This is a really sweet game where you control a dog who walks with his friend, a guitar playing wheelchair bound man.  Definitely play through the tutorial to level 1 where they have to work together.. If you have a family member in a wheelchair it might even bring a tear to your eye.

http://www.gamebalan.../awalkinthepark.html

1. DonationCoder.com News
Do you wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat fearing that you missed some important news on our website?  We didn't think so.  But you might still be interested in catching up on some official news from the site.

• DC-IRLDD #2: DonationCoder Real Life Dinner+Drinks, Sat 7/14, Champaign Illinois - Come have dinner with us in real life!
• New section on DC forum - Complain about bad companies
• Find and Run Robot (FARR) 2 - Plugin Programming Contest! -- In anticipation of the planned release of FARR v2 in July
• New FARR Plugin: FCalc -- If you aren't testing our FARR v2 program yet, you're missing out on a lot!
• New DonationCoder.com Utility Coming Soon: DcUpdater
• Try MazeCraze 2 - A fun game made by a donationcoder member
• Making the switch #1-4: My journey from Windows to Linux
• Form Letter Machine 1.05.01 Released - A Minor Update

2. Editor's Corner
Welcome to another edition of the newsletter.  We normally do two a month, but occasionally things get backlogged and we end up with one giant one.  This "Editor's Corner" section is a new part of the newsletter, where I'll try to write some informal comments about the website in order to make this newsletter worth reading even for the hardcore forum members.  For this newsletter I just want to tell you about some cool stuff coming up in July, because I'm really excited about it.

Find and Run Robot v2 Beta will *finally* be released to the public after over 6 months of constant development.  It's a huge leap forward from version 1, and with the plugin contest ending in July, it should be a big month for FARR.  The new update checking code should be in place by then as well, which means update checking for all DonationCoder software, and perhaps 3rd party software as well(!).  Forum member Gothic and I have also been working on a very cool top secret open source project which is bound to create some interest from some other communities.  And hopefully by then Wordzilla will unveil his improved forum searching code.


3. Your Input Requested!
We want your participation on the DC forum! It's ok if you're normally shy and reserved and scared to post questions and comments -- we give you permission to make an exception for these posts.  Some people think our forum is only for expert power users, but it's really a giant mix of users, and we want you to participate, regardless of your background.  So take a deep breath and jump in!

• Why I haven't made a donation to DonationCoder.com -- and why I might later?
• Suggestions wanted for our Links Page

This little tool sounds rather redundant, but I really do have a need for it.

Something that will open Explorer when I hit Win+E.

I am not sure why, and I don't think I will ever find out why, but Win+E doesn't open Explorer like it should.

I know you can over-ride the Win key and make a combo like Win+E do something else other than open Explorer, but can you make Win+E open Explorer, by force, with an ahk script when Windows decides that it doesn't want to do that any more?

I sure could use a little utility that would do that. 

Or even better:

How about one that when I hit [something] + a letter, it will open Explorer to that drive letter (if it exists) AND fix the Win+E problem?

The people at pixeljam do some of the very best retro 8bit atari style flash games on the planet, and they are always fun.

http://www.pixeljam.com/ratmaze2

Zaine's Massive Three Part Word Processor Review is now finished and live on the site.

If you enjoyed part 1 which was published a few months ago, you won't want to miss the full thing which looks at the online contenders and lesser known tools.


It's a long but great read.. A Classic.

ps. please send zaine a credit or three and a little thank you, to show him how much we appreciate his hard work.

To celebrate the imminent release of FARR Version 2 and its support of plugins, we are holding a FARR Plugin Writing Contest.

Winners will be chosen by FARR users here in the forum, but it's likely that every plugin writer will win at least a custom DonationCoder collector's item Mug starring our mascot Cody (the mugs are really beautiful).  Top plugins will also win some programming tools.

How are plugins coded and what development tools can I use?

• Plugins are standard windows DLLs, and can be written in any language that supports creating DLLs.  If you've never written a DLL before, it's not that hard but it will require a little bit of learning (This contest is not appropriate for people who have never coded before, sorry).
• However, helper code is included in the sdk for creating plugins using C++ (any compiler), and it will surely be easier to use C++ to write plugins.
• If you are willing to make equivalent wrappers for other languages (delphi, vb, c#) to help others code new plugins in those languages, we would love that and would love to give you a mug as thanks for doing that.
• Sample plugins are included to help you get started -- if you use Borland C++ Builder, Dev C++, or MS Visual Studio, you will find complete projects included.  The big plugins included (FarrFox and FCalc) are written in C++ Builder.
• Warning: Please expect some frustration when writing your first plugin -- the SDK has almost no documentation at this point, besides the sample plugins provided.  You are going to have to experiment. If you have a question about how to do something, don't suffer in silence, post a question on the forum or email me.  Please help each other as well.
• Invitation: As the first plugin writers for FARR you will get the utmost attention from me in adding features to the SDK that you need.  If you think of some aspect of FARR that you would like to control, or information you need, just ask and I will try to add it to the plugin interface.  In other words -- it's likely you are going to find things you want to do from the plugin system but can't yet.  In such cases, email me immediately ([email protected]) and i will try to add it to the plugin system so you can do it.

Prizes:

• Lots of Custom FARR Plugin Writer Mugs
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard
• Borland Turbo C++ Pro
• The appreciation of all FARR users, as well as some of their donations

Deadlines:

• The top winner will be chosen in one month (July 14th).
• All working non-trivial plugins submitted before the deadline of July 14th will receive a custom mug.

Download:

• Plugin SDK here: https://www.donation...ds/FarrPluginSDK.zip (comes with source code for FarrFox and FCalc plugins
• FARR v2 Early release: email [email protected] for download url.