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Recent Posts

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17451
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Prizes
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 11:30 PM »
TeddyBear added, along with some other stuff... I note that the polos seem to use embroidery so the image is not going to look right.. maybe we can just use some simple text in this case, like "DonationCoder.com | N.A.N.Y. 2010"
17452
General Software Discussion / Nice Essay:From Cinepak to H.265: a brief history of video compression
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 10:21 PM »
Nice breezy two-page history and discussion of digital video compression:

Today's video-rich Internet wouldn't be possible without highly efficient compression. Ars rewinds the history of digital video compression to help understand how we arrived at the land of YouTube and Hulu.

17453
General Software Discussion / CNet: Utilities Starter Kit - Software Roundup
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 10:11 PM »
Following up on their Security Starter Kit and their Windows Starter Kit, CNet has just posted their Utilities Starter Kit, which is a list of useful system utilities organized by category.  It seems similar to the Windows Starter Kit but a little less winner-take-all.  [Find and Run Robot from DonationCoder is recommended on page 5].

The Utilities Starter Kit for Windows is a collection of some of the best freeware tools to replace and enhance core Windows tasks. Defraggers, system cleaners, uninstallers, Task Manager replacements, launchers, and disk space managers all have a place here.

17454
Living Room / BetaNews on Google: Simply brilliant business, but is it evil?
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 12:08 PM »
Nice long article by Joe Wilcox about Google and the Information Trading business.. BetaNews has become a real news source lately..

I wouldn't say Google is evil.. It does seem to me though, that like any other corporation, they have simply pursued a business model that makes them the most profit, and one of the defining impressions i get of Google is unchecked greed.  Maybe that just comes with the territory of ambition that's required to succeed, I don't know.  They have done a masterful job of public relations though, you have to give them that.

17455
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Teaser: FarrWebMetaSearch
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 11:14 AM »
drool... :-* :-*
17456
Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for December 22nd, 2009 - "NANY EVE"
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 12:27 AM »
Thanks to Darwin for the help editing this.
17457
Older Newsletters / Newsletter for December 22nd, 2009 - "NANY EVE"
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2009, 12:26 AM »
Newsletter for December 22nd, 2009
"NANY EVE"





1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings everyone, this is a brief but special edition of the DC newsletter, coming to you only two weeks after our last issue.  Today's edition will be the last one of 2009 and the last one before our NANY 2010 (New Apps for the New Year) event, which will take place on the site on January 1st.

The annual NANY event is when we invite, cajole, blackmail, bribe and generally beg all of the programmers who pass through the site to pledge to release a new piece of free software on January 1st.

This newsletter serves as the last call to all programmers within earshot to drop by the forum and pledge to participate in the event.  Remember, there are no winners, but everyone gets a prize -- a very handsome and unique DonationCoder mug commemorating the event.

If you're a long-time DC regular: We particularly *NEED* you to participate!  However, even if you've never posted to our forum before -- we'd love to see some new faces along with the regulars, and this is a perfect excuse for you to jump in and say 'hello'.

You'll find more information about NANY in the threads below, along with cool *NEW* photos of the awesome coffee mugs we'll be sending to participants, and some wonderful new Head-in-the-Clouds cartoon comics to celebrate the event.

Let's review the basic guidelines for participants here:

  • Pledge that you are participating on our forum before the New Year -- post a teaser about what you plan to create.
  • Release the application on or before 31st December 2009 (we'll be posting a roundup article about all the entries on Dec 31st).
  • Any type of application is acceptable: Windows, Linux, Mac, Web, iPhone, Android, Script, Plugin, etc.
  • It must be free (or donationware) for personal use.
  • It needs to be something that hasn't been released publicly before November 2009 (updates to existing programs don't qualify).
  • You keep all the rights to and control of your software, this is just an event to encourage coders to release new free tools.


2. NANY 2010 (New Apps for the New Year) Official Information

The NANY event is one of the very best things we do on the site.  If you know any coders, please give them a nudge and ask them to come by and give us a little bit of their time.  We know that sometimes it's hard for coders to come up with good ideas, so we started a special thread especially for people to post project ideas for others to consider coding.



3. NANY 2010 (New Apps for the New Year) - Teasers and Early Releases

Even if you're not a coder, you may find something fun to check out in this list of early NANY releases and teasers.  Stop by and request some features or make some suggestions to the participating coders -- they need your feedback!



4. Diversions and Discussions on the Web

What's new on the world wide web? What fun new sites have forum members discovered?  What's the current hot topic and debate? Let's find out..



5. Discounts and Giveaways

We've got some fun discounts and giveaway drawings in December, on a new notetaking application (AllMyNotes Pro) written by a nice indie developer, and on a heavy duty professional-grade background backup tool that some power users on our forum have been raving about (ShadowProtect Desktop).  The free drawing has ended but the discounts are still running through the end of the month.



6. Software Discussion

What's new in the world of Software?  In this edition of the newsletter we only have a short list of posts.



7. Developer's Corner

Don't be intimidated by the title of this section- even if you're not a coder, there is likely something of interest to you here! It's more than just a forum for the discussion of software development, it's also where we discuss web design, entrepreneurial struggles, and general productivity issues.  It's great to see that the section has been pretty active over the last few months -- keep it up people!

17458
Developer's Corner / Re: Delphi VCL Component for Vista/7 Windows Imaging Component (Image Tags)
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 10:40 PM »
I can highly recommend the ImageEn VCL components from HiComponents for graphics stuff -- they have very good support for reading and writing image header information in all sorts of image files.  I use them in my Screenshot Captor program (written in C++ Builder, the brother of Delphi).  Not free but reasonably priced.
17459
DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 06:53 PM »
is it possible you are all using the same antivirus or some common security application?
17460
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: iPrint v6 is Freeware!
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 02:46 PM »
ah yes prPrinter -- thank you for reminding me of that one.
17461
Living Room / Re: How Success Killed Duke Nukem - A heartbreaking story of developer failure
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 02:35 PM »
as true and important as it is, i think almost everyone would agree with the statement:
"pursuing absolute perfection at the cost of producing something that's extremely good leads to disaster."

i think a harder and more subtle lesson for people to come to terms with is how many benefits there are to be gained from just getting something finished and working, even if it's flawed and not as good as you want it to be.  And how much focus and determination and it takes to do that while the siren song is calling out to you to extend the project longer and spend more time improving things.

17462
Living Room / How Success Killed Duke Nukem - A heartbreaking story of developer failure
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 02:06 PM »
This is the heartbreaking story of a video game that never made it to market, and whose developers had to give up after 12 years of struggle.

On May 6, 2009, everything ended. Drained of funds after so many years of work, the game’s developer, 3D Realms, told its employees to collect their stuff and put it in boxes. The next week, the company was sued for millions by its publisher for failing to finish the sequel...
What happened to that project has been shrouded in secrecy, and rumors have flown about why Broussard couldn’t manage to finish his life’s work. What went so wrong? This is what happened.

17463
General Software Discussion / Re: which system tray network monitor - like a graph or something.
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 12:06 PM »
Networx reviewed on cybernet today and Ryan really liked it: http://cybernetnews....tor-bandwidth-usage/
17464
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: iPrint v6 is Freeware!
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 11:52 AM »
Thanks for the heads up -
There are a few programs that do this, with FinePrint being the king of the mountain for years -- but FinePrint is not free.
iPrint looks quite nice.  :up:
17465
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Prizes
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 10:16 AM »
A clarification about prizes..

In an effort to simplify and standardize (and because the cafepress produced mugs are really great quality and some of the other things less so) things we were thinking we would focus on the mugs as the official reward for NANY participants.

But because it's easy to make additional things available in the cafe press shop, and people occasionally have their heart set on something else, we can create additional items in the shop -- most are priced by cafepress at substantially more than the mugs.  A few are less (a nice mousepad).

So we thought that the easiest thing to do is to send all participants a certificate that will pay for a NANY mug, delivered to your door.  But if you have your heart set on another item you can instead apply that certificate towards another item instead which will be in the shop.  When the time comes all items will be set to $0 markup at cafepress so you any upgrade or additional items you purchase you will be only paying what they charge -- no profit to DC.  [As Perry said the prices are temporarily set now so that no one tries to buy anything at this time.]
17466
DesktopCoral / Re: Windows7 Aero snap conflicts
« Last post by mouser on December 22, 2009, 02:11 AM »
there is nothing wrong with asking for features.. but i'm afraid what you are asking may not be feasible, due to the way DesktopCoral works.. it basically tells windows it is a docked sidebar application.. which prevents windows from being maximized over it, but also triggers this automatic behavior stuff that i can't just turn off.

the alternative solution would be a program that did NOT simulate a docked sidebar, but instead actively moved (only some) windows out of a region.  actually one of the dc members here made something like that once, can anyone remember it ? (i think it was dcmember jgpaiva). and there may be others.
17467
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Teaser: FarrWebMetaSearch
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 02:46 PM »
nice!  :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:
17468
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: DBISAM errors with Clipboard Help+Spell on Windows 7 System
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 11:22 AM »
just exit chs and manually back up your clipboard help+spell directory, in program files AND in your MyDocuments area, and zip those up and put them someplace safe.
17469
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: DBISAM errors with Clipboard Help+Spell on Windows 7 System
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 11:10 AM »
on thing i would be especially interested in hearing is, if you back up all of your data file safely, and then delete them and start from scratch, do you still get the error?
17470
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: DBISAM errors with Clipboard Help+Spell on Windows 7 System
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 10:56 AM »
i will test on windows 7 and see what i see. for now can i suggest you make a copy of your backup clips in a safe place just to preserve them in the meantime, while i look for a fix.
17471
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - Update
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 09:52 AM »
ps i love the new head in the clouds cartoon  :Thmbsup:
17472
Find And Run Robot / Re: Links to Review and Comments - Add yours!
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 09:29 AM »
This has to be one of the most cogent reviews of FARR that i've read so far..

It promises to be the ultimate program for keyboard maniacs. But, can it deliver? Let’s find out... A quick glance at the option and it becomes evident that FARR is not something intended for faint hearted.. My only real grudge with FARR is that it doesn’t index the start menu. The developers should definitely consider adding this option in the future – at the very least as a non-default option.. FARR is a remarkable application. It sits quietly in the background, uses very little resources and jumps into action whenever you need it. FARR is a huge productivity booster and once you get used to it, other alternatives like Launchy will appear dumb in comparison.

17473
General Software Discussion / Re: The Five Distros That Changed Linux
« Last post by mouser on December 21, 2009, 07:47 AM »
neat stuff  :up:
17474
DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...
« Last post by mouser on December 20, 2009, 08:14 PM »
ok well someone willing to help test who gets the error reliably is a big aid -- do you mind emailing me ([email protected]) and testing a few versions for me as i try to pin down the cause?
17475
General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification
« Last post by mouser on December 20, 2009, 07:16 PM »
From my standpoint, i dont think we should try to make this award tell you everything you know to decide if an antivirus program is for you.. it's not meant to evaluate the # hits and misses, or the cpu load, etc.. I think those are things that are better saved for a detailed review.

What i'm interested in is motivating these companies to stop the deceptive alerting that scares people like the boy who cried wolf, is harmful for developers because of all the false positives, and currently is without incentive to correct.

By providing a meaningful award that focuses on the issues i suggested, i'm hoping that we might be able to get some antivirus companies to take this certification seriously, and see the benefit of having it.

Think of it as an effort to establish a new BARE MINIMUM standard that all good anti-malware programs will need to live up to if they are to be viewed as serious contenders.  Initially no product meets these standards, but the first one that does will be able to honestly say, this is a real reason to choose us over the others.

And for our part we can help by promising to review and draw positive attention to any anti-malware that meets this standard.
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