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4476

Living Room / Re: One Year Later: What we love & hate

« Last post by app103 on July 19, 2007, 11:58 AM »

July 19, 2007:

It is exactly one year later, to the day, since I originally started this thread.

I thought it would be fun to see how much things have changed since then.

New things:

We love: SuperCopier collectorz.com's applications Jesus Coding in C++Builder the maverick attitude in the RkUnhook help file Colorado lots of customization FARR buying... well, everything on eBay pocket watches criticism Opera to troubleshoot Tuffmail using WordPerfect Canon scanners making juice drinks my student id google webapps Easter Islands statues DC mugs its content capture facilities this program people making bold claims without making any reference to which platform they tested it on this game being able to customize stuff to know about other cultures, countries and people from outside my little circle to point out how greedy and awful Microsoft can be Editpad Pro EverNote that there is also "JABOD" the fact that you can select options on one tab and move to another and set more without resetting the previous the Bulk Rename Utility

We hate: draggable toolbars amatuer porn rebooting Photoshop's UI throwing anything away inputting data probabilities Norton talking on the phone Apple/Mac mean people most typography on the web being 15 to see them fight like that proprietary shit when people do that that big-ass PATA cable coding Adobe and all their programs to disagree dead space on stage systems golf .NET apps to continue to rely upon it having to hunt down where an application stores its various parts and pieces adopey stuff when the small devs get pirated to create Backup to travel for each category or list trying to find that station to throw that money out of the window to miss the discount

Things that didn't change:

We still love: Process Tamer this idea

We still hate: paint the idea of canned responses having a desktop full of shortcuts

This is still only using the first page, just like before.

Very strange that Cody still didn't make the love list....again!  

Speaking of Cody...

what i want to know is..
how long will it take before Cody has his own website?

-mouser (July 19, 2006, 04:02 PM)

Stat scripts can be fun, for example Homokaasu's Gematriculator says donationcoder.com is 35% evil and 65% good.
 

-Edvard (July 19, 2006, 01:13 PM)

We are now 30% evil, 70% good. We get better with age.  

4477

General Software Discussion / Re: 2007 Shareware Industry Award Winners

« Last post by app103 on July 19, 2007, 10:46 AM »

Never heard MS Office (Best Business Application or Utility) referred to as 'Shareware'!!! 

-dbrosius (July 19, 2007, 10:41 AM)

The latest version is, technically, since you can download it and install it and try it without having to pay first.

Previous versions that were available on a disk only, where you had to buy it first, are not.

FolderMatch?! Sure, it's "ok" (I even own a licence for it) but c'mon! It hasn't been updated in over two years ...

-Darwin (July 19, 2007, 08:31 AM)

Programs should have been released within 16 months of the current nominations. Any program that has won in the past must have had a fairly significant upgrade in order to be nominated again.

-http://www.siavoting.com/procedures.php

hmmmm... 

This is the first time I hear from this, is there a freeware equivalent?

-justice (July 19, 2007, 07:44 AM)

I was looking over the lists of winners, past & present, and spotted some that were definitely freeware.

Things like IrfanView, Inno Setup, ICQ, WinAmp 2x, PADgen, Google Mobile, Picasa, Yahoo Messenger, Google Earth, Mozilla Firefox, Open Office, Miranda IM, Pidgin, Mozilla Thunderbird.

And one puzzles me: Microsoft Media Player aka Windows Media Player. (winner in 2005 & nominated 2006)

Can you really try before you buy? According to the rules, you have to be able to try before you buy, for it to be considered eligible.

The media player is part of Windows and you have to buy Windows first in order to get it...then you have an option to upgrade for free when they release a new version.

Or are they calling it freeware, since you pay for Windows and they toss in the media player for free?

Can anyone clarify which it really is, technically?



^{I say we should all nominate FARR next year.} 

4478

Living Room / Re: Flash Game of the day - Get The Glass

« Last post by app103 on July 19, 2007, 09:25 AM »

hmmm...I think there is a good reason why I don't have a drivers license. 

4479

General Software Discussion / Re: Encrypt single file?

« Last post by app103 on July 18, 2007, 05:51 PM »

Maybe you could talk Martin into adding the command line features you want/need to Ligare.

4480

Developer's Corner / Re: Lua programming language

« Last post by app103 on July 17, 2007, 07:26 PM »

...and?

-f0dder (July 17, 2007, 07:13 PM)

...and I think zaine maybe is suggesting we have another section in the developer's corner (not associated with the programming school) to discuss specific languages?

4481

General Software Discussion / Re: Am I the only one who hates smooth scrolling?

« Last post by app103 on July 17, 2007, 01:45 PM »

What could you do with Ctrl+Scroll ??  - because I can do nothing! What feature has been / should be / are connected to Ctrl+Scroll?

 

-Curt (July 17, 2007, 01:27 PM)

Try it in your browser window. It should change the size of text. It's very handy when some site insists on using a font size you'd need a microscope to read.

But count your mouse 'notches' and undo it by that many in the opposite direction, or all sites you look at after will be affected too.

4482

Living Room / Geocaching: A treasure hunt, the high-tech way

« Last post by app103 on July 17, 2007, 11:18 AM »

Fun for the whole family. 

Grab your GPS device and your kids and go have some geeky fun this coming weekend.

You never know what you will find.

http://www.csmonitor...716/p18s02-hfes.html

4483

General Software Discussion / Re: Am I the only one who hates smooth scrolling?

« Last post by app103 on July 17, 2007, 10:34 AM »

Sorry, I cannot explain smooth scrolling better than that: When you put a page in motion, it won't stop right after you stop scrolling, but keep scrolling for a while (like due to inertia). I can't find better English words for that.

Completely, totally brain-dead idea. Sucks big time. In every app.

-alxwz (July 16, 2007, 08:03 PM)

Is that what that is? And here I thought all along that it was just my slow WinME pc that couldn't keep up with how fast I was scrolling. Now I know what to look for and turn off. Thanks.

(not that it matters any more since the mouse on that pc lost the ability to scroll)

You know what took a long time to get used to, and I am still not 100% used to it yet?

You know how a normal mouse, the wheel clicks...so you can actually count the 'notches' that you scroll? I have a mouse without that...smooth wheel...no clicks. I can't ctrl+scroll any more. 

4484

Best E-mail Client / Re: Best IMAP Client

« Last post by app103 on July 15, 2007, 11:38 PM »

Not tried the rules bit in any of them but I think outlook express can forward on a rule.

-iphigenie (July 15, 2007, 09:32 AM)

It seems to be able to do this with the regular inbox folder, but not with any of the IMAP inboxes, or at least I haven't figured out how to do it.

4485

General Software Discussion / Re: djvu: an alternative to scanned pdfs?

« Last post by app103 on July 15, 2007, 07:19 PM »

This format is only good for image files...scans.

Seems like it would be best for all those out of print public domain works. It would save much time from the furrent method of OCR and saving just the text, by eliminating the need for proof-reading. And the small drawings in many of them wouldn't end up lost as they do with the current method of saving just the text.

I was just thinking about old sheet music too. And antique childrens books.

4486

Best E-mail Client / Re: Best IMAP Client

« Last post by app103 on July 14, 2007, 12:04 AM »

I have an AOL account and with that comes 4 choices for email:

1. Use their bloated proprietary ISP software which comes with a browser, instant messenger, etc. I don't want to do this because email links open in their built in browser and not my default browser and I get annoying security messages from the built in IM client (and my regular one) about being logged in multiple times, each time I switch screen names to check all 4 mailboxes (It's almost like having noisy popups that can't be blocked).

2. Use their webmail with the browser of my choice. It's slower than a constipated snail. I don't like how it handles image attachments, it messes up the file names and animated .gif files just don't save correctly for some reason, and sending mail can be a pain. It has no ability to send inline image attachments and the receivers of my emails complain about images that should be in the email ending up in a zip file instead.

3. Use some software or service to convert the webmail to POP3. At first this seems like it would be the best solution, but this makes email take forever to retrieve if there is a lot or they have attachments, and sending email with embedded images seems to always result in it added as an attachment and not how it is intended to look. Not only that, but if I get some spam with something nasty as an attachment it will automatically end up on my PC when I download my mail and I'll have to clean that up. I'd rather not.

4. Get yourself an email client that supports IMAP. I have been using OE with it and it's much faster than the POP3 solutions and I don't have to worry about attachments from unknown sources as the attachments are not downloaded till I choose to do it, but I would love to have a better IMAP application, that possibly could take the mail from there (based on some rules) and automatically forward everything (with attachments) to my gmail account so I will have everything in one place.

Now I would just notify people of my gmail address and just have them send everything there and not worry about AOL mail at all, but I am on a few private 'AOL Only' mailing lists that will only send to you if it's an AOL email address. On top of it, I am having a problem with Ebay not wanting to allow me to change my email address on my account to one that isn't ISP based, so I am stuck with it being AOL or Verizon. (I have never used my Verizon email address for ANYTHING and I don't plan to start)

Which brings me to my ongoing quest to find the perfect free email client that can handle IMAP and do that forwarding thing, how I want it.

4487

Official Announcements / Re: DC-IRLDD #2: DonationCoder Real Life Dinner+Drinks, Sat 7/14, Champaign Illinois

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2007, 11:17 AM »

I plan on destroying said bookcase, but shhhh, dont tell mouser

-Josh (June 22, 2007, 01:45 PM)

josh can plan all he wants, my plan is to have snipers on the rooftop awaiting his arrival.

-mouser (June 22, 2007, 04:17 PM)

OK now....

Who will be the survivor? 

Josh or mouser?

Josh	mouser
military experience	brains
government trained killer	home turf advantage
will be tired from traveling	will be well rested
day person	night person

I have $1 in credits for the survivor. (I'll double it if it's mouser )

In the event, both or neither survive, the $1 will go to Cody.

4488

Living Room / Re: Flash game/fun: The Cadaver Calculator

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2007, 09:28 AM »

$6325 

-app103 (July 12, 2007, 01:16 PM)

App, that is because you are perfect...Anyone who can sqeeze out of an old machine what you are able to must be just this side of Christ himself... 

-steeladept (July 12, 2007, 01:48 PM)

Uhhh...no. More like the Dr. Dolittle of old WinME pc's. 

If you listen to your pc, it will tell you what it likes and doesn't like. Just work with it and you'll find the perfect combo that allows you and your machine to get along like best friends. 

You will probably end up with a loyal machine that only you can use, that will misbehave when someone else stands too close to it. 

Now getting back to the subject of why I am worth 'so much'...

Internally, I am kind of a freak of nature with a little something extra...something that more than qualifies me to become a living organ donor...and then end up perfectly normal, like everyone else afterward, except for a scar.

I wasn't born with 2 kidneys like everyone else. I was born with 3...and I am not a twin. It is quite rare. Usually things like this only happen on rare occasion to identical twins, where one is born with 1 kidney and the other born with 3. It is even more rare to happen where there is no twin involved.

Nobody knew I had it till I was about 7 years old and ended up in the hospital with a kidney infection in the extra one. It took them about 3 weeks to figure out what was going on, what that strange shadow in the x-rays was, and I was a bit of a medical celebrity while I was there.

4489

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it possible to search for rogue font types in a Word document?

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2007, 08:52 AM »

You could try using Skrommel's little tool, Used Fonts, which shows what fonts are in use by a Microsoft Word document.

Features:
- Run it to show a file selection dialog, or drag and drop a doc file on it.

4490

Living Room / Re: By the time you read this, Internet Radio will be dead

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2007, 08:38 AM »

Correction: By the time your read this American internet radio will be dead.

If this is over the Copyright Royalty Board increases, it will only serve to drive internet radio stations out of the US. The scope of this law only affects broadcasters within the US borders. They have no legal jurisdiction to pass laws affecting broadcasters in any other country.

This will drive many of the broadcasters to 'officially' set up shop in another country, such as Canada and Mexico, where this law applies to nobody.

4491

Living Room / Re: Flash game/fun: The Cadaver Calculator

« Last post by app103 on July 12, 2007, 01:16 PM »

$6325  

4492

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: perform random URL queries (Random Submitter)

« Last post by app103 on July 12, 2007, 12:58 AM »

But if these tools became a lot more widely used, it would cause what I would call a 'Halloween Effect"

If you were going on a 'witch hunt' for 'real witches' and assumed that all 'real witches' wore 'tall black hats and capes'...what would be the one day of the year that you wouldn't want to go hunting? Halloween.

You would end up rounding up so many innocent people in costume, that you'd be wasting your time.

The goal of these bogus searches for 'bomb making' stuff  is to make every day Halloween by dressing up everyone as a 'terrorist'. If it is done right and the government knows so many people do this then how reliable are they going to think any of the data is?

4493

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: perform random URL queries (Random Submitter)

« Last post by app103 on July 12, 2007, 12:37 AM »

I was helping someone dig up some stuff for a school assignment, where he has to give a presentation about Google and privacy issues, and came across this thread.

If we all are tainting the database with bogus searches using all the red flagged bad keywords, then they wouldn't know who is really doing searches for this stuff and who isn't.

I think the purpose of it isn't really to hide your searches in the mess of bogus ones as to make the data unreliable to find people that really search for this stuff.

If Google ever complied with an order to turn over the IP's of everyone searching for anything bomb related and if half of everyone that uses Google was running something that submitted a search that matched, then half of all Google users would have their IP in that list...and it would be obvious that the data couldn't be trusted, and therefore tossed out as being useless.

I think that is the point of using bad keywords. The likelihood of the government wanting any result data would be more for those keywords first...and if they succeed with that, then they move on to other keywords...which has a higher privacy concern for ordinary people.

Screw up the data for the bad words and you send the message that the data can't be trusted ever...for any keywords.

4494

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Snailware: Newer Software for Older Slower PC's

« Last post by app103 on July 11, 2007, 06:18 PM »

rjbull: my first 2 software articles were related to antivirus solutions that will work for 9x. Both background scanning and layering it with on demand/per file scanning, using 2 different scanners that are still supporting 9x...and are free.

Then topping that off with a more secure browser (one that will offer you security patches if they are needed, even if you are running 9x).

Firewalls were something I was going to get into, as well as antispyware solutions.

For now, I suggest getting Spybot and using the vaccination feature, then running a weekly scan with that (when you are not using the pc for something else). Don't use the background scanning on an old slow computer.

I also would suggest either the last free version of Sygate, Kerio, Tiny, or ZoneAlarm 4 (turn off the email scanning in it or it can clash with your antivirus' email scanning)

A real firewall doesn't need to download definitions from the company to do its job. That stuff is unrelated to the actual firewall, itself.

That stuff was added when they decided to make a combo product that does the job of a firewall...and anti-malware scanner.

If they are no longer going to give you anti-malware protection, you can use other products for that and use an older version that is a firewall only.

I don't really like most of the combo products available. Most of the time they take a good product that is good at one thing and add features that they are not so good at.

Would you rather have the best firewall and the best antivirus? or a great antivirus with a not so great firewall? or a great firewall with a not so great antivirus.

I would rather have the best of each...seperately.

4495

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: InstantBoss - For those of us which require motivation to work

« Last post by app103 on July 11, 2007, 05:07 PM »

I'll be working on it again very soon and i'll see what I can do about all that. (and add some cool new features too  )

4496

Developer's Corner / Re: Create web2.0 style stripe textures online with this fun tool

« Last post by app103 on July 10, 2007, 04:54 PM »

If you had no self-respect and really wanted to grow donation coder, all you'd have to do is overlay this website with that special, bubbled shiny "2.0" aesthetic, throw in some stripes, and sub-title this website.  "Donation Coder -- The Web 2.0 Software Distribution Model" and the hounds would come.

-allen (July 05, 2007, 08:05 AM)

Look very carefully at the background of this page.
There are 2 different stripe patterns here. 

4497

Skrommel's Software / Re: [Idee] GroupStarter

« Last post by app103 on July 10, 2007, 06:38 AM »

I had a discussion with Jah about something very similar to this.

He made a tool that works like this:

You create a text file with the path to each file or program you want to launch. One per line.

They are launched in order.

The application accepts 2 command line parameters: the first is how many seconds you want it to wait before it begins launching what is on your list and the second is how many seconds you want it to wait between items.

If you need to launch something with command line parameters, you can configure a shortcut file and add the path to the shortcut.lnk to the list rather than the path to the application itself.

It has no tray icon, no window, doesn't use the registry...just does what it does and exits. (seems to have high cpu usage for some reason, though)

I have a copy of it but I can't distribute it without his permission, and he isn't talking to me. If you would like to try it, you'll have to PM him and ask him to share it.

4498

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: OnScreen Display for Mute Status

« Last post by app103 on July 08, 2007, 07:24 AM »

app103 & lanux128,
You can set some tray icons to always be shown (never autohidden). Right click Start > Taskbar tab > customize.. . Alternatively, Right click Start > Taskbar tab > untick Hide inactive icons for a more general solution.
But I agree with you that this neat script makes it much easier to see when mute is on.

-Nod5 (July 08, 2007, 07:08 AM)

I have all my icons showing...but I don't have my taskbar itself showing (that is what I have on autohide).

4499

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Snailware: Newer Software for Older Slower PC's

« Last post by app103 on July 08, 2007, 01:33 AM »

nudone was kind enough to use his art talent to create a fantastic new Laggy logo for Snailware. 

Laggy looks great and he seems like he is actually happy to be a snail now.

I love it! 

Thanks nudone!

4500

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Snailware: Newer Software for Older Slower PC's

« Last post by app103 on July 07, 2007, 05:38 AM »

Hey, I am just getting started. It's still pretty new and I have a lot of software to cover, in all categories, with plenty of tricks and tweaks to make some of the larger applications more snail friendly.

I had thought of covering everything in basically the order I would install stuff on a fresh install of my OS, beginning with security applications, tweaking tools, and moving on to my Basic Box of Necessities™. But that seems like it could be a bit boring and give the impression of less variety in the type of applications covered by my blog.

So I'll be mixing it up a bit, just to keep it interesting.

That old pc of mine has about 4 gigs of software on it...plenty to keep me busy writing for a long time. And I will be looking for newer tools to replace some of my old ones, as I write about them, which is what happened when I wrote about K-Meleon.(I was going to need a better browser on there in order to do the work I have to with this blog)

There will be plenty of variety and lots of fun stuff...don't you worry. ;-)