Well the time has finally come to wrap up the fundraiser month, tuck all the baby cody bird's into bed, and say thank you to everyone who donated.

It's been a busy month, and the fundraiser has been a great experience for all of us here at DonationCoder.  Seeing the support from everyone always helps rejuvenate us. 

It makes working on the site more enjoyable and it makes us want to work even harder to ensure the site is useful to those that support it.

We raised a whopping total of $14,239 from  over 600 individual donators.


Thank you everyone for making the fundraiser so special and for supporting the site.

I'm happy to announce the release of FlipSuite 2 (aka Flipbook Printer Suite 2).

• Official Web page: https://www.donation...FlipSuite/index.html

FlipSuite is the evolution of a previous program of mine, Flipbook Printer (designed to let you print "Flip Books" from video movie files on pre-scored business card paper or a professional card cutter) , combined with the video recording features of another of my programs (Webcam Video Diary).

Where Flipbook Printer was made to print out video files that had been recorded using other means, FlipSuite includes substantial video recording functionality built-in, something that Flipbook Printer users have long requested.

It includes all of the functionality of Flipbook Printer, as well as some major feature improvements and bug fixes.  The program can still be used as a standalone flipbook printer and my intention is to retire the independent FlipbookPrinter build in favor of FlipSuite.

Note: FlipSuite's development was funded by the company that now owns the commercial rights to the software, OpenAirEventSolutions.com and they have generously allowed us to continue to distribute a fully functional free version.  The only restriction for personal users is a tiny bit of text on the far left margin that states the program is not to be used for commercial purposes.  If you wish to use FlipbookPrinter or FlipSuite in a commercial enterprise you need to contact them and purchase a commercial license.

I'm a little late posting this, but Day 29 of the Fundraiser was a busy one.

Yesterday we opened up the giant end-of-the-fundraiser giveaway form which everyone is clamoring to enter.  And then a new big newsletter went out -- summarizing the best forum posts in the last month or two, as well as putting out the final call for donators to help us cross the fundraiser goal line.

And lastly, DC member JavaJones posted a long review of a cool new backup application/service called CrashPlan.

1. Newsletter Editorial - 6th ANNIVERSARY FUNDRAISER: The Final 3 Days

It's 6am on Tuesday March 29th as I write this.  We're down to the final 3 days of our 6th Anniversary Fundraiser at DonationCoder.com.  As of today we have raised $11,673 dollars from 488 individuals.  A huge thank you to everyone who has donated in the last 28 days (and since we opened the site in 2005!).

With 3 days left to the fundraiser, my mission now is to convince those of you who have been sitting on the fence to take a deep breath and finally jump in and join us with a donation of any amount.  It only takes a minute of your time and you can donate using amazon.com or paypal.com or a number of other services.  In fact let me challenge those of you who like the idea of our site but who have not yet donated to at least do *something*.  If you are not comfortable donating online -- our address is on the website, send in some cash or a check in an envelope -- or just send in a postcard saying you like what we do.  But do *something* to let us know you want us to keep going.

We are sooo close to breaking the $12,000 goal line (which is double what we were originally shooting for and which would pay for 2 years of hosting and site administration costs) -- and even within glorious striking distance of breaking our 2009 fundraising achievement of $13,000.  If you're reading this now, then it's in your hands.  Your donation can put us over the finish line.

And if you need an additional incentive to make a donation -- in 3 days time (April 1 deadline to enter!) we are giving out a large assortment of prizes, including hardware, software, and coding/development time on an idea of your choice, as well as some rare and fun memorabilia staring our mascot, Cody the bird.  The giveaway is open to all donators -- you'll find a link to it below.

If you don't follow the DonationCoder.com forum regularly, our newsletters are actually a pretty good way to keep up.  And this edition is packed to the brim with useful links.  I hope it will also serve as the final piece of the puzzle to convince you to get up and join us with a donation.  We've actually been trying to do something new almost every day during the fundraiser -- a software update, a new utility release, or a member-written mini-review, and you can browse those below.  A big thanks to everyone on the forum who participated by contributing something.

Oh and if you've donated already -- thank you! And don't forget to post a little cheer in the fundraising celebration thread and join us for the final hours and minutes of the fundraiser countdown.

CrashPlan is yet another entry in the increasingly crowded online backup marketplace. Pricing is competitive, they offer unlimited online backup storage space, and they have a "family plan" that allows up to 10 computers for a single account. Seen as simply another cloud backup option they are appealing enough, but there are some important additional features that may make CrashPlan more appealing to the power user and/or those particularly concerned about data redundancy.

In particular CrashPlan distinguishes itself by providing both local and off-site backup, supporting a large number of platforms, and having a free version that supports unlimited backup size to local devices..