Recent Posts

31001

Living Room / Ads in games.. I'm starting to get a really bad feeling about this..

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 11:35 PM »

Talk about ads in games has been reaching a frenzy lately.. i have a really bad feeling we may all soon start to see adds in games and stuff constantly..

Here's one recent article:

RealNetworks to stream ads in casual games
It was only a matter of time before advertisers pursued the final frontier in gaming: women.

RealNetworks announced Tuesday that it will begin featuring streaming-video ads within casual games--a game market dominated by female players.

"Initially, the casual 30- to 55-year-old females--that is the demo that we sell. We have a family-friendly ad policy, and there will be no alcohol (ads) at all," said Chris Houtzer, a senior product manager of RealNetworks' Games Division. Houtzer spoke to CNET News.com from the floor of Casuality Seattle, a conference for the casual gaming community. Casual games refer to word and puzzle games like Scrabble, solitaire and mah-jongg, as well as classic arcade games.

RealNetworks has rolled out its in-game advertising initiative first at Gamehouse.com, and lists Hasbro and Honda among the advertisers featured in the first ads. RealArcade, another casual- game site owned by RealNetworks, already has streaming ads that are shown before game play.

"Our current policy for showing ads is one ad every 10 minutes in natural breaks within the game," said Houtzer. The ads will not disrupt play. If a player passes three levels within 10 minutes, she will not be shown three ads, but one ad at the end of the third level before moving on to the fourth, Houtzer explained. The streaming ads shown are between 15 and 30 seconds long.

http://news.com.com/...8640.html?tag=cd.top

31002

Developer's Corner / new google desktop gadget writing contest

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 11:15 PM »

new google desktop gadget writing contest

Do you have what it takes to create a great Google Desktop Gadget? Have you been waiting for some motivation to prove it? Well, good news -- the Google Desktop Gadget Contest is here to spur you into brilliant action.
The contest runs until July 31st, 2006 and, while supplies last, each developer who submits an approved gadget will receive a limited edition Google Desktop Developer T-shirt and have their gadget shown to millions of Google Desktop users around the world. A panel of judges will also award three prizes based on popularity, visual appeal, use of new features and creativity. We'll award $5,000 to the first place winner, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place.

http://desktop.google.com/contest.html

31003

The Form Letter Machine / Re: ps. regarding use for donationcoder.com emails

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 10:28 PM »

very nice to hear that Jim, i think you've captured my hopes as well, trying to balance

if you have any ideas for new features let me know, i'd like to add some stuff..

also, if you use thebat email client make sure you try the Piper plugin that Jibz wrote to interface the form letter machine with it.

31004

Developer's Corner / Re: Della's first Game attempt!

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 10:06 PM »

GameMaker website: http://www.gamemaker.nl/

so how did you like GameMaker?

ps.
that is one hell of a hard game to lose. 

31005

Living Room / Re: Free blog hosting for members at DonationCoder - might be a good idea?

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 07:35 PM »

i love the way mobysaurus described the idea..
i've been thinking we should add something like this with our mini cms idea, but this post really says it in a nicer way than i could have thought to say it.  i think we should try to do this, probably using wordpress or something.

carol asked:

Would you basically expect content to be restricted DC relevant content (all things software ... within reason) or would they be open to anything that people want to write about (so long as it isn't political or potentially offensive)?

my feeling is that these would be people's blogs and could be about whatever people wanted, politics included.  it would just be a little service that dc could do for donating members.

it might be fun though to have a page where the most recent post from all dc blogs would be shown, like our our previous blog columns.

31006

General Software Discussion / Re: true launch bar 4 is out today

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 07:31 PM »

ah well that sounds like real update then.

31007

Living Room / Security Alert 6/27/06 - A SQL injection vulnerability in Mambo/Joomla

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 01:30 PM »

Potentially serious security flaws have been found in existing versions of the Mambo and Joomla content management systems, and developers of the two projects are advising users to install upgrades or security patches as soon as possible. Both programs are vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, which allow remote attackers to execute commands on the web server in by typing SQL code into form fields. Joomla is a fork of Mambo, with both programs derived from the same code base.

http://news.netcraft...in_mambo_joomla.html

from netcraft

31008

Living Room / Make your own funny motivational posters online

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 12:16 PM »

You know those motivational posters, and the joke ones?
Here's one of those website generator pages where you can make your own.

example from aeropause: http://www.aeropause...chives/kenposter.jpg

http://www.flagrantd...flickr/motivator.php

from http://www.aeropause.com/

31009

General Software Discussion / Re: Small utility for finding Wireless Networks?

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 12:02 PM »

netstumbler:
http://www.stumbler....me/readme_0_4_0.html

31010

Living Room / Re: All my applications crash... in sequence!?!

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 06:37 AM »

definitely try to capture the process list.

one thing known to trigger this is helpsvc.exe, so take a look at that.  someone else at this forum also found their modem driver doing this..

31011

General Software Discussion / true launch bar 4 is out today

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 06:31 AM »

even though i have my own program (launchbar commander) that has similar aspirations, the program True Launch Bar, clearly one of the best launch bar tools ever made, has today released version 4:

http://www.truelaunchbar.com/

True Launch Bar is also one of the most reasonably priced programs out there.  it's now $15 on their site (and donationcoder.com members can get it for $10 here: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2250.0).

Hard to beat that deal and certainly worth a look (note there is also a free launch bar on their site).


the only thing worth mention is that the change history from version 3.2 to version 4 says only: "Some minor changes "
 

31012

Living Room / msn adcenter demographic prediction for donationcoder... 67% female?

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 03:42 AM »

stumbled on a reference to msn adcenter demographic prediction at aeropause.com
very interesting results for donationcoder.com..... any theories?

try it out on your own urls: http://adlab.microso...t.com/DPUI/DPUI.aspx

You can use adCenter technology to predict a customer’s age,
gender, and other demographic information according to his or her
online behavior—that is, from search queries and webpage views.

http://adlab.microso...t.com/DPUI/DPUI.aspx

31013

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2006, 12:56 AM »

that's actually a really interesting way to think of it.
viewed in terms of selectionist/evolutionary computation, you need:

1) a way of introducing novel changes
2) a way of favoring the population of good changes (or new submissions)
3) a reasonable cost function that gives you something useful

you and i have talked before about implicit and conflicting cost functions - one way to look at the potential problems of digg is from the standpoint of it having degenerate and conflicting cost functions.

groups of people are highly motivated to increase the survival of memes (links) for their own purposes, for their own gains.  the implicit cost function therefore becomes not the selection and survival of links most interesting to the readers, but rather the links belonging to the few people who are gaming the system.

this is actually coming up recently in the discussion of the very small % of readers of digg who ever vote on anything.  if all the people voted, you might have a more representative cost function.

but instead we have a very tiny # of people (colluding to different extents) to try to promote their memes. so a natural question might be: how could you improve the cost function to better reflect the aims of the site, and how could you improve the novelty function to get a better distribution of potentially interesting content.

the ideas of adding experts is to try to improve the cost function.  as for adding more diverse novelty.. not sure..

31014

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Beta access violation

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 11:41 PM »

Which files actually contain my saved clips, and are those files likely to be safe to move between beta installations?

the Database subdirectory in clipboard help+spell directory contains all the data for your clips.

yes, you can move them at will to a new machine, or back them up etc.
(though chs already makes backups)

31015

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 11:05 PM »

well, not to speak for alex, but he was clearly differentiating the kind of out of control actions by crowds,
with the kind of spontaneous self-organization of structured roles that emerge in more general social organizations.

31016

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 10:44 PM »

very good points alex.

i think a balanced view is warranted.
it seems to me there are clear advantages (breadth of coverage, resilliance to outliers, fast reaction speed) but also very real disadvantages (the potential for abuse, random trend/flocking effects, and lack of expertise in a domain).

for me the interesting thing is how to balance these things and protect against the disadvantages.

my concern is that the big social sites we see now (digg for example) seem extremely open to abuse and manipulation, and i suspect there is a lot of that going on in digg and similar sites.  whenever there is such a monetary gain to be had from easy manipulations it's going to happen.

it will be interesting to see how in the future people manage to find ways to immunize social networks from these problems..

31017

Living Room / db90h makes news with his linksys router hack

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 09:52 PM »

db90h is a member here.. he's been working on router hacking stuff for a while now, keeping us informed on the irc channel.. seems he had a bit of a breakthrough recently.. this is from slashdot (http://hardware.slas...2121232&from=rss):

"The world's most ubiquitous wireless access point is free to run Linux again, thanks to a brilliant hack by db90h, aka Jeremy Collake. No soldering is required, as Collake's 'VxWorks Killer' nixes the WRT54G's VxWorks bootloader and installs a normal Broadcom one, allowing Linux to be installed easily.

http://linuxdevices....ws/NS6352077661.html

from http://hardware.slas...2121232&from=rss

31018

Living Room / Re: Coolest superhero... ever!

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 09:42 PM »

yeah this reaks of propaganda to me too..

it's not that i don't think it's useful for people to learn about such stuff.. but this just feels wrong, like business interests trying to somehow trick schools into making this stuff part of their mission and lesson plans.  let's teach kids how to think for themselves and let big businesses influence society they way they normally do, through illegal lobbying, monopolies, and guerilla marketing.   

31019

Living Room / Treasure Box Cool Artistic Explore Toy/Game

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 08:44 PM »

Treasure Box Cool Artistic Explore Toy/Game

Some Flash games aren't so much games as eerie animated equivalents of busy box toys for toddlers. Treasure Box is one of these.

http://219.101.39.52/~nanahiro/main.html

from wired blogs

31020

Developer's Corner / blog: 40 ways to be a better (game) designer

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 08:32 PM »

the always good raph koster game design blog.
he also mentions http://www.computera...me_a_better_designer

I’m always looking for ways to become a better game designer. I frequently think I am no good at it, after all. (Just ask in random forums such as Blue’s News or the Fires of Heaven guild forums). So it’s with interest that I read articles like 50 ways to become a better designer.
Much of the list isn’t directly applicable, but some of it is, and it inspires a list of my own, centered around games. Not exhaustive, and probably not even accurate, but stuff I have often helped myself with. Many are cribbed and adapted.

http://www.raphkoste...e-designer/#more-552

31021

Living Room / Critical Windows Vulnerability and Patch June 26

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 08:09 PM »

...
In an unusual move, Microsoft has released a formal security advisory to warn of the publication of "detailed exploit code" that targets a critical Windows vulnerability. The software maker's security response unit is strongly urging Windows users—especially businesses running Windows 2000—to patch the vulnerabilities addressed in the MS06-025 bulletin because of the potential for a worm attack.
...

http://www.eweek.com...,1895,1981957,00.asp

31022

General Software Discussion / desktop search guide page

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 12:45 PM »

These reviews look pretty thin to me, but better than nothing and maybe the site will improve over time.

http://www.desktopse...guide.com/index.html

from http://www.larkware.com/

31023

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: ooops... a bug!!

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 10:38 AM »

ok, here is my latest suggestion:

if you are using an older version of clipboard help+spell, try exiting and installing the latest version:
https://www.donation...oardHelpAndSpell.exe
and then restarting and see if it solves anything.

if you are already using the latest beta, try going back to the last stable version:
https://www.donation...oardHelpAndSpell.exe
and then restarting and see if it solves anything.

lastly, as a last resort you could go to the Database\ directory of Clipboard Help+Spell, and deleting all your past clips, by deleting all the files in that directory (leave the directory, delete the files).

Actually much better than deleting them would be to zip up that Database\ subdirectory before you delete the files, or move the files in there to someplace else.  That way we can try to track down the error later if it is related to the clipdata.

please let us know the result.

31024

Living Room / Re: I don't think I read this properly

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 10:31 AM »

In my house I get lots of calls of people asking for containers and others making concrete orders. Our telephone number is very similar to both used by two enterprises, and people always fail dialing the right number once in a while. The funny thing is that we've lived in this house for 20 years now, and every week we receive one or two calls of those

this is opportunity knocking at your door..
next time you get such a call, ask them how many they need and quote them a reasonable price.
then go around your house and try to find some "containers" for them (boxes, old takeout food containers that can be washed off, etc.).  now make yourself a nice handsome profit! 

31025

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Beta access violation

« Last post by mouser on June 26, 2006, 01:00 AM »

i hate to see a post like that from a new donator - please accept my apologies.
we'll get this sorted out with your help - thank you for reporting the error.

can you try this:

try exiting program (make sure its not running in tray) and going into Clipboard Help+Spell directory
and deleting the files:
Last.preset.dock
Last.preset.grid
Last.preset

then restarting.

see if that helps.

if that fails you could try deleting:
ClipboardHelpAndSpell.ini
from the Clipboard Help+Spell directory.

if that doesn't cure it - do you notice any pattern to the errors?