Recent Posts

4751

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by app103 on April 02, 2007, 08:48 AM »

I have just made my 1000th post!



I have been here for slightly more than a year. This has become home and you guys have become my family.

Thanks for making it feel like home. 

4752

General Software Discussion / Re: WIRED: more on "why digg failed": herding (mob manipulation)

« Last post by app103 on April 02, 2007, 08:32 AM »

I have never trusted Ebay and so far nothing has been able to change my mind about it.

I have only ever made one indirect purchase (I gave the money to a friend and told him what I wanted to buy him as a gift and had him make the purchase for himself), and I was a bundle of nerves while doing it.

Sure, many of you have had good experiences with it as both buyers and sellers, but that isn't enough for me. With my luck, I would be one to get burned and I can't afford that.

I have had friends suggest that I only purchase from those that have a high seller rating, which as this article says, can be manipulated quite easily.

I believe in the stupidity of crowds...I have seen it happen too many times. It's called the 'sheep effect'...and I don't trust the wisdom of sheep.

So if you are one of those that thinks they can trust sheep, be careful that none of them are really wolves.

And if one of you are one of the sheep, be careful that the sheep in front of you that you are following isn't a wolf, too.


^{(And this is my 1000th post!)}

4753

Living Room / Re: cheap domain name with private registration

« Last post by app103 on April 02, 2007, 07:48 AM »

Just remember you get what you pay for.. well in most cases.. So if you want your site to be stable, don't cheap out on the hosting.. Especially if your site is a business one... 

-mitzevo (April 01, 2007, 09:24 AM)

Had I not had a good reliable year with my cheap host I would not have recommended them....nor would I have decided to pay and stay with them for another year.

4754

Official Announcements / Re: Announcement: DonationCoder.com Has Been Sold to Apple

« Last post by app103 on April 02, 2007, 04:13 AM »

You forgot to mention the real reason why Apple would want DonationCoder:

They want Cody. They heard he is very good at deworming apples. 

4755

General Software Discussion / Re: Fun Quiz

« Last post by app103 on April 02, 2007, 02:06 AM »

6/10 

I could have had 7/10, but I had some bad teachers as a kid.

4756

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free VS 2005 Standard from Microsoft

« Last post by app103 on March 30, 2007, 10:52 AM »

Does that apply for international shipping as well, or is it (as usually) only for people in the .us?

-f0dder (March 30, 2007, 10:30 AM)

Only for people in the US.

4757

General Software Discussion / Re: Portable development IDE/Compiler

« Last post by app103 on March 30, 2007, 01:49 AM »

I mentioned this in the IRC channel earlier today, but I figured I should post it here for everybody else.

There is a way to make Dev-C++ portable:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=417

4758

Developer's Corner / Re: The Hacknot Book (big free pdf ebook) - Essays on software development

« Last post by app103 on March 30, 2007, 01:45 AM »

Thank you for another addition to my ebook site. 

4759

Living Room / Re: Bloons: Flash Game of the Day #2

« Last post by app103 on March 30, 2007, 01:39 AM »

That pacman level is cute. 

4760

Living Room / Re: This is different - visibone printed paper cheatsheets for web design reference.

« Last post by app103 on March 29, 2007, 09:46 AM »

Nice find! 

4761

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Hard Disk Status Graph

« Last post by app103 on March 28, 2007, 06:39 PM »

One of the things I missed when I moved from WinME to XP...

The sidebar pie charts.

I finally found out where they are hiding in XP...and they are a pain to get to compared to ME.

In XP you have to right click the drive in Explorer and select 'properties' to see the chart:



This chart was always showing in the left sidebar in WinME at the root of each drive. Additionally, you could see the chart for each drive when highlighting it in Explorer from My Computer.

Why did they change it like this? I really miss those pie charts. 

4762

General Software Discussion / Re: Alternatives to Google Groups for Usenet?

« Last post by app103 on March 28, 2007, 06:01 PM »

You might want to try here:

http://dmoz.org/Comp...Public_News_Servers/

4763

Developer's Corner / Re: Some ideas for programs, websites, mashups and software projects

« Last post by app103 on March 28, 2007, 01:21 AM »

Cool. Actually pretty cool. But for the one big possibility of it spilling out to serious topics and mainstream media getting involved, it's an excellent idea! So, if you can somehow keep the content under control, you're through.
BTW, ppl see http://urbandictionary.com .... humor + smart observations, crowdsourced (http://en.wikipedia....owdsourcing#Overview).

-2stepsback (March 28, 2007, 12:54 AM)

serious topics...mainstream media...sounds great! 

Keep it under control? Now why would you want to do that?

I believe in the stupidity of crowds. The whole point is for them to be stupid...on your site instead of some place else, like they are already doing...and for them to enjoy it...and you to make money off it. 

4764

Living Room / Re: The First DC Get together Dinner and Drinks event

« Last post by app103 on March 27, 2007, 10:11 PM »

I am so sorry I missed it.  

4765

Living Room / Re: cheap domain name with private registration

« Last post by app103 on March 27, 2007, 08:43 PM »

I got my domain name through idotz and it cost me about $20/yr for a .com (with the extra stuff I added on like privacy and lock service).

And they take paypal too. (this was important to me)

Here is their price list:  http://www.idotz.net/pricing.cfm


Then for hosting, I went with Elected Hosting, which I locked in at a $15/yr subscription (they take paypal only).

The package is very generous:

Plan Includes: Unlimited Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Add-On Domains, Unlimited Email Accounts, Unlimited Sub Domains, Unlimited FTP Accounts, Unlimited MySQL Databases, Fantastico, cPanel, Site Stats, Web Mail, CGI/Perl, PHP/MySQL, Flash Support, FrontPage Extensions, and much more!

Their current price for a hosting subscription is $24/yr. (I am still paying $15 though)

They don't advertise it, but if you contact them at the support email addy and ask about free hosting, you might still be able to get an account with 3 gigs of space and 30 gigs of bandwidth/month for nothing (and no ads!).

It was their 'unadvertised' free hosting deal that caused me to discover them...then I saw how cheap they were and what you got for your money and I didn't bother with the free package...went right for paid hosting, and I have been very happy with it.

4766

Developer's Corner / Re: Some ideas for programs, websites, mashups and software projects

« Last post by app103 on March 27, 2007, 03:31 PM »

OK...idea was originally conceived with a sense of humor, but could actually be a good one...could be profitable...who knows?

People are really into the social stuff...look at blogs, live journal, myspace, digg, etc.

People love drama...they like creating it, being part of it, observing it. (refer to the drama created in flame wars in almost any socially interactive site)

Combine that with the drama created in real life that finds its way online. (refer to all the teens on sites like LiveJournal and MySpace)

Then there is chatroom drama that finds its way to forums. (take a look at any forum related to the winmx chat network)

There is a never ending supply of drama.

Why not create something that takes advantage of it and welcomes visitors to bring their drama to your site? Visitors can create it, participate in it, observe it...and you can monetize it.

The full idea came to me as I was waking from a semi-sound sleep.

I discussed it with a few others in 2 chatrooms. They found the idea funny, but did almost take me seriously. If you want all the details of what I am talking about, refer to the logs of those 2 conversations here:

http://omgplzstfukth.../2006/12/drama2.html

I still think it's a great idea, even if it is funny, and it just might be a good money maker. I am not going to use the idea myself, so you are welcome to it.

Just don't forget to thank me if you make a million...and give me a link to the site so I can see what became of my insane thought. 

4767

Official Announcements / Re: DC-IRLDD: DonationCoder.com Impromptu Real Life Dinner+Drinks, Sat 3/24 Illinois

« Last post by app103 on March 26, 2007, 08:14 AM »

I have had 2 conversations going at the same time with my daughter...one out loud, and one in text on AIM...with her in the same room as me.   

4768

General Software Discussion / Re: how tidy and complete is your music library?

« Last post by app103 on March 26, 2007, 02:13 AM »

I went through the trouble to organize everything all nice & neat by creating a folder for every artist, trying to create a subfolder for every album, labeling the album folders with the release year so they are in chronological order...

Then realized that I was only doing it to be obsessive since it doesn't matter...

Winamp's library will find them no matter what way I organize them and in the end, that is how I find the songs I want to hear.

All of that organizing was a big waste of my time. But for some reason I still feel I have a need to keep doing it and refining it and making it better and more organized.

Maybe I am just bored and need a new hobby. 

4769

Found Deals and Discounts / Game: AxySnake (Game Giveaway of the Day)

« Last post by app103 on March 24, 2007, 02:45 AM »

This is a great 3D snake game that I have enjoyed for a long time.

If you enjoyed the old classic, try it in 3D...You'll love it even more. 

Yours free, today only.

http://game.giveaway...theday.com/axysnake/

4770

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Restart IE

« Last post by app103 on March 21, 2007, 11:02 PM »

I use AOL Explorer

-app103 (March 20, 2007, 02:28 PM)

Question for April / any-one:
Can one disable the Ctrl+RightClick preview feature in AOL Explorer?

-Curt (March 20, 2007, 07:10 PM)

I could never figure out how to get the previews back. They used to be automatic when you hovered over a link, but they took that away in later versions. Thanks for telling me how to get them to work again. 

No, I don't know how to disable that. 

4771

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Restart IE

« Last post by app103 on March 20, 2007, 02:28 PM »

I use AOL Explorer and IEspell together. (you can access anything that is on IE's right click menu in just about any IE based browser)

It has tabbed browsing that is much more stable than IE7 and you don't have to install IE 7 to use it. (you can if you want, but it's not necessary)


It will also allow you to save all open tabs as a folder, and load the entire folder of bookmarks by just right clicking the folder and selecting the option to do that.

I am pretty sure that Maxthon has the same options, too.

4772

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Restart IE

« Last post by app103 on March 20, 2007, 06:22 AM »

I don't think I can do this for IE 7. 

I am sorry you didn't get the notification for the post about that program being free for a day, when I made it.

Maybe this is a coding snack someone else could do, though...just not me.

4773

Find And Run Robot / Re: not freeware !!!

« Last post by app103 on March 18, 2007, 07:27 AM »

Maybe you should look at it from this perspective like I do:

Donationware is not freeware, but you can get it for free.

Donationware is similar to shareware, but you set the price you are willing to pay and think it is worth to you. That amount can be anything from $0 to $billions (I wish).

And not all donationware has nags reminding you that a human worked hard coding it and would be grateful if you supported it.

My stuff just has a link in the about box. And yes, there are graphics & text encouraging donating on all the pages of my website, too.

Part of the problem is that much of our stuff is being distributed on software download sites, and most people that download it from those sites will never see our site, never look in the about box, never know where it really came from, never know there is someone that would appreciate a donation.

The 'nags' are a way to call attention to the fact it is donationware.

I think the real problem is the download sites. They have only 2 choices of licensing when you submit something: shareware, or freeware.

We can't pick shareware, because it's not exactly true, since you can get it for free.  And picking freeware seems to make a few people angry because they don't like being told they can have it for free, but they have to do 'something' simple like get a free key.

I have seen some freeware that refused to work unless it was able to phone home and check for updates. The software would make you return to the site once a month to get a 'new version' that was no different than the previous one, except it has a new number in the about box. Each time you came back to the site you were smacked in the face with tons of ads and had to click and go through about 3-4 pages to get to the link to download the new version. 

So coming to this site 3 times for a key is a lot friendlier than making you come back for a new version every month for the rest of your life and hoping that you'll click an ad by mistake while you are here, just to make $0.02.

4774

Living Room / Re: Choosing a keyboard and a mouse

« Last post by app103 on March 15, 2007, 11:52 PM »

Because of my typing style, the choice of keyboard really isn't that important, as long as it's 'normal' (none of those crazy ergonomic ones for me)

My choice of mouse though...that is important. Most people will develop a bump on their wrist (right where the palm meets the wrist, in line with your pinkie) from mouse use, over time...and it won't bother them any. (it's like the bump you develop on your middle finger from writing) For me, though, it is painful and the skin is prone to friction damage. I had to throw away my mousepad with the gel wrist rest because it was rubbing me badly and causing my skin to crack.

Someone wonderful person gave me a great gift of an ergonomic mouse that keeps that area of my wrist off the desk, and I LOVE it!

It took a little bit to get used to it, but I can't use a regular mouse now...they are much too uncomfortable, in so many ways.

I would say that if you type like a normal person (I don't), that getting a keyboard that you hold your hands in a normal natural position is important...and holding your hand in a normal natural position with your mouse is important too.

I type with 1 hand, and just turning the normal keyboard at an angle works for me.

I like to keep my pet mouse & keyboard on a leash (cord)...keeps them where they belong. 

4775

General Software Discussion / Re: program/trick in file manager to count number of files in a folder (recursive)

« Last post by app103 on March 14, 2007, 07:16 PM »

You mean something like right clicking the folder in Explorer, selecting properties?

It lists how many files...and how many subfolders...and how much space it is taking up.