Cranial Soup

Tons of Free Stock Photo Sites – Commercial Use OK – No Credit Required

2010-03-27T05:59:00.001-04:00

When you are a blogger, web designer, developer, or creating a product for resale, you might need photos for your posts, templates, and other designs, but you can't just use any photo you find on the internet. That would most likely violate someone's copyright and get you into a heap of legal trouble.
So what are you supposed to do if you don't have a camera or any photography talent?

Stock photos? Sounds good, but most stock photos cost money.

Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr? That could be good too, but that requires a link back and there may be restrictions against commercial use. Can you imagine having to put a long Flickr URL on every t-shirt and mousepad you make? How would you go about giving proper credit on a small 125x125 ad? And if you are making web templates it might not be the best idea to trust people that use your templates to keep the credit links intact.

So where can you get a whole bunch of great photos to use, that don't require a credit link, won't cost you a dime, and allow for commercial use, too?

Fortunately for you, I have done some research into this and found quite a few sources.

Fotolia has a section on their site where they give away free stock photos. The selection is limited, but they change the photos offered on a regular basis. Good for web use. Files must not be displayed in a size bigger than 640x480 pixels. Can not be used in items meant for resale (no printed t-shirts, web templates, etc)

freestockphotos.biz has tons of photos with varying licenses, many of which allow for commercial use, including items meant for resale. Check the license terms included on the page with each photo.

BurningWell.org has nothing but public domain photos. You can do anything you please with them, including items for resale.

Creating Online has free stock photos that are 400x600 pixels in maximum dimensions at 72 dpi, ideal for web use, and the selection of free photos is at the discretion of each photographer. To learn if a photo has a free download version, check its preview page. New free photos are added daily, so check back often. All free photos are covered by their standard license.

Crestock gives away one free stock photo each day. If you hit the site every day, you can build quite a collection. Sometimes they even give away a vector instead of a photo. All material they give away is covered by their standard license agreement. They also have a plugin for Wordpress, that allows you to use many of their photos for free in your blog posts, but it does link back to their site.

Dreamstime offers some free photos (RF-LL), but their standard license doesn't allow redistribution, and they consider print-on-demand items, t-shirts, web templates and other merchandise to be redistribution. They also have an additional limitation for the free photos: the number of copies is limited to 10,000 copies. If you need more than that you have to purchase the photo under the full standard license.

Free Media Goo provides free images, audio files, textures and flash files that you can pretty much do whatever you please with them except use them in propaganda, pornography, or anything suggestive, according to their license.

freerangestock offers photos you can use for just about anything. They request that you give credit, but they also say it isn't required if you don't want to. There is a credit and link requirement if you use their photos as part of a web template, though.

Image*After lets you do anything you want with their photos, as long as you don't use them to set up a stock photo site that competes with theirs.

iStockPhoto gives away one free stock photo each week, under their standard license. They also give away a free vector, video file, and audio track each month. Free membership is required.

KeyStockPhoto has a number of photos and retro images available. Photos are approximately 5" x 7" at 72dpi. They are suitable for all you web and graphic needs. They can be used on your web site, newsletter, advertising, articles, brochures, presentations, reports, promotional materials, print ads, mailers, handouts, packaging, greeting cards.

Morguefile has some very generous license terms that even allow you to sell the images, as images, as long as you have altered it so that it isn't identical to the original.

PDPhoto.org has some really nice images that you can do whatever you please with, as they are all dedicated to the public domain. There are a few sections containing photos that are not public domain, but that collection is a rather small part of the site.

Photogen has images that are good for the standard commercial uses that don't involve redistribution or printing on products for sale.

Photo Rack says there are no limitations on the use of their images.

Pixel Perfect Digital has lots of great images, but you can't use them for items for sale or redistribution, and that includes not using them in web templates.

Public-Domain-Photos.com has images you can do anything you want with, no restrictions.

PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can do anything you want with them, but keep in mind that none of the photos have model or property releases. If you want that type of photo, they do sell some cheap, in the bottom section of the main page.

Unprofound.com was created by designers, for designers and will pretty much let you do anything with their photos except redistribute them as stock photos. The only payment they want is the pleasure of knowing what their work has become. All they want in return is to be able to see what you have done with them, which means either sending them a photo of your product, screenshot of your software, link to your website or template, or whatever other way you can show them what their images have become part of.

Pixmac has a selection of images that you can use, but not in anything considered redistributable (like mousepads, t-shirts, etc.), and at a max of 400x400 resolution on the web. There is an exception to the redistributable rule which would allow for use in web templates, providing they are made for use by one specific client. In other words, you can't use their images in web templates you plan on offering to the general public, where more than one person or company could download and use them.

Do you know of a stock photo site that I might have missed that will allow you to use their images commercially, without credit? Leave me a link in a comment.

Free Music Download: New Century Classics – Natural Process

2010-03-25T19:32:00.001-04:00

I came across this great post-rock album on my travels yesterday.

It's from a Polish band called New Century Classics.

Every track is great, from the first to the last. This is how music was meant to be. It's not like the albums produced by most of the artists signed to the major labels where it is one or two good tracks and the rest are just filler.

This is all good.

And it gets better…

The artist allows you to name your price and pay what you think it is worth, including $0.00 if you don't want to pay or are not quite ready to support their work just yet. And it's high quality audio files. Not only can you name your price, you can choose your file format and bitrate, too! You get your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, OGG, AAC, and more.

So take a listen and then go get the album.

Free Header Graphic: Peachy

2009-04-05T05:31:00.001-04:00

Just messing around again, and created another graphic for you to use.

The sample is shown at 50%. Click to see it full size (800x250).

The font used is Aldridge Script SSK.

Zip file includes PSD, PSP, PNG (blank), and JPG (blank).

Download link can be found on my art site.

Free Website Graphics: Header Images

2008-09-23T17:51:00.000-04:00

Playing around in Paintshop Pro again!

Inspired by the trend on a lot of the design blogs to use flourishes and swirly looking things, I decided to take a crack at it and create a pack of images that would be suitable for anyone that designs Wordpress themes, website templates, or just if you want to use it on your own website or blog. Commercial use is OK, do as you wish, just don't offer them for download (together or individually) or claim you made them. You have to make something with them.

There is a total of 60 PNG images in this pack:

1 image with a transparent background
1 image with a white background
29 images with various gradient backgrounds
29 matching gradients images to be used as page or element backgrounds.

Sample shown at actual size:

Samples with some of the gradients (reduced size):

Download link can be found on my art site.

Font used for sample text is Adorable.

Free Clipart: Foodstuff

2008-09-12T11:19:00.003-04:00

I decided to make some clipart and share it. Perfect for a food related site or blog, you may use these any way you wish. Use them to decorate your site, create a logo, make a banner, insert them into posts, printed newsletters, restaurant menus, etc.

There are 26 different images, each with dropshadow, png format, each in 2 styles, both transparent and white backgrounds.

If you like these, let me know and I'll make more. If you use them on your site or blog, share a link so I can see.

Shown at 50% of actual size:

Based on Bon Apetit Font

Download link can be found on my art site.

Win a Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite Package Worth Over $10,000

2008-06-08T05:48:00.002-04:00

DonationCoder is running another whopper of a coding contest, with the help of Chris Hanscom (who runs veign.com).

The prize is a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite with MSDN Premium subscription (almost every application from Microsoft!), worth over $10,000!

So what do you have to do to enter?

Code a new, never-released application, using one of the free versions of Microsoft Visual Studio Express.
Provide the source code for your application (but you do not need to release this publicly if you don’t want to).
The winning program must be freeware or donationware.
Code any kind of program you want.
Post a reply to this forum thread and email mouser stating your intention to enter, well in advance of the deadline.

When is that deadline?

July 1st, 2008

Oh, my! That’s not too far away, so go read about the full contest rules and information and get coding.

Good luck!

Silver Buttons

2008-05-19T16:05:00.004-04:00

Another batch of blank buttons for you to have some fun with.

The zip file contains a variety of sizes from 23x23, to 600x23.

Included is a number of formats: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, and .png.

These buttons may be used for both non-commercial and commercial purposes.

You may use them on your website, in your applications, or whatever you wish.

You may alter these buttons to suit your needs in any way you desire.

Download link can be found on my art site.

Children of the CPU

2008-02-10T15:38:00.003-05:00

Hailing from Vancouver BC, Children of the CPU is the electro-pop duo of Cameron Shay and Veronica Rossos.

What is there not to love about this artist?

First of all, great name...but it gets better...

Their first album is called Back to BASIC, as in the programming language, of course.

And the album cover is awesome, featuring a drawing of 2 children playing Q*bert on an Atari 2600!

Their music is pretty cool too. It's kind of like funky game music combined with Poe.

And just when you think they couldn't get any better, I have saved the best part for last...

You can download the entire album for free, in (DRM free) VBR MP3 format!

All 12 tracks!

Why?

In Cameron Shay's own words:

"Some people have questioned the wisdom of giving away our entire album for free on our website, but don't worry Mom and Dad, we are still eating well and making rent every month! They got me wondering, though, where my desire to share our music comes from and I realised that it is a direct result of my parents having bought me my first computer, a VIC-20, and then later a Commodore 64 in the mid-80s. Having a C-64 in particular triggered a couple of things: it fostered a DIY attitude because I was able to teach myself how to program games (Lawnmower for the VIC-20 and Tricycle Derby for the C-64 ;) and make electronic music (albeit rudimentary), and it opened the door to a vast community of sharing and trading and making friends. In a way this website and album are simply the extension of those times and attitudes. I spent hundreds of hours on this album over the past couple of years learning how to program the synths and record the midi and live instruments and vocals and mix the tracks and improve the sound and master it all, and then I spent many more hours designing and building cover-art and the website, and it was just like all the hours I spent figuring out how to draw sprites and get them to move around in a game on the C-64 with music and sound effects, and now that it's done I just want to share it with people, just like we used to do back in the day through BBS networks and with our friends. So thanks Mom and Dad for starting me off with those computers, I know you were worried about all the time I spent in my room on those things and I guess that hasn't changed much, but it's all a learning process and that's fun and it makes me happy and now it is making a whole bunch of our new friends/fans happy too!"

Like I said before...what is there not to love?

http://www.childrenofthecpu.com

Pretty Swirly Buttons

2007-12-16T09:46:00.002-05:00

I was just messing around with some stuff and made some pretty buttons I don't really have a use for at the moment.

You are welcome to use them in your website designs, if you like.

The samples you see here are 50% of the actual size. The buttons are in PNG format with a transparent background, no drop shadow, and no text.

If you would like to use the same font I used, it's Harrington.

Download link can be found on my art site.

Satan for President, 2008?

2007-11-17T01:29:00.001-05:00

There is a neat little tool available called Anti-Christ Hunter v6.6.6 that will help you find those people that are in league with Satan.

I decided to put it to good use and provide a service to the voting community by identifying all the U.S. Presidential hopefuls and how they score.

Let's see who is in league with Satan...

This concise list is based on the candidates for ALL parties and independents, not just the major two. (candidate list provided by vote-smart.org)

In alphabetical order:

Name	Score	Notes
Laura Davis Aaron	942
Stephen Adams	750	16% in league with Satan
Virginia E. Algar	798
Donald Kenneth Allen	1026
Thomas Wayne Allen	1128
Gene Amondson	756	10% in league with Satan
Yul L. Anderson	960
Jose Miguel Aparicio	1128
Roland G. Aranjo	780
Michael Andrew Arterburn	1398
Blake Ashby	516
Warren Roderick Ashe	1170
George Brent Bailey	1020
Jared Arlen Ball	690	76% in league with Satan
George H. Ballard	690	76% in league with Satan
Jedidiah Elijah Wendell Kennedy Banks	1170
Jon Jay Banks	732	34% in league with Satan
Terry Lee Barkdull	1134
Daniel James Barnett	1038
Bob Barr	348
Michael W. Bay	612	46% in league with Satan
William David Beadles	1002
Carl Durantye Belle	1068
William F. Berg	702	64% in league with Satan
Joseph R. Biden	750	16% in league with Satan
Christina Gerasimos Billings-Elias	2022
Sheila Bilyeu	768
David Michael Bishop	960
Greg Black	396
William Hobert Blakley	1290
Michael R. Bloomberg	948
John Douglas Blyth	1158
Matthew Jay Borman	1134
Jacques Yves Boulerice	1422
John Taylor Bowles	1284
J. Boydston	744	22% in league with Satan
Robert Edwin Boyer	1188
Ryan Joseph Brady	1086
Dewey R. Broughman	1074
Elaine Brown	708	58% in league with Satan
Jeffrey Earl Brown	1098
Edward Allan Buck	792
William Jason Burns	1272
Emperor Caesar	822
John Lee Campbell	798
Dan Byron Canfield	882
Raymond Joseph Caplette	1470
Myrtle Charlotte Carlyle	1626
Jerry Leon Carroll	1206
Anthony Lungo Carter	1386
James Harlin Carter	1050
Willie Felix Carter	1146
Patrick Cazneau	894
Janice Marie Chase	744	22% in league with Satan
Jeanne Chebib	469
Liza Dawn Cherricks	1104
Todd Marvin Clayton	1260
Hillary Rodham Clinton	1386
Eamon Patrick Clune	1086
Stephen Colbert	972
James Cooper	720	46% in league with Satan
Hugh Cort	600	34% in league with Satan
Michael James Cortney	1194
John H. Cox	582	16% in league with Satan
Eric Leland Creviston	1248
Randolph Wilson Crow	1434
Claire Elisabeth Fields Cruise	1554
Orion Karl Daley	960
HRM Caesar St Augustine De Buonaparte	2184
Jack L Dietz	606	40% in league with Satan
Christopher J. Dodd	1056
Susan Gail Ducey	966
Michael Christopher Dutcher	1614
Earnest Lee Easton	1068
John Reid Edwards	942
Max Englerius	888
Philip Epstein	948
Lou-Gary Espinosa	1182
Nickolas Bevan Farmer	1134
Clarita Fazzari	906
Lowell Jackson Fellure	1386
H Neal Fendig	510
Bennie Lee Ferguson	1056
Richard Earl Fleharty	1152
Michael Keith Forrester	1368
Robert Leonard Forthan	1374
Heather Fox	660	94% in league with Satan
Dory Frank	672	94% in league with Satan
Elizabeth Mason Frothingham	1614
David Ernst Furniss	1332
Ida Cecilia Garza	654	88% in league with Satan
Anne Hart Geisler	936
Daniel A. Gilbert	714	52% in league with Satan
Donald Robert Gillen	1122
Rudolph W. Giuliani	1194
Wrendo Johnson P. Godwin	1572
Albert Gore	618	52% in league with Satan
Mark Blair Graham	798
Peter Samuel Grasso	1284
Maurice Robert Gravel	1278
Raymond Ferrill Green	1314
Jon A. Greenspon	918
Jackson Kirk Grimes	1158
William Long Hale	918
Albert Hamburg	768
Dennis M Hanaghan	792
Gerald Lamar Hankins	1008
Curtis Hayward	1020
John Robert Henry	1170
Henry Hewes	780
Samuel B. Hoff	648	82% in league with Satan
Joe Honeychurch	948
Albert B. Howard	774
Mildred T. Howard	924
Michael D. Huckabee	666	ANTI-CHRIST ALERT! They are in league with Satan!
William Charles Hughes	1278
Darrel Reece Hunter	1080
Duncan L. Hunter	930
Alexander Michael Huton	1278
Daniel J. Imperato	912
William Michael Ingram	1152
Robert Garrison Jackson	1512
Michael Paul Jingozian	1236
Jerry Roland Johnson	1410
Stanton T. Jolley	1212
Arnold Matthew Jones	1302
Robert Coleman Jorgensen	1488
Keith Russell Judd	1188
Timothy Charles Kalemkarian	1632
John Joseph Kennedy	1188
Alan L. Keyes	630	64% in league with Satan
Daniel Melzine Kingery	1308
Mark Irwin Klein	1002
David Allen Koch	726	40% in league with Satan
William Ronald Koenig	1224
Philip A. Kok	648	82% in league with Satan
Yaphet Kotto	936
Karl Everett Krueger	1332
Steve W. Kubby	930
Dennis J. Kucinich	918
Karen Kwiatkowski	1206
Dal Anthony LaMagna	978
Christopher Lafontaine	1416
God Johan Josephe Lally	1284
Jared Benjamin Lee	768
Kip Lee	348
Monroe Lee	612	46% in league with Satan
Joseph Felix Leonaitis	1398
Alden Link	492
Elvena E. Lloyd-Duffie	1098
Bradley K. Lord-Leutwyler	1608
Frank Lynch	672	94% in league with Satan
Steven Douglas Mabey	1260
Stephen D. Macmillan	1014
Yehanna Joan/Mary Malone	1350
Greg Martin	672	94% in league with Satan
Mike Benjamin Martisko	1272
Joseph Martyniuk	1230
John Christopher Mason	1488
John Sidney McCain	996
James Hatton McCall	1020
Laura Jane McCumber	966
Frank Edward McEnulty	1308
Raymond Louis McKinney	1560
Orleans Victor Mcfoy	1398
Megally Megally	900
Lee L. Mercer	576	10% in league with Satan
Kent Philip Mesplay	1266
Prince Michael	696	70% in league with Satan
Joseph C. Miechowicz	1140
Hubert Billy Miles	1152
Robert W. Milnes	1038
Steven Edward Mirabella	1278
James Creighton Mitchell	1374
Sal Mohamed	546
Omar Jones Monahan	1056
Brian Joseph Moran	1068
Robert Edward Moreau	1236
Howard Louis Moxham	1314
Abdul (Kareem) Muhammad	1002
Jesus Bilal Islam Allah Muhammed	1656
Grover Cleveland Mullins	1578
Ralph Nader	582	16% in league with Satan
George C. Nelson	834
Sandra Queen Noble	1002
Barack Hussein Obama	978
Lawrence Anthony Obern	1392
Frederick Eugene Ogin	1086
Glenda Gail Parker	846
George E. Pataki	720	46% in league with Satan
Ronald Ernest Paul	1170
Jeffrey Charles Petkevicius	1686
George David Joseph Phillies	1560
Matthew D. Pinnavaia	1086
Deshon Porter	942
Michel Anissa Powell	1176
James John Prattas	1140
Madison Augustine Primus	1728
Rajesh Srinivasa Raghavan	1470
Charles G. Railey	858
William Nathaniel Raven	1338
Larry Keith Reed	954
Bill Richardson	864
Ralph Marshall Robinson	1470
Willard Mitt Romney	1386
Paul Russell Rosenberger	1692
Gary Rostad	768
Kamal Karna R Reverend Roy	1500
Gary W. Ruff	750	16% in league with Satan
Mary J. Ruwart	1008
Cameron Sadovsky	1110
Launeil Neil Sanders	1164
Marshall Samuel Sanders	1410
Ole' Savior	696	70% in league with Satan
John W. Sawyer	966
Barbara Ann Scaff	642	76% in league with Satan
Joseph Charles Schriner	1398
Larry Joseph Schuetter	1596
Jonathon Sharkey	1104
Scott J. Sheldon	984
Jack E. Shepard	606	40% in league with Satan
Freddy Irwin Sitnick	1320
Christine Smith	1044
Michael Charles Smith	1116
Rhett R. Smith	948
Richard Michael Smith	1086
Keith Robert Sprankle	1362
Douglas Stanhope	1062
Johns Wallace Stevenson	1536
Michael Sugerman	894
Vermin Love Supreme	1392
Kat Swift	654	88% in league with Satan
Charles Joseph Leo Symonds	1680
Edward Anthony Szynalski	1728
Tom Gerald Tancredo	1050
Nanci Jean Taylor	972
Fred Dalton Thompson	1314
Michael Tienken	774
Linda Tompkins-Reagan	1218
Bruce Calvin Trask	1074
Corrogan R. Vaughn	1092
Charles Gordon Vick	1104
Da Vid	240
Hugh Wallace	606	40% in league with Satan
Mark R. Warner	840
Lanakila Washington	1146
James Louis Dezort Watchman	1770
Thomas Wells	882
Ruth Bryant White	1272
Virgil L. R. Wiles	1050
Jomo K. Manual Williams	1344
Kelcey Brian Wilson	1182
Robert B. Winn	840
Marc Wolin	648	82% in league with Satan
James Wellington Wright	1584
Vernon Edgar Wuensche	1326
Eugene Robert Zarwell	1392
Frank Zilaitis	930

So there you have it folks. Now you know who the Anti-Christ is, what he's up to, and who is working with him. And yes, he is a Republican.

No time to thank me for all my hard work hunting him & his minions down...you have work to do!

Go get your own copy of Anti-Christ Hunter v6.6.6 and find out which of your co-workers, family & friends are in league with Satan, before it's too late!!

And tell all your God fearing friends about it! Spread the word!

Your soul depends on it.

Free Course: Computer Programming I (using C)

2007-11-13T05:43:00.001-05:00

University of Washington CSE 142 - Computer Programming I

This is a complete basic introductory course (using C) for beginners that have no previous programming experience, that was offered at the University of Washington during the fall of 2000 (taught by Martin Dickey).

If you have never studied programming, this course was designed for you.

Access to slides, homework assignments & solutions, exams & solutions (everything except the lectures and quizzes):
http://www.online.cs.washington.edu/cse142/

Here are the lecture videos. It may seem as if they are listed out of order, but they are actually in the proper order in which they should be viewed. Whoever uploaded them numbered them wrong. The entire set of videos is Closed Captioned.

Lecture 1: Overview and Welcome
Lecture 2: Problems, Algorithms and Programs
Lecture 3: Variables, Values and Types
Lecture 4: Arithmetic Expressions
Lecture 5: Input and Output (I/O)
Lecture 23: Style
Lecture 6: Conditionals
Lecture 7: Functions
Lecture 8: Function Parameters
Lecture 9: Iteration
Lecture 10: Loop Development and Program Schemas
Lecture 11: Complex Conditionals
Lecture 12: Functions and Design
Lecture 27: Switch Statement
Lecture 24: Structuring Program Files
Lecture 13: Pointer Parameters
Lecture 14: Arrays
Lecture 15: Linear & Binary Search
Lecture 16: Sorting
Lecture 17: Multidimensional Arrays
Lecture 18: Structures
Lecture 19: Strings
Lecture 21: File Input/Output
Lecture 20: Nested Data Structures
Lecture 26: Recursion
Lecture 25: Recursive Binary Search
Lecture 22: Course Wrap-up and Review

If you want to download them for offline viewing, you can use this site with the URL's provided above.

The textbook they used in this course:
Problem Solving and Program Design in C (Hanly and Koffman)

Software for Starving Students

2007-10-11T13:11:00.002-04:00

Software for Starving Students is a FREE downloadable collection of programs, put together with students in mind (but anybody can use it).

Everything is all on one a single disk. There are both Mac OSX and Windows versions available.

If you ever wanted an easy way to gather and install some the best free software available, this would be it.

Included applications:

OS X

Windows

http://softwarefor.org/

Tons of Free Legal Music MP3's

2007-01-15T23:18:00.002-05:00

In an effort to broaden my musical horizons, and discover stuff I may never have heard or heard of before, I have been wandering around on Last.fm.

I discovered a few .mp3 downloads on my suggestions page and decided to look up the artists on Last.fm. One of them had a link to their page on another site.

A marvelous discovery!

Some of these artists have their stuff covered under a Creative Commons license that allows you to share them freely. So download what you like and fire up your favorite P2P application and share them with your friends, if you want.

Try this:

Where it says "Bändin nimi:" type in something you already like.
You will get a short list of results of artists that list them as an influence.
Go click where they put your artist's name as a link.
You will get a whole page of results.
Click a link from the left column.
On the artist page, click where it says 'download' at the top.
You will get a .zip file full of mp3's.

Enjoy!

http://www.mikseri.net/artists/search.php

Win MS Visual Studio Suite (worth over $10k) !!!

2006-11-02T03:39:00.000-05:00

Quoting mouser from DonationCoder.com:

Chris Hanscom from Veign.com (and a longtime member of DonationCoder) has generously donated a super-tricked out version of Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription for us to give away to one very lucky programmer.

The suite includes includes every piece of software that MS makes for development purposes: Visual Studio, all Microsoft Operating Systems, all software development platforms, lots of MS applications (all the Office products), mappoint, SQL Server, and also includes the full MSDN library on DVD plus online access. It's valued at over $10k.

- click here to enter -
deadline is November 25th, 2006

----------------------------------------------

NOTE: This giveaway is for serious programmers only, but you do not need to be a supporting member of DonationCoder.com to enter. If you have friends who are programmers but don't hang out at DC, please feel free to send them the link - we'd like the prize to go to someone who can really put it to use.

The prize cannot be resold and will be issued in the winners name with licensing being controlled by Microsoft. As Microsoft is issuing the subscription, Veign and DonationCoder cannot be held liable for anything relating to this giveaway (to include, but not limited to, cancellation of subscription by failing to follow the licensing rules set forth by Microsoft or by attempting to resell any software included in the subscription). So we ask that only serious programmers enter.

(from DonationCoder.com)

Digg this here.

Companies Pay for Good Reviews and Praise

2006-10-13T10:26:00.000-04:00

The discussion began back in February for us, on DonationCoder.com, but the latest chapter is quite hilarious.

If someone offered you cash or a freebie to say nice things about their products on forums or in your blog, could you, with a clear conscience, do something like that to your readers? Even if it was a crap product? Would violating their trust be worth it in the long run?

Joel Spolsky didn't think so. Sprint gave him a free phone to write about. And he wrote about it in the most brutally honest way imaginable.

Way to go, Joel, for your honesty and not compromising your integrity for a free phone. You've earned +10 internet points from me.

Free icons for developers

2006-05-13T03:53:00.000-04:00

I came across a great site today that has an immense collection of free, quality icon images that developers can use in their projects. The Silk collection is really cool!

They are published with a Creative Commons license, so as long as you give the guy credit and include a link to his site in your about box, you are free to use them any way you wish in your projects, including making derivative works of them.

They are in .png format but they can be easily converted to .bmp or .ico.

How can you go wrong?

So head on over to FamFamFam and check them out!

StopWatch

2006-05-11T03:07:00.000-04:00

I have been spending a lot of time over at DonationCoder.com.

They have this great 'coding snacks' forum where visitors can request small utility programs and volunteers will create them. It's a great way to get project ideas, or kill a bit of time doing what you know you love to do...code stuff.

Someone there requested a stopwatch with a global hotkey to control it. They wanted it to either always stay on top or be able to be minimized to the system tray.

Since I had already done a stopwatch like this, all it needed was the addition of a global hotkey and the request would be filled...so that's what I did.

The hotkey is Ctrl-Shift-F9.

Hitting this will start/pause/resume, depending on the current state of the clock.
This will even work to control the stopwatch if it is minimized to the tray.

Enjoy!

Download: StopWatch

comments & suggestions welcomed

Translator Boomerang

2006-05-06T08:04:00.000-04:00

Over on DonationCoder.com, mouser just released a new version of Translation Boomerang. This uses Google's free web-based translation service to translate a statement or word into up to 9 languages and back to English. If you have never heard of it or used it, it's a must try program.

This is not a serious translator...it's quite funny!

The following is the output, step by step, from English to each language and back to English, for 5 loops. The first line is my original English phrase. The last line is the farthest thing from the first that I could have imagined.

Available for wild sex.
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Available for wild sex.
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Available for the wild sex.
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Available for the wild sex.
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Available for the wild sex.
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Land available for sex.
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The land which can be utilized because of characteristic.
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The ground it could be used because of quality.
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Because it can use local quality.
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Because it can use local quality.
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Because it can use local quality.
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Since it can employ local quality.
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Since it can employ the local quality.
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Since that it can use the local quality.
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It can be used to the local quality.
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As for that it can use for local quality.
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The tube printed style of writing hazard it will be able to use a local quality to that.
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Editorial dangerous pipeline to India using local quality.
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Editorial dangerous piping to India with local quality.
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Publishing dangerous pipe to India with local quality.
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Dangerous pipe of edition towards India with local quality.
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Dangerous tube of the edition towards India with local quality.
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Dangerous pipe of the edition for India with local quality.
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The risk of pipeline quality of the local edition of India.
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Danger of quality of pipeline of the Indian local section.
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Question danger of pipeline of humane local profile.
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Charities pipelines, may local image.
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Next dear ear lines, know local picture.
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The considered following lines of the ear, know the picture local.
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Considered afterwards lines of the ear, know people of the country of image.
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The lines later on considered of the ear, know people of the country of the image.
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The lines later in the considered one of the ear, know peoples of the country of the image.
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Lines later in one ear, and knows people in a country profile.
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With one ear later as for line, knowing people of profile of country.
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In the line the tube printed style of writing or is knowing 1 return route and the people of the profile of the nation in.
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The Bank is one of the editorial was printed circuit and the people of the whole country's image.
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The bank is the editorial was print plate and the people of the complete picture of the country.
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The bank is the publishing one was plate of the impression and the people of the complete picture of the country.
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The bank is of edition was flat impression and people of the complete image of the country.
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The bank is of the edition was flat impression and people of the complete image of the country.
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The bank is of the edition was smooth impression and person of the complete image of the country.
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Bank of Edition impression smooth and full picture of a country.
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Edition impression of the country being smooth, the bank of complete image.
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The impression which the smooth nation sells, the bank of the image which is complete.
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Impression of a national marketing, banking image is completed.