January 2008 Software Drawing Winners

[mouser]

Winners of the January 2008 Giveaway Drawing

January 2008 Giveaway Drawing

Supporting Members, you've got until the last day of the month to take advantage of this month's Discounts..

This Month's Special Discounts and Giveaways:

• Surfulater (40% discount)
• AM-Notebook (50% discount)
• Backup4All Professional (30% discount)
• BB Flashback 1.5 (50% discount)
• Beyond Compare (30% discount)
• Camtasia Studio (TechSmith)
• SnagIt (TechSmith)
• Directory Opus (25% discount)
• Double Killer Pro (30% discount)
• Direct Access (30% discount)
• FontCreator Professional (50% discount)
• FontExpert 2007 ($30 USD discount)
• Genie Backup Manager Pro (50% discount)
• GoodSync (20% discount)
• Help & Manual 4 Professional
• IndieVolume (30% discount)
• Local Website Archive (50% discount)
• MainType (30% discount)
• My Life Organized (TBA discount)
• NoteZilla (30% discount)
• novaPDF Professional (30% discount)
• PerfectDisk Professional (20% off everything Raxco offers discount)
• RecentX (30% discount)
• AI Roboform (20% discount)
• Super Flexible File Synchronizer (30% discount)
• Surfulater (TBA discount)
• SyncBackSE and Onlick Utilities (25% discount)
• TechSupport Alert Premium 12 month subscription
• True Launch Bar (50% discount)
• Website-Watcher Business (50% discount)
• XPlorer^2 (TBA discount)

Winners of 'Surfulater' (5):

• Liquidmantis
• gno
• olamoree
• siouxdax
• CleverCat

Winners of 'AM-Notebook' (3):

• Lashiec
• utfan
• TheQwerty

Winners of 'Backup4All Professional' (4):

• godsgeek
• gally
• cookstar
• jdhas

Winners of 'BB Flashback 1.5' (5):

• havanamike
• davehohman
• fiberhax
• BrokenNails
• pasweden

Winners of 'Beyond Compare' (2):

• app103
• dhovekamp

Winners of 'Camtasia Studio (TechSmith)' (3):

• Darwin
• cybernetnews
• taichimaster

Winners of 'SnagIt (TechSmith)' (3):

• tamasd
• Rocker452
• Nelson Carvalho

Winners of 'Directory Opus' (3):

• dave12n
• Lindzus
• Phil White

Winners of 'Double Killer Pro' (5):

• allan k
• Falcon_four
• jencarl
• Magic Speller
• mdl

Winners of 'Direct Access' (3):

• zj
• BigJim
• egbert

Winners of 'FontCreator Professional' (5):

• shhurst
• Mex
• inghamc
• JEdwardP
• H@diAd

Winners of 'FontExpert 2007' (5):

• dcm
• Merlin II
• algasys
• dfluck
• alxwz

Winners of 'Genie Backup Manager Pro' (5):

• LM7
• empedia
• sls_trader
• Jakeman
• The_Doomer

Winners of 'GoodSync' (5):

• Tekzel
• IvkovicD
• mediaguycouk
• oldfart
• brett

Winners of 'Help & Manual 4 Professional' (3):

• jgpaiva
• hamradio
• JeffC

Winners of 'Local Website Archive' (3):

• venn
• OldElmerFudd
• TucknDar

Winners of 'MainType' (5):

• Floppy
• cranioscopical
• aphoria
• texasraccoon
• Gretch68

Winners of 'My Life Organized' (3):

• shylo
• llc_silly
• rkrause

Winners of 'NoteZilla' (5):

• tide
• ashberry
• ganrad
• johnnyd2
• lisado

Winners of 'novaPDF Professional' (4):

• rpyron
• mlb
• jwolken
• Bob_Michael

Winners of 'PerfectDisk Professional' (5):

• crcowan
• Yukon
• Winnie
• tshare
• mhb

Winners of 'RecentX' (5):

• kwak
• rickowen
• dalchina
• tigerlan
• woodruff

Winners of 'AI Roboform' (5):

• pencoe
• siraj
• Catalin
• briankrg
• iaksma

Winners of 'Super Flexible File Synchronizer' (3):

• iphigenie
• johnk
• Dormouse

Winners of 'SyncBackSE and Onlick Utilities' (5):

• ZekeBlue
• Ataqer
• ThalSwe
• richdr
• oltimer

Winners of 'TechSupport Alert Premium 12 month subscription' (3):

• Bugsy
• DukeofURL
• qwibbles

Winners of 'True Launch Bar' (10):

• kanomie
• rno2
• DreadLord
• ilyag
• y0himba
• thebaglady608
• smparadox
• n8chavez
• ciderman
• dmd

Winners of 'Website-Watcher Business' (3):

• Old Timer
• Hermandt
• dbailey6

All winners are now being notified by email to their forum email address.  If you haven't received an email but your name is listed above, check spam filters and forum email address, and then mail prizes@donationcoder.com and let us know you never got any mail.  It can take a few days for companies to send you your serial number; if a few days pass and you haven't received it - send a reminder to the company email as noted in your winning notification email, or to us by replying to the email you received or to us directly.

Curious about how we award prizes?  See http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1684.0 for a discussion about our custom prize optimizer utility. Winning something one month reduces your chances of winning the next month, and being helpful on the forum slightly increases your chances.

[mouser]

Congratulations to everyone who entered and thanks to cthorpe for wrangling up all these giveaways.

And thanks to all of the companies that donated copies for us to give away!

Don't forget the discounts run until the end of the month:

• Visit Discount Section

ps. Remember that if you didn't win this time, you'll have a better chance of winning next time.

[tinjaw]

Congratulations to all the lucky winners!

[mitzevo]

Congrats winners! .. and congrats to myself for my 300th post.. wooo. Now I'll just go cry about not winning any thing for ages 

edit: joking of course.. /me wipes tears away .. 

[Darwin]

Wow! Camtasia Studio - thank you Techsmith and Donationcoder 

[lanux128]

Congratulations to all winners! and a big thanks goes to cthorpe and the companies that sponsored the prizes.

[taichimaster]

Wow! Camtasia Studio - thank you Techsmith and Donationcoder 

+1.  Thank you TechSmith, cthorpe, mouser, and the entire DC community! 

[TucknDar]

Yay! Local Website Archive

Been using the free version for quite some time now, so I'm very happy to have won the Pro version

Thank you again for your discount work, cthorpe!!

[vegas]

Congrats all, wish I would have known there were 2 copies of Beyond Compare, I wouldn't have put all my eggs in that basket, hehe.  Lets do it again Next Month!

[Jibz]

Congratulations to the winners!

Here's me being bored:

I went through the drawing result posts I could find in this forum section, and there was a grand total of 683 prizes won.

These prizes were won by 486 lucky people.

Of those, 138 have won twice or more, and 44 have won three times or more.

The three most winning users were:

superboyac (6: XFilesDialog, ACDSee Pro, MyBase, HDDLife, Zoom Player Pro, EverNote Plus)
dcm (5: Process Lasso, PageSpy Pro, MetaProducts Links Organizer, MusicIP Mixer Premium, FontExpert 2007)
Darwin (5: File-Ex, Almeza Apps, Collectorz organizer, Notezilla, Camtasia Studio)

Disclaimer: Winning of course relates to how many programs you enter the contest for, and how many others enter for the same programs .. that being said, I'd still love for superboyac to buy me a lottery ticket .

[mouser]

Here's the link again describing how winners are chosen by the program: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1684.0

There are a few ways to "game" the prize system which i probably need to address in the prize optimizer..

• First way to win: Keep Entering.  There were about 245 people that entered this month, but often it's under 100 that enter in a given month.
• After you win something your chances of winning again in the next 4 or 5 months are close to 0, but the system does not keep track of how many times you've won, so after 4 or 5 months your chances of winning are as high as anyone.
• As the prize selection page says, its much easier to win something that you rate highly and others rate not as high.  If you always try to win the most popular program your chances are not so good.
• People who help out on the site a lot occasionally get the tiniest little boost to their chances of winning, but sometimes this can be enough to help them edge out someone.

Things i'm not thrilled about and may try to change:

• The fact that the optimizer does not keep track of how many times you've won, only that you've won in the recent past.  If I modified that those who have won many times would not be winning so often, even if they have been entering a lot and for a long time.
• Should we more actively try to bump the weights of people who are actively contributing on the site? I'm not sure -- i think some who participate a lot would say yes, but i'm afraid it would turn into a situation where people who don't participate on the forum would feel like they don't have a chance.  So right now it's kept to a minimum.
• The optimizer is very reluctant to give someone their second choice prize, and that could be tweaked a bit.  in other words, if you rate one program a 10 and another program a 9, you unlikely to win your 9-rated prize if others who havent won lately have rated it a 10.  The program is just doing its best to make people as happy as they can be.  So someone who rates a bunch of programs equally is much more likely to win something.
• It might be nicer to put in some term which looks at how many times a person has entered and lost and boost their chances of winning if so.
• Should the optimizer keep track somehow of whether you won the most prized prize or the least?  Right now it doesnt matter what you win, it will have the same effect in terms of decreasing your chance of winning for the next 4-5 months.  But we could add something that says that the more hard to get programs (in terms of how many others wanted it), the longer the delay before you win again is.

[mouser]

ps1.
I'm happy to have more suggestions on how the prize optimizer could be tweaked -- so send me your suggestions!

ps2.
Due to Jibz' excellent detective work, users Darwin, superboyac, and dcm have been placed on the permanent BAN list and shall never win another prize    Please direct all hate mail to jibz and send him a nice big poisonous attack creature.  (just joking!)

[mitzevo]

ps1.
I'm happy to have more suggestions on how the prize optimizer could be tweaked -- so send me your suggestions!

I think people with less than 25 posts shouldn't be able to enter. So they don't imbalance all the others who actually contribute and etc.

ps2.
Due to Jibz' excellent detective work, users Darwin, superboyac, and dcm have been placed on the permanent BAN list and shall never win another prize    Please direct all hate mail to jibz and send him a nice big poisonous attack creature.  (just joking!)

Lolol. I actually asked today in IRC if any body had won more than 2 or 3 prizes.. And now Jibz has done some good snooping and presented the facts

[mouser]

the problem with basing things on posts is that people might start posting just to reach that threshold (and i note as this thread demonstrates that some people are already post-count-crazy).

and if we only allowed people with more than x posts to enter it would lead to a lot of new members here feeling tricked.

but, we could do something where we add the tiniest of weight to users who are minimally "active" on the forum (say 5 posts in the last six months).

[app103]

"Your estimated happiness value from this prize: 100%."

OH YEAH!

Disclaimer: Winning of course relates to how many programs you enter the contest for, and how many others enter for the same programs .. that being said, I'd still love for superboyac to buy me a lottery ticket .

I don't enter that often. As a matter of fact, I rarely enter...only when I see something I really really want, or really really need.

I have won 3 times in the last 2 years.

Font Expert 2006
Surfulator
and now Beyond Compare

I think I have better luck than most here with my ratio of wins:losses, so maybe I should buy you that lottery ticket. 

I think people with less than 25 posts shouldn't be able to enter. So they don't imbalance all the others who actually contribute and etc.

There are a lot of people that donated to the site that have never made a single post. They have contributed and deserve to win just as much as anyone else.

There are also the 'silent' members that are promoting us outside this site, on their blogs and other forums. They also deserve to win just as much as anyone else.

Not all ways to contribute are visible within the forum. Limiting it to people that have made a certain number of posts would be very unfair.

[mouser]

another minor observation about fairness in choosing winners.

I've noticed that my obsession with "fairness" in awarding prizes for these drawings and for the few programming contests we had where we gave prizes is fraught with dangers.

The whole reason i wrote the prize optimizer was because i thought there should be a fairer way to choose winners based on what they want and to give everyone a chance to win.

But taking such an approach means i sometimes agonize over these things and struggle to figure out the "fairest" solution, when i often don't have enough information to make a "fair" decision.  For example when we had a big programming contest with very expensive prizes, i struggled hard with the idea that some people could not afford this if they don't win it, wheras for others price wasn't an issue, but maybe pride was, etc.

Also, if you try to make a decision about what would be the "fair" way to give out prizes, then some people might feel upset at why you didn't think they were more worthy, and maybe you just forgot about something, etc.

One huge advantage to just making everything just a purely random choice is that people can get mad at the universe when they don't win, instead of getting mad at you 

So, i think i've given up trying to figure out a way to make these things go to the people that really deserve them, and let it mostly be luck, with just a small number of heuristics to try to make it a little more fair overall in the long run.

[ciderman]

Hello!

Thank you Donationcoder and company behind Truelaunchbar

Ps. Now i have to decide which one to use Truelauchbar or Launch Bar Commander.......

[mouser]

One thing people can do to help things work out right:
Don't enter to win programs you aren't going to use!

Especially for the big expensive programs, please don't try to win them just because they are expensive -- if you do win and you don't really use the program, you are taking away this prize from someone who might not have been able to afford it and who would have put it to good use.

[oldfart]

My thanks to you folks at DC for GoodSync.  I really appreciate the opportunity to win a much needed program and I am very pleased with what I won.  Now that I'll be in the small chance to win pool for the next few months, I wish good luck to all the other entrants.  Thanks again.

[Lashiec]

I'm speechless

I'd like to thank cthorpe, for his hard work, DC and the community, for setting up the drawing (and choosing an app different than mine, that boosted my odds of winning it ), aignes, for providing the licenses, the academy, my parents who are...

* Lashiec gets carried away from the stage by angry moderators

BTW, I see that xplorer² was included in the giveaway, but nobody won a license. What happened?

[mouser]

BTW, I see that xplorer² was included in the giveaway, but nobody won a license. What happened?

was nothing to do with xplorer^2 author -- we just were juggling to many that we never contacted author in time to get it organized, but we will follow up.

[rkrause]

As one of the happy winners of a My Life Organized license, my sincere thanks to mouser, cthorpe, and TaskMan (MLO developer Andrey Tkachuk). This is very cool and much appreciated. Of course, now there's additional pressure to get my unruly life in some kind of order . . .

Rick

[mitzevo]

There are a lot of people that donated to the site that have never made a single post. They have contributed and deserve to win just as much as anyone else.

Well then you add in a check to see if user has donated..

edit: so that's in effect then.

the problem with basing things on posts is that people might start posting just to reach that threshold

Yeah, it's quite obvious when people are trying to get their post count up (*cough*)..

So I guess my idea is null and void now.. lol.. I forgot about the people who donated / contributed offsite / etc and didn't make any posts here at the forum.
But if they can't even make one post and want to enter the comps.. shame on them.

[mouser]

you already need to be a donating/supporting or honorary member to enter.

[Falcon_four]

Wow!! I've actually won something!!!!! 

...Now to go and spend some £'s on lottery tickets..I'll see how my luck holds out.

Many Thanks to Mouser and cthorpe!!

Many thanks to everyone one else involved and the DC community

>>>>F4>>>>