Great piece of software for e-publishing (Help files, PDF files and lots more) now freeware

http://www.2brightsparks.com/infohesive

Miffed that I paid for it but it is a great bit of software - now thoroughly affordable. Just hope it doesn't mean no more development..

Started testing out the SiteDelta Firefox Add-on today:

SiteDelta can scan for changes to a website since your last visit.

It adds a small Delta icon to your browser status bar. When you click onto it, it highlights all changed text contents of the current page (since the last time you clicked onto it). Clicking again cycles through the changes. Rightclick onto the icon provides access to other features offered by SiteDelta.

From the features page:

    * Scan pages you are visiting - what has changed?
    * Highlights inserted, deleted and moved text as well as changed images (if the file name changed)
    * Checks even password-protected pages (only HTTP-Auth)
    * Select interesting page regions you want to check
    * Ignore regions you are not interested in or that change often (e.g. counters, current date, ads etc.)
    * Save selected regions as presets to use them for all similar pages
    * Automatically scan known websites for changes
    * Optional: Archive all changed versions of the page

Any other users?

From http://www.readwrite...low_meets_tumblr.php

When asked if he would mind his startup being described as "a Tumblr for designers and developers," Forrst founder and developer Kyle Bragger said he wasn't sure, but that he probably wouldn't mind. After all, that is precisely what his product is - a community where users can share their links, pictures and text in a micro-blog format, with a little Stack Overflow-style Q&A thrown in. This budding startup has quickly gathered a unique and loyal community of designers and developers that are sharing thousands of posts and comments each day, and today I had to chance to chat with its founder.

http://forrst.com/

Source:

Elastic lists allow to navigate large, multi-dimensional info spaces with just a few clicks, never letting you run into situations with zero results. They enhance traditional UI approaches for facet browsers by visualizing weight proportions, animated transitions, emphasis of characteristic values and sparkline visualizations

NY Times Article search demo:

• http://moritz.stefan...s/elastic-lists/NYT/
• http://thenoisychann...rch-now-open-source/

To me, it shows everything that can go wrong with faceted search. Try a search for [google] in that demo. If you have the reaction I did, you’ll hit immediate paradox of choice from all the options presented, many of which seem almost random.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of faceted search when implemented well. I’m just not sure this is the best example of a well done implementation?

That demo has issues, but I don’t think those damn elastic lists per se. Some of my criticisms: too many facet values as refinement options, lack of parallelism (e.g., locations aren’t hierarchical and some options should be children of others), lack of normalization of organizations (e.g., google and google inc.), and a confusing description facet (e.g., choices include “computer software” and “software”). In contrast, the Nobel Prize demo strikes me as a much better demo of elastic lists.

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.

A DC forum member asks:

"I will be traveling without my laptop and was planning to bring a USB drive with portable apps including Firefox and a VPN client. 

If I run these applications from my USB drive in a public computer in a lobby or Internet cafe, will it leave traces of personal information that I use to log into accounts on Firefox (e.g., gmail other web mail, or OWA)?   I also was thinking of connecting by VPN to my employers servers.  How safe is all this???"