Newsletter for June 10th, 2010
"Second Summer Winds"
1. Newsletter Editorial
Good evening and welcome to another edition of the DonationCoder.com newsletter -- brought to you from uncomfortably sunny Champaign Illinois. We begin this edition of the newsletter with a recommendation to watch a wonderful student-created animation called "Second Wind" about a giant cat; I'm not sure what it means but I'd be interested in hearing your interpretation of it.
The FIFA Soccer World Cup begins this Friday, which is the only sports event I ever watch. If you haven't checked out the Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulator and bet recommender that I wrote with DC member "Crono" in 2006, I hope you'll check it out -- it's been updated for 2010, and we're having a little contest to see who can come closest to predicting actual match scores. Even if you don't care about sports and gambling, you can learn a little about the fantastic world of MCMC statistics and leveraging the power of computers to brute force complex probabilistic interactions.
I've also released updates to my Screenshot Captor and Clipboard Help+Spell applications that users of these programs will probably want to pick up. Screenshot Captor got a nice new "Splice" tool, and Clipboard Help+Spell got the ability to set custom hotkeys for any group menu or formatter preset. You'll find these updates and other software written by DC members in sections 5 and 6 below.
Lastly, from now until the end of the year, the newsletter will contain a NANY (New Apps for the New Year) update section. This is part of our effort to really encourage friends and supporters of DonationCoder to get started early thinking up ideas for and starting planning of a great new application to release on January 1st, 2011. I have a few ideas for programs that I've wanted to get started on for quite some time and I'm looking for collaborators -- so if you are a coder or know someone who is, please stop by the NANY section of the forum and get started early pledging to release some great new software program at the turn of the new year. I'm also looking for a flash game coder collaborator to enter something in the JayIsGames flash game competition (see section 11 below) -- so don't be shy about saying hello on the forum if you are a coder but haven't yet taken the opportunity to post on the forum.
- Second Wind - beautiful student animation
- FIFA World Cup Predictor 2010 - A Contest For Best Predictions?
- NANY 2011 Section on the DC forum
2. NANY 2011
Don't be shy about helping us kick off the NANY (New Apps for the New Year) process early. If you're a coder, start thinking about some new program you can start working on. Or stop by and look for ideas and collaborators and helpers. If your not a coder, why not volunteer to help out in other ways, or try to reach out to other coders you know on other sites and see if you can't work together to come up with a great idea for a NANY application.
- NANY 2011 :: Announcement
- NANY 2011 :: Entry Ideas
- NANY 2011 Pledge: ContactFX
- NANY 2011 Pledge: Mouser App
- NANY 2011 Pledge: Something cross-platform
- NANY 2011 Pledge: Crush Sniffer
- NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy (Now with teaser helpfile and screenshots!)
- NANY 2011 Pledge: Teddy Pro
- NANY 2011 Pledge: NetLauncher
- A NANY 2011 Coders Requesting Funding Idea: Feedback Wanted
3. User-to-User: Your Input Requested
We welcome everyone's participation on the forum, no matter what 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.
- Dating Sites for Geeks and Nerds?
- Request: Please share your prioritization methods here
- Two computers - one set of screens etc. Ideas?
- Best method to manage email invitations?
- Email change notification solution?
- install win7 32 or 64 bit on a 4 gig ram machine - opinions, please.
- Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer?
- Collaborative timelines & timing plans - discussion
- Multilink over a photo taken by us?
4. June 2010 Discounts
This month we have a 50% discount on a very popular file explorer, XYplorer, which has gotten rave reviews on the DonationCoder forum. You can also enter to win a copy between now and June 21st. The discount lasts until the end of June.
- June 2010 Discount and Giveaway: XYplorer
- Linkman discount for DC (extended through 06/15/2010)
- Visit the "Found deals and discounts" section on the DC forum
5. DC Stuff Part 1 - Software Updates
New software updates and member-written stuff since the last newsletter:
- Screenshot Captor Splice Tool (with screencast demo movie)
- Clipboard Help+Spell finally gets hotkeys for groups and formatting presets
- MwImporter php script - Batch import html site into MediaWiki
- Skrommel Apps Re-uploaded!
- Unicode Image Maker: New Background Image Options
- FIFA World Cup Predictor 2010 - A Contest For Best Predictions?
6. DC Stuff Part 2 - Miscellaneous
New software updates and member-written stuff since the last newsletter:
- Coding Snack: FFBookmarkUnpacker
- Shortcut Creator
- PCMag.com "Give Windows 7 a Facelift" Yes: CircleDock is in there!
- sike 1.0 - send file(s) to recycle bin via command line
- Chromium Nightly Build Updater for Mac
- PowerWorship song lyrics mini-review
- BlitzType 0.95 finishing the project from NANY
- DC Member Request: Please quickly review my new Twitter client
7. Website Discoveries, Debates, and Discussions
What'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..
- Kickstarter Opinions?
- New flash player vulnerability (affects Adobe Reader as well)
- The Psychology of the Sale
- zen and the art of file and folder organisation
- Identity Theft OFFLINE - Get ready to be VERY scared
- Linux based E-book reader with two touchscreens about to be released.
- Death and the net: How to log off gracefully for the very last time
8. Fun, Games and Amusements on the Web
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..
- Company releases cracked version of their game rather than recompile it
- Drunk History Videos
- The Story of Conficker
- Sprocket Rocket: Very cool flash physics game
- Hyper Realism
- Second Wind - beautiful student animation
- New cheap cell phone: Subsidized Googlephone whispers targeted ads
9. General Software Discussion
Almost 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.
- Instruction manual creation recommendations?
- Popup Translator Shootout?
- What to use to secure delete a HDD?
- Church song software
- Recommend disk imaging software?
- print to PDF stationery / merge files?
- Do you know a free HTML editor with real time preview in adjacent pane?
- Software for Business Process Modeling?
10. Specific Software Discussion
This section of the newsletter draws attention to some of the standout discussions about specific programs that have been started since the last newsletter.
- PikyBasket replaced by Copywhiz
- X-Setup Pro now free, but abandoned
- Automatic Printer Switcher
- Rapid Typing: Free Typing Tutor/Game for Kids
- Detecting potential security risks in your installed software - Secunia PSI
- Measuring PC boot-up time by component - and tweaking it with Soluto
- iaza: Online Image Editor/Converter
- Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?
- Sonar Power Manager
- Firefox-based Browser designed for Home Theater PCs - Kylo Browser
11. Developer's Corner
If you're not a programmer, 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 recently.
- JayIsGames.Com Casual Gameplay Design Competition #8
- StCroixSkipper's NTFS USN Journal Explorer
- 11 Best Programming Authors
- Nice video from game designer analyzing camera movement on a platform game
- FPS Creator: How to Make Your Own First Person Shooter Game for Free
- "Rites of Passage" applications
- The shareware developer apprentice blog (DC Member Project)
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I missed every step of the production of this one - sorry! I've been buried under midterms, term papers, and lectures to prepare and give. Yeah, yeah, I know... excuses 
