Recent Posts

30676

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Entering SMIRF 8x8 + 10x8 Chess Program

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 05:30 PM »

i had same experience as carol - it was asking for license key.

30677

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: everyone who enters will get something

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 05:02 PM »

the shirts will not be too fancy but we can make a few designs and let users choose.  designs are welcome to be submitted here on this thread

30678

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: everyone who enters will get something

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 05:00 PM »

Are all countries supported (reffering to T-shirt)??

-> yes.  donationcoder.com is a very international site, everything we do is for all countries 

When will we receive these awards? and how? (reffering to TDx_Library DirectX Components)

-> i will ask damon today how he would like to do it and post answer here: https://www.donation...ndex.php?board=171.0

30679

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: How to make it easier for people to donate to you, and other advice

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 04:56 PM »

Does this mean that people can donate me (me personally) RIGHT NOW via this service (just click on coin and donate me NOW)? (lets say i did put my programs on this site, and they liked it and want to donate me

yes, BUT only people who are members of this site who have already donated to this site.

only people who are members of donationcoder.com who have donated to this site have money in their account which they can give to you.  then, after you have received enough donations, we can send you the money you have received.


bank transfer is quite bad way to receive donations.  It's a lot of work to send a bank transfer from america and there is a HUGE cost to it.  so no one will be donating this way.

however, i think there are some international services for shareware authors that you could use, or other small payment services.  maybe someone can investigate these and recommend the best one?

let us try to find a way to solve this problem to make it easier for people to send and receive donations.  anyone else have any suggestions?

30680

Borland C++ Builder Contest / How to make it easier for people to donate to you, and other advice

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 03:49 PM »

It's very very hard to get people to donate to support your software.. but there are things you can do to encourage it:

• make it easy for them to donate
• let them know that their donation is important to you
• get out the word about your software (this is the most important part!)

i wrote an article that discusses some of these issues here: https://www.donation...icles/One/index.html

You'll notice on the entries (https://www.donation...ests/bcb/entries.php) page that people can click a gold coin next to your name to donate to you using our microdonations donationcredits system.

But this is not ideal for you because if they are not already a member of our site it is more trouble for them to first join before they can donate.

So, if you have another way people can donate to you (I suggest paypal, or amazon donations, google checkout, or a shareware service like shareit or plimus or kagi), then you should go to this page in your forum profile:
https://www.donation...ile;sa=CreditOptions

And put the link to that payment page in the box marked "Alternative External Donation Link: "

When you do that, anyone who clicks on your gold coin will also see instructions for donating DIRECTLY to you using that link.

I am here to help you if you need help with this stuff, or just give general advice on getting donations.

An important thing to do as well is to get out the word about your software.  One very good way is to submit it to software listing sites.  To help you do that, you should learn how to make a "pad" file, which most sites accept.  We can talk more about that if people need more guidance.

30681

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Flock - the Social Browser (beta)

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 02:57 PM »

i can't believe no one posted a reply to this yet..
very nice mini review cliff - i have to forward this to vrgirl, this is the kind of thing she might like.

30682

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Zoom Player - the all-in-one media player!

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 02:10 PM »

IMPORTANT:

I need to remind people that if they want to see more mini reviews like this, and they value such posts - please send the author some donationcredits!!

that's why they were invented!!!

30683

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Zoom Player - the all-in-one media player!

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 01:58 PM »

can i show off how we can now use the blogging engine i wrote to organize the mini review posts:

http://minireviews.donationcoder.com/

and coding snacks

http://codingsnacks.donationcoder.com/

edit: I forgot to say:

GREAT MINI REVIEW!!!!
(and great working getting us the discount/donated copies!)

30684

Podcast Radio Show / The third donationcoder.com podcast audio radio show is up

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 07:44 AM »

The third donationcoder.com podcast audio radio show is up at:
http://podcast.donationcoder.com

 

Thanks to everyone who took part!

ps.
I think it's time to find a producer to take over the podcast show!  Job includes soliciting segments, editing them together as best as possible, narrating the segues, and producing the mp3s..  Who will volunteer to be the official dc podcast audio radio show producer?

30685

Screenshot Captor / Re: SC Feature Request - transparency of hiliting rect

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 07:37 AM »

yep, this has been requested before - and i agree it would be nice.

the easiest thing would be to keep outside border completely opaque, or else use something like outside border transparency = inner transparency + 100.  i may be able to do either of those quite easily.. let me try.

30686

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Demina: a little minesweeper helper

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 06:16 AM »

I have to say the concept and images do not do this tool justice -
it is quite amazing to see it in action.

it actually finds the normal windows minesweeper executable running, then takes screenshot of the window(!) then figures out the grid given the screenshot, then solves as much as it can, and then sends clicks back over to the minesweeper exe.

it actually made me laught out loud in suprise and pleasure as i was watching it work.. pretty damn amazing.

see the help file inside for a bit on the mathematics of how it works.

30687

Developer's Corner / Re: Virtualization Tools - What's Free, What's Not and What's it do?

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 04:44 AM »

Don't forget parallels:
http://www.parallels.com/

Parallels Workstation is a powerful, easy to use, cost effective desktop virtualization solution that empowers PC users with the ability to create completely networked, fully portable, entirely independent virtual machines on a single physical machine.

Parallels Workstation 2.1 - $49.99

30688

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: New Page Showing Screenshots of Contest Entries and Download URLs!

« Last post by mouser on July 17, 2006, 03:51 AM »

first of all, go to https://www.donation...index.php?board=86.0
and start a NEW TOPIC, and put your program name in the topic.

Then, at the bottom of the post form you will see a place where you can browse for files on your pc to attach to a post, including images, and the exe/rar/zip of your program (if you want). If you want, you could include the source but this is not needed.

You can add as many attachments as you want.

30689

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Entering SMIRF 8x8 + 10x8 Chess Program

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 10:29 PM »

sounds like SMIRF is a valid and fine entry in the contest to me. 

note also that i have clarified the contest guidelines to make clear that you can make your entries into proper shareware at a later version if you like.

it's very hard to get donations for software (it's not so easy to get people to buy your software either sometimes!) - you really have to ask people seriously or they won't event consider it.

[ read my long article about some of these issues here: https://www.donation...icles/One/index.html ]


ps. Reinhard - I agree with carol that it's confusing to figure out what to do when it asks for a license key.  maybe you could make this simpler?

30690

General Software Discussion / Re: Article Find: Fundamental issues with open source software development

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 10:20 PM »

the article is from a published monthly online journal called First Monday:

First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peer–reviewed journals on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet. Since its start in May 1996, First Monday has published 708 papers in 122 issues; these papers were written by 840 different authors. First Monday is indexed in Communication Abstracts, Computer & Communications Security Abstracts, DoIS, eGranary Digital Library, INSPEC, ISI’s Web of Knowledge, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, LISA, PAIS, and other services.
...

more history: http://www.firstmonday.org/idea.html

some recent issues:

30691

General Software Discussion / Article Find: Fundamental issues with open source software development

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 10:01 PM »

You may not agree with all of it, but it's an interesting read by someone trying to give helpful advice to the open source community.

Despite the growing success of the Open Source movement, most of the general public continues to feel that Open Source software is inaccessible to them. This paper discusses five fundamental problems with the current Open Source software development trend, explores why these issues are holding the movement back, and offers solutions that might help overcome these problems. The lack of focus on user interface design causes users to prefer proprietary software’s more intuitive interface. Open Source software tends to lack the complete and accessible documentation that retains users. Developers focus on features in their software, rather than ensuring that they have a solid core. Open Source programmers also tend to program with themselves as an intended audience, rather than the general public. Lastly, there is a widely known stubbornness by Open Source programmers in refusing to learn from what lessons proprietary software has to offer. If Open Source software wishes to become widely used and embraced by the general public, all five of these issues will have to be overcome:
...

http://www.firstmond...s/issue9_4/levesque/

found by db90h

30692

Find And Run Robot / Re: Odd bug with FARR

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 09:47 PM »

yes i understand;
actually what you are asking is something that should be added under the category of working with existing processes, in addition to some other options for killing such processes, etc.

30693

General Software Discussion / Re: ClocX - Free, attractive, highly configurable clock software

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 09:22 PM »

great find!
always helpful to have an image:

30694

Find And Run Robot / Re: Odd bug with FARR

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 09:16 PM »

that's really interesting about cmd.exe - i will try to fix it.

It would be nice if FARR had the option to give focus to an already running application.

can you elaborate?

30695

Living Room / Design your own bug creatures in flash

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 03:08 PM »

Design your own bug creatures.. pretty cool.

http://www.adrianlafond.com/

from monkeyfilter.com

30696

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Entering SMIRF 8x8 + 10x8 Chess Program

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 02:51 PM »

we'll have to wait for smirf to tell us for sure, since it's clear that he's been working on smirf for years..  if it turns out that smirf has been available to the public for a long time and can't be entereed, it's still a wonderful program 

30697

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Calling all BCB Contest Entrants - Post a Hello On This Thread

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 02:46 PM »

welcome everyone so far!

can i encourage everyone who hasn't made a post in this section about their program with a screenshot, do so, by starting a new thread in this section and attaching their program for others to download and try (if you want to).  If you need help figuring out how to do it don't hesitate to email me ([email protected]) and I can help.

if you prefer not to do so before the contest ends, that's ok too.

but if you do make a post about it, we can add it to this page:
https://www.donation...ests/bcb/entries.php

30698

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Entering SMIRF 8x8 + 10x8 Chess Program

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 02:36 PM »

your concern is valid Defenestration, however,
my memory is that smirf came by soon after the contest started and smirf wasn't really available to the public at that point.  only after he had entered it did he make it available to the public on his page, so that's still ok.

clearly smirf is a giant project that he's been working on for a while, but since it wasnt public before the contest it seems a valid entry to me.  that's my understanding but smirf can fill us in. 

for example see this post above from april, which is when i think he made a download available:

Now an always actual SMIRF download (1.7 MB) could be found at my page: http://www.chessbox....u/schachsmirf_e.html

30699

Living Room / Chasm: Wonderfully animated flash game

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 02:05 PM »

This click adventure is very profressionally drawn and animated with tons of personality.  Excellent but tricky.
You cant just solve this by clicking around, you have to figure out the puzzles.

http://www.abc.net.a.../chasm/chasmgame.htm

from can't remember, sorry!

30700

Living Room / Re: Problem with some keys/characters

« Last post by mouser on July 16, 2006, 12:34 PM »

i seem to remember a sticky keys setting in windows that sometimes kicks in.. it's for accessibility problems.  that might be a clue.