Recent Posts

35776

General Software Discussion / Re: Interfaces we love

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 03:08 AM »

i'm a huge fan of the right-click menu, apps with good right-click support and drag-n-drop support always make me happy.

one of the programs that i have the most love for in terms of user interface is Beyond Compare, which we awarded best file compare/merge tool here: https://www.donation...pareTools/index.html

35777

Living Room / Re: New freeware author's blog

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 03:04 AM »

some great stuff and it's great to see chris visit here and join in the discussions.

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Living Room / Re: New newsletter from me

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 03:03 AM »

great reading! 

i don't know if it'd be too much trouble but it would be great to see a post like this whenever you release a new newsletter.

35779

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 02:08 AM »

nice find, mmm looks quite good and something we should study for contextmenu commander inspiration.

35780

General Software Discussion / Re: For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 01:11 AM »

sounds nice -
like i was saying there is some real "muddlement" in the definition of donationware.

most people seem to refer to donationware any software whose author asks users to consider making a donation.

this seems to me totally useless as a definition.  it says nothing about the program at all.

to me it makes more sense to say a program is donationware if it REQUIRES a donation but the donation amount is left up to user.

if it has no restrictions at all then its freeware, regardless of whether author asks for donations or not.

i usually refer to our software here as freeware, since you do not have to donate to use it, though with our new freeware license key system that requires signing up at the forum in order to get a freeware license to remove the nag, one would be justified in calling in registerware.

like you, we are trying to find a nice way to do things here that keeps the software available to everyone, especially those who can't donate, while still encouraging those who can to contribute financially to help support the project.

please keep us updated on what you decide to do and how it goes.. i'd really like to see donation-based software play a bigger role in things - i think if people were more willing to donate for software they liked, they'd find much more quality software becoming donationware instead of shareware, which ultimately benefits the end users the most.

35781

Best Archive Tool / Re: Archive Tool Review's Finishing Touches

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 12:43 AM »

congratulations zaine on one of the best reviews posted to this site so far.

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General Software Discussion / Re: For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 12:33 AM »

looks great, i hope you'll keep us informed.
if only there were twice as many hours in the day.. i think one of the hardest things as a programmer is not having time to code all of the stuff you'd like to.

35783

Living Room / The Michael Larsen Incident - SO COOL!

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2005, 12:04 AM »

Found via cynical-c blog, via bruce schneier's page:
http://www.rotten.co...acy/Press_Your_Luck/

how a man figured out the tricks of a game show.

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General Software Discussion / Re: For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 09:38 PM »

the only problem with the mandatory donation thing is that a large group of users are simply not in a position to make a donation.  it's not so much that they couldn't spare a dollar, but that they don't have a credit card or an easy way to make a donation.  so if you are philosophically inclined to make your software free, this represents a problem.

35785

Living Room / Re: Remove startup folder? Anyone ever accomplish this ?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 09:32 PM »

famous last words in windows before a reinstall is needed "can i just delete this file?"

occassionally i'll install a program that freaks out and tries to do a repair install if i move its default folder in the start menu to someplace more appropriate, and i've "solved" the problem by marking the folder in the start menu as HIDDEN.  you might try that if it bothers you seeing the startup group.  not sure if it will work but worth a try.

35786

Best Archive Tool / Re: New Review (09/05/05) - Best Archive Tool

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 09:29 PM »

jibz and i helped with the most minor of editing and proofreading, but really this monster of a review was, believe it or not, all done by Zaine.

It's actually the longest review on the site (and as you know that's saying quite a bit) - and a huge amount of love and care and work went into it.  I can't tell you how much we appreciate Zaine agreeing to do this review, and how thrilled we are with the result.

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Official Announcements / New Review (09/05/05) - Best Archive Tool

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 03:20 PM »

Our review of Best Archive Tool is now live: https://www.donation...hiveTools/index.html

Zaine Ridling (from The Great Software List site) did the review, and I think you'll agree it's one of the best reviews we've had on this site.  Very thorough and very thoughtfull.

We haven't heard back yet about a discount but we should be posting about it this week, so stay tuned.

And please help us spread the word about this review (and all of our reviews) so that people who might be interested in it find out about it (tell your friends, post a link on a forum, etc.).

35788

ProcessTamer / Re: No tooltips?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 03:00 PM »

you wouldnt run both at same time that's for sure.

try all 3,
process tamer , process lasso light, and process lasso full
and decide which is right for you.

35789

ProcessTamer / Re: No tooltips?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 02:43 PM »

yep, ok its doing its job then.
if it says taming 1 process, then its definitely taming it.

what you are referring to is the balloon tooltips that pop up.
maybe you have them disabled in your windows settings? or in the program?
i've not heard of a bug in process tamer that failes to display them so i doub't its process tamer.

here's page on disabling them in win xp (maybe you can use this to check if yours are already disabled):
http://support.micro...s;307729&sd=tech

35790

General Software Discussion / Re: For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 02:36 PM »

my general impression is that pirated software doesn't effect sales significantly.  it could eat up bandwidth but that just means its spreading the word about your program.  like they say in acting, no publicity is bad publicity.  there was a post recently talking about a microsoft guy was admiting that some level of piracy is good for business.  did you notice sales go down when this happen? or was it just bandwidth.

i've toyed with the idea of making a donation mandatory, but not specifying any threshold amount.  even though its not the accepted definition of donationware, that definition of donationware seems to me much more logical (ie when it is mandatory to make a donation, but the amount is unspecified).  i'd be curious to hear how it goes.

ps. veign your url links are little broken.

35791

ProcessTamer / Re: No tooltips?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 02:29 PM »

the icon yeah does change slightly yellow where the scales are.

you are using v2.x im assuming.
what operating system are you using?

run the test app, wait a few seconds.
see if icon changes.  hold your cursor over the icon, see what it says.

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ProcessTamer / Re: No tooltips?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 02:00 PM »

when you run the test app, the tray icon should change pictures and a text balloon should appear (tooltip) in the system tray after a few seconds.
doublt click to launch the gui tool and take a look at the process cpu usage shown there.

i'm assuming you are you using win2k or xp.

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General Software Discussion / Re: For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 01:47 PM »

I wish there was a way to get good applications to people that can't afford the costs while still making something for the developers to help defray the costs of development

yeah this is something i've struggled with as well.  maybe we need a poverty-verification service - user sends in proof to citibank to show they are not rich and they get a certificate.  after that all software is free

35794

Find And Run Robot / Version 1.06.01 released

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 11:36 AM »

https://www.donation.../FindAndRunRobot.exe

i was in a bit of a hurry to put this up so i'd appreciate any feedback on the things it is supposed to fix.
one thing i am keen to hear about is if anyone notices duplicates not being filtered out the way they used to be on previous version.

change list:

Version 1.06.01
Working directory (start in directory) of shortcuts was not being respected.
Stop on exact alias match option was ignored, was always stopping.
Alias results were not showing url contents properly
Alias urls were not being launched properly
Actual urls of shortcuts now shown in status bar when clicking on them
Alias results "location" column now shows group name
Unlimited alias group contents results now shown when an exact alias match is found.
Added custom browser configuration option for launching shortcuts.
Launched urls can now be added to history and scored appropriately.
Last version was improperly focusing results window on startup.

35795

Find And Run Robot / Re: Bug: Focus on list instead of input on first start

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 11:29 AM »

yep i noticed that too.
good thing is, its fixed in the new version im uploading now

35796

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature request v 2- favorite searching

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 11:28 AM »

great suggestion nontroppo.
i was thinking to build a general purpose parser for html links like firefox uses for its browser, but as you say there are issues:
1) some kind of cache will be needed since will be too slow to reparse each time.
2) might as well then do a more general purpose parse+cache system to support other kinds of browser bookmarks and other stuff.
3) now we are getting dangerously close to the database idea.

so let me think on it for a little while to find the best general purpose solution.  i agree with you that a more general purpose solution is the way to go.

35797

Living Room / Re: File associations screwed - anyone help?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 09:35 AM »

i've told jason to come check out this thread, maybe he can shed some light, though this seems like one of those really tricky issues that might be effecting one machine out of many so i don't know how hard it would be to pin down.
so you're saying that both irfanview and cryptosuite in some way effect the open/print.. yeah it does seem like something strange might be going on elsewhere but just being triggered by them.

i have to tell you, you are very lucky to have noticed this so soon and gotten it solved right away.

i'm telling you when i had my problem with rjh extensions (which had been working perfectly for years), it nearly drove me insane because i had no idea what it could be causing my context menu to freak, and no shellexview to help me.  was hell.

35798

Find And Run Robot / Re: Apparent bugs - newbie

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 07:46 AM »

i found the problem relating to start in dir, a fix will be up later today.

for anyone wondering why this bug would still be in the code after many version, read through some of the other threads in the section about the oddities of launching certain files like ms excel files.

there are some very odd cases that F&R tries to handle smartly; this means that sometimes F&R launches a shortcut directly, somtimes it reads the target of a shortcut and launches the app directly, and sometimes it hands off the job of launching the shortcut target to a tiny little helper utility whose only job is to launch an app without slowing down the main program

anyway, fix will be up later tonight, just going to try to fix the other bugs in this thread first..

35799

Living Room / Re: File associations screwed - anyone help?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2005, 06:30 AM »

ive experienced that kind of thing - though usually the other way around.
and what i found is that some extension was breaking the display.
in my case it was rjh extensions, breaking the display of another shell menu.
you might try http://www.nirsoft.n.../utils/shexview.html
and maybe you can disable items and see if you can find a bad one?

35800

Living Room / Re: File associations screwed - anyone help?

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

did you recently add any new programs that modify the context menu?
another thing to try is, if you are using an alternative file explorer, definitely try windows explorer.

is it just the "open with" menu thats empty?