Recent Posts

6726

Finished Programs / Re: MP3 Player

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 25, 2005, 10:08 AM »

How about dbpowerAmp at http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dbpoweramp.htm and with downloads at http://www.download....audio&tag=button

6727

Post New Requests Here / Re: GIF animator

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 08:33 PM »

I know of a few programs, but I don't know any free ones. The ones that spring to mind are included with Adobe Photoshop and PaintShop Pro. The one with Paintshop Pro (now sold by Corel) is available fairly cheaply I think as a standalone app.

Xara Xtreme can also do this really easily (and is now a mature and excellent graphics package - comparable with Adobe Illustrator for vector graphics but also includes bitmap editing - not particulaarly cheap). I think in the new year I will contact Xara and see if I can negotiate a discount on some of their products. They also do a screensaver generator - but it is template based rather than doing what you want here).

Not sure but I think CamStudio can output SWF files, and certainly KoolMoves can (not expensive for what it does).

I haven't got QuickTime Pro installed at the moment but I seem to remember that can export falsh files to, or is this just my imagination?

ACDSystems (of ACDSee fame) used to produce a nice program called FotoAngelo which generates screensavers very easily from image sequences and is quite customizable, but I am not sure if it is still available. (Seems to be available on a lot of the shareware sites at $29.95 with a free trail version).

Sorry I can't be more definite, there are still a lot of apps that I haven't reinstalled since my system reformat and I am reluctant to spend too much time on reinstallation at the moment as I have had a number of BSODs recently. I suspect these are a result of installing Outpost 3, but they released an updated version so I will give that a good try before I decide whether I should do a clean reinstall with a different firewall.

6728

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto website loginer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 05:18 PM »

Yes but if you ever clean up your system you may well decide to delete the cookies and lose your logins, and if you have a system crash and have to reinstall you lose them. Add to that RoboForm gives you a way to manage them neatly amongst other things.

6729

General Software Discussion / Re: Mobysaurus V2 -encyclopedic, authoritative free English thesaurus and dictio

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 10:19 AM »

Hmmm ... Roget's Thesaurus was actually produced in the UK ... any chance of including support for an open source UK dictionary if we can find one?

Interesting biography on Dr Peter Mark Roget here. As well as publishing his Thesaurus, he seems to have discovered the principle of persistence of vision and published a paper along with Joseph Plateau and Michael Faraday in 1820, the basis for the later movie industry !!!

6730

General Software Discussion / Re: Celestia-free space simulation-very cool stuff

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 08:52 AM »

Looks really nice. I have both Distant Suns and RedShift on my system. DistantSuns also has a nice free version (which tempts you to buy the CD version.

6731

General Software Discussion / Re: Mobysaurus V2 -encyclopedic, authoritative free English thesaurus and dictionary

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 08:45 AM »

Looks really nice ...

Can I just ask as it isn't mentioned anywhere, are these entirely US spelling versions or does it include standard English spellings (ie. UK)

6732

Living Room / Re: Mary X-mas to...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 24, 2005, 04:33 AM »

Yes - Happy Christmas all ... it has been great to discover DonationCoder.com this year and all the great folks posting here occasionally and regularly.

Thanks particularly to Mouser for all his hard work, and to all the others who have given such great input to the the site content: programs, reviews and articles. Let's look forward to 2006 with anticipation ...

6733

Living Room / Re: nudone's new pc

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 23, 2005, 05:20 AM »

Wow - that is big! You aiming for a video wall?

6734

ProcessTamer / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.03.01 - December 22, 2005

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 22, 2005, 09:07 AM »

Thanks that's great

6735

Dr.Windows / Re: Sorry, I don't approve

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 22, 2005, 09:04 AM »

Reminds me of a prank I once pulled on a friend ...

I received a chain letter (from another friend) which I thought was hilarious. I doctored it to make it even sillier and funnier.

The thrust of the letter was that a group of animal rights activists had a load of Gibbons to find homes for. They planned to deliver them to the recipent of the letter at midnight in the back of an Ice Cream van playing La Cucurracha. The letter finished off with comment that if all went well there would be a fresh supply of ocelots the following week. (it was  much longer and more elaborate and very silly but you get the idea).

I couldn't honestly believe anyone would take this seriously but my friends family stayed up until midnight waiting for the ice cream van and reported the prank to the police! The police took a photocopy (I can guess why) and told them not to worry.

Just goes to show it is sometimes difficult to guage people's sense of humour.

6736

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: pandora.com - Internet radio for EVERY taste! FREE!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 22, 2005, 08:36 AM »

Looks very slick and nice but I couldn't find any classical music at all. I tried entering Beethoven Symphonies and all I got out was Jazz and Blues.

6737

Living Room / Re: nudone's new pc

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 22, 2005, 04:58 AM »

i've solved the problem - just ordered one of these 'Eizo s2410w 24" widescreen LCD monitor' http://www.eizo.com/...lcd/S2410W/index.asp.

-nudone (December 22, 2005, 04:27 AM)

You married?? I'm looking for somebody rich!

OO I forgot - you aren't any more.

This is going to be one nice beastie of a machine when you've finished ...

6738

Living Room / Re: Website for viewing software other people use...check it out

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 22, 2005, 03:51 AM »

Audible 5 Manager - updated

I got a response from TechSupport (only took them two weeks) over issues with Audible 5 software.

Apparently there is a new version out. I only knew because they told me. By trial and error I discovered that even though the automatic update doesn't detect it even when run manually you can force the update.

If you are using Audible manually run update and tick Audible Manager. Even though it says there is no update (and it isn't reflected in the final version number installed) they have actually updated the software so that CD burning now seems to work (well sort of). It's all a bit frustrating as if you have short programs to record it will only let you burn one per disc. You can select 3 or 4 short programs and add them to the burn list but only the first item gets burned.

I would say stick to iTunes for burning until it is finally sorted out - not that I use CDROMs much now my Zen Micro is finally supported.

6739

Living Room / Re: an idea: sponsoring an open source smf (simlemachines.org forum) mod or two

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 21, 2005, 09:19 AM »

I would really like a bookmarking system for the forum - similar to "watched threads" in usenet terms (possibly incorporated into the UNREAD POSTS view), and a combined user login system for the whole site would be great.

6740

Official Announcements / Re: Change to Official License Key Policy

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 21, 2005, 08:54 AM »

Personally I would favour the idea of a none expiring license just for website registration, with obvious comments about donation support needed included in the help files and the 'About' screen. On that basis it would make sense to make registration at the website mandatory to use the programs. You aren't actually asking people then to do anything other than consider contirbuting to the community here - if people don't want to they don't need to do anything more and they can opt out of newsletters if they never want to hear any more.

I do suspect, however, that if people find programs useful they will at least return for updates, so why not include an optional update notification system into the programs, then at least people who never come back to the site will have a reason.

Maybe the need for donations could be spelt out a bit more on the actual download pages ... eg. "During the last year there have been x new releases of this software and y new features (see program history for details). To continue this level of support we need some financial help in the form of donations etc.... ). Maybe this should be seen before actually hitting the download button and maybe an antileech type system should be introduced to stop direct links without going via the proper pages ??

Sorry - shooting from the hip slightly.

I do think a survey to see if licensing has actually made any difference to donating would be useful. For me it hasn't because I would donate occasionally even without licenses.

If you make surveys too long and involved people give up (at least I do). Something short and snappy is what's needed, and no more than one page - I really hate those surveys that you never know if it is going to end ...

6741

Official Announcements / Re: Change to Official License Key Policy

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 21, 2005, 05:43 AM »

the downsides would be:
1) need to keep around older releases for people to download

Why? If all nags expire after a year then people using a release over a year old won't see nags. Don't really see why you need to keep ancient downloads available. If you feel the need then the simple answer is not to bother with licenses at all.

Is there any evidence that requiring licenses actually makes any difference to fund raising or participation? It is sobering to see how many people sign up to the site (presumably to get a license key) but then don't want to participate.

How about simpler licensing system - all programs require registration with a valid email address. A user would start the program and it asks you to register (or install a previous registration file if none is found) with an explanation of what the site is about and privacy etc. On registration they receive website user details and a link to the website to collect their global software key (so only need to register one program to register them all). Once a universal key is installed on the system (either in a standard play like C:\Windows, C:WinNT or as a registry key or in a user specified location) all other programs would instantly register themselves on the users system with no internet interaction. The registration system could also supply a link to a webpage to complete the registration if the user doesn't have internet access on that machine then it isn't a problem.

Then direct all help and support requests via the website in the Help Menu. This would have the added advantage of a central documentation location.

I realise you may not want to change things at this point, but this system would have the merit that all users have to register with the site to use the program (not exactly an onerous request) and this is a one off quick step.

6742

Living Room / Re: nudone's new pc

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 21, 2005, 05:24 AM »

Boot up and shutdown speed are (IMHO) more to do with the newness of the installation. I find Windows boot time deteriorates over time. I also find that application launching seems to suffer over time.

Having just reinstalled my computer it is very nice to have nippy boot times. Plus I can now load my TV (Intervideo WinDVR) in a couple of seconds - it used to take about 15 seconds to load and become active - which I suspect is more to do with registry bloat rather than any other optimizations.

6743

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall SPECIAL INTRO PRICING $14.95

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 21, 2005, 05:19 AM »

Not sure,at that price though i purchased a license,going to install in a minute,give it a test drive.It's difficult finding
a firewall these days as other threads have made the point.I'm going to bang on it a while.
...Here goes nothing (or everything )

Ah,at the bottom of this page,the chart implies a free version is still availible
http://www.sunbelt-s...ftware.com/Kerio.cfm

-tinyvillager (December 20, 2005, 05:38 PM)

Let us know how you get on.

6744

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall SPECIAL INTRO PRICING $14.95

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 05:16 PM »

Have they dropped the free version then?

6745

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: "Stop Me From Closing It" - prevent easy closing of a program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 05:14 PM »

Just pointing out for those that didn't know that it is built in as standard in Maxthon.

6746

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk 20% online discount

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 05:02 PM »

Also trade in prices of 35% off. Full promo details:

Make everything on your computer faster. Make it more reliable. No more freezes and crashes. Make it Perfect - The first time.

PerfectDisk is the only solution that completely consolidates free space in a single pass, is Microsoft certified, uses SMARTPlacement (patented file placement that reduces the rate of fragmentation), completely defrags multi-terabyte drives, has x64 boot-time defragmentation, and requires only 5% free space to run.

And here's the best part............

No Pro or Premium edition needed! No Enterprise edition required! No higher cost to get exactly what you need! PerfectDisk v7.0 just does it all. As a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, Raxco's goal is to provide our customers with award winning solutions that are just as easy to buy as they are to use. 

Everyday, thousands of home and corporate users choose PerfectDisk as their solution for disk fragmentation. The United States Patent and Trademark Office just purchased PerfectDisk for 10,500 workstations. Press release: USPTO Selects PerfectDisk v7.0

 If you own a competitive defrag solution, trade up to PerfectDisk. Don't pay the high upgrade fees, just to get what has always been included in PerfectDisk. Visit our Trade-In Center to receive up to a 35% trade up discount.   For enterprise license trade-ins, give me a call.   

• The fastest option is to purchase directly from our Download Store. (* use code: SY2005 for a 20% online discount)
• For volume purchases, use the Volume License Calculator (* use code: BB2005  for a 25% online volume discount)     
• To purchase a CD shipped from one of our resellers such as CDW, Provantage or Amazon, click: CD from Authorized Reseller.
• PerfectDisk can also be purchased from US retail stores such as COMPUSA, Fry's and OfficeMax.

* Promo codes will expire on December 31st and do not apply to previous purchases.

For enterprise volume license options, please contact me directly so that I can put you in touch with the enterprise license team. They have the expertise to provide you with the exact price and solution to fit your needs.
If you have any questions, please let me know. Anything I can do to help is just an email or phone call away.

Wendy Clontz
Global Windows Sales
Raxco Software, Inc.
Toll Free (800) 546-9728
Direct: (301) 519-7806
[email protected]
Web: www.raxco.com

6747

General Software Discussion / Re: How fast is Microsoft? (Re: Has any one held off on upgrading to Firefox 1.5?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 09:16 AM »

OK no one is forcing you to upgrade - but there is a pressure to do so, especially on businesses who receive documents in latest formats. True you can specify which format to save in but lots of people don't, files appear on the internet (not least on MS's own website) that can't be opened with earlier versions.

Doesn't alter the underlying question though - why is it necessary to produce the annual upgrade when it adds at best extremely limited additional functionality?

6748

General Software Discussion / Re: How fast is Microsoft? (Re: Has any one held off on upgrading to Firefox 1.5?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 08:59 AM »

Try opening an Office 2003 file in Office 95 ....

You could argue that MS only 'extended' HTML, XHTML etc. for webpages - but an awful lot of webpages can only be viewed properly in Internet Explorer - even though many other browsers are standards compliant.

6749

Living Room / Re: nudone's new pc

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 08:56 AM »

Just thaink of your RAID 0 as a double capacity faster hard disc - and treat it exactly the same way you would treat a normal hard disc. There really isn't anything mystical about RAID ...

Call him Stripes if it helps

6750

General Software Discussion / Re: How fast is Microsoft? (Re: Has any one held off on upgrading to Firefox 1.5?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 20, 2005, 08:52 AM »

Slightly off topic, but somewhat related.  You have to admit that this is a good thing for microsoft and mozilla, oh and the end-user

IE7 to use same RSS Icon as FF

-jazper (December 20, 2005, 08:46 AM)

Except that there is already evidence that MS wants to alter RSS standards to their own ends - and then we'll be back to the same problems of browser compatability etc.