems everyone has a mencoder, ffdshow, etc. etc. front-end. I suppose a ton of these kinds of programs for easy video conversion is better than none. It's nice not to have to use SUPER or MediaCoder, neither of which has the best UI or stability record...

- Oshyan

This is very good stuff to know. It's a big disappointment that MS decided to hobble their main netbook OS so much.

Incidentally Josh, the reason KMPlayer might be dropping you out of Aero is the display/rendering method, not necessarily something fundamental to the app. You can adjust the rendering mode in the preferences...

- Oshyan

I agree, this sounds excellent. I've never really gotten into using an autocomplete system for the reasons you mention - having to set it up manually, bad recommendations, etc. The sheer simplicity and automatic setup of this seem to set it apart. Looking forward to it.

- Oshyan

I don't have any practical experience with Liferay, but I'm considering it for use at one of my jobs. I think it could meet your needs, but it's a pretty complex and broad system, it might be complex to implement what you need, at least vs. other systems that include more functionality out of the box. It's all about finding the right addons, and as far as robust forum functionality I'm really not sure it can fully cover that, except by integration with an outside system (e.g. SMF or PHPbb).

I think it might be best for you to outline your needs with more detail, particularly ratings of importance. It sounds like permission control is of particular importance, for every module, so that's something you should keep strongly in mind. For example I might recommend a CMS like Joomla for its ease of use and huge amount of free modules that cover all your needs, however its user access permission system is not very good at present. So even though it might meet 90% of your other needs, if granular security is as important it seems to be, it might not be ideal. That being said there are addons currently that enhance user permission control, and also upcoming version 1.6 will improve it further at the core (not that you'd want to wait, but you may be able to make do until the upgrade - on second thought probably not something to count on).

Anyway, SMF is a great forum system, but I agree with Mouser, the addon approach is not good. Not sure if the upcoming 2.0 version (currently a freely available release candidate) will fix that or not. I hope so.

The bottom line is I think your needs are varied enugh that a general CMS system might be justified. Look for something with the best community support in terms of documentation, availability of plugins, etc. This is where Joomla rates highly. Because of your security/permissions needs, you'll need to pay particular attention to this.

Above all I agree that you should implement *something* ASAP. Note that there is possible integration between Joomla and SMF with Jfusion, so this might be a good way to start - setup SMF, then use Joomla integration to add other features like file library, etc.

- Oshyan

I actually worked at a company that had one of those foot-activated mice. It was... weird. Hard to get used to. But certainly very novel.

- Oshyan

Certainly this "certification" would be just one of the criteria a program is rated on. I would never make a recommendation to anyone *solely* on this factor. But it is a useful idea not yet handled well by most AV soft I've seen.

- Oshyan

Like, say, Facebook?   

Look, the more money they find in Social/Sharing behavior, the more they will push users into publicizing their content rather than keeping it private. I had it happen on LiveJournal. I had a journal set to private, they changed their settings pages and all of mine were automagically set to Public. It'll probably only get worse.

Just know what you are getting into, and that anything you ever post online is ultimately public. No getting around it, really.

Jim

-J-Mac (December 10, 2009, 03:01 AM)

Ahhhh, unless you post it on your *own* site! Perhaps the solution then - if privacy is a concern - would be to use a system you can host yourself on your own server, e.g. Gallery2, Coppermine, etc.

- Oshyan

Quite honestly it sounds like your ideas may fit into some bigger ideas that are being worked on for the future of DC and beyond. Maybe your idea would be encompassed within, or a useful addition to that. If you can wait a few months there will probably be more to talk about in that regard.

- Oshyan

Everyone else has already posted some fantastic responses, and I agree with them all. So I won't gas on with my own story. But I do want to comment on what I find interesting about this place, and what people may not get immediately from the site title or description.

The thing is, DC may have started as a site for coders and software, and those things are still here with a big presence and very valuable - the idea of "coding snacks" alone is just brilliant. But just as important is that this is really one of the most knowledgeable and generous communities I've ever come across. I too have been using computers for decades, I've been on every major tech forum out there, from Ars Technica to Tom's Hardware and many more. None of them, no matter how good the *rest* of the content of the site (e.g. Ars Technica), have communities that combine smarts, broad knowledge, and friendly communications like this place does.

DC is now my first stop whenever I have a tech question, especially about what software to use. And I think it's that aspect - the collective knowledge of the community - that is the next generation of value for DC to really promote. We just need a platform to do it...

- Oshyan