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20426

Older Newsletters / Newsletter for March 4th, 2009 - Codename "A Call to Action"

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:12 PM »

Newsletter for March 4th, 2009

Codename "A Call to Action"

"If you read nothing else on our site, read our blog"
(new rss feed with images)

1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings everyone, this is a very special edition of our regular newsletter.

Today I'm asking for your help.

I hope you'll see enough reasons to become a supporting member of our site - and decide that now is the perfect time to do so.

This month marks the 4th Anniversary of the DonationCoder.com website. It's been my distinct pleasure and honor to meet and talk with many of you through these monthly newsletters, through email, and in thousands of posts on the forum. I hope you've found some program or discussion on the site that has improved your life at least a little bit. I know from the feedback that many have.

Now we need your support to keep the site running smoothly. Just as importantly, we need your help to show the world that our idea for a software cooperative site funded by user donations is a viable one.

Your donation, and the donations of others just like you who have found our site and software useful, add up one by one, little by little. They have made it possible for us to continue to pay for a heavy duty pair of web servers that cost us almost $6,000 a year and provide web space for dozens of freeware authors.

So..

If you've not yet donated, or can spare a little more, please take action and make a donation now. We will put the donation to good use as we work to improve the site, update our programs, and develop new applications in the coming year.

Everyone who makes a donation during the fundraiser will receive a lifetime license key for *all* of the software we make (dozens of high quality programs), as well as lifetime access to our shareware discount and giveaway section. In addition, everyone who donates during the fundraiser will permanently be entitled to all software updates and new software we develop in the future -- even if we decide to begin charging subsequent members for new programs. So if you think there's even a small chance you could might benefit from our software in the future, now is the perfect time to join.

We're also kicking off a return to securing shareware discounts for DC members with discounts on a couple of DC favorites this month, including Website Watcher -- one of the best tools I know for web surfing addicts.

I hope to hear from you soon -- on the forum, through email, or via your donation. And please stay tuned to the forum this month for more surprises.. Or better yet drop by and make your first post!

-Jesse Reichler (mouser)
Site administrator, programmer, and your humble newsletter editor,
March 2009

Quick Links:

Make a donation and Join DonationCoder.com now (it's easy and safe and cures hiccups)
More about the MARCH 2009 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser
Not familiar with our software? Come take a look!
Read what other sites say about DonationCoder

And now back to our regularly scheduled newsletter..

2. Your Participation Requested

No matter what your level of computer knowledge, or how long you've been a DC member, we'd love to have you participate on the forum. See the links below for some good places to jump in and make your first post.

3. New Big List of DC Software Updates

I released a big batch of updates to my programs on DonationCoder, with a few more scheduled for the coming weeks. And DC Member skwire continues to update his fantastic Trout music player which is becoming a favorite on the forum (especially for audiobook listeners).

4. Software Discounts for March 2009
This month we have big discounts on: Website Watcher (30% and one of my favorite programs), Local Website Archive (30%), AM-Notebook (30%), SoftCat CD Cataloger (40%), and JP Software's Take Command v10 Dos Shell Enhancer (50%). We're going to try to get back to securing regular monthly discounts for our supporting members.

March 2009 Discounts Posted

5. Software Discussion

It's probably fair to say that the majority of the discussions on DonationCoder.com are about computer software. Below are some noteworthy threads about software posted to DC since the last newsletter.

6. Website Discoveries

In each newsletter we highlight some of the best web discoveries on the forum:

7. Mini-Reviews by Members

We encourage forum members to post quick mini-reviews of software they discover. Since the last newsletter we've had quite a few new ones.

8. Fun and Games

If you've read the newsletter up to this point, take a break and check out some of the lighter fare from the forum - humour, videos, and games..

9. Developer's Corner

If you're not a developer, don't be put off by the title of this section. There is likely something of interest to you on the Developer's Corner. 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. And it's great to see that the section has been pretty active over the last few months -- keep it up people!

10. News You Can Use

DC Member Ehtyar has taken to producing wonderfully weekly summaries of important tech/computer/security news articles that he comes across on the web. A big hit on the forum. How is he able to keep up this pace and when will he collapse from exhaustion? We are all waiting to find out.

20427

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Shape Collage - Free Automatic Photo Collage Maker

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 03:16 PM »

It looks terrific!

Can you re-attach your images but use smaller versions (dont use anything bigger than 1200x1024 or so as it causes trouble) -- i had to replace it temporarily.

20428

Living Room / Re: These Wonderful Friends of DC

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 01:30 PM »

thanks, fixed.

i stumbled upon elite freeware blog last year and posted about it here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=14498.0

and then the writer of the blog stopped by the forum and hasn't left since! (dc member gexecuter)

it's a great blog.

20429

Living Room / Re: These Wonderful Friends of DC

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 12:53 PM »

Next up, ghacks!

20430

Living Room / These Wonderful Friends of DC

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 12:52 PM »

I have to take some time to post about some people and websites who have been so nice and supportive of DC; I'll add them as I find them:

First up is Elite Freeware, and this is too wonderful (though i fear for his sanity!):

20431

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: GTDTiddlyWikiPlus for FARR (alias pack)

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 12:44 PM »

Maybe someone can add this one:
http://www.giffmex.org/tiddlydu2.html

20432

Screenshot Captor / Re: Command line tools for after-capture processing

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 12:02 PM »

I want to say I'd be willing to add any features that could help people to more easily interface with (or share configurations for interfacing with) commandline tools.

Oh and another thing that people sometimes overlook is that you can right click on image files in the thumbnail view and access any normal file context menu tools you have installed on your computer -- so any general purpose uploader tools or image processing tools that install context menu extensions will work fine.

20433

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 12:00 PM »

have no fear for Cody's health, the script that creates the thermometer image is programmed to increase the max if we reach the current goal

20434

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 11:59 AM »

yes all of march.

20435

Screenshot Captor / Re: Command line tools for after-capture processing

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 11:57 AM »

thanks i will look into that bug, i must admit i always used it with that checkbox checked.

20436

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: sort order of thumbnail panel

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 11:55 AM »

can't be done easily currently.. you can sort of do it if you go View -> Screenshot Panel -> Details yet, but it is planned. it's overdue really, i'll see if i can't get it coded this week, or this month at the latest.

20437

Screenshot Captor / Re: Command line tools for after-capture processing

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 11:53 AM »

*great* questions -- we really need to do more sharing of such commandline tools.

Screenshot Captor designed from day 1 to let you configure such commandline tools and call them easily, but people have been slow to share tips about commandline utilities, and i hope we can change that. maybe i can make it easier to share such configurations.

Some discussions about ftp upload from SC: https://www.donation...n=search2;search=ftp

I'd love if you did not give up on this idea and shared with us your final solution.

SC actually has a built in thumbnailing funciton which i think works well.. but you want to make a thumbnail and upload both in one step, and for that a commandline external tools seems like the way to go.

20438

Living Room / Re: The Greatest Internet Pioneers You Never Heard Of

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 11:13 AM »

nice

it's scary to think about all of the history that gets dissapeared because of biases in the dominant media sources.

"The four Finns completed their browser by April 1992: only a couple thousand lines of code were needed, so the work was feasible. They demonstrated it to their professor, Martti Mäntylä, showing how Erwise could surf Web pages—there were just 12 in the world at the time, according to Nyberg, Sydänmaanlakka, and Rantanen. The students got a top grade from their professor."

Screenshot of their Erwise browser:

20439

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A virus according to Kaspersky

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 10:59 AM »

By the way, CHS was updated recently, and if kaspersky is alerting on an old verion, you might want to grab new version and see if the problem goes away until they fix their database.

20440

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A virus according to Kaspersky

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 10:56 AM »

one last thing i wanted to point out:

as angry as i get when i hear about one of these false positives -- i really do appreciate people like ummo taking the time to post about them after encountering them -- because it means i can contact the antivirus company and minimize the damage, as well as post a reply so people can see there is no virus. that is much better than no one saying anything and having people get scared and come to the forum and not see any announcement about the problem. so thank you ummo.

20441

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A virus according to Kaspersky

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 10:52 AM »

here's virustotal on latest Clipboard Help+Spell:

(note that even kaspersky here says its fine -- maybe you have some optional heuristic options engaged? don't trust them)
(and note the total bullshit "paranoid heuristic" and "generic" warnings which are basically god's way of telling you not to trust these antivirus tools)

20442

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A virus according to Kaspersky

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 10:45 AM »

Im getting so d*mn frustrated by these ridiculous antivirus false alarms by lazy companies like Kaspersky.. I can't tell you how angry i am at these companies.

You are right to be cautious and to ask about it -- but it is a false alarm, there is no virus in the program. The best way to double check such things is to check the file in question with a site like VirusTotal: http://www.virustotal.com/

Such sites use multiple engines to reduce the risk of false positives.

Never trust an antivirus tool that tells you it thinks it has identified some unknown or suspicious file using some "advanced heuristic" mode -- thats just their way of saying "we want to win the award for most viruses detected and we dont care how many false alarms we generate"

In a day or so, like ALWAYS, kaspersky will fix their database and the warning will go away, but not after scaring thousands of people. And then they will do it again in a month or so.

I've contacted them about it -- you could help out by sending the program to them through kaspersky to help them correct their database, step by step instructions here: http://forum.kaspers....php?showtopic=13881

20443

Living Room / Re: The Greatest Graphic Novel of All Time: Watchmen

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 08:59 AM »

Keep the recommendations coming! Great new discoveries to go look for.

20444

Living Room / Re: Google Maps on Paper [ScreenToaster promo video]

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 08:52 AM »

This was brilliant. Make sure you watch the credits -- it looks like it was all done with paper and transparencies. brilliant.

20445

General Software Discussion / Re: MIN Req checker software???

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 08:37 AM »

I reallllly think this is a good idea for a small program, add in ability to check for things like the presence of .net libraries, etc and you have a useful helper tool that would be useful inside installation packages.

20446

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:57 AM »

if your web page images are agressively cached by your ISP or browser you might not see it, its on the banner of every page now through march. try ctrl+F5 to refresh the page. you should see it eventually.

20447

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 09-09

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:47 AM »

Yes, thank you for the security news especially.

20448

Site/Forum Features / Re: Dc Member Blog Idea - Feedback Requested

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:46 AM »

I think revisiting this idea might be a better one...and members could post direct to their page through their personal area...and the posts from these individual blogs not already appearing as regular forum posts (placed in a special member blog section of forum, instead) could optionally be combined (if the member opts in) to a big blog page of member posts, separate from the main DC blog

that's an intriguing idea.. choices choices.

20449

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Fundraiser discussion.. again.. need help with ideas

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:20 AM »

the chart is mostly a joke so don't take it too seriously.

on the other hand, you are right about the $1-$20,000 row, perhaps the first row should be $0-$5,000 and second row $5,000-$20,000

OR more sensibly one should apply a linear (or perhaps more appropriate logarithmic) scale to calculate the exact donation amount based on your location within the range given by any row.

i'll leave the function as an exercise to the reader, but i will offer a deluxe programming badge award and space ship cody mug for the first person who codes a web page that calculates this from an inputted income value and applies the proper function. bonus points for automatic currency conversion, and for a choice of linear/log/exponential function mapping; super bonus points for drawing an actual curve and showing their position on the curve. plus we will feature the function on the chart page.

20450

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by mouser on March 04, 2009, 06:05 AM »

Three bars!
Screenshot - 3_4_2009 , 6_04_00 AM.png

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