keeping the community informed...

This month we can report the addition of a new support forum, together with more features to make site usability even better. The latest new forum to appear at DaniWeb can be found within the Web Development category and is the self-explanatory Ruby forum. Given the buzz surrounding this hugely popular development framework in the Web community, and considering that it will be included in the next version of Apple’s OS X, we thought the time was right to provide members with a dedicated forum to discuss everything Ruby related. And it looks like we were right, because already the forum has seen postings ranging from general enquiries about what Ruby is and how you go about learning to develop within the framework, through to specific questions about Ajax, portable Ruby and multi dimension arrays. If you have any Ruby questions, or are just interested in learning more about it for yourself, why not pop over and take a look?

On the site usability front, many members tend to want to know what is new within the specific category of interest to them. Instead of seeing all new posts since their last visit on a site-wide basis, they just want to know what is new in the Site Management or IT Water Cooler sections. By simply hovering the mouse pointer over the section and choosing either Posts Since Last Visit or Today’s Posts from the menu, you will be presented with a list of just these. Note that the time shown has changed to reflect our global membership, and now adopts a relative time format of 20 minutes ago or 3 hours ago instead of the a timezone specific stamp that may be confusing to many. The ‘last visit’ link is actually rather smart in that it uses the database itself to keep track of when you last read threads in specific forums. So if you stopped by DaniWeb but didn't read anything in the C++ forum, when you ask it for a list of new posts in the C++ forum it's going to give you a list from the last time you actually visited that forum and not the last time you visited DaniWeb as a whole. Cool huh?

a new blogging milestone reached...

We are very pleased to announce that the DaniWeb Blogs continue to go from strength to strength, crashing through the one million views barrier. If you have always wanted to find an audience for your short articles, news stories or opinionated IT ramblings then why not join those members already blogging right here at DaniWeb? There are no costs to participate, the blogging system is as easy to use as the forum posting one, and as long as your writings are IT related you are good to go. So put your brain in gear, your fingers to the keyboard, and we could soon be celebrating the second million.

helping us to continue helping you...

We appreciate that site advertising is not to everyone’s taste, however it is necessary to keep DaniWeb a totally free resource for members to use. Unlike many IT support sites we do not charge membership fees, nor operate on a pay per question basis, in fact DaniWeb has never charged anything for the help and support it provides. Yet a large site such as this incurs many running costs, and in order to continue providing our service to you we have to cover these costs by attracting advertising revenue. We have done all we can to ensure that the site design allows adverts to stand out enough to satisfy the demands of our sponsors, while at the same time not detracting from the readability of the forums and the site usability as a whole. Kudos to Dani, Queen of DaniWeb, for getting the layout pretty much perfect in this regard.

Without our advertisers and our sponsors, DaniWeb simply would not exist. For this reason we ask members to support this month’s newsletter sponsors The B2b voice and all our other advertisers.

Talking of which, thanks to everyone who took part in the recent DaniWeb job survey, responses to which will help us acquire new advertising campaigns in the future. We mentioned at the time that one random participant would be awarded a USB thumb drive by way of a thank you. The winner will be announced shortly in the
DaniWeb Community Feedback forum, so keep an eye open for the posting.

every month one member makes the DaniWeb hall of fame...

This month we welcome mattyd to the ‘Member of the Month’ section, and award him his ‘Featured Poster’ badge as a result of his excellent contributions to the DaniWeb community, not least within the Geek’s Lounge forum. mattyd joined DaniWeb in October 2006 and has clocked up more than 2400 postings at an average rate of 16 every day. We interviewed the 16th most prolific poster of all time on DaniWeb to find out a bit more about him.

How old are you?

36 (on March 18th, 2007)

Whereabouts do you come from?

NYC area (born in Cincinnati, Ohio)

What are your interests outside of IT?

Takes deep breath: painting, metalsmithing, graphic design, photography, printing, cooking, herbal medicine, anything Japanese, reading (William Burroughs, Charles Dickens, Gene Genet), Bible study\apologetics, Jewish culture, writing (novels, short stories), collecting art\antiques (American Folk, West African), travel, languages(German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew), military gear, music (Iron Maiden, Mozart, Ian Brown, The Smiths, Prince, The Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, Beastie Boys, anything 1980's) puzzles, volunteering, archeology, history, architecture, robots, video games (MMORPG's), Dungeons & Dragons, the Mafia, Star Wars, graffiti, urban decay, lasers, physics, chemistry and politics!

What brought you to DaniWeb originally?

Searching for Python assistance via Google. At which point I really must say thanks to forum moderator vegaseat in regards to Python. He has been so very helpful to me with this language, a very fine and encouraging moderator and he makes Python coding even more exciting than it already is.

What made you stay here?

Knowledgable, seasoned programmers within a healthy and positive community.

What is your all time favorite thread on DaniWeb?

Any thread where ~s.o.s.~ is active. In particular though, the Geek's Lounge Change-a-Letter-or-Two-Game because I enjoy seeing what others convert the last word to; it's always surprising and I learn new and obscure words all the time.

Name the best thing about DaniWeb, and one thing you would change if it were in your power?

Best: well-designed and moderated site.

Changes: at this time, I cannot cite anything in need of dire adjustment.

What is your occupation?

Software Engineer and Advertising Copy Writer

What is your main programming interest - what code excites you the most and why?

Encryption which stems from my interest in the German "Enigma" machine of WWII and old-school code breaking.

Gaming design which allows me to combine and express my knowledge of coding and my gift of visual arts.

My favorite language at this point is Python because it is simple yet powerful, strong and dependable yet highly flexible.

Why your interest in rats?

They are the best domestic animals to breed and raise; highly intelligent and willing to learn or be trained, quite clean, defined personalities, and extremely cute . They are my only children and they love to be babied. My rats (Peek-a-Boo and Sugars) are nicknamed "The Artful Dodgers" as they are quite stealthy, little thieves that live to constantly steal paper and bills to make nests with. Their favorite foods are pancakes with maple syrup, miniature peanut-butter sandwiches and French fries.

You are one of the most prolific posters on DaniWeb, what motivates you?

I use Daniweb to balance my time and mind\energy; after programming\working as much as I do sometimes, Daniweb allows me to have a healthy, quasi-social outlet where I cannot only learn more but also relax and have a laugh or two amongst others similar in personality to myself (geeks\nerds.)

How long do you spend, on average, on DaniWeb every day?

Approximately four or five hours, or more. I average at least twelve hours a day on my machine, so that sounds about right.

by happygeek

Microsoft Windows Live OneCare was already struggling in the credibility stakes after failing to pass the Virus Bulletin VB100 certification tests as I reported here last month.

Talk about kicking a wounded animal, now the results of the latest, and much respected, av-comparatives are in, and do no make for comfortable reading if you happen to be Microsoft.

Security researcher Andreas Clementi conducted in-depth testing of 17 anti-virus scanners, subjecting them to no less than 497,608 items of malware during the process. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a test to be dismissed as insignificant. It is the real deal, which is why the results are so devastating for Microsoft. Of those 17 products, including entries from all the major vendors in the marketplace, Windows Live OneCare came last. Worse yet, it came last by quite some margin.

Indeed, only it and the little known Dr Web scanner failed to reach an overall detection rating of 90% and whereas Dr Web only just failed, with 89.27%, OneCare managed a really very poor 82.4%. Compare this with G-DATA AVK leading the test on 99.45%, F-Secure 97.91%, Kaspersky 87.89% and even arch-rivals Symantec Norton AV with 96.83%.

So bad was the OneCare result, in fact, that it didn’t actually make the cut for inclusion in the evaluation process so is unlikely to even appear in the next set of tests in August. To reach the lowest grade of certification, standard, a product needs to hit 85%. Then again, perhaps for Microsoft it will be a relief if it doesn’t as no news will be good news for a change.