Recent Posts

37076

Best Virtual Machine Tool / Re: A Gift from VMWare

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 11:36 PM »

yes, it's supposed to be tomorrow.  he's been out of town and emailed me to say they were approved and are waiting for him in his office for his return on thursday.

37077

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Dim rest of desktop/windows, except for focused window

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 03:48 PM »

nevermind, i enabled downloading of attachments by everyone..

seems to me on reflection that it would be overly confusing for people to try to figure out why downloading attachments wasn't working, and would not serve as a serious incentive to registering.

37078

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Dim rest of desktop/windows, except for focused window

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 03:21 PM »

ah that's it..
yes i have set it so that only members can view/download attachments..

i think that's reasonable.

but remember our policy about membership is very understanding.. if for some reason you have considered the issue of donating and have decided that you will not (at least at this time) make a donation, simply email me and tell me why you have made such a decision, and i will make you a member of the site so you can have full access to everything.

37079

Living Room / Re: Revisiting an idea to encourage donations..

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 10:50 AM »

1) i am going to follow your advice2 and include a mention of current discounts on front page, either in side bar or in text.

2) as for adding keyfile support.. it's not that hard, i already have a modification of jibz' akey code for such things that i worked on for a bit and so it should be easy, and easier still once we get into the habit of using it.  maybe ill use it as a test on the latest 2 programs (screenshot captor and the form letter machine), and we can see how well that goes.

3) its hard for me to tell what percentage of people are coming for reviews, software, or discounts.  we might want to do a poll sometime in the future.  it would probably help to hear what areas of the site people are most interested in and which areas they would like to see more focus on.

4) raffles for software.. it's an interesting idea.. on the other hand i like the idea of using these donated copies of software to reward existing members and contributors to the site, rather than using them to get people who wouldn't otherwise donate to join.  i'm afraid that would be a little like punishing those who have been good enough to donate already...  the other thing is that restricting it to people who donated above a certain amount would mean that the people with little money who could benefit most from a free copy would be inelligible.  this is the kind of world i'm trying to escape from so i don't want to go there.

i appreciate you guys/gals putting up with all this discussion of donation stuff - it's not our intention to be talking about it all the time, we're just still trying to figure out the best consistent sensible approach and then we can stop chattering about it.  we have no intention of constantly talking about donations.

37080

Living Room / Re: Revisiting an idea to encourage donations.. please READ IN AND COMMENT

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 07:03 AM »

i'd definitely love to hear any creative ideas that people might have, so i thought i'd lay out some general principles that we are committed to:

1) members of the site (whether members by donation or other contribution,etc), should not be inconvenienced, and their needs should be primary. anything that infringes on this is a bad idea.
2) no one should be prevented from using our software in its full form just because they cannot afford it; this is why our general policy is that if someone emails me and explains why they cannot donate they are given free membership.  (starving artists can send us paintings,etc.).

3) we are interested in being advocates for a donation-based approach - we want to figure out a way to encourage donations by people who will feel good about it after they have made a donation, and we want to be an example of a way that programmers can make a tiny bit of money off their software in a morally responsible way that fosters a good relationship between author and users.

Our general approach is based on the *theory* that people are not so much opposed to donating for software, but just that they do not view it as something worth their time and energy.  Based on this hypothesis, we are trying to find ways to get people to overcome this tendency to simply ignore requests for donations, and encourage them to take a few moments to take seriously the request and consider that their donation will actually help to improve the programs they are supporting, and directly facilitate new programs like it.

Ideas are welcome!

37081

Living Room / Revisiting an idea to encourage donations..

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 06:49 AM »

I would really appreciate some feedback on this subject.. i'm still playing with various ideas.

All of the software on this site is freeware.  And it will remain freeware.

But one of the things we currently do is make some of the very newest programs and beta editions available for download only by members.
So for example, the two newest programs, Screenshot Captor, and The Form Letter Machine, are both only currently available to download by members.  As time goes by (maybe 2-4 weeks?) these programs will leave beta and become available to download by everyone as normal freeware.

However, a serious flaw in this approach is that non-members can't try these programs to see if they like them.
And this just seems like not in keeping with dc approach.

So i'm returning to the idea of having a kind of personalized keyfile, that all members would get.  This keyfile might be placed in the system directory or in app directory.  (it would also be provided to anyone who emailed me and explained why they had decided not to make a donation).

The only real effect of this keyfile would be that it would allow beta/preview releases to run normally.  People without the keyfile would just get a message when running one of our beta/preview releases on start up saying "This is a beta/preview release.. blah blah..."

So to summarize, the idea is to keep the exact same approach we currently have, all apps are freeware, but members get special access to beta/preview releases; the only dif is that this would allow non-members to download and use the beta/preview releases, only with a startup nag.

opinions?

37082

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Beta available now to members

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 06:20 AM »

i'd also appreciate feature requests.

see the help file (online or in program) for a list of the current todo list.

also, if you know of related programs, i'd like to add them to the help file, as with all my programs.

37083

The Form Letter Machine / Beta available now to members

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 05:52 AM »

The members-only download page now has version 1.00.03 of The Form Letter Machine available for download.

This is still a pretty early beta, so expect some changes before it settles down.

The one thing that i know is clunky is the way variables are saved and loaded.

I also need to include a nice sample configuration tree - if anyone wants to make some and send them to me for inclusion in the next release i would appreciate it.  maybe some general purpose ones?

37084

Living Room / Re: Avoid bad software versions by reading their forums

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 03:32 AM »

i agree, visiting the forum for a program can be a great way to see how it treats its customers.
and of course the lack of a forum is a bad sign.

the only thing you have to remember is that for many programs, the only people who post on the forum are those having trouble; so a forum which is mostly empty except for some people with problems should not nesc. dissuade you from purchasing a program.

37085

Find And Run Robot / Re: Find and Run launches with SFN - Opera problems

« Last post by mouser on May 25, 2005, 01:35 AM »

fascinating, i never heard of that problem, but it makes sense.

i will try to add an option to handle this, or else make it always use Long File Name version.. i can't remember the exact reason i use SFN.

37086

The Form Letter Machine / ps. regarding use for donationcoder.com emails

« Last post by mouser on May 24, 2005, 08:35 AM »

anyone who has exchanged emails with me through donationcoder.com knows that i tend to write long chatty emails.

and i have tried hard to NOT just send off pure form letters when welcoming people to donationcoder.com.

but of course it would be insane to retype the standard information that i send welcoming people to the site.  and yet that is what i was often doing.  other times i would keep notes and copy and paste certain instructions for people who had not yet joined the forum, and other info for people who had, etc.

so this program was motivated by my desire to be able to more easily welcome people appropriately to the site, allow me to customize the email i send, and give me more time to add personal notes without having to spend my time rewriting boilerplate info or cutting and pasting from my notes.

in short, i hope this will allow me (and others who have similar needs) to write to people in a *more* personal way, by eliminating the time spent doing brainless copy+paste operations from templates, and making it easier to add custom content.

37087

The Form Letter Machine / Re: TEASER: New Program Coming..

« Last post by mouser on May 24, 2005, 08:31 AM »

web page is up so the suspense is over

37088

Living Room / Re: Cool short videos for the weekend

« Last post by mouser on May 24, 2005, 02:33 AM »

higher resolution of bobafet video, plus a remix video with video of dj chris (singer),
plus some other star wars music video (ive listened to bling bling about 20 times so far, its very addictive).

ed: forgot the link!
http://www.windspire.../download.php?list.2

37089

The Form Letter Machine / Re: TEASER: New Program Coming..

« Last post by mouser on May 24, 2005, 02:27 AM »

nope, nothing to do with the web.

37090

Find And Run Robot / Re: Skinning?

« Last post by mouser on May 24, 2005, 02:21 AM »

it's definitely supposed to remember its size and position - i can imagine that would be very annoying if it didn't.
sounds like this may be a problem relating to it not finding its options.

i will add AppRocket to the help file.

i think that users of F&R have waited patiently for an update, and im just going to finish this latest program ive been working on and i will try to spend a few days tweaking F&R sometime in the next 2 weeks.

thanks for your patience everyone.

37091

Living Room / Re: Cool short videos for the weekend

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 11:19 PM »

cute

37092

Unfinished Requests / Re: IDEA: auto move dialog boxes nearer to mouse cursor

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 10:53 PM »

hey guys, just a friendly reminder,
try not to remove content from posts after someone has replied to them; if you feel need to retract or edit, just post a follow up, or edit the post and add a note about how you changed your mind, etc.  but if you delete stuff it makes the rest of the thread very confusing.

ps.
some of you (cough cough scott cough cough) are managing to scare the hell out of me by doing little clever hacks to their avatars and signatures and stuff   please limit such things to april fool's day as it confuses the hell out of me and makes me think the forum software has been hacked

37093

Unfinished Requests / Re: Idea

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 08:27 PM »

im not sure i understand exactly what you want the program to do.
i'm pretty sure it's outside the scope of a coding snack, but maybe if you could elaborate what you are interested in, someone here may know of an existing way to do what you want.

37094

Coding Snack Guidelines / Re: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES / OWNERSHIP OF SUBMITTED PROGRAMS

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 08:25 PM »

37095

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: Report Folder Info Including Max Path Depth

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 08:20 PM »

coding snacks download page has been updated with v1.05

37096

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: modify system path (System Path Commander)

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 08:20 PM »

coding snacks downlload page has been updated.

37097

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Automatic Copy when highlighted

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 10:53 AM »

addon does this when inside firefox: https://addons.mozil.../moreinfo.php?id=383

37098

The Form Letter Machine / Re: TEASER: New Program Coming..

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 10:38 AM »

absolutely not - i am not into spam

37099

Living Room / Re: Cool short videos for the weekend

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 08:52 AM »

quite cool,
but i have to say these these 3d desktop things look MIND-BOGGLINGLY HORRIBLE to actually use.

writing notes on the back of a window - HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH - that has to be the stupidist user interface concept ever to actually get implemented.  if that's a good idea, i have a better one for them, how about you push a button and a little animated dog comes on the screen, then you zoom in and use your handwriting tablet to write a note on a biscuit, and feed the biscuit to the dog who eats it.  then, when you're using an app and want to see any notes you made about the app, you blow a whistle into the microphone, and the dog will come running (in 3d of course), then you have to feed him some special medecine, which will make him go to the bathroom.  he will do his business on each window, with the proper note being defecated on each window.  better yet, make him do his business on the back of each window, which you can tehn rotate in 3d to see it.

37100

The Form Letter Machine / TEASER: New Program Coming..

« Last post by mouser on May 23, 2005, 06:22 AM »

"The Form Letter Machine"

anyone want to try to guess what it does?