Recent Posts

30776

UrlSnooper / URL Snooper Beta Version - 2.06.03 Discussion split

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 10:29 PM »

kyosing - i'm afraid i'm not the best at this stuff, but there is a really good forum for getting help with capturing specific streams: http://p084.ezboard.com/bstreemeboxvcr

you might try asking there.

30777

Living Room / Re: MS working on an MP3 player to challenge the iPod dominance

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 02:04 PM »

Essentially, Microsoft will scan your computer for any songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store and make those songs available to you from URGE for free, and in higher-quality Windows Media Audio (WMA) format.

free or not, that does not sound like something i could care less about.

30778

Official Announcements / Re: Best Of Blog - An Exciting New Feature at DonationCoder.com

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 01:29 PM »

if you find this concept interesting, here's the link to digg it:
http://digg.com/desi...ted_from_forum_posts

(if you are not signed up for digg.com, might be a good time to do so)

30779

Official Announcements / Re: Best Of Blog - An Exciting New Feature at DonationCoder.com

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 01:10 PM »

thanks for the encouragement while i was working on it, makes all the difference, as usual.

ps.
we need to find a few people who regularly read most or all of the forum posts on a timely basis, who have good taste, and would like to be given blog-promotion permission, to promote the most interestings posts.  send me a message if you think you fit this criteria.

30780

Official Announcements / Re: Best Of Blog - An Exciting New Feature at DonationCoder.com

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 10:44 AM »

note:

currently, the decision about which posts on the forum get "blogged" (promoted to the blog page) will be done by select people on the forum, based on their best judgement.

we may add some more automated promotion procedures, but my feelings about the non-wisdom-of-the-crowd have been expressed here before, so my inclination is to leave this in the hands of a few people for the time being.

30781

Official Announcements / Best Of Blog - An Exciting New Feature at DonationCoder.com

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 10:35 AM »

Announcing the DonationCoder.com Best Of Blog:
An Exciting New Feature at DonationCoder.com

I had the idea for this feature almost a year ago, but only just recently bit the bullet and implemented it.

It's basically a blog-like view into the "best" posts on the forum at any given time.

http://blog.donationcoder.com/

In some sense, it turns the forum into a kind of digg-like cauldron, where the most notable posts can be recognized and promoted to the Best Of Blog page and presented for more casual viewing, in a form similar to lifehacker.  Clicking on an entry brings you into the forum discussion of that post where the reader can join in on the discussion.


Note: This new page is not for hardcore DonationCoder.com forum readers.  There will be nothing on this page that isn't already on the forum.  It's main purpose is providing a less overwhelming, more accessible view of just a few items on the forum each day.  It should provide a gentler way of casual visitors to get introduced to our site.

So, if you have a friend who would be too overwhelmed to jump right into the donationcoder.com forums, send them over to http://blog.donationcoder.com - it's the perfect introduction.

30782

Site/Forum Features / Re: Formatted lists

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 08:41 AM »

it works on ie - looks like a firefox problem.

30783

Site/Forum Features / Re: Formatted lists

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 05:30 AM »

there is a button in the post form that looks like dots and dashes - this is the list button.
i've actually modified it to make it far easier to use - just write some items, each on their own line, then select them all and hit this button to create a formatted list.

30784

Developer's Corner / Tools that let you package Perl programs into standalone executable

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 03:57 AM »

This tutorial outlines the steps you need to take in order to compile your perl scripts into standalone executables. There are a few ways to do this, including the commerical Perl2Exe, and packages such as PerlBin and App::Packer, and a tool called perlcc. I have had the most luck using a free perl module called PAR, which packs perl code into a single .exe file, including all DLLs and other dependencies, so that is what I will discuss here.

http://www.expertsrt...ls/Matt/perlPAR.html

from dzone.com

30785

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Feature Request: Automatically "Connecting" elements to others

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2006, 01:49 AM »

right, this would let you name them as you want, and you could of course modify the settings afterwards.
it's main purpose would be used to initialize settings to some preset values.

30786

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Feature Request: Automatically "Connecting" elements to others

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 10:52 PM »

it's a good idea.. i would just have to figure out an efficient way of doing it..

one thing i was thinking of adding which would be quite easy, would not be quite what you want but would be usable to do some of what you want is making it easier to save and load settings of radio/checkboxes from a menu.  that way you could save common configurations of them.

30787

Living Room / ReligionFacts Big Religion Chart - cool

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 11:09 AM »

The ReligionFacts Big Religion Chart is an attempt to summarize all the complexities of religions and belief systems into tiny little boxes on a single, quick-reference comparison chart. Yes, this is impossible. As we always warn with our comparison charts, this is no substitute for reading about religions in greater detail, talking with real-live religious adherents, etc.. But this religon comparison chart can (hopefully) be a useful and accessible way to "get the gist" of some unfamiliar groups and compare basic beliefs and practices of the world's religions and belief systems.

http://www.religionf...g_religion_chart.htm

from cynical-c.com

30788

Podcast Radio Show / TIME TO SUBMIT YOUR PODCAST SEGMENTS FOR THE NEXT PODCAST

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 07:51 AM »

the next podcast is to go out this sunday.. so you only have 5 days left to submit something.
more info: http://www.podcast.donationcoder.com

let's go people!

30789

WorldCup Predictor / Re: FIFA World Cup 2006 is Over: Italy Wins. Some thoughts on the Predictor tool.

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 06:03 AM »

for a very different take on sports betting, be sure to check out zaine's latest blog:
http://www.thegsblog.com/?p=102

30790

WorldCup Predictor / Re: FIFA World Cup 2006 is Over: Italy Wins. Some thoughts on the Predictor tool.

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 06:02 AM »

actually the wcp predicted (like many others) that brazil had best chance of winning.. but italy was right up there.

30791

WorldCup Predictor / FIFA World Cup 2006 is Over: Italy Wins. Some thoughts on the Predictor tool.

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 05:38 AM »

Some thoughts on the World Cup Predictor and FIFA 2006 World Cup

IT'S ALL OVER: World Cup 2006 has ended, with Italy victorious.

It's been a great tournament in my opinion (early rounds especially), with some real surprises. Who would have thought france would go so far, or that Zidane would lose his composure in such an embarassing way.

Did you use the predictor to place bets? The simulator did a fantastic job of recommending bets right down to the semifinals. If you took its advice along the way you would have bets riding on 3 of the last 4 remaining teams (and very few bets on the teams that did not make it).

But there's a reason they call it gambling..

Portugal was one of the few early, consistently, and strongly recommended bets made by the simulator - their odds were as high as 25:1 in the first round. They were the one semi-longshot that the simulator made a strong recommendation to bet on.

We bet $250 using the simulator's advice, betting about $50 each on England, France, Germany, and Portugal, and then a little more on miscelaneous teams. By the semifinals, things looked great. A win by portugal would have netted $1300, by germany, $900, by france, $600.

Italy, however, was not recommended as a good bet by the predictor, because it, like Brazil, had too good a chance of winning in the eyes of betmakers and bettors, and therefore had insufficient odds on their winning.

Portugal was eliminated by france in the second to last game of the tournament, and two beautiful goals by italy in the last minutes of their game against germany brought them into the finals. In the end, it was italy, playing consistently solid throughout the tournament, that won, leaving us with no winnings..

Ah well, that's why they call it gambling.

Despite the lack of winnings - it's hard to argue that the predictor didn't do a great job. After all, remember that the predictor is not trying to guess who will win and advise you to bet on that team. It's trying to recommend bets with the best expected payoffs. This will rarely be the team most likely to win - but rather teams that are under-rated. Given how far germany, france, and portugal advanced, you can't ask for much more from a betting predictor.. Well i suppose you could ask for a win, but in a probabilistic world all you can do is play the odds..

30792

Developer's Corner / Re: PHP Compilers to make standalone PHP-Exes

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2006, 04:09 AM »

awesome post, thanks joto!

30793

Living Room / free game for blogger if you write a review (positive or negative)

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2006, 09:59 AM »

we've talked recently about the evil of paying bloggers to say good things about a product,
but in this case this seems reasonable doesn't it?

here is someone who just wants some help spreading the word, and he will give you a full version if you write a review of the game, positive or negative.

of course it's a big hard to imagine why you would want a free version if you don't like it..

the point is, this seems fine to me since it doesn't require any misleading or bad behavior.

..
I want to spread the word about my games - I want people to play and enjoy them. I’d love to make loads of money out of them but at the moment that’s unlikely, so just getting people to download the demo version is good enough.
I also like feedback. Most of the feedback I’ve had for my games has been from other game developers so getting the opinions of gamers - my actual audience - would be great.
...
The idea is that people download a game from Binary Sun, and post a review on their blog. As a thank you I will give the reviewer a full version of the game they post about. I don’t mind whether the review is positive or negative, as long as it’s either constructive.
..

http://www.binarymoo...-games-for-bloggers/

from 9rules.com

30794

Official Announcements / Re: The DC Website is free from google ads - CodyQuotes are here!!

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2006, 03:01 AM »

i just realized that i did not give proper credit to Allen, who wrote the back end for efficiently grabbing random quotes.. i feel horrible about this.. without him there would be no CodyQuoutes.

Thank you allen - i apologize for not properly recognizing his contribution to this earlier 

30795

General Software Discussion / Re: Toying with TheBat! - any plugin suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 08:17 PM »

re: nod32 - i have same feelings - what's the point, the antivirus is scanning files anyway..
regarding html: i have to admit that i keep my viewier in text mode normally, so i can't help with that.  if i had to guess i'd say that the images used in the mail are online and not included with the mail, and that thebat is refusing to download them.  may be an option for it.

30796

General Software Discussion / Re: Toying with TheBat! - any plugin suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 07:34 PM »

the one plugin i use:
https://www.donation...ibz/Piper/index.html
i use it in conjunction with:
https://www.donation...erMachine/index.html

30797

Developer's Corner / Re: A good idea for web designers and site admins

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 10:34 AM »

no, but i've just been thinking about how useful it has been.  it's obvious when you think about it, but i think it's one of those things you might not normally think of until it's too late, so i thought i should share it.

the other nice side benefit is that it acts like a backup.

30798

Developer's Corner / A good idea for web designers and site admins - Mirror your Site

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 10:17 AM »

There's one thing i've done on donationcoder.com that has made life 100x easier and safer, and i think it's worth posting about, and that is to have a mirror site for testing.

That is, have a copy of your website/forum/services/etc., installed on another account or server.

Use this copy to test any changes before you try them out on the real site.  For things like forum modifications and new services, it offers a safe and easy way to develop things without worrying about mucking about with the real site.

30799

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Vortex Chat - Client Version

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 09:51 AM »

looks beautiful.

30800

Site/Forum Features / Re: My Bookmarks feature added to site - thanks to Leipe_Po

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2006, 09:39 AM »

there is NO pruning of posts from the forum..

carol has mentioned a couple of times looking for an old post she made and not being able to find it.. i wish i could figure out how to track down such issues.. if we can figure out any case of posts dissapearing i will try to figure out how it could happen.