Recent Posts

32051

Site/Forum Features / Revamped Specials page

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 09:54 AM »

we've modified the "Specials" page (see link at top of every page) -
it now shows current discounts and current contests, and links to current software drawing.

so it should be useful as a one-stop page for special stuff and deadlines, etc.

https://www.donation.../Specials/index.html

32052

Podcast Radio Show / Re: Podcast Audio Radio Show - Upcoming Show Planning

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 09:46 AM »

another idea:

interview people on the street and ask them about their first computer experiences.

more ideas:
write a song about cody.

32053

Podcast Radio Show / Re: Podcast Audio Radio Show - Upcoming Show Planning

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 09:14 AM »

maybe something like this would be good for interviewing people on the street?

http://www.olympusam...uct.asp?product=1178

or

http://digitalmedia..../2005/05/18/ds2.html

or

http://www.oreillyne...o_digital_voice.html

we might have to give out one of these as a prize for best submitted podcast segment..



A MUST-READ guide:

http://digitalmedia....provingpodcasts.html

32054

Podcast Radio Show / Re: Podcast Audio Radio Show - Upcoming Show Planning

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 09:12 AM »

maybe we should think of some ideas for segments:

1) get a digital handheld recorder and go on the street and do some interviews with people.
suggested questions:
"do you know what the terms freeware, shareware, open source, and donationware mean? describe."
see if you get some funny answers.


2) find a freeware program on the web and email author to see if they will do a phone interview with you about their software.


3) interview people on the street and ask them to think up a new idea for a program or web application they would like to see.

other ideas?

32055

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 08:10 AM »

I have a backup regime sorted out.  I use Paragon Drive Backup to take images of each of my partitions and Genie Backup Pro to take file backups.  The images are on a second internal hard drive, and the file backups are on external USB drives

Well it sounds like you are doing exactly the right thing.
As i understand it you are making images of your operating system partitions, and storing them on an independent hard drive.

so if your main hard drive completely dies, your recovery procedure would look like this:
1) buy a new hard drive of equal or larger size.
2) replace the dead main hard drive with new one.
3) boot up with PARAGON rescue cd (i assume there is such a thing or something related)
4) use that rescue cd or floppy to RESTORE from a partition image to the new hard drive.
5) reboot and you should be back to the last saved image.

(note you could test this out by buying a new hard drive and pretending your main one has died and replace it - it's always useful to do a test run to see if their are any unexpected snags).

32056

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: A USB device manager that makes sense

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 06:08 AM »

also note that this tray item has both a double click and right click action, and ALSO a single left click action which lets you quickly select a device to disconnect.

32057

Living Room / Re: Your Web 2.0 Ideas are Needed!

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 02:59 AM »

i love the part about the ideas being implemented as open source - good luck and let us know if you start working on anything fun

32058

Developer's Corner / Re: How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 02:46 AM »

nice list, app!

32059

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite computer game from when you were young?

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 02:41 AM »

zork was one of the most influential games for me as well (actually it was adventure that we played when connected to my fathers university mainframe that really started it). before there was any graphics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork



you can actually play zork online and for free now.

32060

BrowserTraySwitch / Re: BrowserTraySwitch tweaks+observations

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 02:35 AM »

yeah i really wonder if it is litestep -
is there a way to test it outside of litestep?

32061

Official Announcements / Re: Contest - Come up with a novel idea for DonationCredits

« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2006, 02:33 AM »

regarding the charity fund, cavalcader i think i agree with your general sentiment -
let's try to focus on something that is somehow related to this site,
and something that can have an impact we can see if possible, something unique if possible.
however let's not kid ourselves - not much money comes into this site, it's not like we are rolling in cash and need to find places to send it all.  so this is a very modest attempt at providing a fund where people can chip in some credits.

ok so let's keep the ideas flowing, not just charity ideas but any ideas relating to DonationCedit things we coudl do.

32062

General Software Discussion / Re: Searching a good Screenrecorder

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 02:48 PM »

very well said wr975, i think your summary is exactly in line with my views.

32063

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MLB/Mouseless Browsing FF extension - MUST-HAVE for every keyboard user!

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 11:06 AM »

i'm too much of a mouse addict to use it but it looks damn cool.

32064

Official Announcements / Re: Be Part of the First DonationCoder.com Team Podcast Radio Show Contest!

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 09:43 AM »

ok i think we better spark some interest here so we dont run too close to deadline..

the first 3 people to send me their 5 minute audio segments will receive right away a rare DonationCoder.com mug!

32065

Official Announcements / Re: Contest - Come up with a novel idea for DonationCredits

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 09:11 AM »

i like the idea of having a fund available that people can donate to for some good cause..
but maybe we can find a cause that will help out in a way related to the site... not sure what that would be.. maybe a charitable fund to bring computers to schools that can't afford them?

32066

Living Room / Re: VideoSift - the best videos from YouTube and GoogleVideo!

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 08:02 AM »

very cool.

32067

Living Room / Re: p eq b & b not l => p not l. proof is left as an exercise

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 06:14 AM »

sooo cool.
the mind of man at it's best.

32068

Post New Requests Here / Re: DONE: a better PowerDimmer screensaver alternative?

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 05:54 AM »

ok, i tried the different step sizes, and i see why you had it the way you did, anything bigger than 2 is just to jumpy.

but it's fine because,
i've set speed to 200, and now cpu is only 50% while dimming, and 0 afterwards, and its a nice gentle fade. this is excellent and i can definitely live with that since the cpu use is only while dimming not afterwards.

mouse issue is fixed.

what can i say, i just LOVE this screensaver - super simple and really gentle and wonderful.  love it!

and i cant believe how could you are getting regarding gui configuration pages.

  sending a few credits to show my appreciation. guess i better throw a couple to brotherS as well since it was his idea  .

some suggestions not related to program directly:
1) your about box should point to: http://skrommel.donationcoder.com
2) you should say in your about box that donations are welcome, and maybe point them directly to your donation link (see https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=3164.0 for more info)
3) this is one of those utils that might be worth making a pad file for and submitting to some software sites, and maybe making a special Featured Skrommel Apps page for or something - it deserves broader recognition.

as you can tell, i really love this one. for those who generally dont use a screensaver, this is a wonderful subtle alternative.

32069

Living Room / DonationCredits reminder

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 05:24 AM »

Just a reminder to everyone that one of the nice things about DonationCredits is that you can donate as little as 10 cents very easily, so don't hesitate to give out a couple of credits here and there when you see a post you like - just click on the yellow coin next to the author's name.

32070

Official Announcements / Re: APRIL SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 05:20 AM »

thanks for the quick fix carol.

32071

Official Announcements / APRIL SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 05:13 AM »

Ok, we have the winners for march's giveaways, as calculated with the prize optimizer.


Winners of 'Beyond Compare' (2):

• alotia
• mohawkmike

Winners of 'FlexHEX Hex Editor' (5):

• cognitive
• f0dder
• hamradio
• PEdge
• Smirf

Winners of 'Atomic Alarm Clock' (5):

• DanD
• globalannie
• John_D
• meeow
• Root

Winners of 'Collectorz organizer of your choice' (7):

• brotherS
• CheapFlyer
• Darwin
• Kniht
• tgcb
• tsaint
• TucknDar

Winners of 'My Life Organized Pro' (5):

• anagar
• brotman
• Cavalcader
• genezip
• gottadoit

Winners of 'HDDLife' (10):

• budgall
• crono
• Donmar
• lrosebur
• Magic Speller
• Notok
• Recklowerest
• Sleye165
• SnowyOwl
• superboyac

Winners of 'True Launch Bar' (3):

• edbro
• ljbirns
• yogi22

All winners have now been notified by email to their forum email address;  if you do not confirm via email that you still want your prize it will be given to someone else.  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 explain you never got any mail.

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.

If you've forgotten what the program you won does, you can find links to all the program pages here:
https://www.donation...Discounts/index.html

32072

Living Room / Re: Is it safe to try new freeware?

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 03:32 AM »

i tested the html to bbcode generator on that page and it seemed to work fine, not sure why your text had an extra http:// in each url.

32073

Living Room / Re: Is it safe to try new freeware?

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 03:09 AM »

your advice about running a program like total uninstall is good, as is keeping backups.  i like the idea of a checklist:

before installing and testing software you are not 10000% convinced you want to keep installed:
1) update your antivirus definitions
2) make sure you have a firewall installed and running
3) run an uninstaller type program to take a snapshot of your installations
4) make a backup of your computer
5) install program, reboot if advised too (i.e. dont ignore this)
6) test program thoroughly
7) uninstall promptly if you dont like it (rather than wait until 10 more programs are installed on top of it).  reboot if advised too.

alternatively, if you have a virtual machine: just install and play to see if its something you want on your real pc.

ps. because of all the steps involved, especially #4, i like to test programs in batches, right after i do my monthly backup of my computer.

32074

Living Room / Re: Is it safe to try new freeware?

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 02:59 AM »

I've been told running new programs on a virtual machine also works well.

cliff i consider this to be THE most important tool for people who test software a lot.
to my mind it is really the safest way to test software.

there are also some sandbox tools discussed recently on the forum: https://www.donation...76.msg22472#msg22472

personally i am wary of these apps that try to protect programs from altering file system and registry, and/or cleaning up afterwards; i just worry that it's hard to do so reliably and without interfering with real functionality.

by far i'd still say that a virtual machine is the most surefire and painless way to do it, just click a button to reset the machine to the state it was in before you installed, and no worry of it messing with your real computer.

it's also increasingly reasonable to actually buy a spare pc (but a super cheap old laptop?) and test software on that.

32075

General Software Discussion / What's your favorite computer game from when you were young?

« Last post by mouser on April 15, 2006, 01:27 AM »

We were talking on the irc channel about our favorite computer games from our childhoods.

all you young kids can just sit back and read this thread to see how games used to look, when there was no such thing as a first person shooter.

my girlfriend and i loved the lucasarts graphic adventure games and used to play them a lot.
our two favorites:
http://en.wikipedia..../Day_of_the_Tentacle
http://en.wikipedia...._LeChuck%27s_Revenge