Recent Posts

28251

Living Room / Search Wikia - Project to Build an Open Source Non-profit Web Search

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 09:48 PM »

Seems like this has been getting more attention lately but still seems very preliminary..

Search Wikia:
A project to create the search engine that changes everything.

"Search is part of the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. And, it is currently broken.

Why is it broken? It is broken for the same reason that proprietary software is always broken: lack of freedom, lack of community, lack of accountability, lack of transparency. Here, we will change all that.

There have been some amazing projects in recent years which have matured now to the point that a new alternative is possible. Wikia is funding and supporting the development of something radically new.

Nutch and Lucene and some other projects now provide the background infrastructure that we need to generate a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot. Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about knowledge and the encyclopedia, we have a chance now to revolutionize how we think about search.

Help me out, spread the word. I am looking for people to continue the development of a wiki-inspired search engine. Specifically community members who would like to help build people-powered search results and developers to help us build an open-source alternative for web search.

http://search.wikia....om/wiki/Search_Wikia

28252

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review of Fineprint (Virtual Printer)

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 09:39 PM »

chris is right, this is actually something you can do without fineprint, assuming you have printer drivers that will do it.  it's probably something worth finding a tutorial for.  most people dont realize that they can create several different printer profiles from the same physical printers, using the add printer wizard in the Control Panel printer section.

Very useful if you want one printer for fast drafts, one for high quality, one for duplexing, etc.

28253

Site/Forum Features / Re: Promo "User Bars/Banners" for DonationCoder.com

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 09:36 PM »

beautiful! i'll add it.

28254

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: Special Preview & Beta Test !!!

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 09:31 PM »

download url is broken.

28255

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: C drive space monitor

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 03:50 PM »

edvard might be nice to build an exe and pack it along with ahk in a zip and attach it to a post
then i can add it to http://codingsnacks.donationcoder.com

28256

Living Room / Some thoughtfull worries about google misbehavior from FireFox developer

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 03:01 PM »

I know there are quite a few of us who feel a bit uneasy about google's arguably increasingly questionable behaviors and desire to dominate the web..  Some nice writing today by FireFox developer..

Google is now displaying “tips” that point searchers to Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa for any search phrase that includes “calendar” (e.g. Yahoo calendar), “blog” and “photo sharing,” respectively. This is clearly bad for competitors, and it’s also a bad sign for Google.
...
The tips are different—and bad for users—because the services they recommend are not the best in their class.
...
While advertisers compete to be first in a string of lookalike ads that are often shunted to the side, Google now determines the precise position and appearance of ads tips that are not subject to any of the same rules. Its ads get icons while others don’t, and if you think that’s small potatoes, you are not an advertiser
...

And I think this hits on why i don't have a great feeling about google having such a monopoly on everything:

But we’re not there yet, and in many ways, Google’s new age “bundling” is far worse than anything Microsoft did or even could do. Microsoft threw spaghetti at the wall and hoped it stuck, and likewise there’s nothing wrong with Google’s arbitrary front page ads. The difference here is that Google knows what users want and can discreetly recommend its products at the right time. Microsoft can’t easily hide a program packaged with Windows (and doing so would defeat the purpose), but competitors can only discover Google’s bundling, which might be transient or limited to certain regions, through trial and error searching.
...
Perhaps the most nefarious aspect of this feature is how it operates within our collective blind spots. Advertisers are happy that Google no longer invades the canonical Ad Results. Technology purists continue to see untainted Search Results. But does my mother make that distinction? How much does a result have to look like a Result to cross the line?
...
Google promised not to be the type of company that needs to ask.

All of us are now using a search engine to search the web, which has a vested interest in sending us to certain sites and certain products.  Google may be better than many companies, but they are now a huge beast which needs to be fed a constant influx of profits.  They profit when they send you places with ads that you click on.

I for one am very much looking forward to the rise of the non-profit search engines..

http://www.blakeross...6/12/25/google-tips/

from slashdot.org

28257

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / NANY Authors - Do You Need Some Web Space?

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 02:23 PM »

If you would like web space (ftp+www) to upload your nany project, just message me with your desired USERNAME.dcmembers.coom location.

28258

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: HEADS UP FOR NANY AUTHORS

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 01:03 PM »

thanks farmsteader - as you guessed the page is not created yet, but will be when the time comes

28259

Official Announcements / Re: Anyone feel like doing some semi-regular original blogging at donationcoder?

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 12:45 PM »

Well because of the way we do our blogs, it doesnt have to be a strict commitment or a regular schedule - basically though i am looking for people who might be willing to take more seriously the idea of making meaningful posts on the forum about software/web news, discovering new software, opinions, etc.  Posts should include an attached image to make it easier to blog them.

So basically it's not all that different than making regular posts, but taken a bit more seriously.

28260

Developer's Corner / TinyXML Library for C++ (I Love It)

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 12:30 PM »

After using it in two recent projects, with a couple different compilers, I have to say that i absolutely LOVE this TinyXML library for C++ (Open Source).

It is a pure joy to use and could not be any easier.  Not only is it small but it's got plenty of helper functions that really make everything easier.  Rarely am I this happy with a c++ library.  Big thumbs up from me.  If you need to add xml support to a c++ program, you cannot go wrong using TinyXML 

TinyXml is a simple, small, C++ XML parser that can be easily integrating into other programs.

I found myself writing a text file parser every time I needed to save human readable data or serialize objects; I created tinyxml to solve the text I/O file once and for all. (Or, as a friend said, end the Just Another Text File Parser problem.)

Online Documentation: including sample code, general information, and an API reference.

Download the latest source release on Sourceforge. The release contains the source code, demo code, and all the documentation. It is written in OS independent C++. (Note that on the projects page it shows 0 CVS commits, which is incorrect.)

Please send me e-mail if you like (or don't like) TinyXml - and I'm always curious who is using it! For general discussion, there is a discussion board and a mail list. You can also enter bugs, access CVS, and request features all from the TinyXml Project Page.
Lee Thomason

http://www.grinninglizard.com/tinyxml/

Docs here: http://www.grinningl...nyxmldocs/index.html

28261

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: A Dark and Deadly Path

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 12:16 PM »

actually you could use it for videos by adding only a few lines of code..

just harder to make videos so i thought it might be a fun audio only project (i was inspired by the accessibility game contest).

28262

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Whats Its Color - December 25, 2006

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:45 AM »

right.

28263

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Whats Its Color - December 25, 2006

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:34 AM »

i didnt actually mean to give the user html code linking to image on the server -
i meant it more like sample html code with colors and refering to the image as if it were in the same directory.  ie user could just upload the web page and their own copy of the image to their server.  just an idea.

28264

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Whats Its Color - December 25, 2006

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:17 AM »

i know there are theories about complimentary colors - to tell the truth color sense and rhythmic sense are two things i was born without.  but it might be nice to take the dominent colors and maybe list some "complimentary" colors, and maybe allow either sets to be used for both background and maybe a border?

And then lastly a button that might give you the html code to show the image on a standalone web page?

Just an idea, not sure if it's worth your time..

28265

Official Announcements / Anyone feel like doing some semi-regular original blogging at donationcoder?

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:14 AM »

You guys+gals should know about our blog page (http://blog.donationcoder.com), which is built from the daily posts on the forum..
We are currently doing it in a very ad hoc fashion, but i was wondering if there are a couple dc members who might want to become semi-regular dc software bloggers?  I think the funnest thing keeping with the spirit of the site would be if the posts focused on software or website services, and aim to discover new software and tell our readers about it.

Anyone feel like taking the plunge and playing a bigger role on donationcoder?

28266

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Whats Its Color - December 25, 2006

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:09 AM »

some feature ideas:
let user click on any of the top colors and make that color the background color of the page.

28267

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Whats Its Color - December 25, 2006

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:07 AM »

now it's looking quite cool!

28268

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / HEADS UP FOR NANY AUTHORS

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 11:06 AM »

On New Years Eve at Midnight New York time, as it turns to New Years Day, this section will go public, and a new special permanent page will go live at:
http://nany.donationcoder.com which has a blog-like display of all entries (it will look like http://codingsnacks.donationcoder.com and http://minireviews.donationcoder.com and http://bcbcontest.donationcoder.com , etc).

SO,
All participants please have your programs posted in a thread here, and attach a screenshot to your post (dont link to an offsite image, attach a schreenshot).  This is the way we make the blog-like entries.

28269

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / LifeHack.org 2006 roundup - 50 Best Hacks for your Life

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 09:00 AM »

I really like the lifehack.org site, they put out regular nice essays on living and working better.  It's very different from lifehacker.com in that they really focus on improving your habits and stuff, much more focused.

Do you want to be as productive as many of us, but missed a lot of actions at lifehack.org during the year? Other than subscribing our feed now, I give you a way to catch up with us before 2007 begins. I’ve selected the best 50 life hacks of the year, based on their popularity and contents in different categories. Invest your time - read them. Bookmark this page and mark reading them as one of your new year resolutions.

Read article at lifehack.org..

28270

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for a good slipstreaming procedure

« Last post by mouser on December 29, 2006, 03:39 AM »

keep us updated on what works jeff.

28271

Developer's Corner / Re: Links are invisible in IE6 but appear in FF

« Last post by mouser on December 28, 2006, 09:22 PM »

try some tests sri, try changing the div id to "menu_disabled" in the html to see if its a css problem.
try getting rid of the hrefs in the html to see if its the php hrefs..
experiment to localize the problem.

28272

Screenshot Captor / Warning: Don't be an idiot like me and forget you have the capture delay on

« Last post by mouser on December 28, 2006, 07:58 PM »

It's clear i have to add a feature to screenshot captor to display some indication if you have the delay timer set on screenshot captor.
I just spent some agonizing minutes trying to figure out what coding disaster i messed up to cause screenshot captor to take so long to take a screenshot.. i finally realized i had engaged the delay timer! 

I'll change the icon in the tray to a timer maybe, that would solve the problem.

28273

General Software Discussion / Long Windows Vista Review on Paul Thurott's SuperSite for Windows

« Last post by mouser on December 28, 2006, 07:53 PM »

This was mentioned on Joel Spolsky's latest blog and seemed good enough to get it's own post.

It's hard to put Windows Vista in perspective. On the one hand, the product has been in development for over five years, which means that Vista had one of the longest development cycles in the 20+ year history of Windows. (See my Road to Gold series for an exhaustive breakdown of that time period.)

Paradoxically, Windows Vista is both revolutionary and evolutionary. While it includes modern OS features, such as a new hardware-based graphical user interface (GUI), Vista will also feel like familiar territory, for the most part, to anyone that's already familiar with Windows XP. And Mac advocates can claim, truthfully, that many of Vista's best features appeared first on Mac OS X, sometimes years ago.

More problematic, over the past five years, many of Windows Vista's best features have been jettisoned, and it's unclear whether they'll ever appear in future Windows versions. Other features, like Internet Explorer (IE) 7, the Avalon and WinFX programming interfaces, the RSS platform, and more have been back-ported to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, watering down the uniqueness of the Vista platform.

Does any of this really matter to the typical PC user? Perhaps not. As someone who's been dissecting Windows Vista for several years now, the novelty has frankly worn off. So it would be a disservice for me to base my opinions of this system on my belief that it should have shipped two years ago. After all, to the average PC users out there in audience (i.e. most people), Windows Vista is something new. Under the hood, Vista is, in fact, quite different from its predecessors, despite the surface similarities. Indeed, it is to Microsoft's credit that hundreds of millions of Windows users will be able to upgrade or otherwise move to Windows Vista, install and run almost all of their existing applications, hook up and access almost all of their hardware peripherals, and access all of their critical data files and other documents, all without any understanding at all of the major changes that Microsoft has wrought. Microsoft once described Vista as the Windows platform for the next decade. I'm no longer sure this was hyperbole.

http://www.winsupers...reviews/winvista.asp

from https://www.donation...index.php?topic=6764

28274

Living Room / Re: Bribing Bloggers - Joel, and Others, Weigh In

« Last post by mouser on December 28, 2006, 07:48 PM »

My thoughts: I generally agree with what Joel is saying I think.  Of course it's easy for people so high up in the food chain like Joel to turn down a free $5000 laptop, or for someone as annoying as Robert Scoble to just wallow in the free gifts that get sent to him in the hopes of getting a mention on a top blog (no one gifts a rat's a** what we write here so no gifts for us).  So it's easy to say accepting such things are morally questionable, but it would be very hard to turn down such a gift if you really could use a laptop and didn't have the money to spend on one.

28275

Living Room / Bribing Bloggers - Joel, and Others, Weigh In

« Last post by mouser on December 28, 2006, 07:38 PM »

You've probably heard about the recently thing where Microsoft and AMD gave away Vista-loaded tricked out laptops to top bloggers in an effort to get some good publicity.  There has been a lot of talk on the web recently about the ethics/morality of the move, and some thoughtfull discussion pieces are emerging.

There's an interesting debate going on about whether bloggers should accept gifts from vendors.
Lately Microsoft, working through their PR agency, Edelman, has been getting rather aggressive about trying to buy good coverage from bloggers. A few months ago they invited bloggers out to Seattle to meet Bill Gates, with all expenses paid (hotel, airfare, etc). Last week they send out a round of expensive laptops with Vista preinstalled. These are not loans, by the way: they're completely free laptops ("yours to keep!"). Here's the offer I received from a Microsoft employee:
...
Sounds nice, huh? What could be wrong with that?
Robert Scoble says "it's an awesome idea." He says that as long as the bloggers disclose that they got the laptops free, they're acting ethically. And he says that Edelman is just "doing their job," which is therefore by definition ethical: On Edelman’s side? Is sending out laptops ethical? Of course! That’s their job.
Scoble is wrong.
...
've been thinking long and hard about this, and the only conclusion I can come to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery. Even if no quid-pro-quo is formally required, the gift creates a social obligation of reciprocity. This is best explained in Cialdini's book Influence (a summary is here). The blogger will feel some obligation to return the favor to Microsoft.
These gifts reduce the public trust in blogs.
...
This is the most frustrating thing about the practice of giving bloggers free stuff: it pisses in the well, reducing the credibility of all blogs. I'm upset that people trust me less because of the behavior of other bloggers. Don't even get me started about PayPerPost.
...

http://www.joelonsof...tems/2006/12/28.html

Read more essays on the subject at TechMeme: http://www.techmeme....61228/p68#a061228p68