topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 12:52 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Last post Author Topic: Programming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st  (Read 105978 times)

tinjaw

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 1,927
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
I think I just found what I need...  ;)

IronPython Studio
splash.jpgProgramming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

I'm going to try and get it up and running on my laptop this weekend.

VideoInPicture

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 467
    • View Profile
    • Circle Dock
    • Donate to Member
Ok, my submission for the programming contest: https://www.donation....msg118048#msg118048

Let's see what you have.
Author of Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com
Author of Video In Picture: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com
Author of Webcam Signature: http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com
Author of Easy Unicode Paster: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Bump!  Anyone planning on entering who hasn't posted yet, please post a reply to this thread.

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Ok, here's my entry for the competition. It's called ServiceProfiles, the idea of the app is to allow you to switch between different NT Service profiles (shockingly :o). The logic is that say you wanted a seriously cut down system only for certain tasks like gaming then you could make a 'regular' and a 'gaming' profile and switch between them. You be surprised how lean you can get XP while still having it perfectly usable for some tasks.

The program lets to specify two properties for services as part of a profile, startup type i.e. Automatic, Manual and Disabled, and Active State i.e. Running, Paused and Stopped. In practise you should stick to only changing startup types and rebooting after selecting a profile unless you know what you're doing. Truthfully you should really know what you're doing before using the program at all. It's difficult enough to break a system, but it's easy to mess it up enough to get you cursing my name. A Google on the topic throws up some good reading.

ServiceProfiles.png

Some Usage Instructions

In the badly named 'Observation Mode' you can view a list of the services on you current machine and their properties. Once you start to make a change you'll be prompted to name a new profile. No changes will be made to your system until you 'Apply' the profile by clicking the play button in the toolbar. The events log will report the results of trying to apply your profile and report and errors if they occur along with a hint at the cause.

Any profiles you create automatically get saved in your Docs. and Sets. folder, that can be changed from the options.

Hopefully there won't be too many rough edges, but this program was the fruit of just two weeks work. I still have stuff I'd like to add, possibly going down the road of making it a neat services 'powertool' for reporting all sorts of details which the built in Windows service console doesn't but time will tell on that front. What is definite is I'll find an open source home for it and continue to refine the core profile side of the application.

One rough edge is that the app is finicky about trying to leave new profiles with the default '(unnamed)' name, it won't let you do so for boring internal reasons which I'll hopefully fix soon.

I'm attaching, just for here, a zip of three profiles based on Black Viper's XP Sp3 Safe, Tweaked and Bare Bones configurations. I'm going to seek his permission to ship these together with his 2k and Vista configurations with the program. Hopefully he won't mind once I acknowledge and give full credits.

These three files can be loaded into the application from the menu and I'd recommend doing so when you first use it as they'll give you a better feel for the app. Also hopefully it's ok to attach the actual binaries here too, I didn't want to setup a Sourceforge account or similar until after the compo. The app is in two flavours and each is both standalone or install. Note you will need full Admin privilages to run the program. Even Vista admin user accounts will need to rightclick and select "Run as Administrator".

Note also the icon is not my own work, it comes from mattahan's Buuf Iconset.

Update! The latest download links can now be found on this page.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2008, 09:56 AM by Eóin »

Veign

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 993
    • View Profile
    • Veign - Where design meets development
    • Donate to Member
Another interesting submission.

(been moving to a new home so life is hectic right now - might discuss with mouser extending this contest a week or two so I get get settled in and we can get a few more submissions)

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
That is really very nice, and very professional looking.

One idea:
Maybe the program for safety purposes could store a list of the startup state of each item the first time it ever sees it, so that you could look at a log file and see the original state of any process you might later mess with?

Another idea, again for safety purposes:
make it easy to set the active state setting, but make them tick some option to acknowledge they are doing something potentially dangerous when they try to change a startup state.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2008, 04:00 PM by mouser »

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Thanks both for the kind words. Better safety precautions are a very good idea. Though I must say I surprised myself in a VM where XP booted even with everything set to disabled. It had a fantastically low memory overhead too, but beyond the morbid curiosity I can't see any real reason for trying it :D

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
some more ideas:

1) to the right click menu for a service, how about an option "lookup on the internet"
and have it just open the browser with a google search for the display or processname

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
might discuss with mouser extending this contest a week or two so I get get settled in and we can get a few more submissions

I agree with this.. I think extending to July 14 would be a good idea.

hollowlife1987

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 92
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Thank god for the extension, my its a huge load of my chest now that I have more time. Even though I finished it, it's not how I would like it to be for the release.

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
We will have special gift for everyone who submits by tonights original deadline.

VideoInPicture

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 467
    • View Profile
    • Circle Dock
    • Donate to Member
New deadline? Hmm, I may be able to get my submission (Webcam Signature) to track hands/fingers by the new deadline. I'll see if it works out or not. BTW, the source code for Webcam Signature 1.3 is up on my website: http://webcamsignatu...ignature-source-code. I'll probably submit the new version that I'm working on before the new deadline.
Author of Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com
Author of Video In Picture: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com
Author of Webcam Signature: http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com
Author of Easy Unicode Paster: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

VideoInPicture

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 467
    • View Profile
    • Circle Dock
    • Donate to Member
Thank god for the extension, my its a huge load of my chest now that I have more time. Even though I finished it, it's not how I would like it to be for the release.
-hollowlife1987 (June 30, 2008, 06:51 PM)

What have you been working on?
Author of Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com
Author of Video In Picture: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com
Author of Webcam Signature: http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com
Author of Easy Unicode Paster: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

hollowlife1987

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 92
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
I've been working on a close to stand alone bit torrent tracker website made in ASP.net
Close to stand alone being it needs .net 3.5 and sql server compact edition 3.5 runtime installed on the machine.
Most of the work is/was developing it's own webserver to host the ASP.net pages.

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
VideoInPicture and Eoin and Hollow, please send me a personal message with your shipping addresses so i can send you a custom rare dc mug made to commemorate this contest.

wraith808

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 11,186
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Thank you!  My GF got sick and I haven't been able to work on anything but real work since that happened...

Veign

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 993
    • View Profile
    • Veign - Where design meets development
    • Donate to Member
VideoInPicture and Eoin and Hollow, please send me a personal message with your shipping addresses so i can send you a custom rare dc mug made to commemorate this contest.

Post a picture of this rare mug so we all can see.

Is there a Mug museum somewhere on DC so we can see all the mugs that have been?

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Post a picture of this rare mug so we all can see.
will do.

Is there a Mug museum somewhere on DC so we can see all the mugs that have been?
now that is a good idea.

VideoInPicture

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 467
    • View Profile
    • Circle Dock
    • Donate to Member
Question: Can I enter more than one program into the programming contest? I just had a really good idea and got some code working for it.
Author of Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com
Author of Video In Picture: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com
Author of Webcam Signature: http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com
Author of Easy Unicode Paster: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Question: Can I enter more than one program into the programming contest? I just had a really good idea and got some code working for it.

definitely  :up:

boo_radley

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
definitely  :up:

Is the contest still going?

Veign

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 993
    • View Profile
    • Veign - Where design meets development
    • Donate to Member
Yes.  Please feel free to enter...

VideoInPicture

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 467
    • View Profile
    • Circle Dock
    • Donate to Member
My second submission for the DC Programming Contest: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=14039.0 (Circle Dock - The world's first open source circle and spiral dock.)
Author of Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com
Author of Video In Picture: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com
Author of Webcam Signature: http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com
Author of Easy Unicode Paster: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

hollowlife1987

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 92
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
OK I finally got my project finished here it is.

Btts - Bit-Torrent Tracker Sharp
Btts is a Bit-Torrent (BT) tracker made in C# with ASP.net. That's right Btts hosts its own ASP.net pages
The whole purpose of Btts is to allow anyone running Windows XP SP2 or newer to run their own small Torrent tracker site.

The tracker part of Btts is made in entirely in ASP.net, while the executable it self hosts the ASP.net pages.


Requirements
  • Windows PC running XP SP2 or later.
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 which you can download here
  • Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 from here
  • Btts which you can obtain here

General Usage Instructions
After you install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 and Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 its time to start up Btts
All you have to do after downloading Btts is extract it to a directory of your choice and run it.
When Btts is running choose a password for the admin section of the Btts Webpage. (NOTE: If you leave the password blank the previous password entered will be used.)
Then all you do is cick Start and the server will Startup and when the light turns green your all good to go.  :)

Screen Shots
Screenshot - 7_14_2008 , 3_54_20 AM.pngProgramming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

Screenshot - 7_14_2008 , 3_59_47 AM.pngProgramming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

Screenshot - 7_14_2008 , 4_01_50 AM.pngProgramming Contest from DonationCoder.com and Veign.com - Deadline July 1st

Challenges
I'm going to have to say the biggest challenge was getting the web server working.
It took so much time to get to even just a working state for this project and still needs a bit of work done to make it fully ASP.net capable.

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Ok here is my updated entry. The extra two weeks gave me the chance to do some huge UI polishing and usability improvements. It also allowed me to added a feature I really wanted to support, sub-profiles.

ServiceProfiles Main Window.PNG

I have written up a small page giving an introduction, you can find that here on my site. I've attached the binary download links here again (hope you don't mind mouser) as I'm going to apply for a SourceForge project, it is open-source after all. Unfortunately I should have applied sooner as it can take a day or two.

I hope people check it out and like it, shout if you have suggestions :)

Update! The latest download links can now be found on this page.

« Last Edit: August 11, 2008, 09:54 AM by Eóin »