Recent Posts

35326

Living Room / Re: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing.. opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 11:17 AM »

your points are well taken, and i need to learn more about google ads and how they work.

the idea of having the ads only shown to non-members is somewhat attractive to me because it would mean that members are not affected at all, so we have the combination of some income from ads with no annoyance for members with the bonus of it being another incentive to become a member.

on the downside is the fact that i am somewhat bothered by the concepts behind having ads on a site like ours dedicated to objective evaluation of software..  i suppose its something we could try out for a little bit at some point, again especially if members never had to see the ads at all.

35327

General Software Discussion / Re: AppRocket: Quicksilver for Windows

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 11:04 AM »

definitely go for it!
it would be nice to hear where F&R is better and where it is worse.
(maybe it's time i updated the F&R help file to indicate how to do the new things like using paste command and regular expression stuff..)

35328

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Archivarius

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 10:52 AM »

carol was threatening to review msn desktop search but i think she's gone a-dancing tonight

35329

Living Room / Re: is the site slow this morning?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 10:40 AM »

rest assured, we are going to get these speed issues resolved.
our current host PowerVps.com has been quite good and i have nothing but good things to say about them,
but it may just be that the plan we are on is not sufficient for our traffic, and we can't really afford the next plan level,
so if we can't get the speed fixed here we will try moving to another host.

35330

Living Room / Re: is the site slow this morning?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 10:38 AM »

anyone with any experience tuning web server settings for optimum performance?

this is what was suggested to us to try to improve site speed:
"I might suggest trying to install a program like EAccellerator to help improve PHP's performance and
tuning the mySQL my.cnf file (/etc/my.cnf) for better mySQL performance.  That might help drop the load a bit. "

35331

Mouser's Zone / Re: Hmmm ... server errors ...

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 10:33 AM »

i think it may have ocurred while the server admins were checking something trying to identify potential bottlenecks..
let me know if it happens again after you see this post.

35332

Living Room / Re: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing.. opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 10:32 AM »

very interesting ideas veign..

i'm one of those people who would prefer to wait for someone who likes the site to donate a logo rather than paying $200 for one.  i'm not against paying for things, but $200 is a big chunk of money for this site, and i kind of like the idea of someone here doing it as their way of donating something to the site.. would have a nicer feeling for everyone i think.  (that's not to say that i don't support these logo services because i do think they are doing great work, by great artists).

your point about getting new donations is well taken; it's also an interesting idea about downloading.  we can't really block downloading - that would cause havok for all the sites linking to us.  BUT we could say that for the period of the fundraiser (2 weeks or 1 month), we wouldn't make the freeware keys available, so that would mean that all the programs would keep running but users wouldnt be able to download the freeware license keys to remove the nag message, until the fundraiser was over...

the real problem with this is i think we are getting dangerously close to the point where we're going to start getting angry emails from people who felt forced to donate - which would be a real tragedy and against the philosophy of this site... i think with requiring people to sign up at the forum and download freeware license keys is already trying the patience of people who don't expect freeware to be so much work.  i think we are really risking a backlash.

one possibility to consider for the future at some point would be i keep hearing about people making money off ads.. one thing we could consider at some point if donations alone cant support the site, would be adding ads to the site that were only triggered if you aren't a member; so that members wouldn't see any ads, but non-members would.  i just hate advertising so it's hard for me to actually go through with something like that..

economics... what a pain.

35333

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Game for a Macromedia Flash Coder - Gravity Spigot

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 09:29 AM »

Here's an idea i had for a game that would be implemented in Macromedia Flash (so it could be played online).

Gravity Spigot
-------------------

each level has one or more fixed SOURCES, and one or more fixed SINKS.

from the sources emerge particles, which are attracted to ATTRACTORS and repelled from REPELLORS.

some of the ATTRACTORS and REPELLORS are movable.

object on each level is to move the attractors and repellors in order to get the particles to the sinks.

Attractors should be like the bug zappers so that particles get incinerated when they come in contact with them.

Maybe user can adjust strength of attractors, and maybe some other parameters (function parameters determining strength as a function of distance?)

Not sure how to score it - maybe like lemmings, each level has 1000 particles, which start emerging slowly and speed up over time to some final time.  Each level has a certain # of particles you have to get saved in order to pass the level.  Score based on number of particles saved, plus a bonus for speed.

(user can speed up or slow down the rate of particle emergence, though there will still be a threshold timelimit).


If anyone codes this I'd love to host it on DonationCoder.com and offer a prize.  It's not quite a coding snack - i think it would take more than a day to write.


Bad illustration of concept:

35334

Living Room / Re: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing.. opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 08:47 AM »

anyone who donates $10,000 to this site will get a custom made freeware program dedicated to explaining to the world why they are the greatest person on the planet 

35335

Living Room / is the site slow this morning?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 08:40 AM »

I'm trying to work with the web host to figure out why the site slows down sometimes and how to fix it..
part of the problem is that it seems to come and go..
seems a bit slow this morning though (sep 30).

maybe people could post here when the site seems slow to them or email me, so we can give the hosting provider some clues to help track the problem..

35336

Living Room / Re: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing.. opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 08:33 AM »

great ideas brotherS!

I like the idea of treating the kickoff of the fundraising with some site improvements - and a new logo might be a nice thing to do.  I'm definitely not an artist so a logo contest might be a nice thing to do. and i like the idea of emphasizing that the donations will help us grow, which it really will.  And i think you have a great idea that the fundraiser + site improvements should be accompanied by a little article about the site, where we started, where we are now, and where we hope to go, that people can read and that we can send out to other sites.  Great idea!!

the idea of a raffle to reward donators during that period is a fun idea - but would people who donated on their own prior to the fundraiser feel like that was unfair?  seems like they might.  but we could do a raffle or two as part of the fundraiser and make it open to anyone who has donated at any time.. a special forum section of the forum for the fundraiser and ideas seems like a nice way to welcome new members

regarding special things for people who donate more than a certain amount..
the current policy of donationcoder.com is not to think about amounts donated.  different people have different amounts of money, and a $100 gift from a millionaire means much less to us than a $5 gift from someone who has to watch their budget carefully and doesn't have much spare money.  and taking the time out to help people on the forum, or posting mini reviews etc. is as valuable as any donation

35337

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature Request

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 08:16 AM »

might help for us to put together a priority ordered list of features for CHS so i can get back to work on it and do an update in the next couple of weeks.

from my own use (and i must admit i only use it for plaintext), there are 2 things that simply must get added asap:
1) right now it will auto move from New clips to Old clips group at user defined interval, but never moves stuff out of Old group, which can lead to huge #s of clips in Old group, which slows everything down and bloats the database.  so i am going to add an automatic move from Old to Recycle bin at user-defined interval.  this should speed up searching and reduce database size.
2) there is a bug when moving large numbers of clips that causes an error - this needs to be fixed.

the other things that seem like fairly high priority are:
1) paste menu with hotkey, to make it easy to paste clips.
2) application-specific customization, so you can say which apps to capture from, and in which format (plaintext, richtext)
3) capture of richtext/graphics, not just plaintext, but ability to choose how to export/copy it so its still easy to grab plaintext.
4) fixing the editor bugs you've identified (and adding support for editng text formatting).

what else have i forgotten?

35338

Living Room / Re: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing.. opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 07:27 AM »

regarding people who "promote" or give positive reviews to donationcoder.com or link to it - such things definitely help spread the word about Donationcoder.com but our position has been that we don't really want to get into a situation where it might feel like we are rewarding people for doing such things - just because i think it would take away from the acts, and make people think that such mentions of our site were done for alternative reasons.

At least the way it is now, when someone sees a link to donationcoder.com or a positive review of one of our programs on cnet, betanews, snapfiles, softpedia, etc. then they know it was posted by someone without alternative motives, who took the time to post it because they really cared for the program.

It really is hard to over state though how important such posts about our site and programs are are on blogs, newsletters, and software announcement/review sites.  They are the way people discover us, and they are the way that people learn that we have an active community here and that we care about what we are doing and are trying to do something good and different.

(I can't thank enough people like you Carol who have taken the time to post a nice review of one of our programs on these software sites; it really is a nice gesture and very much appreciated.)

--

Yeah, i was thinking trying to do something nice with the excerpt type quotes, like little boxes here and there with a short excerpt and then visitor could click to read more.  We really do get some nice emails, and we love getting them, and i think in this age of fly-by-night sites and scams i think it would help new visitors to be able to see what other people think about the site.

We will of course contact anyone whose email we would like to quote beforehand to get permission to excerpt the email.

35339

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Archivarius

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 07:13 AM »

Found some reviews of image hosting services:
http://www.free-webh...ee-image-hosting.php

35340

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Archivarius

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 07:02 AM »

yeah, something like images here:
https://www.donation.../About/presskit.html

but specifically indicating some content to read more about on donationcoder.com.

maybe i could just add a line of text to that middle one saying something like "Read the Review" or something.

35341

General Software Discussion / Re: Worst. Interface. Ever.

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 06:11 AM »

I'm also told by a huge total commander fan that the default appearance can be a bit painful on the eyes, but that you can adjust it to make it more pleasing for those of us who aren't exactly fans of the windows 3.1 look

here's a screenshot of total commander, and to tell the truth this doesn't look as bad as i remember (still a bit cluttered thought):

35342

Living Room / Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing and a celebration..

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 06:08 AM »

So i've been thinking about the possibility of having a kind of fundraising event thing on DonationCoder.com and I want to get some feedback from you guys.

We've ended up spending so much of our time working on DonationCoder.com and it's rapidly become our our favorite way to spend our time, but having so little time for other work means that the donations are more and more important to us just to help us pay bills and buy food.

Anyway, the idea would be that for like 2 weeks we would just have some kind of special banner on the site to say that it's our "fundraising time of the year" or something, and just in general try to draw attention for 2 weeks to the fact that we depend on donations for all of our funding, etc.  you know, like other public broadcasting services do.  basically just try to encourage people if they haven't donated yet to consider donating, and if they have donated a long time ago to consider if they might want to donate again..

I was thinking sometime in october.

I don't know if it would have any effect, but it might be worth trying if people here are not hostile to the idea of it..  I think we would also make a special effort to update the programs and just in general demonstrate that the donations really do help us keep this site going strong.

One other idea that I thought would be nice to add to the site during the fundraising event would be excerpts from some of the wonderful emails that I've gotten since we started the site, just of real people saying how they appreciate what we are doing.  This was actually an idea that someone on the forum suggested to me and it seems like a really fun idea.

And i'd be open to other ideas that people think would be nice to do at fundraising time - i looked into some of those online tshirt places and stuff with the idea that maybe we could have like a donationcoder.com tshirt or something but the markups are much too high for the kinds of donations we get.  but maybe we could make some iron-on tshirt logos or something ourselves and send them to donators or something.

I'm open to ideas

Do you guys think this would be an ok idea?

35343

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Archivarius

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 05:46 AM »

Thanks cliff, maybe we should
1) make a sticky post in the Official Announcements section about image hosting sites.
2) get a consensus for which site might be best (and add it to Links page).

so, people have opinions on which service is best?

35344

Living Room / Re: Stupid IE question

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 05:38 AM »

This is IE 5.  On this computer I'm in a corporate environment and can't change it. 

you might mention to your corporate person in charge of not letting you change it,
that running IE 5 is probably an excellent way to open your company to some security issues - i'm not sure but somehow i doubt that IE5 is very secure.

35345

General Software Discussion / Re: Nico - Freeware

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 05:29 AM »

Beautiful and elegant site Redhad!

I agree with brotherS - a screenshot, even when it seems irrelevant, is just nice to have for the user to get a visual impression.

Here are some suggestions from trying it, of things that would be nice to see:
1) minimized to the system tray, with a different icon for when server is up vs. down (maybe with balloon message when down).
2) it'd be nice if it reported ping time (hey even better would be a nice graph of ping time over time).
3) tabs between fields doesn't work.
4) fill in default of port 80 maybe?
5) it's using wxwindows, is that right?  is that why the exe is so big? (4mb) are there any options to with wxwindows to help build it smaller (is it a debug build and maybe could be built in release mode maybe?)
6) is it supposed to save it's settings on restart or no? if not, that would certainly be a nice feature (preferably to an ini file and not registry, imho).

35346

Living Room / Re: calling all creative game inventing type people.. READ IN

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 05:18 AM »

looks like farkle has been implemented as both freeware and shareware in lots of places..

i think we should stick with making something that's never been made yet

35347

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Archivarius

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 05:15 AM »

You know what would be nice, maybe we can make a little small graphic icon representing donationcoder.com reviews and user mini-reviews, that sites like cliff's can use when they use to identify something from donationcoder.com..

35348

Living Room / Re: calling all creative game inventing type people.. READ IN

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 01:08 AM »

sounds like a nice idea, assuming their aren't already freeware implementations of it.

35349

Living Room / Re: new ergonomic keyboard - natural ergonomic keybaord 4000

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2005, 01:07 AM »

yeah, we talked about that one when it was first making the rounds.
it's still vaporware afaik, but lots of companies are trying to bring similar things to market..

35350

Living Room / Inspired by Lifehacker..

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2005, 05:54 PM »

http://www.lifehacker.com/

is our site of the week this week/month - it's kind of fun place to get esoteric tips on spending time wisely.  combines software tips with life tips.

Inspired by lifehacker I thought maybe we could add non-software related tips in this section as long as it's kind of slow in here.
Just silly things that we have each discovered to make life a little more fun

i'll start by posting my 3 favorite drinks:

1) black tea with chocolate milk
i make a big batch of like 5x sweeter than normal chocolate milk using dried milk with ovaltine and irish cappucino mix and keep it in a container in the refrigerator; then when i make my normal black tea, i add a half an inch of it or so.  very delicious.

2) new york egg cream
learned this one from my father.  it's just seltzer (sparkling water) with that same chocolate milk mixture above in it.

3) to help your heart:
a shot of half whiskey and half sake.
beginners should start out with a bit more sake and a bit less whiskey