Recent Posts

25176

Living Room / Re: How Google earns money?

« Last post by mouser on October 26, 2007, 04:31 AM »

Sometimes it seems to be that half of the blogs on the internet are devoted to talking about how much money google makes so this is kind of a weird question.

Google makes money as a middleman, by charging companies money to show their ads to people.

PERIOD.

Everything else google does is designed to increase their ability to do just that.  All of their other projects are designed simply to get their advertisements in front of new users, and keep the stock market excited about their products so people will keep advertising with them.

Nothing else they do has to make money as long as they continue to get good publicity and maintain their huge share of the search engine and advertising market.

25177

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a Profile Desktops

« Last post by mouser on October 26, 2007, 04:26 AM »

I'm actually a little interested in the idea.. maybe you can describe it in more detail what you are wanting and how it woudl be used?

25178

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

« Last post by mouser on October 26, 2007, 04:25 AM »

Now i have to think if i should change the default value of this setting.. i'm trying to remember the reason i added it to begin with..

And thanks for the sweet words about FARR

25179

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

« Last post by mouser on October 26, 2007, 04:01 AM »

Can you try this:
Go to the "General" tab of options, and change the setting labeled:
"Always launch shortcuts directly instead of resolving links"

If it's checked, uncheck it.  If it's already unchecked, check it.

See if that helps.

25180

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Create a containing folder by right clicking on a file

« Last post by mouser on October 26, 2007, 01:42 AM »

ahhaahahahahaha that drawing is priceless

25181

General Software Discussion / Re: Freedom from Microsoft Day!

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 09:53 PM »

shutting it down!!! 
worst case scenario just mark it as not being updated
and start a new one for open source software.

The Great (OPEN SOURCE) Software List

25182

Living Room / Re: Cool idea (does it exist?) - Find websites that sell your email address

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 02:47 PM »

siteadvistor is a very nice service - i didn't remember they had something very close to my email testing idea(!)

so they do track emails received.. though they seem to do it on a somewhat ad hoc basis.. many sites they dont seem to report email results.  also i don't know how careful they are about using different domain names when signing up to prevent being filtered out.

does seem like they had the same idea though. 

25183

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Free computer help online/CompuTech (my) programs

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 01:57 PM »

Maybe these kinds of arrangements are best coordinated using forum personal messages or email, rather than through public forum posts.

25184

Living Room / Re: Leech Attacks

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 01:54 PM »

Isn't it possible that it's someone who likes the site and the discussion but isn't very talkative or doesn't feel like they have much to contribute to discussions, but still loves reading other people posts, and just wanted to give you a thanks?

25185

UrlSnooper / Re: Problems with installing URLSnooperv2.20.01.exe

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 01:24 PM »

that is a very interesting clue!

25186

Living Room / Cool idea (does it exist?) - Find websites that sell your email address

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 01:20 PM »

Martin over at ghacks has a blog post up today about a tool that can scan (spider) a website and look for any pages that might be displaying your email address.

This can be useful to help you figure out if a forum is somehow showing your email when you post, etc.

But it got me thinking..

People always wonder if a site like DC, which tries hard to encourage people to sign up at our forum and newsletter, is actually doing this in order to collect emails to sell to spammers, etc.  I can say (and do on various pages on the site) unequivocally that this is something we don't do, will never do, and take very seriously.  We don't share the emails of our members with anyone, ever, for any reason.

But how do you know? And what about other sites?

What would be good is a website whose only purpose was to register at other websites, using a UNIQUE email address given ONLY to that website, and then monitored and reported if that email was ever used in any email(spam) from someone OTHER than the original website.

Are you following me?

So for example the website would have a chart that looked like this:

Original Website Where Email Address was Submitted	This Email Subsequently Received Spam From	Date of First/Last Foreign Spam
MyFaceSpace dot com (Jan 2004)	SellYourHomeForFiveDollars dot com, civigrathemagicmedecine dot com	Jan 2004 / Dec 2009

This would be a site that people could visit to check to see whether a website was selling email addresses of its users and could be really helpful.

--

Does such a web service already exist?

25187

UrlSnooper / Re: Problems with installing URLSnooperv2.20.01.exe

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 12:46 PM »

we seem to be getting quite a few of these reports lately about "not a valid Win32-program".
which almost always means that the program did not fully download.

i don't know why this is happening to people.  Is there some commonality between users who are getting this error?
can you try downloading it again a few times and see if the file is always the same size?
if you have another pc with a different firewall or antivirus, try that.
it could also be our server i suppose.

ps. cute dog!

25188

Developer's Corner / PODdy Mouth - Good blog on self-publishing and printing on demand

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 12:32 PM »

Tom Colvin, who is a member at DC and runs his own great blog has made a post recommending this blog on self-publishing.

Quoting Tom:

I’ve been following her blog, dipping in several times a week. Yes, she’s definitely opinionated. She also really knows what she’s talking about. For example, look at her post Top 6 PODS Author Solutions Should Acquire Next . The blogger provides details about the publishers on her list that are not easy to come by — and they provide unusual insight into the business.While most blogs about writing drift from topic to topic, this one is sharply focussed on a topic that any writer who wants to have a book published should follow. It’s one of a small handful of writer’s blog that I consider a MUST-READ.

From the site itself:

I am very opinionated about print-on-demand and self-publishing, and since every opinionated person I know has a blog, I figured I had better start one, too. No use wasting my opinions just on myself, right? That’s like making a delicious, six-course meal just for me and my cat.

 I should also mention that I have had personal dealings with nearly every publisher I am going to discuss, including (in no particular order): Author House, iUniverse, Lulu, Cafe Press, Outskirts Press, Xlibris, Create Space, Tate, Publish America, etc.  So let my experience be your guide… or, you know, whatever.

http://poddymouth.wordpress.com/

from http://becoming-a-writer-seriously.com/

25189

Screenshot Captor / Re: Bug: Ctrl C doesn't work (for me)

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 11:54 AM »

Here's what i think is happening:

You are selecting an older screenshot in the thumbnail panel, and then when you hit ctrl+C it is performing an explorer-style FILE copy, since that panel works just like an explorer window.

So it is copying, just not copying image data to the clipboard, but rather copying the file to the clipboard.  To test, go to windows explorer and hit ctrl+V to paste the new file copy.

What is the solution?  I could add another hotkey that copied the image data in this case. or you could keep doing what you are doing in first selecting all.

25190

General Software Discussion / Re: Vanilla: a nice, strange forum

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 11:32 AM »

A comment on Tinjaw's comments.

They say:

Vanilla is all about add-ons. We've spent many, many months developing a new system whereby developers can create add-ons for Vanilla that allow you to do just about anything with your forum. Want to turn your Vanilla into a bug tracking system? Want to tag discussions instead of categorizing them? Maybe you just want a fancy highlighting effect when new messages are posted. Your imagination is the limit.

I haven't looked at how they do addons, BUT I can say this: One of the big weaknesses of SMF (the forum software we use here) is that extensions to the system are basically done by modifying forum code.  There isn't an official API so much as you basically just write search+replace code to modify the actual forum code.  This makes it quite painfull to maintain modifications as new updates of the forum software are released, and makes conflicts between mods common.  This is a very big flag in the system. In all fairness though, it's pretty hard to design a forum system that can be easily extended in a flexible and way using an API.

HOWEVER, if vanilla (or any other forum software) manages to figure our how to support addons in a very clean and robust way, that would be a *HUGE* plus and a major step in the right direction.  Though I must repeat I haven't looked at their extension system so i can't comment on it yet.

25191

General Software Discussion / Re: Vanilla: a nice, strange forum

« Last post by mouser on October 25, 2007, 11:27 AM »

This was posted about in february here: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=7478.0

It looks interesting -- it's like a fresh look at forum software, and the developers have really gone for a streamlined web2.0 slick-looking interface.  The vanilla web page itself is filled with demo videos, etc.  It certainly looks to me like they put a lot of effort into polishing their website.

Having said that, I'm not sure I actually like the design decisions they've made in terms of the actual forum software and they way it presents stuff to the user.  I'm not sure about it's suitability in terms of navigating around a large forum.  It seems quite bare bones. For a small forum though it might be acceptable.

Here's their sample forum: http://lussumo.com/c...mmunity/discussions/

I really do get a kind of feeling that this site is almost like an aesthetic demonstration of how to make a minimalist forum system.  I'm unconvinced that they are all that concerned with providing strong functionality and may be more interested in it looking good.

25192

General Software Discussion / Re: EverNote beta 2.2.0.372 has some nice new features

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 11:47 PM »

Thanks L, i have to update another one of the reviews and i'll add a note about this as well.
Congrats on the evernote work 

ps.
If you haven't seen the japanese movie/animated series called DeathNote, it's quite outstanding, and one of the lead characters is named "L".

25193

Screenshot Captor / Re: A couple of small requests

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 11:14 PM »

sure i can add Explore at screenshot directory..

as for #2, i can look into it, but you know you can already just copy the IMAGE to the clipboard and then ctrl+V in explorer to have it create Clipboard Image.bmp in the directory.  Not as good as creating a copy of the png, but if that's sufficient there it is.  can you tell us why on earth you would use this feature?

25194

General Software Discussion / Re: MakeUseOf.com - Nice Blog

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 10:27 PM »

Welcome to the site 

25195

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Surfulater V2.30, Build 10.0 Released

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 07:57 PM »

It's always a close call about where to put program announcements.. Since surfulater is such a good program and has been talked about on DC before and many people here should already know about it, this is probably the right section for it (i.e. it's not a "new discovery in the wild" as one might say).

Hopefully we can do another discount for surfulater in the very near future -- I know DC members would like that.

25196

Official Announcements / Re: Mouser Sabbatical from DC Coding for 3 of months - Your Help Requested Please

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 06:43 PM »

Thanks for your hard work mouser; yes, a break would certainly be a good idea if that's what you want!

Just to make clear -- I don't want to take a break from DC and as you can see I'm still here and will continue to be here -- it's just that i have to work on another project full time for the next few months in order to pay the bills, and so i won't have nearly as much time as normal for working on DC stuff during this period.

So I need to lean on you guys and get some help keeping the site active and interesting and filled to the brim with new stuff. 

25197

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Surfulater V2.30, Build 10.0 Released

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 05:04 PM »

hi nevf!
glad to see surfulater going strong!

(ps. moving this to the announce your software section)

25198

Official Announcements / Re: Mouser Sabbatical from DC Coding for 3 of months - Your Help Requested Please

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 04:18 PM »

Anyone want to resume creating DC podcasts? I think superboyac just volunteered to create some original music for them.  What if each episode was just an interview with a DC member?

25199

Official Announcements / Re: Mouser Sabbatical from DC Coding for 3 of months - Your Help Requested Pleas

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 03:10 PM »

One way people can help is by playing Blogger for a month or too!

Finding new software-related stuff to write about (tips+tricks, new software discoveries, mini-reviews, deep software thoughts, etc), and post about it so i can promote it to the DC blog page (http://blog.donationcoder.com) and don't have to spend as much time looking for stuff to blog.  The more original and unique the content the better.

ps. as always make sure you attach a picture(!)

25200

General Software Discussion / eStarling - WiFi LCD picture frames are starting to become useful

« Last post by mouser on October 24, 2007, 02:11 PM »

I keep waiting for the LCD picture frames to come down in price and go up in functionality, to the point where i'll want one in every room.

I'm still going to wait until we have a nice open source API that will let us display arbitrary stuff on these things and touch screen support.  Then we can use them as music visualizers, remote controls, remote movie watching, etc.

But we're starting to get closer now that they are supporting wi-fi and the ability to show additional information and grab pictures from sites like flickr, etc.  If you are a flickr fiend or otherwise love sharing pictures with friends, it may finally be time to invest in one of these guys.

The eStarling 2.0 Wi-Fi Photo Frame takes this concept to the next level by connecting to your local Wi-Fi network and allowing you to send photos to it via e-mail or RSS photo feed.

With full web-based access you can control exactly the photos you want on your eStarling frame at any time from anywhere in the word. E-mail photos as .jpg attachments and they appear on your frame. Choose a Flickr photo feed with the keyword "cool japanese robots" and soon your frame will be scrolling through nifty shots of highly desirable bots you will never get your hands on. New Photobucket integration allows you to add photos into rotation on your eStarling frame directly from the Photobucket website. You can of course send photos while on the go from your mobile phone, while your pets watch your exciting antics remotely on the eStarling. Hand the eStarling Photo Frame over to a non-technical relative (Who has Wi-Fi in their house of course. What... they don't? You're a geek. Set it up!) and rule with an iron-fist over exactly what photos your Grannie views.

http://www.thinkgeek...ronics/cameras/94a5/