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Last post Author Topic: January 2011 Giveaway - Winners Posted  (Read 58537 times)

mouser

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January 2011 Giveaway - Winners Posted
« on: January 12, 2011, 11:42 AM »
To celebrate NANY 2011, Perry Mowbray arranged some amazing giveaways this month (thanks to cthorpe also!).  The only thing i'm not sure about is to what extent we should bias the prize optimizer to favor nany programmer entrants..

This Month's Special Discounts and Giveaways:

Full members can enter the giveaway drawing here: https://www.donation...ials/freedrawing.php
« Last Edit: February 04, 2011, 02:48 AM by mouser »

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2011, 03:37 AM »
Ooo!  Nice!   8)


Hmmm...

...The only thing i'm not sure about is to what extent we should bias the prize optimizer to favor nany programmer entrants.

Consider this...  Optimizing for NANY entrants is in effect penalizing those that did not enter which is somewhat contrary to the philosophy(?) of the site, isn't it?  :huh:

« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 03:45 AM by CodeTRUCKER »

Crush

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2011, 04:54 AM »
There are some really useful tools for me in there... I want to draw them all  :D

rjbull

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2011, 02:52 PM »
Consider this...  Optimizing for NANY entrants is in effect penalizing those that did not enter which is somewhat contrary to the philosophy(?) of the site, isn't it?  :huh:

Difficult, isn't it?  I'm not a coder, or a digital artist, so most of those apps aren't any interest to me anyway.

mouser

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2011, 03:01 PM »
Optimizing for NANY entrants is in effect penalizing those that did not enter which is somewhat contrary to the philosophy(?) of the site, isn't it?

i don't think so -- i think it's fair to have some bias towards people who have contributed to the site in important ways, and participating in nany is one of those ways.  actually my view was to have this january giveaway be exclusively for nany participants.. but i was overuled :)

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2011, 03:03 PM »
Consider this...  Optimizing for NANY entrants is in effect penalizing those that did not enter which is somewhat contrary to the philosophy(?) of the site, isn't it?  :huh:

Difficult, isn't it?  I'm not a coder, or a digital artist, so most of those apps aren't any interest to me anyway.

I don't think it applies to anyone that does not proactively "enter" the contest, so you're safe unless you entered the drawing.  :P

« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 03:04 PM by CodeTRUCKER »

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2011, 03:08 PM »
...
i don't think so -- i think it's fair to have some bias towards people who have contributed to the site in important ways, and participating in nany is one of those ways.  actually my view was to have this january giveaway be exclusively for nany participants.. but i was overruled :)

FYI - Don't get me wrong, as a NANY entrant, I would like to "optimize" my chances in the drawing!  Like Crush said, I could use almost all of them too, but having been on the other side of "optimizing" (not on DC) I'm aware of what other non-NANY members might feel, that's all.

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worstje

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2011, 03:13 PM »
So, is there anyone with experience with these various tools? If anyone here has experience with these tools, I think they'd be very useful to have listed .

For example, I've got my eye on the two documentation-related softwares, and while I intend to give them a shot and try them out... well, they're of the sort 'more features than you'd come across while testing' and tbh, I dislike documentation enough to want to avoid messing with both for a several hours to try and accomplish something and then go re-do it on the other one again. :)

Edit: As far as biasing goes, well of course I'd be biased on that topic. ;) Most of these tools do however seem to favor the creative side of things, so in that sense I think it might be appropriate to do a bit of light favoring of NANY participants. These giveaways are all things that are of use to people involved in NANY apps, and imo less so to the more general visitor using such applications.

Btw, mousie, I thought you already used that Camtasia license?
« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 03:17 PM by worstje »

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2011, 03:21 PM »
... I dislike documentation enough to want to avoid messing with both for a several hours to try and accomplish something and then go re-do it on the other one again. :)
...

Take a look at this... Dr.Explain Mini-Review  by tinjaw.

Ath

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2011, 03:25 PM »
@worstje
We are using Help & Manual in our company, after being with Robohelp for many years until they sort of 'gave up' (we also did).
H&M was chosen after a thorough selection procedure over several other packages because of robustness, usability and support-options, features that Robohelp didn't (properly) have.
I'm not one of the guys working with this tool, but you can give it to anyone that's a bit of a writer and at least computer-literate, and get very nice result from it.

If you shouldn't win it here, and the price is a blocker; I've always been fond of HelpScribble (created by another Dutchman ;)), I bought when I ran my little software firm.

worstje

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2011, 03:34 PM »
Take a look at this... Dr.Explain Mini-Review  by tinjaw.

That'll teach me not to search the DoCo forums. Looks a bit old, but hey, I haven't got too big and important needs anyhow, so old features should be fine.

We are using Help & Manual in our company, after being with Robohelp for many years until they sort of 'gave up' (we also did).
H&M was chosen after a thorough selection procedure over several other packages because of robustness, usability and support-options, features that Robohelp didn't (properly) have.
I'm not one of the guys working with this tool, but you can give it to anyone that's a bit of a writer and at least computer-literate, and get very nice result from it.

You don't happen to know any specific arguments that took you to H&M or away from other tools, do you?

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2011, 03:46 PM »
...
You don't happen to know any specific arguments that took you to H&M or away from other tools, do you?

Grrrreat! question!  :Thmbsup:

Ath

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2011, 03:51 PM »
...Looks a bit old, but hey, I haven't got too big and important needs anyhow,...
If you look at HelpScribble, you'll notice it's also not very modern, but since XP, Vista and 7, all stuff created/screenshot'ed in the Windows 98/2000 era looks archaic...
The last time HS was updated was September 2010, so it's still 'alive', but the history shows that it's a 'slow mover' these days.

You don't happen to know any specific arguments that took you to H&M or away from other tools, do you?

I wasn't involved in the selection process, so I don't know what or why, but I'll ask around, somebody should know :P

fenixproductions

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2011, 04:38 PM »
@worstje
I can only advise not to go for Axiallis. I had got Pro licence not so long ago and felt regret quickly.

mouser

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2011, 04:41 PM »
I can only advise not to go for Axiallis.

Weird.  I love axialis icon workshop -- really excellent product if you ask me.

DC member HamRadio actually did a review/comparison of it a while ago, see: https://www.donation.../IconTools/index.php

fenixproductions

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2011, 06:37 PM »
@mouser
OK. I agree that this is good product but so far I haven't found anything I couldn't do with free tools (IcoFX, GreenFish Icon Editor + Inkscape, Paint.NET + XnView). If you are just starting playing with icons it is not bad choice at all. But if you have some experience with other graphic tools - it is not worth your time.

Few things were teasing me enough to buy it without trial tests:
- very good reviews - especially on DC,
- Image Objects - which are not good enough due to the lack of layers support. If you use layers in other editors and have good folders structure for your resources, you can achieve the same functionality.
- Librarian - I thought there will be something more than Explorer + Favourites substitute. I was hoping for tagging system, at least.

Also GUI appeared to be troublesome. It is year 2011 and still no mouse wheel support (zoom)? Even in Notepad++ has it (Ctrl+WheelUp to zoom something in). Not to mention about easy horizontal scrolling.

I must say that I had spent a lot of time looking for good icons management application and found none. Sure, there are a lot of photo organisers on the market but many of them don't support ICO files at all. The rest offer only the basic treatment. ICO files are handled like normal images which means: they may have one page only. Since we all know that single icon can contain multiple versions of itself, it makes this approach useless. There should be a choice for icons viewing - choice between standard mode (the best resolution view) and "snapshot mode" (all formats presented on single paper sheet) for both: folder's thumbnails and direct viewing.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 06:54 PM by fenixproductions »

Perry Mowbray

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2011, 10:06 PM »
Most of these tools do however seem to favor the creative side of things, so in that sense I think it might be appropriate to do a bit of light favoring of NANY participants. These giveaways are all things that are of use to people involved in NANY apps, and imo less so to the more general visitor using such applications.

Which is why we got, or at least asked, for those types of programmes... that they'd be of benefit to the NANY Entrants and Volunteers, so a slight bias seemed to connect those two desires nicely without taking the celebration away for everyone!


mouser

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2011, 10:27 PM »
yeah actually wasn't the idea originally that the giveaways would be for the volunteers, but we just didn't have many volunteers (or perhaps we didnt need them).

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2011, 10:46 PM »
@Mouser & Perry

Just for clarity... my original post above, was not intended to be a criticism of the plan to bias the NANY entrant's chances.  Given how you two have worked so hard to make all this happen, that would be highly ingratuitous of me.

The genesis post you (mouser) initiated this thread with seemed to be asking for comment on your dilemma.  I was attempting to help show an aspect for consideration.  Sorry, if I came across otherwise.  :huh:

Good luck to you guys in in finalizing the plan.  I'm confident it will be good, even if I don't win anything! :)
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mouser

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #19 on: January 13, 2011, 10:48 PM »
i didn't take your post as criticism at all -- just raising an issue for us to talk about  :up:

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2011, 10:51 PM »
i didn't take your post as criticism at all -- just raising an issue for us to talk about  :up:

Good, that's what I was doing too!  8)

CleverCat

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2011, 10:56 PM »
There is a way.....

If a 'humble' non programmer (such as myself) won, they could 'give' the programme to a NANY participant!  :Thmbsup:

Renegade

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2011, 11:01 PM »
So, is there anyone with experience with these various tools? If anyone here has experience with these tools, I think they'd be very useful to have listed .

I've used Camtasia Studio and Help & Manual extensively. Both are very good and I'd recommend them.

For Camtasia Studio, their audio tools are extremely weak. They're OK if you're a beginner, but if you want something a notch above, you will need to work in another audio editor to get things done.

Syncing audio and video in Camtasia has been very poor in the past as well. I'm not sure about v7 now though. Hopefully they've improved it.

I think the best way to work with Camtasia is to do the basic work there, then do it in something more powerful like Adobe Premiere, then import back into Camtasia if needed for publication.

Help & Manual improved a LOT when they moved to XML. You can edit the XML directly if you know what you're doing, which is very nice. Publishing across different formats is great.

However, for H&M you MUST use templates properly to get things done right. If you don't, you'll end up with a mess.

Still, they're 2 of the best tools available and highly recommended.
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Perry Mowbray

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2011, 11:21 PM »
yeah actually wasn't the idea originally that the giveaways would be for the volunteers, but we just didn't have many volunteers (or perhaps we didnt need them).

The volunteers volunteered their skills for which they already had the tools... it was probably obvious in hindsight that that would be the case; anyway, it's opened it up for everyone now...

worstje

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Re: January 2011 Giveaway is open for entry
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2011, 05:13 AM »
Personally I think that if the giveaways were meant for NANY entrants, they're the wrong give-aways. Don't get me wrong - these are wonderful programs, and much praise to their developers and their willingness to throw a license of them up for our giveaways.

Generally, those partaking in NANY are the coding types. Those that see a (technical) challenge and like to solve it. This is imo in part the reason why so many entries also end up unpolished or unfinished: once the most interesting thing has been solved, and it works, the drive and motivation needed to finish and polish up is no longer there.

In contrast, the prizes are more geared towards the artistically inclined, or even the.. uh, what's the word... very 'customer'-minded individuals by lack of a better description coming to mind. We've got an icon editor and a graphics editor, which are quite wasted on people like myself who can't draw something remotely non-horrifying to save their life if it depended on that. We've got a pair of screencast softwares, which generally require a microphone, good command of whatever language, the ability to properly formulate ones thoughts and generally convince people: again, not something the coding types are generally gifted with. Finally, there are the documentation and manual authoring tools, which.. uhm... let's just say a good majority of coders struggles with sane comments in their source code, which they spend all their time in - any sort of documentation almost always comes as a last, hurried thought.

Pretty much all of the above are true for me (not-so-random shout-out: thank you vlastimil for the icon, you were a life-saver!), and while I don't know many other people on DoCo nor presume to know their skillsets, I do know other coders and friends of mine. Personally I guess I am probably a bit more technically inclined in my entries than most participants, so of course what would be on my list would differ from others.

In future NANYs, I think it would pay to inform way before-hand what kind of coders we have, what kind of prizes they might appreciate, and so forth. And of course I do not mean this exclusively - all the current prizes are great for all the other non-coder NANY participants and are great to make a return - but more variety in the prize pool would be very nice as well. Mugs are awesome, and I will love my NANY mug to a porcelain death (ok, not death I hope, but yeah) whenever it comes, but there would be plenty of long-term joy involved in ending up with a tool that expands on what one already loves doing.