Recent Posts

8726

Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 08:10 PM »

This is an area where English is simply deficient and Chinese excels. Where a single pronunciation and spelling in English is ambiguous, Chinese characters differ and make the exact meaning clear. We really need to be verbose at times in English in order to not send the wrong message.

e.g. "I am free."

Is that:

* Not a slave
* Have spare time
* Are offering services for no money
* Have freedom to do anything
* Something else?

The "free" software thing is just muddy, and largely in part (I believe) because the vested financial interests for people come to the forefront.

8727

Living Room / Re: Why I love product reviews....written by NON-TECHS

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 10:31 AM »

But non-Techies rarely have useful input though.

That's not the case in some product areas. Higher end cameras are a good example. Consumer level cheap cameras... Yeah... Useless...

8728

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 - press release discussion

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 10:08 AM »

Not tired...

Here's a quick hack. Note that the list section needs serious work -- that's crap. However, the rest is ok, but still in need of some work.

*************************

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

34 New Free Programs at DonationCoder.com Yearly Programming Celebration

Champaign-Urbana, Illinois - January 11, 2011:

DonationCoder.com today posted its annual end-of-year programming event results where site members release new freeware.

Since 2007 over ##0 free programs have been released by DonationCoder (DC) members during its NANY (New Application for the New Year) event. This year 28 developers in the 2011 NANY released 34 new freeware titles that are all available for download at the DC site.

NANY submissions for 2011 covered different user needs ranging from file management and productivity to videos, photos, games, and many more.

DC members and their released software titles for 2011 included:

anandcoral
* Partial Download
* Park Cursor Aside

Apathetic_Coding
* Quick Cliq

CodeTRUCKER
* VeggieSquares

Crush
* Crush Sniffer

daddydave
* TaskDaddy

ecaradec
* FScript2

hamradio
* Color Warlock

hegearon
* SpeedTracker

justice
* The BARD

kamahl
* NetLaunch

kyrathaba
* BlackJack
* NANY Excuse Manager

limelect
* LinkToText

mouser & JavaJones  
* UserQuotes.com

mouser
* Webcam Video Diary

nharding
* DCDisplay

NinJA999
* Speed Monitor

phitsc
* UpdateVersion

pyrohacker
* Goodness

Renegade
* Duplicate Photo Finder

skwire
* List Numberer
* Snap DB
* Ten Timer

Stephen66515
* Llama Tray
* Treat Yourself Nicely

timns
* Auspex
* WhirlyWord

tomos & adi_barb
* AskAPic.com

tranglos
* Ethervane Radio

vlastimil
* CardCreator

worstje
* Cautomaton
* JottiQ

Wraith808
* WordCaster

Software screencasts and tutorials are available at ***URL***.

For more information about the NANY event, visit ****URL***.


About DonationCoder.com
DonationCoder.com is volunteer-funded online community of software developers and end users. It hosts a 100,000+ member discussion forum, a unique micro-donation system, and hundreds of exclusive free applications for public use.


CONTACT INFORMATION:
***ADDRESS***
DonationCoder.com
https://www.donationcoder.com
[email protected]

8729

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 - press release discussion

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 09:26 AM »

Here's a quick title edit:

34 New Free Programs at DonationCoder.com Yearly Programming Celebration

(Sorry -- almost time for bed.)

8730

Developer's Corner / Re: Just How Many Programs Have You Written and Never Released?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 09:21 AM »

I tend to stop working on programs before they are fit to be released. It's not that I abandon them, but it's just that often a program will reach the stage where it's good enough for my purposes and I don't feel like I personally would benefit from the additional work needed to make it releasable.

I'm kind of that way now with a new utility. I could easily hardcode my specific use case now and be done with it. Or I could add a UI to make it more generally useful, but at the cost of a tonne of extra work.

I'm not sure if that's the type of thing you're talking about?

-Eóin (January 10, 2011, 09:16 AM)

Nope. That's exactly what I mean. I do hard coding for things too. One of the reasons that things don't get released. Need a change? Edit the code. Compile. Run. Good enough for what I need.

Even for TINY little things, the cost to make it release quality is immense, and often more than the actual software itself.

8731

Developer's Corner / Just How Many Programs Have You Written and Never Released?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 09:02 AM »

I've written more than I could possibly hope to count. Custom web log analytic software, text utilities, web scraping software, a Flickr uploader... More than I care to list.

It's a thing though. I need to do a task, so I write a program to do it.

Anyone else?

8732

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 - press release discussion

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 08:49 AM »

Please help us get out the word about the NANY2011 wrap up!  Especially to other sites that have readers who might care.

The best url to use when telling people about it is: https://www.donationcoder.com/nany2011

And the best thing you could do is just tell them in your own words why it's a cool thing they might want to tell people about.

-mouser (January 10, 2011, 08:30 AM)

Have you done a press release? PRWeb has some for free still I believe. (Not my place to do that -- I think Perry would be best to compile/write info as he's most involved, but you might want to get someone else experienced to edit and then get a proof -- press releases are tough to do well.)

FB'd it. Will do more though.

8733

Living Room / Re: Why I love product reviews....written by NON-TECHS

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 08:46 AM »

This is a short rant. Sorry, I am in a hurry or it would have been longer/properly spell/grammar checked.

So, while I was browsing amazon.com recently, I noticed one thing. The quality of reviews for products there was a lot higher than that of a few tech sites I frequent. Products are actually reviewed, discussed and the rating system actually used for what it was designed for, to mention if a review was helpful or not.

I've noticed a trend in most TECH reviews in that there is usually a lot of flaming about a specific product, most reviews appear to be from people who have never touched the product or only used it for about a half hour, and these same reviews even sometimes come off as a paid review which was discussed on DC before.

The reviews on Amazon.com, and likewise many other sites similar to it, are actually very well written, most of the times, and the authors take the time to actually put a decent amount of useful information in their reviews. The rating system is actually used to identify helpful reviews which is a huge plus.

That said, why can't techies get it right and start posting reviews that actually have to do with the product. I don't care what your favorite OS is, what grudge you hold against a particular software or product manufacturer, why you feel entitled to something for free, why you think your really flimsy definition of "Value" determines a product be rated a 1 simply because you cannot afford it. I want a review of how the product functions, not it's price, your beliefs on how the product should be developed, or your beliefs on the company behind it. REVIEW THE PRODUCT, not the company.

-Josh (January 10, 2011, 07:59 AM)

+1 Josh!

Well put.

I've noticed a trend in most TECH reviews in that there is usually a lot of flaming about a specific product, most reviews appear to be from people who have never touched the product or only used it for about a half hour, and these same reviews even sometimes come off as a paid review which was discussed on DC before.

That is what pisses me off. So many reviewers do their reviews off of data sheets it seems. Tom's Hardware seems to be the exception.

Regarding:

I want a review of how the product functions, not it's price, your beliefs on how the product should be developed, or your beliefs on the company behind it.

Sometimes those are hard to separate. e.g. Lock-in from some vendors is a very real consideration, and hard to ignore.

8734

Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 08:41 AM »

I posted the free beer question on Quora because I'd love to know the true origin of that expression, myself. 

-app103 (January 10, 2011, 07:45 AM)

I believe that it is a twist on this (from gnu.org):

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.

And has been corrupted. Though I would leave a definitive answer to someone else.

8735

Finished Programs / Re: Utility: Convert Multiple Columns in Excel to a Single Column

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 02:38 AM »

Just for interest sake:

Code: C# [Select]

1. private void textBox1_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
2.         {
3.             this.textBox1.Text = Clipboard.GetText();
4.             this.textBox2.Text = Clipboard.GetText().Replace("\t", this.textBox3.Text);
5.         }
6.  
7.         private void textBox2_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
8.         {
9.             Clipboard.SetText(this.textBox2.Text);
10.         }

Stupidly simple. (Should have error checking and stuff, but meh... whatever...)

8736

Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 02:31 AM »

The original is "Free as in free speech, and not free as in free beer".

-Renegade (January 09, 2011, 11:19 PM)

Even that's not simple enough for the masses. My brother and I once ran a somewhat popular website and when ads weren't providing enough income to cover the site we started to offer paid membership plans. We got a few e-mails complaining about it, one person even said something to the effect of "Why should I have to pay, it's a free country!"

So my point is that even using the word in a context that would imply the correct definition people still confuse it. That's why I strongly recommend something like "Free as in freedom as opposed to free as in price."

-Deozaan (January 10, 2011, 01:29 AM)

That is MUCH clearer. I only meant to quote the origin, which is the source of the confusion.   

I like the "free country" bit. That's just funny that someone really is that stupid. Perhaps a distant cousin of Mrs. Malaprop.

8737

Finished Programs / Re: Utility: Convert Multiple Columns in Excel to a Single Column

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2011, 01:28 AM »

sorry, don't mean to critical, but couldn't you have just used a concatenation formula (=columnA & columnB & columnC)?

you could use a VBA macro to fill it in and paste the values (no dependencies, apart from Excel)

-Target (January 10, 2011, 12:45 AM)

Nope. Not possible. Like I said, "A fellow I work with is not very techno-savvy."

He'd have to do WAY too much BS to get things working. He can copy, and he can paste, and he can click. Macros? Waaaayyyy out. Get him to copy concatenation formulas (and have dependent cells)? Not gonna fly.

Nope. This was a quick hack to help him get column concatenated quickly without any extra information being needed.

It's hard working with anything in Excel given the funky way that Excel works with the clipboard, so there's that extra step to de-focus/de-select in there, but that's the only thing that's kind of icky.

But normally, yeah -- there are many other ways. This is just designed to work for a particular work-style.

8738

Finished Programs / DONE: Utility: Convert Multiple Columns in Excel to a Single Column

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 11:54 PM »

A fellow I work with is not very techno-savvy, and needs to collapse multiple columns in Excel into a single value.

I wrote a little utility to let him copy columns from Excel, paste into the utility, then copy back into a single column in Excel.

UTILITY (Tab Cleaner):


DOWNLOAD:
TabToSpaceCleaner.exe (159.5 kB - downloaded 554 times.)

PURPOSE:
Combine multiple columns (and rows) into a single column.

USAGE:
1) Copy columns (and rows) from MS Excel
2) Click first "PASTE" text box in the program
3) In Excel, double click a cell to deselect
4) Select a cell to paste new value(s)
5) Click second "COPY" text box in the program
6) In Excel, paste the value(s)
7) Done.

To change the separator, change the value in the "Tab Cleaner Text" box, e.g. change " - " to " " or ", " or whatever suits your purpose.

Here's an example showing columns I, J, and combined into column L:




While I'm sure few people here would need it, I'm guessing that someone will find a use.


EDIT (forgot the requirements):

REQUIREMENTS:
Microsoft Windows 2000 or higher
.NET 2.0

8739

General Software Discussion / Re: Word Processor OS

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 11:30 PM »

The first electronic typewriters were like that.

I've not seen anything like it since though.

8740

Living Room / Re: DC Demographics

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 11:29 PM »

results of our survey in 2009:
http://app.sgizmo.co...WYAI2/?ts=1239574715

-mouser (January 09, 2011, 09:45 PM)

Appendix: 18.
What kind of general software categories would you like to see us focus on?
Data Code    Value
26626633    porn browser

Appendix: 19.
Do you have any specific program ideas you'd like to see us work on?
Data Code    Value
26626633    porn browser

Appendix: 24.
We're struggling to think of things we could do to reward supporting members. Can you think of any rewards we could give that would encourage people to make a donation?
Data Code    Value
26626633    sell porn

Hahahaha~! There's at least one in every crowd~!

8741

Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 11:19 PM »

I can 

-Edvard (January 09, 2011, 10:16 PM)

Yeah, I still don't understand the whole "free as in beer" thing. Beer is free?

They need to just say something like "free as in price" to clarify what they mean. Beer doesn't bring either definition of "free" to my mind.

Then again, beer frees you from your money and your inhibitions, so in a way I guess it could be talking about price or freedom (or both).

-Deozaan (January 09, 2011, 10:29 PM)

The whole "free beer" thing only confuses stuff. I don't know how that got started in the confused sense. The original is "Free as in free speech, and not free as in free beer".

8742

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 screencast viewing problem (private youtube)

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 09:07 PM »

Great~!

8743

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 screencast viewing problem (private youtube)

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 08:14 PM »

At the moment I'm getting a Youtube privacy error for all the ones I tried to view (except my own):
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Renegade (January 09, 2011, 08:09 PM)

No, I'm doing it now...

-Perry Mowbray (January 09, 2011, 08:12 PM)

Ooooops... I guess I was a bit quick on the draw there.

8744

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 screencast viewing problem (private youtube)

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 08:09 PM »

At the moment I'm getting a Youtube privacy error for all the ones I tried to view (except my own):

8745

Living Room / Re: Who else is sick of difficult word verifications on the web?

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 07:48 PM »

What I think would be a truly great "captcha", or rather a great Turing test, is to have a little Flash (or Silverlight) application in the browser that uses the webcam to let you give the site the finger, then does a quick video verification of you flipping the site the bird, and a quick hash to store to mark that Turing test result as unique.

Of course you need a webcam, but still, it would be very cool and very fun~!

Who could possibly not smile at being asked to tell a Turing test to f**k off?

8746

Living Room / Re: DC Demographics

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 07:41 PM »

All kidding aside, one question I would very much like to see is: Do you sing or play a musical instrument? 

-40hz (January 09, 2011, 06:56 PM)

That would be a good poll.

NSFW

And no... The blue vein piccolo doesn't count...

For me, guitar. I also play 1-handed keyboard. Badly.

<shameless mode="on">

Check my forum signature~!

</shameless>

8747

Living Room / Re: DC Demographics

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 06:41 PM »

Don't forget to employ Murdoch's Constant.

Murdoch's Constant (mC) = the number that when:

• added to
• subtracted from
• multiplied by
• divided into

the number you scientifically calculated will give you the number you were looking for.

Note: by default, starting value for mC =  the page number. 

-40hz (January 09, 2011, 06:36 PM)

Bwahahahahaha~!

Love it~!

8748

Living Room / Re: DC Demographics

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 06:41 PM »

Hahahahah~!

-Renegade (January 09, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Speaking of which, where's the link to your Vodafone rant
</offtopic>

-4wd (January 09, 2011, 05:40 PM)

Well, I've not really had the time quite yet to do my Aussie telco rant yet, but it's coming~! (There are quite a few things in there, so I've held off until I have time to roll in a few aspects.)

For now, you can find my regular rants here (I'm getting them up about 1x per day or so):

http://cynic.me/

The closest rant I have so far is "Police Send Negative Messages About Australians". Not telcos, but about billboards in Australia. I'm sure you'll be able to relate. (Short version: Public service ads are blatantly insulting.)

8749

Living Room / Re: DC Demographics

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 05:35 PM »

I'd like to help with the useless stuff if someone gets me the numbers at the end of the survey... 

-timns (January 09, 2011, 05:15 PM)

To avoid all the work you could use what we used to call Rigger's Method.

ie. Just make up the numbers and base your conclusions on them.

The MPAA/RIAA use the same formula when calculating how many billions lost to pirating....so it must be valid.

-4wd (January 09, 2011, 05:25 PM)

Hahahahah~!

8750

Living Room / Re: May be time to change password at Twitter

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2011, 04:09 PM »

News on the Icelandic MP:

http://www.google.co...42529259c8a12d5ccaa1

The American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker's online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks.