Recent Posts

34426

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Weather Watcher 5.6 - now better than ever!

« Last post by mouser on November 12, 2005, 12:27 AM »

my view:

there is nothing wrong at all with properly labeled adware (that downloads and displays ads in the program) that does not otherwise infect the users system. nothing. it's merely an alternate way to get compensation other than charging people.  it's just important that it be properely labeled.

programs that secretly install adware, or secretly install things like ad toolsbars in browsers, or any installation of spyware stuff that sends info back to to the company or another, should be illegal.

34427

Finished Programs / Re: Fun games from Mikes Software Co

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 10:52 PM »

this might be a good place to recommend that people try to invent new (simple!!) games and suggest them as coding snacks.
games with minimal graphics might be best - card games, simple puzzle games,etc.

34428

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request - Automation to capture Flash results

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

i think supporting some kind of automation sounds really fun.

i can think of a couple of possibilities:

1) not changing screenshot captor at all, and just using a commandline tool to trigger one of screenshot captors global hotkeys.  this sounds like a great idea for a tiny commandline coding snack.  then you could use a batch file or another one of the apps on this site (drag+drop robot) to launch a series of .swf files one after the other followed by the hotkey to capture the active window.  this should work.  one downside is that you wouldn't be able to tell screenshot captor how to name the files.  upside is its easiest.

2) adding some commandline argument functions to screenshot captor - this would let you specify a capture to perform on the commandline, like "screenshotcaptor.exe -c activewindow -o outputfile.jpg" to tell it to capture active window and save result in "outputfile.jpg".  this wouldn't be much work but seems a bit overkill given sc's prolonged startup time.  probably you could find another capture tool for this - i could even make one.

3) adding a windows-message based autoamation to screenshot captor that would allow it to receive commands from other apps to do things like capture windows and report back the file names, etc.  this requires the most work on my part, and is also not immediately useable from simple commandline use..

other thoughts?

34429

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 06:35 PM »

i know this sounds kind of crazy..
but my strategy for this stuff is usually like this: with the price of hard drives, when i find one that starts giving some strange behavior, i try to replace it and use the existing one for non-critical backup, and just not take chances.  it seems wasteful and luckily i haven't had to do it very often, and you may not have to go to such an extreme, but treat it like scarlet letter and keep a very close backup of anything you ever put on that drive again.  having said all that, it does kind of sound like partition magic is giving a false alarm doesnt it?

34430

Screenshot Captor / Re: License Key browse problem

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 06:28 PM »

ill fix it with next release, thanks for reminding me -
its good timing since i'm updating all of the programs and it's surely in all of them..
maybe now is the time to add code to support checking for universal license in system directory so it never has to be entered again.

34431

Living Room / Re: Nice story about a canine "cat of the year" award winner

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 05:38 PM »

so cool.

34432

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great HD search tool

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 03:35 PM »

Total Commander seems to be one of those apps that people love or cannot stand using.  No doubt it is super powerful. The interface seems to suit some people and rub others the wrong way.

34433

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 03:33 PM »

i can only imagine the frustration - i can almost feel it and i've been there enough to know how furious and frustrated it can make one.  Hang in there!  It does sound like partition magic is the odd one out here - just reporting the partition as "bad" doesn't sound very useful..  i wouldn't trust it if it doesn't say what the problem is.  but i would be doubly careful about making sure to back up any important information on that drive.

34434

Screenshot Captor / Re: Request: how to keep an selection ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 08:32 AM »

heheh i think you know more than me now about the shortcuts

34435

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 08:13 AM »

i actually have mine set like this too, and am thinking of making it default, just because it then also lets you search for files with numbers in them..

34436

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 08:03 AM »

i'm sure that's it -
whats happening is that its probably BOTH detecting the press of the number key, launching the app, and then instantly received what it THINKS is another search before it has time to close, and so its begining a new search right as its minimizing to the tray.

i will fix this behavior asap (i'll try this weekend); in the meantime you might want to disable auto-launch on digit press and configure it to launch on like alt+1 or ctrl+1 and see if that fixes it.

34437

General Software Discussion / Replaced link to best unit conversion site on our links page..

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 07:16 AM »

Got a nice email from the developer of this unit conversion page (you can also easily add unit conversion tools on your own page using their scripts, very nice):

http://www.unitconversion.org/

It's a really elegant site and i've replaced the old one on our links page (https://www.donation...com/Links/index.html) with this new one.

34438

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: I can not download License Key Process Tamer

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 06:31 AM »

i've edited your post to remove your license key -
please don't post it here, it contains your name and email address, and so you probably don't want other people to be using and sharing it

34439

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 06:15 AM »

just tested with process explorer sysmon, and my F+R is not showing any extra file activity after a program launches..

one thing that was usggested at some point was that network shortcuts that F+R tries to resolve can account in some processor time and i'll be fixing that in the next update.

but it would be nice to find out whats causing this behavior since its not happening with me..

i wonder if its trying and failing to save its settings maybe? or something is going wrong when trying to save its settings (which happens when it minimizes)?

running filemon might help shed some light if you're willing.

34440

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 06:09 AM »

cool cat picture on your site btw!!

34441

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

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

what a nice post - and i learned something new about process explorer that will be quite useful.. 

that is really strange behavior - i assure you it shouldn't continue searching after it launches an app..

this is great timing because im just starting a major round of updates for F+R version 2 this weekend i'll try to look into this and see if i can figure out what might be doing this right away.

i do have a couple things you could test:
if you hit escape after it shows notepad then it stops search.  if you then right click on notepad and say "launch and stay open", can you see if the disk usage resumes then as well?

sysinternals also makes a util called FileMon which shows exactly what file access is taking place, i wonder if that would yield some insight..

34442

Best E-mail Client / Re: Pegasus Mail?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 05:42 AM »

seem like i should have included it in the review. i know about it, it must have just slipped my mind.
ill try to add it to the review if someone wants to give me some info to make it easier i would appreciate it.

34443

Find And Run Robot / Re: A bug ?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 05:39 AM »

once you launch a program, F+R should by default not just stop searching but go away completely into tray, and NOT be doing any more searching..

also if you hit escape it should stop all searching and disk access.

can you shed any more clues into the phenomena.. does it always happen or only with certain programs?

34444

Official Announcements / Re: Programming Contests Coming Soon.. Suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 02:29 AM »

i think we want to give the coders a little more choice in project -
but having a p2p project might be fun..

34445

Finished Programs / Re: ARGH!!!! How To Save View In Open/Save Dialog???

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 02:28 AM »

i keep meaning to do a short review of file open/save dialog extenders - search the forum for the discussion threads on them - many of us could not live without them.

34446

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: helpful tool to show some shoutcast stream titles / Winamp etc.

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 01:48 AM »

beautiful..

34447

Official Announcements / Re: Programming Contests Coming Soon.. Suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 01:39 AM »

ps. like all freeware authors, participants in any programming contest would be granted automatic honorary membership status.

34448

Official Announcements / Programming Contests Coming Soon.. Suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on November 11, 2005, 01:33 AM »

We are going to run a few programming contests with some software prizes.. The idea will be to try to get some small but useful freeware utilities written.

If anyone has some creative ideas for contests which are more ambitious than 2 day coding snacks but still reasonable, please post or email me.

Prizes will include development related tools like: VmWare, Camtasia, BB Flashback, and some surprises

34449

Screenshot Captor / Re: Request: how to keep an selection ?

« Last post by mouser on November 10, 2005, 11:15 PM »

beta of 2.04.02 is up:
https://www.donation...ScreenshotCaptor.exe
try making a selection and then using cursor keys, shift cursorkeys, ctrl+cursory keys, ctrl +/-

also see obejct menu item to make region from selected object.

34450

Living Room / Re: Flowchart and Diagramming Review

« Last post by mouser on November 10, 2005, 11:13 PM »

just select the "edit page" option in left sidebar to edit entire page.

import+export functions should definitely be considered in review.

i look forward to hearing from sword how he wants to focus the review and whether things like mind mapping will be considered - i think it should be focused on intended use, so mind mapping software that only does mind mapping might be more appropriate for a separate review of such tools.