Recent Posts

17326

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2010, 08:13 AM »

Sorry if the ads are nothing to do with fundraising I can't understand the point of the experiment?

i suppose i just think it would be interesting to know things like:
how much could the site make on advertising if it did switch to advertising model.  is it less or more than we get in donations?  if it's less or even close, then maybe this is something other sites would like to know so they should consider using a donation model.  does having ads on the site decrease donations? if so, that's something other sites might like to know to.

i must admit that most of why i am curious is just plain ordinary curiosity, the same reason a kid sticks his fingers in a fan.  maybe an apt metaphor

17327

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2010, 07:15 AM »

Regarding the CafePress prices -- we should have this discussion on a different thread.

They are priced the way they are specifically to PREVENT people from buying these items.
We give away these things during special events and as recognition of special thanks, and i think the items are all the more special when they aren't things that anyone can just go buy.

We're not trying to make money from selling them.

17328

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2010, 07:12 AM »

Boy this has really thread gone off the rails quickly..  

The original subject of this post was about bringing ads back as a brief experiment for 1 month, after which they would be turned off again for another couple of years.
Just like we did back in January of 2007.

We always experiment with stuff on DC, and the question was only ever if we should try it again for a month to see if we noticed any differences from the last time we experimented 3 years ago (i.e. has the ad revenue changed dramatically? would donations drop off? do people object to them? etc.?)

There never was and isn't any intention to keep ads on the site.  As i posted above, i find them ugly and counter to DC spirit, and we already get enough support from members here that we do not need them in order to keep running the site.  I'm also not a big fan of google, and i think the fact that the ads are normally for software tools makes them almost a kind of conflict of interest.  So the question was never whether we should put ads on the site to raise money.  The idea was simply to experiment and understand what if anything had changed from 3 years ago when we last tried it.

The one person above who made some very thoughtful comments that need to be reflected on was slowmaker, because he was addressing the issue that having ads on the site, even briefly, could very much give a negative impression of the site to new visitors.  That's one thing that really concerns me and gives me pause regarding any experiment, however brief it may be.  

One one hand, it might still be worth doing as a way of letting everyone experience what DC would be without support from donors.  Personally the last time we experimented with ads in 2007 had a very strong effect on me in terms of convincing me that it was something i absolutely hated having on the pages.  On the other hand, maybe doing this even for just a month would make people feel like the fundraising events that we occasionally do are less meaningful, which would be a very bad thing.

Bottom line.. if it's something people think is a bad idea, we won't do it!

17329

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Create Dummy File

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2010, 12:33 AM »

Sometimes there are features i want to add to my programs.. but i know that so many people will use it without thinking too much about it, that it will cause too many problems, and it's just not a good idea.

Whenever you add a feature like that, you need to reallly make a scary clear warning, that will stop people from just clicking on something and forgetting.

17330

General Software Discussion / Re: Aren't all _on_ events JavaScript?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 11:31 PM »

this is one of those things that is not really debatable.
it doesn't matter if those events are javascript or prayers sent up to heaven for god to read and execute in your browser,
the important question in this case is what happens when a person hits your site with javascript disabled.

that doesnt have to be an existential question -- just have her disable javascript in her browser and visit the page and find out.

17331

General Software Discussion / Re: Aren't all _on_ events JavaScript?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 11:18 PM »

get her to disable JS in her browser, then visit her own pages, but I'm not certain even that will convince her  undecided.

anyone designing web pages using such events needs to do this no matter what, so this shouldnt even be an issue -- she needs to try this.
the noscript addon for firefox is good for temporarily disabling javascript, etc.

and any page that requires javascript should display some warning to the user when their javascript is disabled.

17332

General Software Discussion / Re: Aren't all _on_ events JavaScript?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 10:35 PM »

im not sure of exactly how the terminology would be used, but my understanding is that all of these events trigger javascript.
the onLoad element for html body, is explicitly designed to run JAVASCRIPT -- that you dont have to specify that javascript in a <script> block is irrelevant, it's still executing a javascript statement.

17333

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:54 AM »

we're not really talking about adding ads to the site permanently -- that would be something i am NOT in favor of, at least in the forseeable future.  i like the way we do things here, and as long as we are getting enough in donations to pay for hosting, and as along as the fundraisers like we did last year are received nicely, i dont see any reason we should have to put ads on the site.

this is really just a question of experimenting to see how things have changed since last time we tried this, to see what kind of revenue comes in from the ads, to see if we can tell how it affects donations, and to see if it has any effect on the indexing of the site in search engines, and just to get a general feel for what the site feels like with ads.

i am not proposing we do this for anything but a short term experiment, maybe one month.  after which we would remove ads for the rest of the year, until the time for the next experiment in another few years.

i just see it as continuing our tradition of experimentation.

17334

Circle Dock / Re: I can't create short cut with latest version

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:27 AM »

now this is what you call good support -- nice watching the progress 

17335

Living Room / Re: A list of things to know when time-traveling to the past

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:23 AM »

it's a piece of art, f0dder.

17336

ProcessTamer / Re: Help me with Process Tamer

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:23 AM »

both are good programs that do similar things.
use them both and decide which works best for you -- probably either one will be fine.

17337

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Create Dummy File

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:22 AM »

Forgive me for harping on this but i don't think the current user interface for this function is sufficient.

It's just not at all understandable from using the program what is going on -- either what the function does, or how to undo it.  the new checkbox just confuses things more.

It is my opinion that any time you have a function that can make such serious changes to the person's registry, you have a very heavy responsibility to warn them and be careful.

If you release the program as is, you are going to have people posting about how all of a sudden their computers can no longer write their usb drives.  and they may only discover this AFTER they have uninstalled and deleted your program!!

I suggest you remove this function completely from your program - maybe make a separate program for changing this registry setting so at least users know what they are getting into.

If you insist on having this function in your program, you need to change the user interface.
Maybe show a message on the screen telling user the CURRENT state of their registry, for example:
"Your registry is currently set to allow ALLOW USB drive writing (normal)" vs "Your registry is currently set to BLOCK usb drive writing completely";

And a BUTTON to change the setting, which says on it "DISABLE ALL USB DRIVE WRITING FOR ALL PROGRAMS" or "RE-ENABLE USB DRIVE WRITING FOR ALL PROGRAMS"

And when the press the button a big bold warning has to come up saying
"WARNING!!!!
If you choose to block usb drive writing, your system registry will be changed and will block all usb drive writing by any program.  This setting will stay in place even after a reboot, and even if you uninstall this program.  To re-enable usb drive writing you need to run this program again and re-enable it."


I'm sorry to be so serious about this but i think you are really asking for trouble and going to have people complaining to you if you leave this function as is.

17338

ProcessTamer / Re: Help me with Process Tamer

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 09:06 AM »

hi chris, just missed you in the chat channel.

in general its safe to put anything "above normal" priority, and you should not put anything as real-time priority.

having said that, most of the time what you want to do is leave everything normal and not adjusted -- and just look for processes that use a lot of cpu (say over 20%) and set those to low.

process tamer will automatically lower the priority of processes that use too much cpu, so you dont really have to do anything manually.  but you could pay attention to what process tamer does and force something low if PT is changing it automatically often.

17339

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 06:10 AM »

from chat channel:

<mouser> i guess one problem with doing it as an experiment is
<mouser> people visiting will not know about the experiment
<mouser> they will think its how we always are
<mouser> but its still worth a try i think
<lanux128> yeah, that too
<lanux128> and also they'll be thinking that DoCo finally succumbed to adverts
<lanux128> which will send out bad vibes
<lanux128> all over the net
<lanux128> since Doco manifesto is being a "self-sufficient no-ads" site, how best to conduct this experiment?
<lanux128> to show that this is a short-term change to the website..
<mouser> lanux, yes that is a worry
<mouser> we could put a little message under every ad
<mouser> saying something like
<mouser> "dc advert experiment feb 1 - 28"
<mouser> which can be clicked to read more
<mouser> about how we dont normally have ads, etc

17340

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Create Dummy File

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 06:04 AM »

sounds good -- and have the message tell them clearly what will happen.

17341

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Create Dummy File

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 05:43 AM »

you mean once that's set, windows will not write to ANY usb drive?

if so -- you really need to make that information very clear and give a warning to the user.
i can see how people might try your program once, set that setting, and then not realize that it could cause a lot of problems later that they might not realize.

doesnt sound like a very useful option to set to me, and could cause a lot of problems if people don't realize what it is doing -- i think you should remove it or at least really warn user against it.  it could really cause frustration and confusion in an otherwise safe program.

17342

Site/Forum Features / Should we experiment with google ads on the site for 1 month?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 05:40 AM »

We have actually experimented with google ads on the website briefly in the past.  Does anyone remember when we did?

We actually have an options in user profiles to disable them.

But I never really liked having them and it hardly seemed worth the ugliness and inconvenience.

However they were interesting as an experiment.

I was thinking maybe we should try the experiment again, just for a period of one month, to see what the results are in terms of donations, ad revenue, search engine indexing frequency (does google index a site more fully if it has ads?), etc.

Thoughts?


ps. in the past we experimented with the idea of having ads and if you were a donating member you could disable them.  i think that's not really a motivation for anyone and instead we should just let any forum member disable ads -- so no forum regular would see any ads if they didn't want to.

17343

Living Room / Re: A list of things to know when time-traveling to the past

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 04:56 AM »

love it.

17344

Developer's Corner / Re: generic form designer

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2010, 12:44 AM »

you migth try one of the wxwidgets form designers, like:
http://wxformbuilder.org/

17345

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Sudden Slow-down in Vista

« Last post by mouser on January 02, 2010, 09:54 PM »

is it possible its an antivirus (or similar) program causing it?

17346

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - The Event Concludes

« Last post by mouser on January 02, 2010, 09:25 PM »

Congratulations to everyone who participated 

Perry will be posting a summary by monday, and then I will immediately send out a special newsletter to our approximately 80,000 email newsletter subscribers summarizing the event, and then send out the mug certificates by email.

Thank you everyone for making this another really fun way to kick off the new year!

17347

UrlSnooper / Re: very confused: downloading youtube with urlsnooper?

« Last post by mouser on January 02, 2010, 09:17 AM »

Nice roundup of youtube downloading tools:
http://www.ilovefree...-youtube-videos.html

17348

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Press

« Last post by mouser on January 02, 2010, 03:53 AM »

Elite Freeware is the first to sport a mention of the final results! 

A new year has come and with it lots of new stuff appear in the horizon like for example software, more specifically free software written and released by my friends over at Donationcoder.com
Of course this is all part of NANY 2010 (New Apps For The New Year) and i obviously shall be taking a loook at what these fine people have come up with in the coming days just after i get over this massive hangover of booze, drugs, ladies of the night and massive naked destruction of hotel rooms, you know the usual stuff. So everyone get ready while i gather enough money for bail and check these programs out.

http://elitefreeware...h-and-nany-2010.html

17349

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Create Dummy File

« Last post by mouser on January 01, 2010, 10:08 PM »

I think if i had any suggestions it would be to simplify this and focus on the one unique use of it -- filling up the free space on a removable drive.  if the program was focused on that, the interface could be made quite a bit simpler and i think more easily grasped by novice users.

i also think it would be nice to explain what the read only usb setting actually does.

17350

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 xmas regifting

« Last post by mouser on January 01, 2010, 08:05 PM »

anyone?