Recent Posts

34276

Finished Programs / Re: Fun games from Mikes Software Co

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 11:21 AM »

i've been playing for a while and haven't won yet!
it's addictive though.. i think it's even funner if you don't tell people the rules
you've got such a great touch with user interfaces.. sounds are perfect, you can almost feel the warmth of the wood and year the sounds of the dice as if you were right there.

34277

Official Announcements / Re: Name and Catchphrase for New DC Logo Mascot - PART 2

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 07:47 AM »

quite right about the fact that we still need a replacement long rectangular banner for the main page,
something to replace the banner on the front page (https://www.donationcoder.com) and fit into that space.

34278

Official Announcements / Re: Name and Catchphrase for New DC Logo Mascot - PART 2

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 07:25 AM »

although im thinking now the dollar signs in the circle are too much.
not sure what should go in there instead.

34279

Official Announcements / Re: Name and Catchphrase for New DC Logo Mascot - PART 2

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 07:24 AM »

i'm liking it !

34280

Official Announcements / Re: Name and Catchphrase for New DC Logo Mascot - PART 2

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 07:04 AM »

very nice carol.  i like the fond and i think the bird looks good in a circle.  maybe the hexagons should be coins?

what do you think of the simple catchphrase "Something New" ?

it kind of captures the (vague) idea that we are always having something new and interesting here..

34281

Official Announcements / Re: Name and Catchphrase for New DC Logo Mascot - PART 2

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 05:43 AM »

yes i would carol, maybe we could see some different fonts too? the one you had before is fun but maybe a bit over the top?

maybe once we get settled on a nice font it might be cool if you could use your 3d skills to make us some kind of animated thing?

34282

Official Announcements / New Program Released - Flipbook Printer - 11/20/05

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 05:34 AM »

Flipbook Printer is a program that lets you make your own printed "Flipbooks" from avi movie files using business cards.

A gift from DonationCoder.com especially for the holidays, and especially for the young at heart.
Makes a great present - have the kids send a flipbook of them waving hello to the grandparents, or send your loved one a movie of you smiling or blowing them a kiss. It's the ultimate in low-tech movie making!

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

34283

Screenshot Captor / Vertical lines bug confirmed

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 02:06 AM »

fodder reported to me a bug where lastest release of screenshot captor (v2.05.03) got into a mood and started capturing screenshots in grayscale only with virtual bars.  i've just encountered this myself.. trying to track it down and fix.  if this happens to you, you have to exit and restart.

i think i might see what triggers it - when sc is open but in the background.. maybe?  hmm.. not always..

34284

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer suggestion pls

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 02:01 AM »

you can leave optional third party tool software blank.  its just a way to specify a program that you might want to launch easily to also work with programs running on your computer, like:
http://www.sysintern...ProcessExplorer.html (free).

as for ignore.. i think the only program i have on my ignore list is my cd burning utility, just so that process tamer doesnt reduce it.  but a good rule of thumb is don't worry about it.  process tamer will tell you when its taming a process, so if you find that it tames some process too much then you can add it to ignore list.  even cd burner on a fast computer will probably not need to be ignored.  the only time you really need to ignore things is if you have processed that use up 100% of your cpu that you WANT to be using up so much of your cpu; most people probably don't have such apps.

default settings: the only reason to change them is if you notice that process tamer is jumping the gun and taming an app prematurely, or not responding fast enough. an example: lets say you have a big program like photoshop which takes up all your cpu for 60 seconds while it is loading.  and process tamer kicks in right at the end and tames it, only to untame it 30 seconds later.  well that's kind of silly.  in that case you might want to ignore photoshop, or adjust the settings to have process tamer react faster or slower.

34285

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Black Friday 2005 Deals

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 01:09 AM »

very interesting site

34286

Finished Programs / Re: Fun games from Mikes Software Co

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 01:07 AM »

i just realized this game was made by you mike! thought you were just posting a link to a different game to tide people over for a while.. going to give it a look.

34287

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: commandline/console program to calculate sunrise/sunset times

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 01:03 AM »

i'll change the topic and icon

34288

General Software Discussion / Re: Podcast client?? (warning, musical OVERKILL, don't click if you have work to do)

« Last post by mouser on November 21, 2005, 12:42 AM »

i'm very happy to read your post moerl - i'm a big fan of the idea of discovering rare music rather than having the music companies and mainstream radio tell me what to listen to.

i have to admit i'm completely confused by the term podcasting, and quite confusied myself about the best way to keep track of found music..  any suggestions would be welcome.

this kind of gets back to a question asked by someone on the forum a long time ago - asking for a nice way to keep track of downloads.. i suddenly see the value of having a nice organized way to keep track of what files you downloaded from what pages and why...

34289

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone know a good free program to record streaming audio?

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 07:07 PM »

net transport does very good timed scheduled recordings of realmedia streams.

34290

Finished Programs / Re: AutoClick

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 05:19 PM »

just a reminder to everyone who uses a skrommel tool, please remember to feed the skrommels with a little donation if you can afford it, just visit his 1 hour software page and click on the donate button.

34291

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone know a good free program to record streaming audio?

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 04:18 PM »

kfitting has hinted at the key differences between the 2 major different kinds of apps. there really are 2 classes of apps for doing this stuff.

one kind of app records any sounds playing through your sound card.  the advantage of this is that its easy to record any stream, regardless of source.  easy to record in mp3 or any format.  the problem is you have to be listening to it in real time as it records.  any bandwidth congestion, skips, pauses, etc. are all reflected in the recording.  total recorder is the quintisential app of this type.

the second kind of app is specific code to record a specific kind of stream.  the programs like streambox vcr to reacord real media streams are the best example of this type.  advantages are they may be able to download many streams at the same time (like streambox vcr can), they can download them at faster than real time, they are pure downloads with no loss of quality, no skips, no problems if you have bandwidth glitches or if you are on dial up etc.  the disadvantages are only that the complexity of this process means having different tools for different streams and that it can be hard sometimes to configure these programs correctly, and find the urls for recording (see our own url snooper program for that), etc.

so bottom line is usally if there is a specific recorder for a specifc kind of stream, you usually would want to prefer an app in the 2nd class.  failing that, a general purpose program like total recorder that records direct from the audio playback is your solution.

34292

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs presents 3 new iPod models!

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 10:42 AM »

by the way, the ipod flea movie i posted is different from mark0s one, so make sure you watch both.  both are funny

34293

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs presents 3 new iPod models!

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 10:11 AM »

ipod flea:
http://gprime.net/video.php/ipodflea

34294

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 05:51 AM »

i think changing the $ is a fun idea but might be a bit much pain; besides id like to use the bird in lots of places and its not practical to do that everywhere.

also let me make clear my feelings about flash - i don't like sites that use flash on anything except an explicit movie that you choose to view.  i wont use it for banners and certainly not for main page, there are just too many people who wont enable flash.

but flash can still be fun to use for a special little movie or something.

34295

General Software Discussion / Re: Hitman Pro

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 04:35 AM »

cool

make sure to add a slider where we can set how long it will run before reporting result
and make sure it has a nice animation or progress bar so that it "looks" like it is doing something

34296

FlipSuite and Flipbook Printer / Suggestions for use..

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 04:32 AM »

a suggestion inspired by Z.G. for those who live in buildings which are above street level but face the street:

make a funny flipbook movie of something (you doing a dance or whatever).
leave some blank pages at the end.

tie it on a string and lower it to ground level. put the pencil on a string too with instructions for people to write a little comment at the back of it after reading it.

34297

General Software Discussion / Re: Hitman Pro

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 03:51 AM »

actually it might be nice if there was a way to configure it secretly to take as long as you need to run it, so if you were at a dinner lasting 3 hours, you could set it to run for 4 hours to be sure you would be gone by the time it finished.

34298

General Software Discussion / Re: Hitman Pro

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 03:47 AM »

during the holidays many distant relatives you've never heard from may request you to spend 10 hours fixing their computer from all of the spyware and viruses they have installed.

my suggestion is that we request a new tool called:
"Advanced Computer Repair and Cleaner Tool - Professional Technician Edition"

when you run it it will run for about 45 minutes, seem like its doing a lot of stuff but really be doing nothing.  and at the end report a whole bunch of made up stuff about how the computer is 100% fixed and clean, but that because of hardware incompatibilities with the newest Microsoft Windows service packs, the user should perform a complete reinstall of windows in exactly 7 days.

this will get you off the hook of having to fix anything, and will shift the blame to microsoft where it belongs, and also get the person to do a complete clean install which as we know is only safe way to clean it.

34299

Living Room / Re: Tangram game

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 03:34 AM »

coo!
i finished the first one (whale) with some effort and was pleasently surprised that it recognized when i solved it.

34300

General Software Discussion / Snapfiles, and what makes a good software listing site..

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 03:30 AM »

There are a lot of new software listing sites cropping up.
I wanted to post some observations about what makes a good one and a bad one.
I'll focus a bit on snapfiles (www.snapfiles.com) since that's one of my favorite sites.


Does the site accept pad files (standard file format for describing a program)?
 really annoying from an author's standpoint if they don't.
(snapfiles does NOT accept pad files - come on guys get with the program!)

Does the site actually test the programs they list, or just put up the text from author's description?
this one is my favorite thing to look at from an author's standpoint; i'm always very impressed by a site that actually TRIES the programs that are submitted and takes the time to make their own comments and screenshots.

for example, here's the snapfiles page for Flipbook Printer which i submitted *yesterday*:
http://www.snapfiles...flipbookprinter.html
notice that they actually tried it, using their own movie, and made their own little summary of what the program does in their own words.
to me this says volumes about a software listing site that they take the time to do this.


does the site encourage users to rate and review programs?
Fileforum (www.fileforum.com) is the best at this, hands down, and it makes fileforum a fantastic resource, even though you really have to take such ratings with a big grain of salt since it seems developers try to skew the ratings against each other.


does the site list freeware and shareware?
most software listing sites have some freeware, but many have very little.
snapfiles seems to have a large freeware listing collection, and encourages it.
freeware world team is still the best place to find new freeware listings though, imho: http://www.all4you.d....php?action=newlinks


does the site go find its own new discoveries or does it rely on submissions?
again freeware world team wins this hands down.
also our friends at shell extension city (http://www.shellcity.net/) are great at finding new stuff.


is the site well set up for search and browsing?
most sites have a good search system, but few are really well suited for browsing categories
snapfiles does great here too, in not only organizing stuff well but making it easy to switch between freeware and shareware listings.