Recent Posts

22326

Developer's Corner / Re: What do I need to do for Game Design?

« Last post by mouser on August 06, 2008, 10:20 AM »

The most important thing is probably less which language you choose to focus on, and more about actually practicing and starting to create things.

Flash would be a good place to start because you can see the results right away and so can others.  A good way to go might be to invest in a good intro flash game programming book.

Another thing that I would really advise anyone who plans to apply to a school, whether its an undergraduate college or grad school is, go do some research on schools you might apply to.  Find the courses in that school that you might take, and find out what books they use and what the courses teach.  (If it's graduate school find a professor who works in the area you are interested in and contact them).  Then start learning the material for those courses.

22327

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: The right software?

« Last post by mouser on August 06, 2008, 09:03 AM »

What better way to handle a spammer than to let them post their fake question meant for a followup link to their software, but then ban the fake reply and instead recommend good software instead.

22328

General Software Discussion / LifeHacker: Debunking Common Windows Performance Tweaking Myths

« Last post by mouser on August 06, 2008, 09:00 AM »

There is an unusually long and original post over at LifeHacker today discussing some common tweaks people use to speed up Windows, and which the author does not recommend.  Very useful and it would be nice to hear some feedback from donationcoder readers.

As a tech writer, one of my biggest pet peeves is the plethora of bad advice littered across almost every web site dedicated to system tweaking. Besides the tweaks that simply don't work, some of them will actually cause your computer to run even slower—or worse. Let's examine some of the most offensive myths out there regarding PC performance tweaking, and debunk them once and for all.

http://lifehacker.co...mance-tweaking-myths

22329

Official Announcements / Re: August 2008 Discounts

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 11:12 PM »

Three cheers for Carl -- there would be no discount this month if not for him -- he decided on his own to make sure you guys got some good stuff this month, and went out and arranged it.  Carl, you rock. 

22330

General Software Discussion / Re: Frink - Multi skilled converter-math application

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 11:02 PM »

i think we just need czechboy to post an example of how to use the pcommand with the new console plugin and new version of farr.

22331

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: New FARR Plugin: FCalc

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 09:48 PM »

can it support the conversion between hex and decimal value?

unfortunately not, BUT there are other plugins+aliases that use online services to do this, and i hope someone can make an improved calc that does.

22332

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.41.01 - AUG 1, 2008

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 07:30 PM »

ive noticed as well that if you do an active-window capture which is maximized you get some padding space.. i'll have to see if i can track down why.

thanks for the other reports, i'll queue them up for fixing.

22333

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.41.01 - AUG 1, 2008

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 07:09 PM »

latest version uploaded and made available on updater.. let's see how it handles.

22334

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.107.04 beta - Sep 23, 2012

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 07:08 PM »

new version posted to update.

22335

Developer's Corner / Re: What is the .NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 market share?

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 06:48 PM »

finally.

22336

Developer's Corner / Re: What is the .NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 market share?

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 05:21 PM »

once you decide to use .net i don't know why you wouldn't use the most recent version with the newest fancy features.

22337

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for international travellers regarding new US Customs seizure pol

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 05:16 PM »

it seems like if you get asked by a homeland security guard why you have no luggage, there is only one safe answer guaranteed not to raise any eyebrows: to tell him that the homeland security guard at the previous gate confiscated it 

22338

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Released

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 05:10 PM »

Our massive review of version 2 is here: https://www.donation...pareTools/index.html

I'm a *HUGE* fan of BeyondCompare -- i use it constantly, and LOVE it.

Also: Everyone should try the free open source WinMerge and (if you have lots of bucks) Araxis Merge, the other two main competitors mentioned in that review.

22339

Developer's Corner / Re: What is the .NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 market share?

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 02:47 PM »

Some people refuse to have anything to do with any .Net application. And that will be 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 etc etc.
I think the others would be prepared to upgrade their version of .Net if needed for an application they wanted.

i think that's right.  though you might rephrase the second part as saying that people who are happy using .net applications will happily upgrade their .net whenever a new version is out and is needed by one of the .net programs they use.

there is probably a 3rd group of people who are novice users who will happily use a .net application if it runs out of the box, but will NOT be willing to or able to figure out how to install .net if that is required.

the thing we don't know is how many people fall into each camp.

22340

Mouser's Zone / Re: Files created in Application Data and System32 directories

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 01:18 PM »

yes, i need to make a switch that stops this behavior when run portably, i agree 100% and it is planned for very near future.

22341

General Software Discussion / Re: Mojave experiment: Vista from a different viewpoint

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 10:04 AM »

thank god Microsoft has figured out that the cause of people's problems with vista have nothing to do with the actual operating system, but rather that they just need more trickery in their marketing campaigns.

it's almost enough to make me think that apple's marketing campaigns aren't really the most vomit inducing.

22342

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR alias: Quick Outlook Task

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 09:54 AM »

sorry i meant <CloseForUpdate>, but it doesnt really matter, just put it somewhere down there with the rest of them.

22343

Find And Run Robot / Re: [request] "Fuzzy search" only after first character

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 09:50 AM »

i can make an option for this.. in fact farr knows about this basic pattern and uses it to bias scores efficiently (it's always looking for FIRSTLETTER*REMAINDER and giving highest scores to those).

however there are other things that make it difficult to make your request a default (i can make it an option though).  because other common ways to non-contiguous search:

• First letter from each syllable/word: MSO (for microsoft office)
• Some shortcuts have an extra word at front (like Mozilla Firefox), and so searching for ffox wouldnt find it in your case.

but like i said i'm happy to add more options to reduce the noise of such searches.
the other thing i could do is reallly bias cases like you describe where first letter matches first letter of search, and give that a much higher score.

22344

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR alias: Quick Outlook Task

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 08:32 AM »

do /settings doesnt work for me, says "unrecognized command switch"
sorry, my bad -- works perfectly -- i was just running older version.

another idea, how about having do /help have an optional button to launch the readme.txt?

22345

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR alias: Quick Outlook Task

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 08:28 AM »

Great work on the updater support Jan! 

One hint:
Add this line before the <CloseAfter> line:
    <SignalForUpdate>FindAndRunRobot.exe</SignalForUpdate>

That will ensure that FARR rescans the alias directories after downloading your update.

22346

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 07:17 AM »

Looks very good but it's not clear to me what "Stay On" maintenance means.

22347

Find And Run Robot / Re: Alias score ???? Grrrrrrrrr

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 07:16 AM »

ok i understand now i think.

A couple of thoughts:

• I think the uninstall plugin should have a different default alias -- it's too commonly typed.  I think "unstall" would be a good one.
• Your ideas for making the +sall +alias and -alias are not bad ideas, but i'm afraid those characters might be too common in other things.  Maybe we could make +a = +alias and -a = -alias and +* = +sall
• One thing you should definitely check out is the brand new option that says to only match aliases when they are prefixed by a character.  This basically makes all normal searches act like -alias and all searches begining with a certain character act like +alias.

22348

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 05:53 AM »

Splurge:

Tape


I bought some bargain shipping tape recently -- and I don't think anything has come close to making me curse and want to smash stuff as much as that thing cheap bad quality tape -- an incredibly frustrating experience.  Scotch Shipping tape is much better.

22349

Developer's Corner / Essay: Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 04:12 AM »

I'm just making my way through this, but i like what i'm reading.. Not exactly mind-blowing stuff, but a very nice description of some problems and ways they can be ameliorated.

When I wrote the first version of this article six years ago, I called it “Why Free Software usability tends to suck”. The best open source applications and operating systems are more usable now than they were then. But this is largely from slow incremental improvements, and low-level competition between projects and distributors. Major problems with the design process itself remain largely unfixed.

Many of these problems are with volunteer software in general, not Free Software in particular. Hobbyist proprietary programs are often hard to use for many of the same reasons. But the easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source. And while thousands of people are now employed in developing Free Software, most of its developers are volunteers. So it’s in Free Software that we see volunteer software’s usability problems most often.

http://mpt.net.nz/ar...e-software-usability

from http://delphi.fosdal...-poor-usability.html

22350

Find And Run Robot / Re: Alias score ???? Grrrrrrrrr

« Last post by mouser on August 05, 2008, 04:05 AM »

i made a uni alias and it showed up and searched fine and scored fine.  if you want to email me your myaliases.alias file i can have a look to see if i see what is wrong ([email protected]).

as for the scores in aplugins, you have found a bug -- it's not listing them properly on that list.

can you explain this more, i didn't understand:

you should also add a no alias search with a core alias  (ex !)