Recent Posts

22601

Official Announcements / Re: Programming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

« Last post by mouser on July 15, 2008, 03:01 AM »

Congratulations to those who entered.  The contest is now officially closed.

We will announce where the prize goes in the next couple of days.

I also want to express my appreciation to you.  Your participation makes the site a funner place for all of us.  I hope you guys enjoyed taking part.

22602

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for July 11th, 2008 - Codename "Revenge of the Mini-Review"

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 11:15 PM »

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone

22603

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Dynamic shortcuts

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 10:35 PM »

what a cool idea.. i'd love to see a demo movie of some of this in action, i think it would help people understand what it's for.

22604

Find And Run Robot / Re: Upgrading v1 to v2 - what about existing scores?

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 07:52 PM »

scores should be preserved when you upgrade.

22605

Living Room / Re: Flash Game: Sling Jumper 2

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 06:12 PM »

That is pretty impressive, nice and unusual physics.

22606

Official Announcements / Re: Programming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 06:04 PM »

Eóin,
You did such a great job with this.

One issue that i'm slightly concerned about with regard to backups.

If one makes a backup, and then later installs a program that creates a new service entry, and then experiments with the new service installed, disabling, etc.  Then one day they say ok i've messed everything up and they restores the backup, the new service will not be restored to it's initial state, am i right?

I wonder if the better solution would be something like this:
Whenever a new service is detected that the program has never seen before, it saves its initial state to a special file.
Now you can do two things:
1) You can highlight any service in the current display whose setting currently DIFFERS from its initial state when first discovered (i.e. show users visually which services they have modified).
2) Let users see on request what the initial state of the service was for reference information.
3) Have a function called "restore all services to their initial states" or something like that, which is the true backup restoration procedure for emergencies.
4) You might also just have a per-item right click saying "Restore this service to it's original state (automatic startup)" which would be a nice thing and would take care of item #2 as well.

Just an idea.

22607

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone Know of a Multi-Monitor Simulator for Software Testing?

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 08:13 AM »

This is actually a GREAT question.  I don't know the answer but look forward to seeing if anyone knows of anything.

22608

Circle Dock / Re: Windows 7's Taskbar....Err.....Circle Dock for the DC Programming Contest

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 07:54 AM »

I think we need to help Eric (VideoInPicture) get a second monitor.  All programmers need at least 2 monitors.

22609

UrlSnooper / Re: Feature Request: Sorting options

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2008, 12:08 AM »

im always looking for simple features to add to url snooper -- i'm happy to add this one at next update.

22610

Living Room / Re: Computer mods: What odd things have you done?

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 09:59 PM »

do not even try to compete with cranioscopical when it comes to puns.. it simply cannot be done.

22611

DC Gamer Club / Re: Will someone in this section please start creating a massive MMORPG

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 08:41 PM »

very nice find lanux 

it should be noted that his speech focuses largely on the business model for succeeding making a MMO rather than the technical/gameplay issues.

22612

Developer's Corner / Re: Collision Detection...

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 07:43 PM »

Check out this thread: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=5471.0

22613

Developer's Corner / Re: Collision Detection...

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 07:32 PM »

i would suggest you use a graphics and phsysics library combo with support functions for this kind of thing.

22614

Living Room / Re: Computer mods: What odd things have you done?

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 06:47 PM »

An idea:  we should find someone who can do a professional and mind-blowingly cool job making a CodyCase mod and then chip in and pay for it to be built with top notch components and then raffle it off in the DC fundraiser.

I think the design should be Cody on an island and you have to feed him quarters to power the PC.

22615

DC Gamer Club / Re: Will someone in this section please start creating a massive MMORPG

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 05:46 PM »

Emmy, congratulations on your accomplishment.

Sometimes I spend some time in our chat channel talking to DC member Deozaan, trying to provide a little guidance on coding and trying to encourage the game players who hang out in the channel to work on writing games instead of playing them.

One thing i've noticed more and more with newer programmers is that they don't enjoy the "planning" phase as much as some of us older coders.  I think this is partly a reflection of the situation that was in place when us older coders learned how to code.

In the days of punch cards and timeshared computing (before my time), there was very little interactive computing, and as a programmer you had to be dead sure your code was correct before even submitting it to run.  So huge amounts of time were spent planning and analyzing your approach to make sure it was correct.

In my early days programming c, it could take hours to compile a large program, and i use to set the compiler going and then go have dinner(!) and come back afterwards to test the program.

I developed a true love of *PLANNING* a programming project.

In fact few things are quite as enjoyable as planning a large project -- it's fun to get out a paper and pencil and just sketch notes and data structures.

In face as the years went by and I find myself with less free time to work on all the fun project ideas I come up with, I developed a thing I call Virtual Programming.  That's when I allow myself a few hours to daydream and plan a programming project in order to get it out of my head.  Sometimes planning a project satisfies the strong urge to code it, and let's me let go of the idea and move on to other things.

All this is a way of me saying that:

Do not run away from big programming projects -- but also do not just jump into opening up your IDE and starting the code.  Sit down with a paper and pencil and plan plan plan -- exerperiment on paper with ideas and figure out how you would code it, how you would represent the data, what algorithms you would use, how would you divide up the work, etc.

Planning can be one of the funnest parts of a big project.

22616

Site/Forum Features / Re: Privacy Page for DonationCoder.com Posted -- Suggestions Wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 09:31 AM »

thanks for comments f0dder.

Oh, as a final thing: once the privacy page is stable, if you need to make changes later on, it would be very nice if you keep a public diff/changelog (and perhaps also archived old-versions), imho that would be a real sign that DC is serious & friendly and doesn't try to sneak things in through the back door.

good point, i will start a section on that page for change revision list.

22617

Living Room / Re: Security issue with old hard disk

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 09:07 AM »

regardless if it has data on it, you should get it back, you never know when you might need a spare laptop hd.

22618

Circle Dock / Re: Windows 7's Taskbar....Err.....Circle Dock for the DC Programming Contest

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 05:27 AM »

First of all, it works flawlessly here, and it's very cool and extremely impressive.

You've produced now two programs that are technically excellent, and as has been pointed out it's not just the programs themselves but the accompanying websites, demos, documentation, etc. that are all really top notch and professional.  And they are open source as well. Wow!

Eric I hope you won't take this the wrong way -- but I really cannot wait until you decide to sink your teeth into a project that has a little more practical use and is little less of a proof-of-concept thing.  I think you are going to knock the socks off everyone when you do. 

22619

Site/Forum Features / Re: Privacy Page for DonationCoder.com Posted -- Suggestions Wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 04:47 AM »

I've now linked to the privacy page from donation, about, forum signup, and other pages.

22620

Living Room / Re: Thank You, DonationCoder Community!

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 04:06 AM »

They were trying to get a ride into work

 

22621

Site/Forum Features / Re: Privacy Page for DonationCoder.com Posted -- Suggestions Wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 04:01 AM »

Great suggestions app!
I've updated the page now, can you have a look and see what you think now?

22622

Find And Run Robot / Re: Farr is not launching ahk scripts

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2008, 01:11 AM »

try changing the Options for Launching Programs and Documents on the general options tab.

22623

Living Room / Re: Flash Game of the Week: Typing Ninja Hunter

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2008, 02:57 PM »

play on hard mode, it gets a bit harder.

22624

General Software Discussion / Re: Reliable web page capture...

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2008, 02:40 PM »

This is why it's great to support the smaller software developers. They're far more likely to respond to requests for improvements.

agreed 

22625

Living Room / Re: Woot.com Bag of Crap post

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2008, 02:29 PM »

One time my niece got a box of fine china (mostly broken because it hadn't been packed properly at all). One of my favorites was the box full of weasel pelts and tails.