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Recent Posts

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24251
Living Room / Re: Find names for old games...
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 12:25 PM »
By the way, DC member TPReal wrote a really cool multiplayer qix-like game for the DC bcb contest:
https://www.donation...?topic=4484.msg31786

24252
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 10:29 AM »
Jibz, i certainly didn't get that idea I just wanted to give some background for anyone new to the site.

In case people don't know, Jibz is member #3 on this forum.  Members 1+2 are the default admin account and me.
One of the nicest people i know and he and i have worked together on some fun projects (e.g. Octane).

ps. any effort looking at stats of the site and stuff like this i support 100%, i think it just makes things more interesting and fun :)
24253
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 09:42 AM »
you already need to be a donating/supporting or honorary member to enter.
24254
Living Room / Re: Cody - The 3d model
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 09:23 AM »
hahahaha  ;D

this seems to me like it might shed light on the origin of the universe, and reminds me of the line in the movie 2001: "My god, it's full of coins.."  at least i think that's how the quote goes  ;)
24255
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 09:12 AM »
BTW, I see that xplorer² was included in the giveaway, but nobody won a license. What happened?

was nothing to do with xplorer^2 author -- we just were juggling to many that we never contacted author in time to get it organized, but we will follow up.
24256
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 08:26 AM »
One thing people can do to help things work out right:
Don't enter to win programs you aren't going to use!

Especially for the big expensive programs, please don't try to win them just because they are expensive -- if you do win and you don't really use the program, you are taking away this prize from someone who might not have been able to afford it and who would have put it to good use.
24257
Living Room / Re: 12 Crazy old ads!
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 08:19 AM »
Nice find Nudone, this reminds me that you can also buy copies of very old Sears catalogs:

http://www.amazon.co.../102-1644154-2497724

Screenshot - 1_27_2008 , 8_17_11 AM_thumb.png

My sister and i used to go through these catalogs like an accountant looking for tax breaks when it was time for us to get presents.
24258
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 08:15 AM »
another minor observation about fairness in choosing winners.

I've noticed that my obsession with "fairness" in awarding prizes for these drawings and for the few programming contests we had where we gave prizes is fraught with dangers.

The whole reason i wrote the prize optimizer was because i thought there should be a fairer way to choose winners based on what they want and to give everyone a chance to win.

But taking such an approach means i sometimes agonize over these things and struggle to figure out the "fairest" solution, when i often don't have enough information to make a "fair" decision.  For example when we had a big programming contest with very expensive prizes, i struggled hard with the idea that some people could not afford this if they don't win it, wheras for others price wasn't an issue, but maybe pride was, etc.

Also, if you try to make a decision about what would be the "fair" way to give out prizes, then some people might feel upset at why you didn't think they were more worthy, and maybe you just forgot about something, etc.

One huge advantage to just making everything just a purely random choice is that people can get mad at the universe when they don't win, instead of getting mad at you  :-\

So, i think i've given up trying to figure out a way to make these things go to the people that really deserve them, and let it mostly be luck, with just a small number of heuristics to try to make it a little more fair overall in the long run.
24259
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 08:01 AM »
the problem with basing things on posts is that people might start posting just to reach that threshold (and i note as this thread demonstrates that some people are already post-count-crazy).

and if we only allowed people with more than x posts to enter it would lead to a lot of new members here feeling tricked.

but, we could do something where we add the tiniest of weight to users who are minimally "active" on the forum (say 5 posts in the last six months).
24260
Living Room / Re: Find names for old games...
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 07:25 AM »
i dont know the name of the game you played but it's clearly based on the arcade game Qix:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qix

225px-Qixingame.png
24261
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 06:28 AM »
ps1.
I'm happy to have more suggestions on how the prize optimizer could be tweaked -- so send me your suggestions!

ps2.
Due to Jibz' excellent detective work, users Darwin, superboyac, and dcm have been placed on the permanent BAN list and shall never win another prize  ;D  Please direct all hate mail to jibz and send him a nice big poisonous attack creature.  (just joking!)
24262
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 06:23 AM »
Here's the link again describing how winners are chosen by the program: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1684.0

There are a few ways to "game" the prize system which i probably need to address in the prize optimizer..
  • First way to win: Keep Entering.  There were about 245 people that entered this month, but often it's under 100 that enter in a given month.
  • After you win something your chances of winning again in the next 4 or 5 months are close to 0, but the system does not keep track of how many times you've won, so after 4 or 5 months your chances of winning are as high as anyone.
  • As the prize selection page says, its much easier to win something that you rate highly and others rate not as high.  If you always try to win the most popular program your chances are not so good.
  • People who help out on the site a lot occasionally get the tiniest little boost to their chances of winning, but sometimes this can be enough to help them edge out someone.

Things i'm not thrilled about and may try to change:
  • The fact that the optimizer does not keep track of how many times you've won, only that you've won in the recent past.  If I modified that those who have won many times would not be winning so often, even if they have been entering a lot and for a long time.
  • Should we more actively try to bump the weights of people who are actively contributing on the site? I'm not sure -- i think some who participate a lot would say yes, but i'm afraid it would turn into a situation where people who don't participate on the forum would feel like they don't have a chance.  So right now it's kept to a minimum.
  • The optimizer is very reluctant to give someone their second choice prize, and that could be tweaked a bit.  in other words, if you rate one program a 10 and another program a 9, you unlikely to win your 9-rated prize if others who havent won lately have rated it a 10.  The program is just doing its best to make people as happy as they can be.  So someone who rates a bunch of programs equally is much more likely to win something.
  • It might be nicer to put in some term which looks at how many times a person has entered and lost and boost their chances of winning if so.
  • Should the optimizer keep track somehow of whether you won the most prized prize or the least?  Right now it doesnt matter what you win, it will have the same effect in terms of decreasing your chance of winning for the next 4-5 months.  But we could add something that says that the more hard to get programs (in terms of how many others wanted it), the longer the delay before you win again is.
24263
Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2008, 12:59 AM »
Congratulations to everyone who entered and thanks to cthorpe for wrangling up all these giveaways.

And thanks to all of the companies that donated copies for us to give away!

Don't forget the discounts run until the end of the month:

ps. Remember that if you didn't win this time, you'll have a better chance of winning next time.

24264
Official Announcements / January 2008 Software Drawing Winners
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 10:37 PM »

Winners of the January 2008 Giveaway Drawing


January 2008 Giveaway Drawing

Supporting Members, you've got until the last day of the month to take advantage of this month's Discounts..

This Month's Special Discounts and Giveaways:


Winners of 'Surfulater' (5):
  • Liquidmantis
  • gno
  • olamoree
  • siouxdax
  • CleverCat
Winners of 'AM-Notebook' (3):
  • Lashiec
  • utfan
  • TheQwerty
Winners of 'Backup4All Professional' (4):
  • godsgeek
  • gally
  • cookstar
  • jdhas
Winners of 'BB Flashback 1.5' (5):
  • havanamike
  • davehohman
  • fiberhax
  • BrokenNails
  • pasweden
Winners of 'Beyond Compare' (2):
  • app103
  • dhovekamp
Winners of 'Camtasia Studio (TechSmith)' (3):
  • Darwin
  • cybernetnews
  • taichimaster
Winners of 'SnagIt (TechSmith)' (3):
  • tamasd
  • Rocker452
  • Nelson Carvalho
Winners of 'Directory Opus' (3):
  • dave12n
  • Lindzus
  • Phil White
Winners of 'Double Killer Pro' (5):
  • allan k
  • Falcon_four
  • jencarl
  • Magic Speller
  • mdl
Winners of 'Direct Access' (3):
  • zj
  • BigJim
  • egbert
Winners of 'FontCreator Professional' (5):
  • shhurst
  • Mex
  • inghamc
  • JEdwardP
  • H@diAd
Winners of 'FontExpert 2007' (5):
  • dcm
  • Merlin II
  • algasys
  • dfluck
  • alxwz
Winners of 'Genie Backup Manager Pro' (5):
  • LM7
  • empedia
  • sls_trader
  • Jakeman
  • The_Doomer
Winners of 'GoodSync' (5):
  • Tekzel
  • IvkovicD
  • mediaguycouk
  • oldfart
  • brett
Winners of 'Help & Manual 4 Professional' (3):
  • jgpaiva
  • hamradio
  • JeffC
Winners of 'Local Website Archive' (3):
  • venn
  • OldElmerFudd
  • TucknDar
Winners of 'MainType' (5):
  • Floppy
  • cranioscopical
  • aphoria
  • texasraccoon
  • Gretch68
Winners of 'My Life Organized' (3):
  • shylo
  • llc_silly
  • rkrause
Winners of 'NoteZilla' (5):
  • tide
  • ashberry
  • ganrad
  • johnnyd2
  • lisado
Winners of 'novaPDF Professional' (4):
  • rpyron
  • mlb
  • jwolken
  • Bob_Michael
Winners of 'PerfectDisk Professional' (5):
  • crcowan
  • Yukon
  • Winnie
  • tshare
  • mhb
Winners of 'RecentX' (5):
  • kwak
  • rickowen
  • dalchina
  • tigerlan
  • woodruff
Winners of 'AI Roboform' (5):
  • pencoe
  • siraj
  • Catalin
  • briankrg
  • iaksma
Winners of 'Super Flexible File Synchronizer' (3):
  • iphigenie
  • johnk
  • Dormouse
Winners of 'SyncBackSE and Onlick Utilities' (5):
  • ZekeBlue
  • Ataqer
  • ThalSwe
  • richdr
  • oltimer
Winners of 'TechSupport Alert Premium 12 month subscription' (3):
  • Bugsy
  • DukeofURL
  • qwibbles
Winners of 'True Launch Bar' (10):
  • kanomie
  • rno2
  • DreadLord
  • ilyag
  • y0himba
  • thebaglady608
  • smparadox
  • n8chavez
  • ciderman
  • dmd
Winners of 'Website-Watcher Business' (3):
  • Old Timer
  • Hermandt
  • dbailey6
All winners are now being notified by email to their forum email address.  If you haven't received an email but your name is listed above, check spam filters and forum email address, and then mail [email protected] and let us know you never got any mail.  It can take a few days for companies to send you your serial number; if a few days pass and you haven't received it - send a reminder to the company email as noted in your winning notification email, or to us by replying to the email you received or to us directly.

Curious about how we award prizes?  See https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1684.0 for a discussion about our custom prize optimizer utility. Winning something one month reduces your chances of winning the next month, and being helpful on the forum slightly increases your chances.
24265
General Software Discussion / Re: Attention Mod
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:23 PM »
it still leaves the recipient "Guru" with somewhat of a chore to do, i.e., get to the location of the post where assistance was requested.


do you mean beause it only sends the thread url not a specific post url?
24266
FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Fingers in the nose guide to build javascript plugins. Does that mean its easy ?
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 07:43 AM »
Can you narrow down the problem.. is your OnProcessTrigger function being called? Is the clipboard being set but not copied to active window?
24267
FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Fingers in the nose guide to build javascript plugins. Does that mean its easy ?
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 06:13 AM »
I have found in readme.txt: "(Note FARR already has builtin funcionts to copy stuff to clipboard or to the last window open before FARR was triggered)". Are those functions accesible from javascript?

yes:
just call that same setStrValue function with the keyword "PasteClipboardToLastActiveWindow"
so for example:
FARR.setStrValue("PasteClipboardToLastActiveWindow","Hello!");

will paste the text "Hello!" into the program that was active before FARR was triggered.


Sory for all my questions but as I said before, I am coding beginner


no need to apologize -- these questions would be same questions an expert coder would ask, because the reality is that the plugin documentation doesnt really exist, it's still in a state of evolution and mostly people are just figuring it out from the sample code until i get my act together and write a full set of docs.
24268
FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Fingers in the nose guide to build javascript plugins. Does that mean its easy ?
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 04:50 AM »
typing "rplugins" will reload all plugins.
1) yes, although i've not coded for the javascript api yet, onProcessTrigger(title,path) i think is the callback that FARR will call to let you decide what to do when user trigers it so your plugin can handle it.
2) sounds good and feel free to email me ([email protected]) if i lag behind.
3) ecaradec can give better help on using the jd api but what you should call is:
   // do some special FARR action like setting statusbar, richedit (see farr plugin action documentation )
   FARR.setStrValue("setshowallmode","");
like that, before you start returning any results (call it once each time a new search is conducted).

ps. it's great to see people already using ecaradec's amazing javascript api work! make sure to send me your mailing address after you release your first plugin with it so i can send you a special Cody Plugin Writer Coffee Mug.
24269
Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for tool to identify windows controls on windows forms
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 04:05 AM »
Krichmar Kobi's Spy+capture?  http://www.kobik.net/spy_capture.asp
But it's old so i guess if the others dont work with windows this one might not either..
24270
Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for webservice to convert svn repo to zip
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:59 AM »
This is actually a damn cool idea i think, a web service that will go grab an svn respository and deliver it to you as a zip file.
24271
General Software Discussion / Re: Attention Mod
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:50 AM »
i like the idea of modifying the "Send This Topic" page to allow you to send a topic to a user on the forum not just to an email address.
this way we don't have to add any new "buttons" and i think the "Send this Topic" idea captures the same idea that has been suggested here -- and why should the "send this topic" only work with emails -- seems natural to extend it to work with forum names and send it as a message through the forum.
24272
Living Room / Flash Tower Defense Game of the Week: Strategy Defense 3
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:43 AM »
Here's a remarkable new tower defense game called Strategy Defense 3.
In addition to playing pretty darn well, it has some very cool features and beautiful graphics.

Multiple maps and difficulty levels, more variety of objects than i've ever seen -- amazing stuff.

I love this genre because it really embodies the concept of "casual" games and it's great to see how different designers innovate.

Strategy Defense does a few really cool new things.  First of all, there is very little tower building or upgrading, most of what you do is just select which new unit to build when you get new money, making this one of the simpler games to actually play.  But there is still a lot of strategy involved.

The variety of levels also definitely requires some strategic thinking -- some of the levels require only long distance attacking for example.

A really wonderful addition to the genre and a great first tower defense game for those who have never played one before.  :up:


from http://www.gamebalance.com/
24273
FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Fingers in the nose guide to build javascript plugins. Does that mean its easy ?
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:23 AM »
hi czechboy, let me try to help a little, and sorry for the delay in responding.

ok as for #1, these are different kinds of results that can be returned by plugins which help FARR know how to handle the results.  FILE type is most common when results are files.  most of the others are for internal use -- in your case you should probably use UNKNOWN, basically meaning that FARR shouldnt assume that the result is a file to launch.  Then you will handle the triggering of it.

#2 - i think what we have here is a problem with unicode text display or font character set, and FARR is not unicode compatible.  i'm thinking though that maybe the best solution for plugins that want to do unicode stuff is to add an ability for FARR to be told to display a special unicode display mode.. i'll have to look into that when i have a little more time -- i'm still in the middle of a job that takes up most of my time at the moment so it will have to wait a month or so :(  but i will find a way to do it so don't let this stop you from working on this nice plugin.

#3 - yes you can call the function to set a farr variable and pass the keyword: setshowallmode
that will trigger FARR to display all resutls not just a few.
24274
Living Room / Re: 18 Undiscovered Websites Every Gamer Should Know
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2008, 03:07 AM »
nice find  :up:
24275
N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: SelectoSurf v1.1.0 - Jan 25,2008 - AutoHotkey script to open plaintext URLs
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2008, 04:42 AM »
New version uploaded:
  • Updated with msearcy's suggestion to run default browser by default.
  • Now will reconstruct split-line urls, perfect for if you are launching a url which has been split in a mail message.
  • Added about box and custom icon for compiled exe version.

Suggestions welcome.
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