Recent Posts

31501

Developer's Corner / Re: What do I do now?

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 09:21 PM »

i would agree with most of your comments, but the programs i mentioned are all in the $100 - $300 range.
think about how long it would take you to write a reasonable system and what that means you are paying per hour.
lots of programmers enjoy writing their own registration/protection systems, and if thats the case, then go for it.

my main advice to people would be - don't worry so much about it.  save yourself some energy and buy one of the commercial products for < $300 and dont waste your energy being overly paranoid.  if some people get your software for free they aren't likely to be potential customers and so they aren't worth your worries.  concentrate on getting out the word to your real potential customers instead.

31502

Developer's Corner / Re: What do I do now?

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 09:12 PM »

the one thing i'd disagree with above is the comment about making your own registration/protection system..

we made our own just because we have special needs and dont care too much about preventing people from illegally using our programs since the motivation for them to do so is so minimal.  but if you are serious about protecting your software, i would not recommend using your own homemade system.  the work involved cannot possibly justify the outcome.  id recommend something like asprotect, armadillo, execryptor, etc.

i'd also suggest you consider carefully how much you want to worry about such issues..

just keep in mind that while jan-s makes a good point:

In order to protect the software from being cracked, you may consider offering a freely downloadable demo version with some features disabled (i.e. the related code is not even compiled into the demo) and offer the full version for customers only. This is simple, but uncrackable..

but you might also want to listen to zaine's rant in the last podcast against crippleware (http://podcast.donationcoder.com), since it discusses the downside/caveats to bear in mind when taking this approach.

you need to strike a balance between protecting your program and making life pleasant for your real users.

remember that your objective when selling software is to find those potential happy customers and get them as customers.  the hardest part is almost always letting these people know about your software and convincing them to give you a look.  so make that your #1 concern.  everything else should serve that.  if protecting your software prevents a few people who never were going to buy your software anyway, while alienating real potential customers, then you've failed.

31503

Living Room / Re: UV Art - really cool!

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 08:50 PM »

very very cool

31504

Older Newsletters / Re: Second Podcast Radio Show Info - Scheduled for June 4, 2006

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 08:28 PM »

do you have a little story idea?
someone you want to interview?
a computer joke or poem?
a commentary on your favorite or most hated program or computer company?
a rant against something in the software industry?

record a 3-5 minute segment and submit it!

31505

Older Newsletters / Re: Second Podcast Radio Show Info - Scheduled for June 4, 2006

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 08:20 PM »

MAN-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEWS NEEDED !!!

there was a recent heated argument on alt.comp.freeware about the definition of freeware and donationware, etc.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
someone take a recorder outside and interview people on the corner about this issue!!'
(or do it in your office or school!)

just stop them and ask them to come up with their best definition for:

• freeware
• open source
• donationware
• shareware
• malware
• nagware
• registerware
• spyware
• adware

hopefully we will get some funny and informative answers.

be sure you start the segment with the traditional newscaster intro like "this is xxxx reporting live from xxx..."

we NEED such a segment for this weeks podcast.  aim for 5-10 minutes in final length (record lots more and we can edit it down).

anyone who submits such audio that gets used on the podcast will get a good prize!

we need to find a star man-on-the-street interviewer for our podcasts.. could it be you?


Other questions you might ask:

• whats the funniest thing that ever happened with you and a computer
• do you have computer anger management issues - how did you handle it?
• what's your earliest computer memory?
• what's your genius computer software or website idea that no one has implemented yet?
• what's the craziest idea for a computer program you can think of?

31506

Older Newsletters / Re: Second Podcast Radio Show Info - Scheduled for June 4, 2006

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 08:16 PM »

come on guys+gals, time to get serious - submit something asap.

31507

General Software Discussion / yWriter - free writers software for novelists

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 07:34 PM »

This is a free program to help you write novels; made by someone who has written a few.  nice way to let the world know about your writing.

I'm a programmer and a novelist, and yWriter is the result of 3 or 4 years of development. I really struggled over my first novel because I wrote whole slabs of text into a great big word processor file and tried to make sense of the whole thing at once. I then tried saving each chapter to individual files with great long descriptive filenames, but moving scenes around was a nuisance and I couldn't get an overview of the whole thing (or easily search for one word amongst 32 files) In the end I realised a dedicated program was the way to go, and yWriter is the result. It may look simple, but as the author of three books written with this tool I can guarantee it has everything needed to get a first draft together.
...
Features:
Organise your novel using a 'project'.
Add files to the project, each containing a chapter.
Add a summary to each file, showing the scenes in each chapter.
Print out summary cards, showing the structure of your novel.
Display the word count for every file in the project, along with a total.
Saves a log file every day, showing words per file and the total. (Tracks your progress)
Saves automatic backups at user-specified intervals.
Allows multiple scenes within chapters
Viewpoint character, goal, conflict and outcome fields for each scene.
Storyboard view, a visual layout of your work.
Re-order scenes within chapters.
Move scenes from one chapter to another.
Automatic chapter renumbering.
...
Why is my software free?*
How else would people discover my novels?

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html

from downloadsquad.com

31508

Living Room / Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character? - hahahahaha

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 06:28 PM »

How silly is the Web 2.0 hype getting? You tell us! Here's a quick quiz...we looked in 30Boxes and analyzed 37Signals that led us to come up with the 43Things below. So without further ado, can you decide...

http://www.cerado.com/web20quiz.htm

from valleywag.com

31509

Developer's Corner / Re: The Hunt for the Best CMS

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 05:40 PM »

someone has made the beginings of a drupal-smf bridge already; the thread can be found in the bridge section of smf forum.  no need to start from scratch.

31510

Find And Run Robot / Re: New user help needed: finding files; options window

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 05:37 PM »

just hit the close button (upper right

• ) of the options form, and it should not come up again until you ask it to.

you might try moving your document folder up to the top in the search list (just drag and drop), and see if that helps.

31511

Developer's Corner / Re: Programming Tutorials.com

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 10:02 AM »

very nice find zaine. definitely worth adding to the Programming School section list of resources (https://www.donation...index.php?topic=3353)

31512

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screen Captor - Totally confused - maybe I am dumb (:

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2006, 12:21 AM »

always nice to hear. 

31513

Developer's Corner / Re: Indie Game Devs: Forget It - article

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 11:23 PM »

wise advice javajones, and i agree.

31514

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screen Captor - Totally confused - maybe I am dumb (:

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 10:31 PM »

no need to uninstall old version - just exit it if it is running in the tray before installing new one.

31515

UrlSnooper / URL Snooper Beta Version - 2.06.03 Discussion split

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 08:54 PM »

i'll look into it and see if i cant improve it;
basically in the past when it couldnt find a domain, it just left it as a relative link like
/e1/nc/.....flv

now it tries to guess the domain, but it's not very smart; i'll try to improve it.

31516

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screen Captor - Totally confused - maybe I am dumb (:

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 08:52 PM »

ok, first things first.
download the latest BETA version which has a big complete help file:
https://www.donation...hotcaptor/index.html

to capture scrolling window (long web pages) see:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=3594.0

to resize, you can choose resize from edit menu OR if you always have a repeat size you use, try using the File -> thumbnail mode and then the Thumbnail button on the toolbar after that.

31517

Living Room / Blog Post: Is Google Hiding Fraud?

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 08:17 PM »

Don't want to be a google hater -
one thing that does concern me greatly about google's entire revenue system being built on click-through ads, is that they essentially benefit financially from any fraud.  that is, as middlemen for advertising, they profit from any click fraud.

i guess in some sense this is an issue in all advertising venus - i.e. a magazine has good reason to inflate it's distribution numbers.  what's a bit insidious in this case though, is that the middleman has a real motivation to just turn a blind eye to any click fraud, while keeping their hands technically clean.

anyway, just food for thought.  all advertising is evil anyway.

“Google has some very good reasons for keeping parts of its business secret,” says the LA Times — what if one of those reasons is their knowledge of (and complicity with) rampant click fraud.
Google is an investor darling, so nobody wants to contemplate this possibility.

http://publishing2.c...google-hiding-fraud/

31518

UrlSnooper / URL Snooper Beta Version - 2.06.03 Discussion split

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 07:45 PM »

it's trying its best to figure out the domain they are coming from based on traffic;
it can get confused if there is lots of different traffic going on simultaneously by different programs.

31519

Post New Requests Here / Re: Would you like to code this?

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 07:06 PM »

i was just about to post that this doesn't seem possible.
good thing i waited 

having tried this, i have to say - this has to be one of the coolest effects i have ever seen - it's actually fun to watch the mouse bounce around inside a combobox.

amazing. 

and i love the new about box. 

ps. don't forget to give skrommel some DonationCredits!!!

31520

Official Announcements / MAY SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 06:52 PM »

The winners of May's Giveaway have been generated:

You can find current discounts and urls for all of these programs on our specials page: https://www.donationcoder.com/Specials


Winners of 'Indie Volume' (5):

• ares09x
• Innuendo
• JavaJones
• KPR
• studdmuffin

Winners of 'MyBase' (5):

• pao
• ramasjang
• spj
• stevenjs
• superboyac

Winners of 'SpamBrave' (5):

• ark2
• chaswill
• drvipuldave
• peteg05
• ronrayv

Winners of 'NovaPDF Professional' (3):

• markan
• Old Timer
• stom2005

Winners of 'Backup4all Professional' (3):

• broken85
• GHammer
• urlwolf

Winners of 'Resource Builder' (2):

• Catalin
• mwb1100

All winners have now been notified by email to their forum email address.

If you haven't received an email but your name is listed above, check spam filters and forum email address, and then mail [email protected] and let us know you never got any mail.

It can take a few days to send you your serial number; if a few days pass and you haven't received it - sends a reminder to the company email as noted in your winning notification email.


Curious about how we award prizes? See https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1684.0
Note that winning something one month reduces your chances of winning the next month, and being helpful on the forum increases your chances.

31521

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Symantec anti-virus auto-updater

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 11:58 AM »

I wonder if the "spoiler button" feature wouldn't be a nice thing to use for long error logs like this?

just my 2 cents:
if you have a lot of content in a very general thread that tons of people will be reading, then encosing it in a spoiler box or putting thumbnails of big images may be warranted.
but if its a very specialized thread like this one, i don't think it's important.

31522

Developer's Corner / Re: The Hunt for the Best CMS

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 10:31 AM »

drupal feels a little different from most cms, in a good way (they seem to have taken a more unified approach to content and it feels a little less "hacked together" than most).  but drupal seems deliberately more difficult to integrate with other systems to me.

i can't believe how many cms i've looked at recently and not been thrilled with any.. i'll try to give a more elaborate report on my conclusions at some point.  but it must be fairly common that people keep thinking they haven't found the perfect cms and that's why so many new ones keep getting built.. everyone's needs seem to be a bit different.

latest one im looking at is http://tikiwiki.org/ which has some nice features in terms of using a wiki system as the foundation of a cms.

31523

Official Announcements / Re: PROGRAMMING CONTEST: Write an open source mod for SMF forum

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 10:14 AM »

the person working on it burned out or gave up..
at this point i'm not sure we still want to pursue the integration of wikimedia and mantis - although we are trying to figure out a wiki/bugtracking integration solution.  suggestions are welcome.

31524

Living Room / Re: Humour - how about a giggle column ...

« Last post by mouser on May 22, 2006, 08:56 AM »

  the anti-cat blog one is hillarious - never seen that before

31525

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by mouser on May 21, 2006, 11:39 PM »

When there are no tours, I nap with them and they bring me meat when they think I am hungry.

that is amazing..