Recent Posts

34301

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.

34302

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.

34303

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

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 02:12 AM »

when we settle on a good mascot+font+tagline we will probably set up an account on a site like cafepress.com and create some shirts and baseball caps and stuff with donationcoder.com logo on it.  my current thinking is that we should treat such things like pbs does, i.e. as rewards for big donators rather than have a shirt for $20 where we get $3 of the price, which i find a bit insane.  so as an alternative i think we will also match that with iron on decals which we will mail to any member who wants it at cost. the official cafepress (or whatever service we use) shirts/caps will then be very rare and we can also give them away as good prizes and stuff.

34304

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

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 01:35 AM »

I think we are settling on nudone's bird drawing (based on idea of bird with coin from skrommel's page) as the new donationcoder.com logo and mascot.  still not final but it looks that way.

We now need:
1) a name for him/her (codie/cody has been suggested and is best candidate so far).
2) some taglines or catchphrases and Font choice.  We can change depending on the situation but would be nice to have an official one or two for use on official stuff.

love to see some sample images posted with ideas for this.

attached are 2 images from the other thread (https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1093.0):

34305

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP >.... Some sort of IRQ conflict (I think) ... anyone andy ideas?

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 01:21 AM »

you could buy an ide card for cheap and get the control of the raid off the mother board; that should solve your problem IF the problem is related to anything like an irq conflict.

34306

Developer's Corner / What Programmer Tool/Component/Library Reviews Would you Like to See?

« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2005, 01:02 AM »

Please reply with more categories!

34307

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A new name

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 11:28 PM »

the key requirement for a new name is that when you type it into google you get less than 10 hits.
clipnote doesn't survive this test unfortunately.

ClipCaptor and Clipsuite however sound quite promising to me..

34308

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

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 11:25 PM »

sure there are several good free ones
depending on what you are trying to capture.

for real media and most windows media, streambox vcr suite which is discontinued and abandonware:

this page looks interesting: http://all-streaming...cording-software.htm

but the best place to find tools for this and discuss it is the following forum and this page lists some software: http://p082.ezboard....sage?topicID=1.topic

34309

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: Question,Please come in,Thanks.

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 11:21 PM »

we are all friends here so consider yourself to have just made 9000 new friends

we also have an irc channel if you want to chat - that is the best way to talk.  see here for more information -> https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=772.0

34310

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

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 03:38 PM »

maybe we should name him "donatey"

34311

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 03:07 PM »

hahahaahahaha

don't forget jibz, also:
1) hire cheap student interns to write the program.
2) make a dvd "documentary" of the creation of it and sell the dvd as an exciting training video.
3) market it as a brand new idea never before attempted.

34312

General Software Discussion / Re: Needed ... MD5 checksum utility

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 02:42 PM »

bc has 2 kinds of compares that it does, a quick compare and an indepth compare.
in the main window you can also select files and hit the "?=" button to have it do an indepth compare.

34313

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

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 02:19 PM »

great

any ideas of how to deal with momonons idea that the coin should be universal and not just United States related?  or is $ the universal sign of money at this point?

ps.

i think we need a name for this fellow.

34314

General Software Discussion / Re: Needed ... MD5 checksum utility

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 02:16 PM »

could be one of the other 2 timestamps that are not shown?
modification date, read date, creation date?

34315

General Software Discussion / Re: Needed ... MD5 checksum utility

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 02:09 PM »

hahah - they sure look the same.

but i'll bet its that they have different settings in:
archive bit, readonly bit, etc.

you can configure bc to igore or care about such things.

bc can be a bit confusing at first but once you get used to it its very powerful and convenient too (once you learn where things are).

34316

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 01:57 PM »

new idea:

let's charge $100 each for each of the donationcoder.com programs.

but then have the option that you can make a single one-time donation of any amount to get all programs forever.

best of both worlds? 

34317

General Software Discussion / Skinning Primer - Everything you wanted to know about customizing your Windows

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:30 PM »

http://www.wincustom...icles.aspx?AID=92719

nice walkthrough on using windows appearance customizing tools.

[again found linked on osnews.com]

34318

General Software Discussion / Microsoft BOB Review

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:25 PM »

a look back at Microsoft Bob and what made it so bad?

http://www.bentuser..../article.aspx?ID=327

[found linked from osnews.com]

34319

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP >.... Some sort of IRQ conflict (I think) ... anyone andy ideas?

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:14 PM »

maybe its just some app using 99% cpu?

34320

General Software Discussion / Re: Needed ... MD5 checksum utility

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:11 PM »

note beyond compare is in our discount this month, and we are giving away some copies in the drawing.
also see our review of such tools: https://www.donation...pareTools/index.html

it's one of my favorite programs.

34321

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:06 PM »

from the article:

"Let's think this through, because I think the recording industry is lying about why they want different prices."

"The answer is that pricing sends a signal. People have come to believe that “you get what you pay for.” If you lowered the price of a movie, people would immediately infer from the low price that it's a crappy movie and they wouldn't go see it.... Now, the reason the music recording industry wants different prices has nothing to do with making a premium on the best songs. What they really want is a system they can manipulate to send signals about what songs are worth, and thus what songs you should buy. "

in fact i think joel is right, and it's one of the reasons that very cheap software does not do so well, and why making your program more expensive can sometimes result in more copies being sold.

it's also a problem for a site like ours - people will assume that the software is of a lesser quality because it's free.  it takes some effort to overcome these obstacles.

34322

Living Room / "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 12:04 PM »

really interesting piece today on the idea of different pricing for music:

http://www.joelonsof...tems/2005/11/18.html

as a side note: personally i'm conflicted about joel's writing - on one hand he is regularly and undeniably insightfull.  on the other hand i almost always get an unpleasent feeling when reading his site, related to the self promotion and hard-sell of his own stuff.

34323

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

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 11:11 AM »

the vector one could still come in handy if we want to do like a flash animation..
make sure you save the vector version (maybe send me the vector art file if you dont mind?, i might give it a try in flash).

34324

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

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 11:06 AM »

 

cool!
he looks so happy now, as he should be

34325

General Software Discussion / Re: how to play mp3 files faster?

« Last post by mouser on November 19, 2005, 10:40 AM »

nice finds!!!!