Lin Evans

Just tested with Google and no malware has been reported - test results below:

No problems here with downloads or music from the site. It's a legitimate site and no malware found by any of my (MSE, Superantispyware, Adaware, etc.) antivirus protection. I believe its a false positive of some type. Downloaded multiple selections and they all play perfectly for me. Best regards, Lin

LOL - This will be my daily calendar! I forget which day it is more frequently these days, but I "will" refresh my memory daily this year! Nice blinds too! Thanks!! Lin

Fantastic Igor - listening to Strauss played by US Air Force Band now... Great suggestion! Best regards, Lin

Nice one Mick - Michael Faraday and Nikola Tesla would be proud of that design! Gorgeous sunset as well!! These venetian blinds things can become a time sink - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Just to see if it could be done.... took a while and required creating interesting masks, etc. Warning, tasteful artistic nudity in first two slides ... a number of special "effects" and a little surprise... About 58 meg download... http://www.lin-evans...project2mac.zip (MacIntosh native executable) http://www.lin-evans.../project2pc.zip (Windows PC zipped Exe) For those with less than an optimal video card, or who haven't the bandwidth to download a nearly 60 meg zipped exe, here the video version. It's not quite as smooth as the executable with a top-end video card, but it should play fine on almost any system.... http://www.lin-evans.org/experiment/experiment.htm Lin

Hi Paul, Great presentation which emphasizes the side of Shanghai which the world sees and the Shanghai in which millions of common people live, work and play. It rather reminds me of Beijing in many ways. The incredible wealth and beautiful structures in juxtaposition to the poverty and common folks who help make it all possible. Beautiful photos and wonderful to see Shanghai when smog is minimal (in most of the photos). In Beijing, it's difficult to find any day when one can photograph and actually "see" the skyline from any distance. Thanks for sharing, Best regards, Lin

A couple observations. There have been numerous times when I've needed to remove a drop shadow during an animation. The only work-around so far has been to duplicate the area of the slide using PNG and transparency, overlay this and use keyframed opacity to "correct".. Being able to "keyframe" drop shadows would be a significant improvement. The other "niggle" is that opacity appears to be "additive." By this I mean that if you have a shadow on an object with another object also having a shadow in close proximity, the two shadows "add" their opacity values and with a number of these in proximity, it creates a very "dark" and ugly shadow. A recent example was using drop shadows on Venetian Blind simulations. As the blinds were raised, the cumulative effect of shadows from three or more shadowed objects created an extremely dark shadow under the last shade which followed it as it rose to the valance. If there were an "option" for drop shadows to not be additive, then the animation would look correct. As it is, so far I've found no viable work-around. It's either not have the shadows on the blinds, or have the dark additive shadow underneath. Best regards, Lin

Nice one - I like the exit through the window and the stroll through the building! Best regards, Lin

Hey - that would be great except, unfortunately, until Igor gives us video as a mask we can't "see through" a video transparency so we'll have to just keep on doing it the "hard way" until we can have video with chroma key extraction or video as a mask capabilities. I'll furnish the girls, it you will buy the Chardoney and furnish the wine glasses. Here, it's a "brown paper bag" which distinguishes the connoisseur of fine wines from the "wino" LOL... Best regards, Lin By the way, I'll be posting the "fixed" version as far as the "dropping the blinds" correctly in a few moments - it will be about a half hour and on the same link with the same name....

LOL - you guys are sure "pickey" .... Actually, let me address all three questions here. First the inside window looking "outside" to another "inside room." That's not uncommon where I live. For example, my previous ranch home had a window in the kitchen which, when the blinds were drawn, revealed a large "spa" room with a hot tub, cedar lined walls, chairs, tables, couches and sliding doors and large windows from that room leading outside to the pasture, barn, out building, lawns, etc. Very much like you see in the room with the fireplace... Often here we use windows between adjacent rooms, especially if the room is "common" to several other rooms. In the SW United States this is not an unusual form of construction probably originating in the old "Spanish Courtyard" concept, but the "courtyard" surrounded by walls and enclosed in modern days to make this an "all season" and warm and cozy place to enjoy seeing the great outdoors without the attendant weather issues. O.K. The blinds look neater doing it the way I did without ugly cords bunching up and a big "wad" of stacked blinds being hoisted into the valance. Just imagine that there were channels, gears, and a hoist chain inside the window frame and each "blind" was connected by a translucent polycarbonate rod to the master track chain hidden inside the window channel which lowers and raises the blinds. Anybody buying this??? LOL. For those who are "purists," I'll do another with the more "conventional" look and post it in a few days.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, If you were following the recent discussion of PTE for historical slideshows, we just covered the use of the mask to fade text and background simultaneously.... # 29 on my AV Tutorials....... http://www.picturest...s-for-upgrades/ Best regards, Lin

Continuing the fun: Warning! Tasteful nudity - if you have anything against the cute southbound end of a northbound girl, don't download. http://www.lin-evans...t/projectpc.zip (about 34 meg) http://www.lin-evans.../projectmac.zip (about 34 meg) Lin

Just a thought.... the Venetian Blind could make a cool 'transition" for a part of a slideshow. One could open the blinds and show an image, close them, have a sip of Chardoney, open them on a second slide, etc., etc. Best regards, Lin

LOL - good one!! Nice humor also with the "bicycle wreck" Best regards, Lin

It's commendable, I think, that Nikon has produced a more useful tool by avoiding the "megapixel mania" which has seemingly taken over digital camera production. Having worked with some of the latest high resolution sensors, I find that there is little real improvement in "optical resolution" beyond sixteen megapixels in a dSLR format instrument. Only with the absolutely finest lenses and then primarily only in the center of the field of view are small resolution advantages realized. Sigma has demonstrated with their SD1 model that it's quite possible to produce more optical resolution with a fifteen megapixel sensor and no antialiasing filter than with a 24 megapixel CFA sensor. Nikon has now given the photographer the "real" goods with greatly enhanced shutter life, more flexibility in "recognition" circuitry, greatly expanded "usable" ISO range, etc. It's nice to see them concentrate on "real" rather than "marketing fluff" features. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, The reason I used a mask is not for controlling the slats but rather for fine tuning the area of display and allowing for subsequent other animation within the framework of the window. In my quick original, the blinds were not rounded purposely so I could easily control the animation to fit a wide variety of windows without distorting the basic shape. The mask also allows myriad other possibilities to be inserted within the same container. It's not necessary to the particular animation, but handy for optionally controlling things like snow, rain, video clips, etc. The frame was used to allow movement of the entire assembly without disturbing individual component alignment, but this "could" be done by the mask container as well but then it would not be as flexible for other possible uses. Best regards, Lin

LOL - we're playing with the same ideas.... I have "sticky" blinds at the top - got to buy some new ones - HA! Not going to worry about it though.... http://www.lin-evans.org/girl/girl.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, I know that if you had Video Builder and it expires, the version of PTE you were using will still work with the version of Video Builder you purchased it with. That is, Video Builder doesn't "quit working" when your upgrade expires. The question is whether you need Video Builder with the latest versions of PTE to burn and create a DVD. I simply don't know. I do know that we need a Side By Side "chart" with bullets to identify the differences so that we know "exactly" what requires Video Builder and what can be done without it. It's anything but clear to me and I really have no way to test it without going into my registry and disabling my PTE key. I don't want to do that. We need absolute clarification because this question has come up many times before and it won't go away. When it is confusing to those of use who are posting here every day for many years, imagine how confusing it is to new customers..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, LOL - mine is a "cheap" venitian blind from Walmart. Yours definitely is of much higher quality! Could be from Harrods!! Mine is just a 5 minute plastic "quickie" to show the possibilities with a mask and no great care taken to precisely match on the closure. They (the blinds) are definitely "better" open than closed on mine - HA! Best regards, Lin

Hi, The reason it is difficult to give you and answer quickly is that almost everyone on this forum has the deluxe version and with that, it's not easy to say exactly what your screen would look like without it. If I remember correctly, you "can" create a DVD that will play in a DVD player and you don't need Deluxe to do that. You can also create an AVI file, but how well you can do this depends on "codecs" which you may or may not have on your existing system. There is no other software needed to burn a DVD, but to make an AVI you "may" need an additional codec depending on what you have already. Codecs (compress-decompress) come with a number of different software packages. Generally, there is one available on "most" systems which will let you create an AVI without having to download a "packet" of codecs and install one or more, but sometimes that becomes necessary depending again on your individual system. We actually need to amend the "Frequently Asked Questions" section to include the specific differences between the Deluxe and Standard PTE editions. It is definitely "not" well presented. There "should" be a chart with bullets which plainly depicts the differences and I'll see if I can create one as soon as I can determine "precisely" the differences. What I do know is that to take full advantage of the video clip feature, you would be better served by having the Deluxe version. It has a converter which will convert video to the "best" quality for your presentation. Also I'm certain that to export automatically to Facebook and Youtube as well as to output to the i'Phone, iPad and to make HD videos for PC and MacIntosh you do need Video Builder. I don't "think" you need Video Builder to burn a DVD and I know you can create AVI's without it. Perhaps someone more familiar with the "standard" version can correct me if I'm wrong... Best regards, Lin

LOL - other than that pesky "red patch" it definitely looks better! It needed the "valance" and window cords... Best regards, Lin

Hi, Let me try to answer some of your questions. PTE is nothing like Animoto. There are no "canned" templates which create random animations or animated to the background rhythm of music. If you want animations, you pretty much create them yourself. There are a few "templates" available which have been written by users. Some are free, some are very inexpensive. Video Builder is needed to output to HD mp4 h.264 or to iPod, iPad, iPhone, auto upload to Youtube, etc. You can output Windows executable code, MacIntosh native executable code or create AVI's without Video Builder, but I would suggest buying it because it's a "very" nice add-on and well integrated with PTE. Video Builder has a two year upgrade cycle. That is, from the time you purchase Video Builder, you can upgrade free for two years. This doesn't mean that Video Builder quits working when the two years are up, it just means that to upgrade to the latest version will require purchasing the upgrade. PTE - the basic program has a free lifetime upgrade. Any specific questions you may have, I will "try" to answer, but it's best to go to the Wnsoft.com site to learn and read details about the latest version of PTE. Best regards, Lin

Should work now - strange that zip didn't include files, but it's "fixed"... Same link http://www.lin-evans.org/mick/girl2pte.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, See it this will help with possibilities - L http://www.lin-evans.org/mick/girl2pte.zip Best regards, Lin