FreewareGenius has a write up today about a (new?) free downloading tool StreamTransport.  Sounds promising, and even seems to have some url capturing features like those found in URL Snooper?


http://www.streamtransport.com/

BatchBlitz is a digital photo categorizer, filter and batch editor (freeware).

In BatchBlitz, you first select some source photos to be processed, specify where to output the processed files, define one or more actions to be taken, then simply click Start.

Website homepage:
http://www.sunlitgreen.com/

Regardless of what career path you follow, the ability to promote yourself and build a following is fast becoming an critical skill. One of the better books on the topic is Scott Kirsner's Fans, Friends And Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age[


There's a write up and sample text available at Amazon if you'd like to take a look:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/...5&creativeASIN=1442100745

A paperback copy will set you back about $16 from Amazon. But Scott is celebrating the 2010 SXSW Week ( www.sxsw.com ) by offering a copy in PDF format for free at the following link:

Info and download link: http://www.scottkirsner.com/fff/sxsw.html

This is a great book, loaded with ideas you can either "borrow," or use to spark some of your own. Although primarily geared towards creative types, the core concepts apply to virtually every career. In this economy, the ability to "sell yourself" isn't just a plus - it's a necessity.

On Friday night, Ars Technica decided to set up a system to catch those visitors running "a very popular ad blocking tool" (presumably Adblock Plus), which in turn would block those users, not allowing them to see any content on the site. As expected, shit hit the fan once the users stopped freaking out, and found out what happened (kinda expected for a tech-centric site) with the articles. So, on Sunday, Ken Fisher, one of the site founders, explained everything about the experiment, and the reasons for doing it. Nothing new there, expect for the fact that ads on many Internet sites now are paid on a per view basis, instead of clicks.

While the post sounds very reasonable, and no one is threatening to cut access to those running adblockers, many people think otherwise, and express so in the post comments. What's more, now the debate spreads to the rest of the Internet, as the post gets slashdotted (and probably digged as well), and people starts weighing on the issue, ranging from John Gruber noting the complexity of the situation to Tech Dirt telling Ars that it's time to evolve and stop complaining. Other people, like Scott Wason at The Tech Report side with Fisher, painting a situation very similar to Ars Technica.

http://arstechnica.com/bu...to-the-sites-you-love.ars

One of the most ironic things about the whole situation is that the same Internet sites that are supposedly replacing newspapers as major sources of information are also struggling to find sources of ad revenue, and many say that their business model is 'dead' and they should be researching alternative models. So, are 'old' and 'new' media sharing the same dying model? Fun.

I should note that all the arguments 'for' and 'against' have been beaten to death, even here on this forum, but it's always interesting to see the affected business expressing their opinion on the whole matter. Now, if the ad companies said something as well...

I was lamenting on the irc channel and on a recent post that with video games becoming so cinematic these days, some of us would much more enjoy just watching someone play a video game like a movie, rather than actually playing it ourselves; especially with so little free time.

DC member ewemoa suggested http://nextgenwalkthroughs.com/ to me, and indeed it has some nicely organized walkthrough videos that look like they may fit the bill.  If anyone has other websites that collect comprehensive full-game videos, let us know!


http://nextgenwalkthroughs.com/

I'm discovered the following gem to automatically sync my coding changes to a test server over ftp. This utility uses ini files to configure source and destination then sync any changes after running it. Just add it to post-commit hook with subversion or mercurial.   Great documentation

http://www.cyberkiko.com/page/FTPSync.aspx

Headline is copied from the source site, I couldn't think of anything better, though it doesn't totally describe what I hope this topic can discuss. First, here's the link, to a "game" that helps teach users how to use Microsoft Office:
http://lostgarden.com/201...learning-office-into.html

I haven't actually tried it as I only have OpenOffice on this system, but I personally found this concept fascinating. It's true that people will go through great lengths, endless repetition, and much more that would otherwise be out of the question, all for simple game rewards - higher points, more items collected, higher levels, etc. So what about applying these concepts to application usage tutorials, even going so far as creating games to teach an application? I think the idea is very promising. Perhaps this first incarnation doesn't get everything right, but the core point - the value of the game-inspired reward mechanism for learning and practice - seems very important to me.

Hopefully some app developers will weigh in on this, as well as users. Does anyone know of any other examples of this kind of thing?

- Oshyan

One of the most popular Windows 7 modifications is to restore the "classic" start menu since many people prefer the old "cascading" to the new "drill-down" style Microsoft endorses.

Apparently Microsoft was enough aware of this that they provided a so-called classic theme for Win7 users. But this theme still kept the new start menu. As a result, some clever coders stepped up to the plate to restore old style menu goodness to Microsoft's newest child.

I'm aware of two (CSMenu and Classic Windows Start Menu)that have been mentioned in previous DC threads:

http://www.donationcoder....20565.msg185143#msg185143

http://www.donationcoder....20565.msg185819#msg185819

I just found another one that has been written up over at www.dedoimedo.com (another great website BTW!) called Classic Shell.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/...dows-7-classic-shell.html

1. Newsletter Editorial

Hi all, Darwin here with the latest DC newsletter. It's been a month since our last edition and there has been a lot of activity at DC and on the forum.  We've got a software giveaway and drawing to tell you about and our usual newsletter content - DC software updates and forum highlights from the past month.

Last newsletter mouser told us that ehtyar is taking some time off from writing his Tech news letter (see last section of this newsletter for links). Stephen66515 stepped into the breach to keep the newsletter coming. Now I'm writing to let you know that Stephen is the new official discount coordinator at DC. You can read Mouser's official announcement via the link below.  This month's discount is on True Launch Bar, an application dock/launchbar.  Thank you VERY much, Stephen!

Mouser also recently started a thread about Flattr, which is a new micropayment system. Read mouser's introduction and the discussion that follows here and perhaps weigh in with your opinion. Remember, DC credits function in a similar way, you can always send a poster some credits to let them know that you enjoy reading their posts or to thank them if they've posted something that has helped you out in some way.

Welcome to this weeks edition of 'Stephen's Tech News' - By now, you all know that this is a selection of my favorite news stories from across the globe, and are placed in no particular order.  Anyway, I hope you are all as interested in them as I am!
-Stephen

Table of Contents:

• A week off the grid and in touch with energy
• Microsoft demos game across PC, mobile, and console platforms
• Robot avatar MeBot gives you wriggling bug body
• Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s
• Steve Jobs: The Agony and the Ecstasy
• 10 high tech cars to tear up the tarmac
• Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth
• UK next-gen broadband gets funding body
• Spamhaus: Microsoft's botnet cull had little effect
• ISPs attack 'misguided' site-blocking plan

How cool is this?


http://www.boingboing.net...blind-gamer-speedrun.html

OK Folks, here is a topic that some people shy away from. Online money management.

As a long time internet user, I have grown very fond of using the web to manage my finances. As such, online banking has almost become a way of life for me. I use quicken on a daily basis but grow tired of yearly upgrades which add very little and a UI that reminds me of an old VB6 program I wrote back in 1998. As such, I am looking to move my data into the cloud, per se.

I have been experimenting with various sites like those mentioned above and for one reason or another, each one is missing that "key feature". Mint.com would be otherwise perfect if it had manual transaction entry with automatic reconciliation when it downloads new transactions from my banking sites. This is rumored to be coming at the end of the month or early next, but I am doubtful.

Mint.com has recently merged with Quicken Online by Intuit so this seems like a no brainer move for me once this feature is implemented. Now, my question. Has anyone messed with the other two sites mentioned above or have experience with another site? I did a short trial with buxfer, however, it just feels "amateurish" to me. I am not about glitz and eye candy on a site but I do expect a site to be functional. This is where buxfer turns me off.

Anyways, I open this discussion up to the community. What do you think?

Big Tree Defense is quite an innovative and elegant take on the tower defense game.. grow a tree to defend against the insects..

http://www.freeworldgroup...eindex/bigtreedefense.htm