Recent Posts

2851

General Software Discussion / What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

« Last post by app103 on April 27, 2010, 03:28 AM »

This is for building a community powered blog-like photo gallery site in which anyone can join and submit content

• User registers on the site, followed by email validation

            user name
            email address
            password
            avatar upload
   

• User fills out a form

            select photo from hard drive
            Give it a title
            fill in caption
            check off TOS agreement box
            submit button
   

• Submission goes into moderation queue

• Multiple moderators can process the queue with approve or reject

            moderators can edit submissions if necessary
   

• Approved entries are posted to main blog-like page, limit 5, with link to see older posts (same style)

• Posts on main page present photo, caption, link to individual post page, credits section containing user name and avatar of uploader linked to profile page

• Post pages contain photo, caption, credits section containing user name and avatar of uploader linked to profile page, embed code, area for members to rate and comment

• sidebar section contains thumbnails & links to 10 latest approved submissions

• Sidebar section contains thumbnails & links to 10 top rated submissions

• Profile pages with list of each user's approved submissions, with thumbnails, titles, and links to post pages

• Award system with badges for best of day, month, year, with badges appearing on post pages and user profiles

• Lots of RSS possibilities, including individual feeds for each user.

2852

General Software Discussion / Re: is there a util for "minimising" programs to the side of the screen?

« Last post by app103 on April 23, 2010, 04:52 PM »

I am not sure if it will work on Vista/Win7, and if it does you'll have to make your own skin for it to look right, but TaskbarEx allows you to drag buttons off the taskbar and place them anywhere on the desktop.

2853

Developer's Corner / Re: A story about "real programmers"...

« Last post by app103 on April 23, 2010, 01:09 AM »

If the tape rips in the middle of a program, all the lights in New Jersey go out!!

-MilesAhead (March 03, 2010, 03:52 PM)

So, you were the one that did that?

2854

Living Room / Re: Free printable shopping lists - neat idea

« Last post by app103 on April 22, 2010, 11:20 PM »

Not for your mobile phone, but great for use at home and printing to take with you:

My ToDo List application was designed to be very simple, and the simplicity of it makes it quite powerful for use in making shopping lists.



Enter all the things you need to buy on the ToDo side and print it. You'll get a sheet with little boxes to check off.

When you get home, move all the items you did buy to the Done side.

Next time you need to go shopping, you will not only have the list of things you didn't buy waiting on the ToDo side, but the Done side has all the stuff you have previously purchased, ready to select and move back to the ToDo side and buy again.

You have no idea how great this is to prevent you from forgetting to add things to your list. It kind of does half the thinking for you.

You can keep a separate list for every different type of shopping you need to do: one list for groceries, another for office supplies, one for your kid's school supplies, another for a party or specific project.

Lists are stored as 2 separate plain text files, one for ToDo and other for Done. Since they are plain text, you can copy either of them and change the file extension to .txt and do the same things with them as any other plain text file, including storing a copy on your mobile device or emailing it to someone that doesn't have a copy of the software.

2855

Developer's Corner / Re: OCX or API call to control notebook LCD brightness

« Last post by app103 on April 22, 2010, 08:08 PM »

If you do write one, add a special setting for "off" and let this guy know about it. https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=11867.0

He has been waiting a long time for a utility to turn off his display, yet continue to accept input. (he's blind and wants to save power)

2856

Developer's Corner / Re: OCX or API call to control notebook LCD brightness

« Last post by app103 on April 22, 2010, 08:24 AM »

Try one of these:

Miniature screen-brightness controller
Desktop Lighter
Volumouse (one of the non-sound components is for controlling the brightness of your screen)

2857

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by app103 on April 21, 2010, 04:41 AM »

I believe you are right.


http://status.last.fm/

2858

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by app103 on April 21, 2010, 03:57 AM »

You know, I have never used Powerpoint, but a quick and easy way to do a slide show is to create a series of images in Paintshop Pro, Photoshop, or some other graphics application, name them beginning with numbers to keep the images in order, and stick them all in the same folder.

When you view that folder in Explorer, there is an option to view the folder as a slideshow. Stick it on pause and use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate through the slides.

They get autosized to fit the screen, black bordered if they don't fit quite right (wallpaper sized works best and won't be bordered).

The images can be used for a whole bunch of other things, including printing them or inserting them into other documents, if you want.

And if you need to fix or replace one slide, that's easy enough, and adding more is easy too. Need to change the order? Just rename the files.

And you don't need to install any extra software to show the slideshow. It's built into Windows.

As far as creating consistent looking slides, that can be done with a layered template in PSP or Photoshop, where you set the image size, the background color, a logo in the corner of the top layer, a text layer with the font, style, and color pre-selected, and an image layer to insert a graphic.

When it needs to be edited to make a new slide, you just change the text on the text layer and insert a new image on the graphic layer.

2859

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by app103 on April 21, 2010, 02:27 AM »

Ok, just for the heck of it I unchecked that option and rechecked it and it's working fine now...but now last.fm isn't working. It can't login. I don't know if it's a trout issue or a last.fm issue, though. I'll try again later to see if it works.

2860

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 11:01 PM »

For some reason, I am no longer able to play audio CD's in Trout.

It says they are not audio cd's in the statusbar, says it loaded the tracks as data, shows a bunch of .cda tracks in the playlist (not fetching album info though) but nothing is playable on the one drive, and it just loads the path (M:) when trying on the other drive (again, nothing playable).

2861

Developer's Corner / Re: OCX or API call to control notebook LCD brightness

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 06:04 PM »

I think if given enough time and enough displays to ruin I might be able to figure it out (in Delphi), but I can't afford to find out.

2862

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 05:39 PM »

It's not a 160 limit...it's 140.

2863

Site/Forum Features / Re: NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 11:34 AM »

I had suggested a summer event, that ran from June till the end of August, with the wrap-up in early September, followed by a reminder that NANY is on the way. I figured the entire summer would be great for coding more substantial things and it wouldn't clash with things like major holidays and exams.

I also suggested a formal press release be issued 3-4 months in advance of the official starting date for both events, that way it could attract some press coverage that we have never been able to get before. Large news outlets and print publications usually have their story line-ups decided months in advance of the actual printing, and if you want to get their attention and make it into their magazine within enough time before your event, you have to do it with a press release and do it early enough to give them time. 3-4 months is the standard. (which means if we were going to have a summer event this year, the press release should have went out 2 months ago)

2864

Developer's Corner / Re: OCX or API call to control notebook LCD brightness

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 07:19 AM »

Is this what you are looking for?

http://msdn.microsof...2656%28VS.85%29.aspx

Alternatively you could try Skrommel's DimScreen and maybe save yourself some work.

2865

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by app103 on April 19, 2010, 04:16 AM »

when I tried to tweet about it, it said 'twitter may be experiencing problems'. Funny because any other tweet of mine not containing the url to the post didn't have any issues. I wonder if (this is a big accusation, so remember that this is only hypothetical) twitter was in bed with bit.ly and blocking the spread of news that harm bit.ly. It'd have major consequences. Worth keeping in mind.

-urlwolf (April 19, 2010, 03:59 AM)

I have serious doubts about that, for quite a few reasons, this being at the top of the list.

2866

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2010, 11:10 PM »

Rex Dixon, the same guy at bit.ly that gave the lame advice in the email to me, replied to my blog post:

Nice blog post. Well written, but as I tried to explain to you - our policy is not out to harm anyone. In fact it is there to protect our community. There are too many times that a bit.ly url can be used as a cloak to hide a rogue shortened link.

While I tried to explain that our interstitial page was a bit vague, that page is currently under review. Again, our apologies for the inconvenience, but bit.ly is trying to protect the overall community from rogue short links. We understand the frustration, and hopefully after review, you will understand that we are not out to undermine you or your efforts in promotion.

-http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/2010/04/bitly-is-harmful-to-your-reputation.html#comment-45436037

To which I replied:

That interstitial page is not vague at all. It clearly states the target site is believed to be a forgery, spam, malware, or phishing. All very damaging words to a site when you have no proof of such activities.

I ask again, why give an email address to report mistakes if you are unwilling to check the links and unflag them if they turn out to lead to safe sites? I gave you enough information to be able to decide if the link lead to a safe site or some rogue site, so why are you unwilling to remove flags from safe sites?

This post would never have been written if you were more cooperative and removed flags from safe sites that were mistakenly marked as bad sites. Instead you gave lame advice that was very unhelpful and apologized for your unwillingness to undo the harm you are doing to innocent people.

Change your ways and stop hurting people and I'll modify my post with an update to reflect the changes.

Reputation is a thing of great value that can take many years to build and only one small careless act to destroy. And in this case the careless act isn't my own, so the reputation damage isn't my fault.

It's yours.

2867

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2010, 04:15 PM »

Kind of outrageous that they won't unflag it (or don't have the ability to do so) as harmful once notified.

-mouser (April 18, 2010, 03:48 PM)

I would not have gone on the war path with this if they had the right attitude about it and done the right thing.

ps. Also, seems like some blame should be laid at the feet of any twitter client that is re-shortening already short urls.

-mouser (April 18, 2010, 03:48 PM)

I have attempted to contact the developers of TweetDeck about this, but so far there has been no response. I also don't know if this issue is limited to just TweetDeck or if it affects any of the million other Twitter clients.

Devils advocate: Outside of a constrained medium like twitter I would consider it right to warn user that they are clicking on masked or obfusticated URLs. It is a very dubious practice, personally I almost never click such hidden links.

-Eóin (April 18, 2010, 03:46 PM)

There is a big difference between warning the user of masked or obfusticated URLs, offering a preview of the target site, and flat out calling the target a bad site with reputation damaging terms like malware, phishing, forgery, and spam without any proof whatsoever.

(BTW - remind me never to get you mad at me. )

-40hz (April 18, 2010, 03:49 PM)

I thought everybody that knows me knew that by now. 

2868

Living Room / Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2010, 03:33 PM »

If you tweet links on Twitter, retweet links from other people, or have a website in which someone might tweet a link to it, you are going to want to read this, because this can potentially affect any or all of us and harm our reputations.

It started with me trying to promote DC a little, to a writer on TechCrunch, which lead to a discovery of how Bit.ly blacklists links shortened by other services, adding an interstitial page that calls the target site harmful, malware, a forgery, spam, and phishing.

When the writer retweeted my link I sent to him, DC was flagged as a bad site, just because I choose to use a competing URL shortener and his twitter client automatically shortens all links with bit.ly (whether they need it or not).

I contacted bit.ly about it, attempting to get the flag removed from the DC link, and their response and attitude were quite alarming.

For the full story, read my blog post about the whole thing;

http://cranialsoup.b...your-reputation.html

2869

Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by app103 on April 17, 2010, 03:50 PM »

In my entire life I have never won a free anything. Not a single contest, raffle, giveaway, or door prize.

-40hz (April 17, 2010, 03:12 PM)

Maybe you should try this one next month. I have had excellent luck with it in the past. 

2870

Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by app103 on April 17, 2010, 02:51 PM »

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of people who would actually choose neither.

-Eóin (April 17, 2010, 02:02 PM)

Me too! I did not expect that at all.

2871

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by app103 on April 17, 2010, 08:23 AM »

My suggestion is not to try to be too many things and concentrate on doing what you already do, better.

I do not see how changing to a Q&A format (or adding one) would help that.

Take a look at what we do and what we are best known for.

The most popular section of the forum is the livingroom, which is primarily discussions around links found and shared by other members. Q&A format wouldn't work well for this.

Software reviews: How do you pick a best answer to that? Does it even sound like that makes any sense? Again, Q&A is unsuitable.

Coding snacks: That's not Q&A either.

About the only thing the Q&A format might work well with is the "what's the best?" section. But the biggest problem we currently have with that section is outdated information, which a change to a Q&A format will not prevent or solve. You'll just end up with the same outdated information in Q&A format rather than a regular forum format. I think periodic discussions and transferring the info to a wiki, locking the threads, and repeating the discus/lock/update wiki process periodically, might be the best way to go about fixing that. But that is best discussed on a thread of its own and not here in this one.

And I think if you added general non-programming, non-software related Q&A to the site, you risk turning DC into Yahoo Answers, and I really wouldn't be too happy with a bunch of questions like this popping up on DC:

http://answers.yahoo...0060824054232AApWfr2
http://answers.yahoo...0080820174408AAZkbcG

And I seriously doubt that is what we want to be known for, so why go down that road?

2872

Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by app103 on April 16, 2010, 04:01 PM »

I never said that anyone that responded to this thread was greedy. I never said entering a contest meant you were greedy. I am not sitting here judging any of you.

What I said was that my friends and family began their reason with "I am not greedy" and then proceeded to choose a prize they thought they had a better chance of winning, based on how they thought other people were greedy and would choose the $1000. I said they were in denial of their own greed by beginning their reasoning with a statement like that and then proceeding to take an action to better their chances of winning a prize.

And by the way, I don't happen to think that greed is always a bad thing. So it's not an insult for me to say that my friends and family have greedy tenancies. I believe we all do. It's part of being human. I know where my own are and I am not in denial of that part of myself.

But if you really wanted to know, offer two lotteries, one with a $250 prize, one with $1000, and make it so you can enter one or the other but not both, with no cost to sign up.  And see what happens.  (It'll only cost $1250, maybe a government grant?)

-AndyM (April 16, 2010, 11:48 AM)

But what I really want to know is not which prize you would choose, but why. I am more interested in the thought process behind it than the choice itself. Setting up an actual contest would be a mighty expensive way for me to satisfy a passing curiosity.

Why do I want to know? Because I was made an offer like this recently and I know the choice I made and my reasoning for it (I chose the $250 because I am greedy  ), and I wondered about everyone else. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing who else entered, what they chose and can't ask them why. And the why is the part I am most curious about.

2873

Living Room / Re: Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by app103 on April 15, 2010, 09:56 PM »

Is this supposed to be a logic/behavior problem as people are suggesting? Are you trying to second guess the other entrants and chose the drawing fewest of them would have opted for the increasing you chances of winning?

-Eóin (April 15, 2010, 09:06 PM)

That's up to you how you choose to analyze the question. I am just curious as to the reasons people would give for their choices, the thinking behind it. I asked this question to friends and family (offline) and the answers were rather interesting, so I wondered if the answers that DC members would give would be just as interesting.

Typical answer among friends & family

Based on the answers given by friends and family, I have come to the conclusion that most of them are in denial of their own greed. Typical answer was something like "I am not greedy, so I'll take the $250, because most people are greedy and will go for the $1000, giving me a better chance of winning the $250."

The way I see it, anything you do to increase your chances of winning is done out of greed. The only way your decision wouldn't be greed motivated is if you did something like toss a coin to determine which one to enter, or as parkint did and refuse to enter at all.

2874

Living Room / Which prize would you choose?

« Last post by app103 on April 15, 2010, 06:54 PM »

Either choice is a free ticket, not only for you, but everyone else involved, too. There are two drawings, and you can only choose to enter one of them. Whichever choice most people make reduces the odds on winning that prize.

I am most interested in the justification behind your choice. Why would you choose the prize you did?

2875

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by app103 on April 11, 2010, 03:49 PM »

I think that merits of an open distributed search engine is way bigger than some rotten people`s attempt to make easy money

-kartal (April 11, 2010, 03:13 PM)

I am not disagreeing with the merits, but being open and nobody in control, how would you stop the spammers from taking over? Every change you make to the code to defeat the spammers would be countered by them knowing what you did and how to get around it. It would be a constant game of cat & mouse, magnified many times greater than the spam issues Google has to deal with every day. Part of what keeps Google ahead of the game is the fact that the blackhat SEO spammers can only guess at how it all works...they can't see and know for sure.