Newsletter for September 16th, 2010
"Prepare the Sleds"
1. Newsletter EditorialHello dear readers. Yet another month has gone by, and you know what that means, time for another DC newsletter filled with magical surprises and ghosts from future's past.
The most important thing to talk to you about this month is our NANY 2011 event, whose December 31st deadline is fast approaching. NANY stands for "New Apps for the New Year" and it's where everyone on DC is asked to help celebrate the new year by participating in the release of new free software applications. If you're a coder, we want you to pledge to release a new program as part of our NANY event -- and if you're not a coder, we want you to try to find a way to help out the coders, by volunteering to test beta versions, help think up ideas, and just in general share your talents!
By the time December 31st rolls around you are going to be sick of hearing me talk about NANY so you might as well unsubscribe to the newsletter now if you're getting that feeling already. NANY is one of the funnest things we do in DC, it's our big winter online holiday party, and we love to get in the spirit of it. I hope some of you will be inspired to make your first posts on our forum and say hello and join us in the festivities. Everyone is welcome -- and please help us spread the word to your coder friends.
This year I'm determined to release at least one big new application, and hopefully more than that; I even started a poll (link below) to help me choose which application to write. And if you are a coder, I'm really still hoping to see some new coders stop by and maybe collaborate with me on a project or two so we can really make this year's NANY special. In particular, I've been getting into board games and board game designing recently (you'll see a couple of threads highlighted below that reflect that), and one of the possible projects I'd like to get help working on for NANY is card/board game design utilities, and a possible online library for prototyping new games.
-mouser, champaign IL, USA
2. NANY 2011 Update and Call for VolunteersThe NANY 2011 deadline of December 31st is fast approaching! If you're a coder, start thinking about some new program you can get working on. Or, stop by and look for
ideas and collaborators and helpers. If you're not a coder, why not volunteer to help out in other ways. Anyone can get involved with the NANY event by offering their talents to the hard working entrants to help with the ancillary aspects of their entries. Volunteering on NANY projects is a great way for everyone to get involved with the Event, coders and non-coders alike! Full details are available on the
Call for Volunteers thread, or you may consider helping with specific requests:
If you're just a keen software user you may like to check out the new NANY Pledges, and the other exciting updates on the
NANY 2011 board:
3. User-to-User: Your Input RequestedWe welcome everyone's participation on the forum, regardless of your level of computer knowledge or how long you've been a DC member. If you're still waiting to make your first post, see the links below for some good places to jump in.
4. DC StuffNew member-written software updates and other writings posted since the last newsletter:
5. Website Discoveries, Debates, and DiscussionsWhat's new on the world wide web? What fun new sites have forum members discovered? What's the current hot topic and debate? Let's find out..
6. Fun, Games and Amusements on the WebIf 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..
7. General Software DiscussionAlmost half the posts on the forum fall into the category of general software discussions, questions, recommendations, etc. This is one of the most active sections of the DC forum and a great resource if you're trying to solve a software or hardware-related problem. We get so much traffic on this board that we've split the recent content into two sections in the newsletter - general software and specific software discussions.
8. Specific Software DiscussionThis section of the newsletter draws attention to some of the standout discussions about specific programs that have been started since the last newsletter.
9. September Discounts and Giveaways- [url=https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=23908] Sep 2010 Giveaway+Discounts: Atrise Golden Section and USB Safely Remove/Zentimo
Thanks to Perry for his help preparing the newsletter.