Recent Posts

24476

Living Room / Hack your cooking with Christopher Kimball

« Last post by mouser on January 05, 2008, 01:19 AM »

I've recently caught a little bit of a cooking bug.

But as enjoyable as the cooking is, i'm more of a reader than a do-er, and i'm really truly loving reading Christopher Kimball's books.  Basically he takes an experimentalist/scientific approach to these things.

He analyzes and compares ingredient/temperature/method variations as if he was looking for the cure to pneumonia.  It's really fun to read about him analyzing minuscule changes and the effects they have.  You also learn a ton about why recipes tell you to do different things.  Very fun reading.. I almost feel like i don't have to do the cooking after reading him talk about it.

• His books on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.co...ball&x=0&y=0
• America's Test Kitchen TV show: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/
• Sexy Food Nerds article about him: http://slate.com/id/2089461/

24477

Point Motivator / Re: Rewards give me points.

« Last post by mouser on January 05, 2008, 01:03 AM »

there is a full item editor now inside Point Motivator, no need for manually editing the xml file

24478

N.A.N.Y. 2008 / Re: NANY 2008 Press

« Last post by mouser on January 05, 2008, 12:36 AM »

Lifehacker:

http://lifehacker.co...re-at-donation-coder

24479

N.A.N.Y. 2008 / Re: NANY 2008 Press

« Last post by mouser on January 05, 2008, 12:32 AM »

Cybernetnews article:

http://cybernetnews....ps-for-the-new-year/

24480

General Software Discussion / Re: "Is Not a Valid Win32 Application" when installing - WHAT'S HAPPENING? HELP!

« Last post by mouser on January 05, 2008, 12:02 AM »

cmpm, i will ask them next time if they are using any downloaders.. that might be a possible explanation also.
i guess i was hoping it was some misconfiguration on our server which could be corrected.

24481

Point Motivator / Re: Rewards give me points.

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:56 PM »

Are you using the college item file posted about here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=11671.0

There is a bug in the file i think which has some plus points for a reward, instead of a cost, which is confusing the program.
If its not that file that you are using but something you created yourself then it means there is a bug in the item editor which is allowing that to happen and i will try to fix.

24482

N.A.N.Y. 2008 / Re: Point Motivator - NANY 2008 submission

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:52 PM »

I locked this thread and moved the discussion to https://www.donation...ndex.php?board=235.0

24483

General Software Discussion / Re: "Is Not a Valid Win32 Application" when installing - WHAT'S HAPPENING? HELP!

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:36 PM »

interesting ideas cmpm..

as you say, people seem to suggest that this happens and you have to clear the IE cache to get it to be willing to redownload the file..

but this doesn't really tell you WHY IE gets into this confused state of THINKING it's downloaded the whole file, when normally it does not.  in fact the cache issue just really makes the problem 10x worse since it makes it impossible for the user to just redownload after they get this error the first time! (thank you bill gates!)

i guess what i'm trying to get at is that normally in IE when you try to download a file, it KNOWS when it is interrupted midstream.  it only moves the file from temp dir to real download directory after it finishes downloading the file.

but in these rare cases, clearly IE *thinks* the download has completed, and gives it to the user to run.  so this is still a mystery as to what event or condition is causing IE to get confused about this.

24484

N.A.N.Y. 2008 / NANY 2008 Press

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:22 PM »

Wanted to start a thread where we could post about places that mention NANY2008 programs.. (i know i started one for GOE 2007 programs but i can't find it).

I'll start out with this one from today which brought a real smile to my face.  I thought it was really nice how they described us as a "Software Cooperative".. I think that's a sweet description of what we do here and maybe we should start referring to ourselves in that way officially.  It's always special when someone who writes about us takes the time to learn a little about what we do first.  Thumbs up to InfoWeek 

In celebration of the new year, software cooperative DonationCoder.com has released more than a dozen free Windows applications that range from the useful to the whimsical...

http://www.informati...bSection=Development





post more as you find them please..

24485

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 04:15 PM »

Thank you for that thoughtful post, and I for one am glad you are going to stay around.

Let me say something about this:

I want to say one thing in regard to the jibes at my age and or behavioral expectations...I've been the whipping boy enough and we have had our fun and our say.

I have found that much of the stress of being "insulted" is within the control of the person who is feeling it.  That is to say, much of the distress that one feels when one perceived themself to be insulted or under attack or made fun of on a forum or website, is due to the nature of the way you choose (or are in the habit of) extrapolating from such insults.  If you read an insult (or 10) and say to yourself: "this person is trying to make a fool of me and everyone is going to laugh" then you're already on a bad path.  Instead say to yourself what's much more likely, which is "eh, no one cares what this guy says about me, and the people i care about know better."  Then it just washes off your back.

One of the greatest "skills" one can learn in an online community is to let go and not feel like you have to answer every attack, have the last word on every thread, win every battle, aor comment on every issue.  When you master that you have reached web2.0 zen state and you'll enjoy yourself more 

24486

Living Room / Re: What do you think about "What I like to do" medallions

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 04:02 PM »

I've been trying to get Wordzilla to code this, I really want it.
If he refuses I will have to code it myself eventually.
Or maybe another smf coder will come to the rescue -- there is already some very close mods for smf forums out there, they just need a bit of tweaking.

24487

Point Motivator / Re: itemxml for college students

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 02:30 PM »

ps a little hint:
when you are creating an item that the user shouldn't have to tell you how many, just set max to 1 and it will not ask them and just assume 1.

24488

Point Motivator / Re: itemxml for college students

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 02:28 PM »

cool!!! yours is the first one!
i'll make a page listing these and yours will be on it. 
welcome to the site 

24489

General Software Discussion / "Is Not a Valid Win32 Application" when installing - WHAT'S HAPPENING? HELP!

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 02:26 PM »

I'm getting a continual trickle of users who are getting this error when trying to download and run the installers to my programs.

The proximal cause of the problem is very clear: It happens when the setup file does not download completely.

It also only seems to happen with Internet Explorer (maybe only version 7? not sure).

The real question is, why on earth is Internet Explorer messing up and only downloading part of the file and then thinking it has downloaded it all?

And how can I fix this?
(yes i know i know, i already recommend FireFox to people who experience the problem but it's not the perfect solution).

24490

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: new FARR Plugin : Delicious - built on the Javascript SDK : FScript

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 12:39 PM »

This is probably a very easy fix -- it's on my todo list to fix this month.
email me ([email protected]) so we can test before i release.

24491

GOE 2007 Challenge Downloads / GOE Mugs are ready to be sent (NANY mugs too) - Send me your info!

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:08 AM »

Ok guys, the GOE (and NANY) mugs are ready to be sent to coders who participated.

If you already have a mug (or don't like mugs), please go to this cafepress shop page for donationcoder:
http://www.cafepress.com/donationcoder or go to http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/ for even more products, and pick out something you want instead of a mug (don't worry about the images on the objects -- whatever you choose will have the NANY or GOE challenge cody on it).

Then fill in your full name and shipping address and submit it here:
https://www.donation...MemberKit/index.html

MAKE SURE TO add that this is for the GOE OR NANY programming prize and specify if you want something other than a mug.

IF you participated in both NANY and GOE, yes you get 2 items.

If you would like to be rewarded with a book from amazon.com or some other gift instead of a donationcoder mug or item, let me know.

24492

N.A.N.Y. 2008 / NANY Mugs are ready to be sent (GOE mugs too) - Send me your info!

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 11:07 AM »

Ok guys, the NANY mugs are ready to be sent to coders who participated.

If you already have a mug (or don't like mugs), please go to this cafepress shop page for donationcoder:
http://www.cafepress.com/donationcoder or go to http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/ for even more products, and pick out something you want instead of a mug (don't worry about the images on the objects -- whatever you choose will have the NANY or GOE challenge cody on it).

Then fill in your full name and shipping address and submit it here:
https://www.donation...MemberKit/index.html

MAKE SURE TO add that this is for the NANY or GOE programming prize and specify if you want something other than a mug.

IF you participated in both NANY and GOE, yes you get 2 items.

If you would like to be rewarded with a book from amazon.com or some other gift instead of a donationcoder mug or item, let me know.

24493

General Software Discussion / Re: FastFontPreview - freeware font viewer

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 10:23 AM »

I noticed something interesting at the company site which makes Fast Font Previewer, a font "finding" tool which lets you put in a letter image and it searches to find a matching font in your collection. No idea how well this works.
http://www.lanmisoft...fontmatchingtool.htm

24494

General Software Discussion / Re: FastFontPreview - freeware font viewer

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 10:21 AM »

My general feature request for all font programs is:
A display more where the main pane is 99% just pure font previews.

In other words, what i find frustrating in most of these advanced programs is all the extra text they want to show me along with the font (underneath it or above it), including filename, etc.

The main thing i use these programs for is for choosing fonts.  so for me what i want is a giant pane just showing font samples (preferably multi-column so i can pack more on a page), with no extra info in that panel but the line of sample text.  Then if i click on a sample you can show me the file name etc in another pane.

24495

General Software Discussion / Re: Streaming in real time only?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 09:56 AM »

Will what I download be transferable to a CD or DVD?

yes, but you'll have to convert it to a suitable format first, which will require yet another program.

24496

Official Announcements / Re: DonationCoder's Massive Annual Best Of the Web 2007 is Now Online

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 09:47 AM »

I think somewhere on the sidebar there should be a link to last year's too...just in case you get through all of this years and it still isn't enough.

Done, and vice versa as well.

24497

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 09:35 AM »

For quite some time Wordzilla (Anderson) and I have been talking about tag system ideas.  He did such an incredible job with the search stuff that i'm hoping he'll take on the tag system next.

There is no doubt that even if used purely internally, a tag system would be incredibly useful in terms of automating some of the stuff we do now -- like preparing the blog and newsletter.  So for me, it's really a great thing to add no matter how you look at it.

I also think it might be nice in terms of people being able to browse the forum by exploring a tag cloud etc could be fun.  People also might be able to set their rss feed to only give them items from a specfiic tag, etc.

We kind of get the NSFW stuff "free" when we write the tag system.

It seems to me the main questons are:
What is the user interface for displaying tag info and setting tag info and who gets to set tag info?

Let me emphasize this point:  The tag system is *not* being written so that we can have an NSFW filter -- that would be much much too much work for such a tiny tiny issue.

Personally from my perspective there is so little even remotely objectionable content on this forum that the NSFW filtering stuff seems like overkill.  But since it kind of comes almost free with the tag system it may be worth considering doing. 

I agree with some of the above statements that we shouldnt have the filtering on by default or do age checking, etc.  This is more like a manual opt-in tv parental lock.  If for some reason you don't want to see some content on the forum, YOU have to go to your profile and say "hide it from me".

Also, I do not want the forum to get "noisier" -- i dont want tags all over the place and making things harder to read.
the idea of having them per-thread down at bottom of page might be a nice idea.  or the tags could be invisible or only shown when you click a small unobtrusive button somewhere.  Wordzilla is good with this stuff, he'll come up with a nice method

24498

ContextMenu Commander / Re: When?

« Last post by mouser on January 04, 2008, 02:13 AM »

You must have psychic powers.
I expect this will be out in the 2nd half of 2008.
But please people don't start posting on this thread asking for more details, i'm not even thinking about it for the next few months.  Just so happens that i have all the pieces i need at this point, so yes it will come out in 2008.

ps. until then try FileMenu Tools: www.lopesoft.com/en/fmtools/info.html

24499

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2008, 10:59 PM »

I'd like to see this thread conversation focus more on the "tagging" ideas -- because i think that's clearly the ideal solution here in some form.  if done right it will allow any "adult" oriented posts to be excluded by those who are upset by it, without affecting those who aren't.

24500

Living Room / Re: Tarnation: Innovative pikmin-defense type flash game

« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2008, 10:20 PM »

you can keep continuing a level until you beat it, no need to restart.