Recent Posts

19876

Site/Forum Features / New DC Member Kit Stuff

« Last post by mouser on April 14, 2009, 01:58 PM »

Most of you who are donating/supporting/honorary members of the site know about the fun and free member kit thing that you can request.  About 200 have been mailed out so far all across the globe.

I've actually got a big backlog of requests that i've been delaying sending as i try to put together some better stuff to send out.  In the past it's been mostly stuff printed on a printer and of dubious quality.

Here's a photo of the new book bookmarks that arrived today; i'll probably send out 2 of each type in the member kits (the small card in the middle is the membership card to help show scale):



I think the best part is that these bookmarks could actually have some use value(!)



Additionally.. I've recently found a pretty cool place that will print some very high quality stickers (Sticker Robot) for a reasonable price -- but it's still very expensive to do.  It would be really fun to be able to send out a 3"x5" sheet of high quality cody stickers in the new member kits.  The price would be about $500 for a run of 1000 such sticker cards (each 3x5 card would have a few small stickers), and that supply would last a couple of years.  What do you think? Is it worth spending so much money on something that has no real purpose, doesnt in any way pay for itself, and only serves to inject a little fun into the atmosphere?

19877

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Desktop progress meter

« Last post by mouser on April 14, 2009, 11:52 AM »

very cool.
an option to allow bars to be clicked on to adjust the position in the main progress display would be nice.

19878

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: See if a user is logged in

« Last post by mouser on April 14, 2009, 11:23 AM »

so i have one more practical suggestion/idea for you:

a natural way to do this is as you suggested, an app that "would respond with a simple string like 'yes' when contacted over the network on a certain port."

however, a much more low-tech solution also seems like it would be feasible and MUCH easier to implement:

a small application that either ran on login/logout, or in the background constantly, and rather than respond to requests over a port (a process which could be a bit problematic both for security, firewall, and programming reasons), was simply configured to access a lan web page and REPORT IN.

In other words, a tiny program which would simply be configured to open a page like:
https://university.edu/library/reporting.php?stationid=34F&status=userloggedin&password=secretpassword

Seems to me that could have a number of nice benefits in addition to being easier to code.

19879

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: See if a user is logged in

« Last post by mouser on April 14, 2009, 11:00 AM »

neat idea.

couple of comments:

there are of course more heavyweight tools for managing and keeping track of or tabs on large numbers of pcs in a setting like this; you should probably make sure there is no other existing bigger tool that you would want to use instead of this custom idea.

instead of a fancy check for being logged in you could just use a check of last activity on keyboard or mouse -- after a minute of non-use i think you could be pretty sure there was no one there.

otherwise, getting back to your original description -- do you mean that the way it's set up, users actually log in and out to the windows pcs using the built-in windows user login system?

19880

General Software Discussion / Re: A Vista printer utility that saves ink like InkSaver?

« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2009, 08:47 PM »

Yeah, I considered a laser but I go through over a ream a month and feared for the cost of toner and replacement drums (and colour is important to me).

well if you need color that's one thing, but someone correct me if i'm wrong -- laser toner is going to be MUCH cheeper than inkjet ink isn't it?

19881

Living Room / The 100 most iconic internet videos from urlesque

« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2009, 06:12 PM »

Some real gems in here, including "he's a cat flushing a toilet" one of my personal favorites..

http://www.urlesque....nic-internet-videos/

from http://waxy.org/links/

19882

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Desktop progress meter

« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2009, 01:46 PM »

looking great. 

19883

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2009, 11:33 AM »

The option to play a sound when the track changes is very useful.. and has led to me to wonder if it might be cool to have an option to use the MS speech api to actually announce the track #, or filename, or track title.  Could be cool -- and useful for those of us listening to audiobooks while going to sleep, or for visual impaired people.

19884

Find And Run Robot / Re: [feature request] how to get the search box value ?

« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2009, 09:53 AM »

i've been pretty sick for last couple of days.. easy request, i'll add in next update.

19885

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Desktop progress meter

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 11:50 PM »

possible request: use a standard file format for configuration (xml?) so that alternative tools could also use the same configuration files?

19886

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Desktop progress meter

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 11:49 PM »

looks great. 

19887

Living Room / Re: XP-iso for reinstall after crash ? Dell Precision 380

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 11:01 PM »

steeladept is right about making an image for future restores.

for what it's worth i have found that generic windows installation cds seem to work fine for formatting the 2 laptops i have tried it on instead of the reinstallation cd, BUT that some specific drivers for the touchpad or battery were difficult for me to find and install -- so be on the lookout for drivers that you used to have but don't anymore after a generic windows installation.

19888

Living Room / Re: Tweenbots: A Social Experiment with Human-dependent Robots

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 10:48 PM »

how long until the artist gets arrested for creating "Devices Which Could Be Used for Terroristic Purposes" ? 

19889

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Survey Discussion

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 07:12 PM »

In last question:

"What silly or fun thing could we do on the site would bring a smile to your face and make the world a little bit more enjoyable?"

Cody is mentioned in about a dozen different answers 

19890

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Survey Discussion

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 07:06 PM »

One thing we need to say about the survey is it's going to be disproportionately filled out by the email-newsletter readers, since the newsletter is where we really encouraged people to fill it out..   Not sure how that effects the responses per se, but i suspect it will have a real effect.

19891

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Fundraiser Wrap-up

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 07:03 PM »

rgdot: Let's discuss survey stuff on survey thread!

19892

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Fundraiser Wrap-up

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 06:10 PM »

Ok time for some numbers.

Depending on your perspective, you'll probably think these are pitifully small amounts for a site thats been in operation for 4 years, or remarkably exorbitant amounts for a small donation-based software site that was never given much of a chance to survive.  I don't know if that means everyone is going to have reason to be disappointed but here goes:

Average amount currently donated into the site per month: Currently about $1,500 per month.  That's down a bit from 12 months ago (except for the fundraiser which is a bit of an anomoly), but up from the first year or so of the site's life.

Total amount cashed out by members over last 4 years: About $20,000. This represents money that has left the site and gone to individuals via paypal mainly.

Total amount explicitly donated by users into the site fund over last 4 years: About $13,000.  This represents money explicitly marked by donors as going to the site fund -- it doesn't include donations that are never earmarked and should by default go into the site fund eventually.

Total donationcredits given by one person to another over last 4 years: About $38,000.  Note that the way this works is that the same virtual dollar can go back and forth between several people multiple times.  Read more about this idea in the article I wrote about DC here.

Site Expenses: I'd say with web hosting, server administration, gifts and stuff, maybe about $600 per month currently.


Now a quick word about the history of the site, donationcredits, and site fund stuff.. When I started the site in 2005 it was just me and my software for the first year or so, and I pretty much devoted myself to the site (much to the harm of my education but that's another story); I never had an expectation that much money would be coming in and the site was basically run as a hobby.

At the end of the first year we discussed and implemented this idea of DonationCredits, where when people donated they could decide if they wanted to give their money specifically to certain people on the site to support their work.  Initially the idea was to give each person 50% of their donation in credits to give to others, and keep 50% for site expenses.

Eventually it became clear that a good number of people (probably well over half) had little interest in participating in this donationcredits thing -- they were donating because in order to get a license key for one of the big programs on the site, and didn't want to be bothered with the rest.  And then on the other hand, we had the hardcore forum members who enjoyed giving out credits to one another and cared about thanking those they wanted to thank.

So the decision was made to simply give everyone full control over their donation in the form of donationcredits, which they could give to anyone they want, and simply say that if someone donates and never uses their donationcredits for a year or so, they will revert to the site fund. See more: here.

I think in practice this has led to the best of both worlds -- those who care can allocate their donation exactly the way they want; those who are not interested in that or who have just donated in order to get a license key don't have to do anything.

Because of the high number of donors who never use their donationcredits, I also try to give out some of the site fund money to people on the site occasionally in recognition of the fact that so many people donate into the site and never allocate their donationcredits to a specific person (full disclosure -- this includes myself, as i have spend a good part of the last 4 years devoting myself to the site, i hope people don't think that is unreasonable). It's actually very hard to figure out how much to send to different people -- because if everyone was receiving the financial reward they deserve, or getting paid what they would if this were a real job, we'd have people earning full time salaries.. So no one participating on DC receives anywhere near a "fair" financial compensation for their time, but then I guess everyone knew that already, and their are other rewards associated with participating on the site that make up for that.

Hope that info is informative/useful/interesting -- what else is there to say but.. the experiment continues!


ps. I've also posted the results of the first donationcoder survey publicly on this thread, which might provide yet another numerical window into the site: here.

19893

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Survey Discussion

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 05:19 PM »

Ok the complete results of the First Public DonationCoder Survey should now be publicly readable by anyone!!

• http://app.sgizmo.co...WYAI2/?ts=1239574715

In the spirit of open source information gathering.. let's see if anyone can discover anything interesting in all of that data.

And maybe suggest some questions we didn't ask but should ask for next time?

19894

General Software Discussion / Re: Image joining software?

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 02:22 PM »

Nice finds everyone!

19895

UrlSnooper / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - URL SNOOPER - v2.23.01, March 14th, 2009

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 01:08 PM »

I am getting index map out of range and I can not exit the program URL SNOPPER

i really thought i had fixed this.. try this:

• exit the program (use ctrl+alt+del and terminate it if you can't exit normally)
• delete the Settings.ini file in the C:\Program Files\URLSnooper2 directory
• restart the program

19896

Living Room / Re: Tweenbots: A Social Experiment with Human-dependent Robots

« Last post by mouser on April 12, 2009, 12:04 PM »

Great stuff.. 

19897

General Software Discussion / Re: Really impressed: BB Flashback, Blueberry software upgrade policy

« Last post by mouser on April 11, 2009, 08:48 PM »

That's great news -- the express version is definitely sufficient for most small screencasts

Also, I'm curious if there are any currrent discounts for the more deluxe BB Flashback versions?

there's an ongoing 50% discount on bb flashback pro -- just tested it and it still works.

19898

Developer's Corner / Re: "Guest" numbering... probably the worst idea ever, but...

« Last post by mouser on April 11, 2009, 05:17 PM »

It's still not major, but the statistic it could show is patterns of what part(s) of DC do people gravitate initially when they first arrive.  Like I said, not earth-shattering, but interesting (at least to me).

that's actually an interesting point.. it might make sense to think of some other kinds of displays that could show which threads are post popular among non-registered users, etc.  in other words, stuff that might be interesting to look at but wouldn't make anyone feel like they were being "tracked"..

19899

Find And Run Robot / Re: Need some help here

« Last post by mouser on April 11, 2009, 05:15 PM »

sorry i wasn't clear, you can put the +tv anywhere in the search string, it doesn't matter.

19900

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Survey Discussion

« Last post by mouser on April 11, 2009, 05:03 PM »

My plan is to post the results of the survey tomorrow (sunday) -- so anyone who hasn't taken it yet but would like to -- please do so now 

-mouser