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Newsletter for May 29th, 2009 - Codename "Hello Mr. Heatwave"

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mouser:
Newsletter for May 29th, 2009Codename "Hello Mr. Heatwave"




1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings all, and welcome to another edition of the DonationCoder.com newsletter.

Way back in 2005 I wrote a comprehensive review of desktop email client applications, and ended up picking RITLab's TheBat as my program of choice.  I'm still a happy user.  Last week DC member Innuendo wrote a mini-review of a spam blocking tool for it and the developers were nice enough to donate several copies for us to give away and extend a big discount to supporting DC members (see section 3 below).

And finally, this is your very last minute reminder that if you are going to be anywhere near Germany on May 31st, you need to find a way to get to the DC meetup in Berlin at the c-base geek bar/club that DC members housetier and gjehle help run.  It's a very cool place, and most importantly we've sent ahead some very cool, and very rare, custom DonationCoder Cody Spaceship mugs that will be on hand to be given out to DC members who show up.  These are going to be collector's items one day so don't miss your chance to get one now! See the post below and let housetier and ghehele know if you will be attending.


* 2009/May/31 - DC Meetup Berlin, Germany

2. Your Participation Requested

We'd love to have you participate on the forum, no matter what your level of computer knowledge, or how long you've been a DC member. See below for some links to some good places to jump in and make your first post.


* Tell me what your software DOESN'T do... (a rant)
* What makes an application "useful"?
* Any ideas - expand a wireless network to a neighbouring house?
* RAMdisk on XP 32bit - brainstorming
* Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
* Would you recommend friends to use XP or Vista?
* Do you know about the Unreplied Topics page on the DC forum?
* Check mail every X minutes?
* SSD File System Recommendations?

3. DC Software Giveaways and Discounts This Month

There are still a few more days for you to qualify to receive one of 10 copies of Total Commander, the famous file explorer, that we have to give away.  DC member fenixproductions, who also arranged a TC discount for DC members, has said that he's giving them out to new mini-review writers this month, so stop by the mini-review section and write up one of your favorite programs to get a copy.  We also have some new discounts and giveaways coming up for June, including a few more DC mugs, a discount on the Custom Handwriting font service YourFonts.com, and a generous discount and giveaway of the cool spam blocking tool AntispamSniper for TheBat email client (and MS Outlook/Express), due to a nice mini-review by DC forum member Innuendo.


* June 2009 Discounts and Giveaway Summary
* AntispamSniper for TheBat (discount also for Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express) (50% discount) -- see DC forum minireview here
* YourFonts.com Custom Handwriting Fonts Discount - $5 Special (up to 60% discount)

4. DC Software Updates

A bevy of minor updates to some DC Software since the last newsletter, along with a few interesting tips and tricks from the forum.


* FARR: How to specify searching only in two specific folders?
* FARR Alias: WolframAlpha Search
* Screenshot Captor: Sent to Imageshack option? Shup tool
* Find and Run Robot v2.61.05 Released -- More options for running commandline tools and capturing output
* Screenshot Captor v2.56.01 -- Cursor capture fixes, image sorting options, redbox capture fixes
* New ability to copy geshi formatted code text on the forum
* Forum Upgraded to 1.1.19 -- See our analysis of how hackers got into some smf forums (not ours)

5. Coding Snacks and Member Mini-reviews

The Coding Snacks Section is where you can request small utilities be coded while you wait.  Since the last newsletter we've had a *LOT* of new requests -- several forum members are on fire lately! Also, check out the mini-review section of the forum, where people can post short reviews of programs they have tried or use regularly.  We only require that the reviewers not be associated in any way with the program, service, or company being reviewed.


* Mini-review: AntispamSniper For The Bat!
* Coding Snack: Allow input commands to be sent to background windows.
* Coding Snack: Replace Hourglass with Quote from text file
* Coding Snack: Tool to print artist/album list of ogg/mp3 files
* Coding Snack Idea: Visualizing time left vs. time needed?

6. Sites, Services, and Articles on the Web

What's new on the world wide web? What fun new sites have forum members discovered?


* ZipCar.com - super cool car sharing service in the US for occasional drivers
* Wolfram Alpha - Impressions On Launch
* CometDocs.com -- free online file converter
* Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..
* Wakoopa's First "The State of Apps" Report
* Doculicious: PDF on my website/fill-in?
* FilghtAware website tracks flights in realtime

7. Software Discussion

Below are some interesting threads about software posted to DC since the last newsletter.


* Looking for a newsgroup news reader
* Confessions of a Freeware Junkie updates their list of recommended freeware
* INfix: easy, capable, but expensive WordPad-like PDF editor
* Software or Websites for Printable DayPlanner Pages/Calendars? Recommendations?
* What is your favorite program to listen to internet radio?
* Photo Scanner Software? -- Recomendations for scanning original photographs
* Scan music collection for missing covers/artwork
* Word document compare?
* Complaint & Compliment: 3M Post-it Digital Notes vs ConceptWorld Notezilla
* Desktop/email search program?

8. Fun and Games

If you've read the newsletter up to this point, take a break and check out some of the lighter fare from the forum - humour, videos, and games..


* Historic Tale Construction Kit - Create a Medieval Tapestry Story Online
* Star Trek 2009 - Discussion [SPOILERS]
* TowerDefense Game: Plants vs Zombies
* Where's Waldo, Twitter Style
* What's that smell?
* PC Game Trek: Nice little game review blog

9. Developer's Corner

If you're not a developer, don't let the title of this section scare you away - there is likely something of interest to you here! It's more than just a forum for the discussion of software development, it's also where we discuss web design, entrepreneurial struggles, and general productivity issues.  It's great to see that the section has been pretty active over the last few months -- keep it up people!


* What the hell is OpenCandy?
* Working From Home: 10 Unconscious Cues to Create a Work-Life Balance
* My great doomed CMS search continues...
* What is better than Excel for costing a project?
* Create simple installation file.. What Tool?
* Something I want to try this Year.. Daily After-action Reports
* My assignment: The ToDo List of Doom

10. News You Can Use

DC Member Ehtyar produces a wonderful weekly summary of important tech/computer/security news articles that he comes across on the web.  A big hit on the forum.  How is he able to keep up this pace? When will he collapse from exhaustion? We are all waiting to find out..


* Tech News Weekly: Edition 19-09
* Tech News Weekly: Edition 20-09
* Tech News Weekly: Edition 21-09
* Flight simulator site avsim.com loses 13 years of community data to hacker
* [url=https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=18314] EC wants software makers held liable for code [Update]

Ath:
Ah, another hour of my life spent on reading 'the good stuff' :D

Thanx, as usual,
Ath

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