Lin Evans

There shouldn't be any problems finding WordPad because it's path is embedded within the Windows operating system via defaults in the hidden config.sys file. That's the reason you don't have to be in a particular place to find the majority of the Windows included utilities. Remember in the old days of DOS, we had to modify the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to place frequently used utilities in the path. Now Bill Gates and company have tried to take all that common sense away from the user and Windows has become the defacto "paternalistic" master of it's users. LOL As long as the program being called is a common Windows utility the assumption is that it "should" already be in the path in Config.Sys. It's when you need to run executables which are not generally found in the computer that you need to include their exe file in the root. For example, I frequently call short video clips from my CD's and I often embed IrfanView on the CD and use it to run the video. I've never encountered a problem doing it this way on a wide variety of different machines with different CD/DVD drive designators so unless something has changed I'm assuming it will still work that way. The only way that a call to a Windows utility would normally "not" work is if someone had manually changed the config.sys file on that unit to exclude these normally used utilities from the path or, if for some strange reason they had actually moved the executable code for a program from its default place so that the path in config.sys points to an incorrect folder or location. Best regards, Lin

Try putting all files in the root of the CD - don't bury them in any folders and you won't need a path at all. The program will simply look for them in the same location with the slideshow executable. I've never had a problem running executable code from within a P2E slideshow as long as everything is on the root level of the device. Think of it like the autorun.inf file, unless told otherwise it looks on the root of the loaded device. No matter what the original device designator, the autorun always finds the executable being called. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, Yes the "crawl" would definitely be nice if it could be implemented - the other thing which could really make the new P2E a dandy is if there were the ability to seamlessly drop in MPG4 or AVI video clips like you can do with Media@Show or even with ProShow Gold. ProShow's implementation isn't nearly as good as the old Media@Show but if this could be done with P2E then you can use some dynamite tools such as WildFX which has literally thousands of incredible text effects and outputs both in Flash and MPG. I use it with some of my more sophisticated slideshows and the effects are incredible, but it does require that the software be able to seamlessly incorporate the video into the executable or DVD process. Best regards, Lin

You can certainly do that - but if you want to place silence at several places in the slideshow and for varying times for aesthetic purposes, then somtimes it works better to add the silence in a sound editor and create a single mp3 file rather than multiple files. You eliminate the possibility of hesitation during loading of a new mp3 which "can" become problematic when trying to precisely synchronize your show. Once you get familiar with using a program like audacity, it takes only seconds to edit an change a file. It's a very simple "cut and paste" just like your would do if you were using a word processor. You see precisely where to the fraction of a second you want to change the sound and simply cut, paste, etc., and save the result as a new file without affecting the original. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Actually there are only 10 small jpg images in this sequence. I've zipped them up in a file called "sequence.zip" and you can download them here: http://www.lin-evans.net/sequence.zip Just load them in sequence begining with start.jpg, 1.jpg, 1a.jpg, 1b.jpg, etc. The set the first slide to whichever opening transition you prefer and set the second (1.jpg) to fade in but set the timing to zero seconds and 1 ms. Set each following slide except the last to no effect and zero seconds and 1 ms timing. Let the last slide remain as needed. There really is no limit as to how many neat effects you can create. Think of this as one of the old Disney animations where artists would draw sequential images then photograph them and create a motion picture by streaming them at 24 frames per second. They used to keep them in books which you could "thumb" like pages of a book and see the apparent action. It's actually "possible" to create scrolling, pan, zooms, etc., the same way in P2E, but it will be MUCH easier and less time intensive with version 5. You can actually create your own scrolling text - even create text from tiny objects (strawberries, cherries, limes - HA!). With enough patience you can do about everything which is possible with any other program - that's the beauty of being able to combine the power of PhotoShop or other graphics tool with P2E. But version 5 will make it ever so much more powerful. Here's a link to a quick sample (crude - but you can get the idea) of how you could do text writing, object rotation, etc., with images.... Version 5 will make "some" of these techniques unnecessary, but there are limits. For example when you rotate with the Ken Burns Effect, you rotate the entire image. With a graphics editor you have the ability to select and save any portion of your image as a file which can be then used in a "paste" effect to do specialized things. In my sample you will see that I rotated the strawberry 360 degrees. This was done by simply selecting the strawberry in PhotoShop, setting foreground and background to black (because the background is black) then using Free Transform to rotate it a few degrees and save each iteration of rotation as a separate file. Then I used the starting image at the end so the start and finish were identical. I set each image to "quick - no transition" and set the timing to zero seconds and 30 ms. The more you experiment the more you will be able to do complex things with your slideshows. But don't get carried away with the "effects" to the degree that it detracts from the aesthetics of the show. It's just that by using layers in PhotoShop you can accomplish anything with P2E that you can do with Vegas Video (over $600 - or PhotoDex's ProShow Producer - $500 plus), etc. There is really no limit to the versatility and P2E has the one thing which NONE of the competition has - the ability to use objects and run external code. That alone makes it one of the most powerful programs of it's type ever written. Here's the link: http://www.lin-evans.net/berries2.exe Best regards, Lin

To expand a bit on what Geoff said: Essentially what you do is take the original image and give it a name such as frame.jpg. Next select and copy the object you want to move through the frames and reduce it in size in PhotoShop, etc. Save it as a separate file and either use layers in PhotoShop to create the sequence or do it in the following manner. Give the copied object a unique name and save it as a file. Let's just use the name moveme.jpg for an example. Next open moveme, select all, copy. This puts moveme.jpg into the clipboard. Next paste moveme.jpg into frame.jpg in the position where you want the movement to start. Level the file and name it something like frame1.jpg. Repeat the paste, level, save process for each position you want the smaller image to "fly" through. The more frames you make and the closer you space each new paste the smoother the final effect will be. End with the frame showing the last position you want the "flying" object to appear in. Place the slides in their numerical sequence and open the shot with a fade in or whatever you deem appropriate and set the display time appropriately. On each subsequent frame either use no effect or fade (use fade if you want a "mouse tracks" type ghost movement) and set the display time for each of the "flying slides" to zero seconds and 1 mS. The effect will be to see the original displayed for a few seconds, then see the smaller move through the positions according to the sequencing you have devised. Set the display to a longer time for the final slide. I've created a quick and dirty sample for you and "cheated" by using an all black background (so I don't have to mess with Layers in PhotoShop). This one has only a few frames but you can see how it would work. The movement is a bit jerky because of the small nuber of frames. The more frames and the closer the positioning between frames the better and smoother the effect. Believe me - this will be MUCH easier to do in Version 5.... Link below: http://www.lin-evans.net/berrydemo.exe Lin

Let's start with some of the basics: First, Riva is an excellent program - It assumes you have some basic knowledge (just like PhotoShop) of what you are attempting to do. Try to call Adobe for basic support on how to use something like layers and learn about "real" frustration. There are some simple things you need to understand to use any program which converts an AVI file to Flash - I'll get into "how" a bit later here. Second, it's quite easy to insert silence into places in your slideshow, but you also need to understand how to use a sound editor such as the freeware "Audacity". There have been some great suggestions already for you here so I'll not get into this part (audio) any more than just saying you should approach this by creating a variety of "silent" mp3's and name each according to length. You can create one file of extended length then cut it exactly where you wish in Audacity and save different length segments under names which are representative of the length. Something like silentfiveseconds.mp3, silenttwelveseconds.mp3, etc. Then simply insert the segments where you want the silence. To use Riva you must create an AVI file rather than the default P2E AVI template. You do this by selecting the proper CODEC. When you are ready to create the AVI click on the VIDEO tab (on the bottom of the screen) and from the resulting screen click the circle next to "Create a Custom AVI File". Next click on the Audio Codec tab and select an audio codec. It would be "nice" if the codec matched your mp3, but it's not absolutely necessary. Choose "mp3 128 kbits/s 44100 Htz stereo" for the trial. Next click on the Video Codec tab and choose "Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec" then click on "Create AVI". Tell the program where you want this file to be saved and let it create the AVI file. You can set the size the way you want, but I would suggest something common to video such as one of the defaults. The larger you make the screen size the longer it will take to create the AVI. Once this AVI has been completed you are now ready to "feed" this to Riva Producer Lite.- Don't open Riva Producer Lite - rather open the Riva Encoder. If you don't have a desktop icon for this it's easy to make one just like you would for any other program by finding the program and right clicking on the Riva Encoder executable the sending it to the desktop. Once you have it opened browse the input window and click on the AVI file created by P2E (wherever you elected to put it). Choose an output folder (probably best to make this folder first) and then go to the Movie Size and choose the size you want. Try 768x576 or 640x480, etc. Set the framerate to 29.97 for best flicker free performance and pick a bitrate appropriate to your own system's (internet) capability. By this I mean that if you have a broadband and you will assume that most of your users will have broadband choose a decently high bitrate such as 1000. Don't mess with the start offset, duration, padding or crop - just leave them at their defaults. Go to the Audio section at the bottom ot the screen on the right and be sure "Enable Audio" is checked (assuming you have audio in your slideshow). Set the audio bitrate to 64 and the sampling rate to 44100 Hz and if you have a stereo MP3 then check stereo. Finally click on "Encode" and the screen will go to a DOS script type mode while the encoding is taking place. The length of time will vary, but it will take probably less time than it did to create the AVI file in P2E. When everything is finished the Windows Riva Encoder screen will return and inform you that everything was successful. The file created will have your chosen filename with the addition of an underscore vid.fvl (filename_vid.fvl). Now you are ready to send this to the web. You need to know how to place files on your website and how to create folders, etc. Assuming you know this it would be wise to make a place to put what is to come next.... Now that you have the "filename_vid.fvl" created, you open Riva Producer Lite and choose from the file menu to "Import a Video" and then choose the "filename_vid.fvl" file. When the file has been imported you can test it by "playing" it then the next step is to "publish". Unfortunately I'm not on a computer at present with Riva installed so I can't give you exact steps but they are very intuitive. You need to know your password and user ID and your site and the folder you want to put the files into. Riva will export all necessary files including the player to the folder on your site where the files will be available. You provide a link for anyone who wants to play your slideshow and they simply click on that Link and the slideshow will play. As for file formats: P2E creates a file with the extension .exe which can be played on a hard disk, a CD or a DVD in a computer only. To play a file on the web do as instructed above. I can't help you with the creation of a DVD but there are numerous links here on this forum where you can get detailed instructions on how to do that. I don't use Nero but rather Ulead Movie Factory to create my DVD slideshows. P2E in the default Video mode exports an AVI template. A template is simply instructions to inform Nero or Movie Factory, etc., HOW to create the DVD. The other program actually creates the DVD and burns it - P2E simply furnishes it with instructions as to all the transitions, times, sounds and music, which jpgs and which order, etc. When you create an actual AVI file such as used to then create a Flash show with RIVA P2E actually outputs a true AVI video as I explained above. This video is then encoded as a Flash FLV file by the Riva Encoder and ported to your ISP's server via Riva Producer Lite. Producer also exports the necessary html code to make it run and the Riva Player which is necessary to allow the viewer to play the slideshow on the web. When you create the link to give to people to run your slideshow, you call the html file which Riva produces. The file will be named "yourfilename.html" (your file name being whatever you decided on as explained much earlier). ......................................................... I'm actually home now and just quickly created a sample for you from some images I've just taken while testing a new camera. This is VERY basic - with default transitions and one song which has absolutely no relevance to the images. I used a 640x480 file size on the upload for the player and didn't add a background image so the show will be on a plain white background. You can always modify the html code which Riva generates to add a background, etc., if you have basic html coding knowledge. If you don't I will be glad to send you a sample which I modify so you can see it each way. When you upload allow the program to "detect" whether or not there is the proper software on the viewers computer to play Flash. If the program doesn't find what it needs it will prompt the viewer accordingly and link them to a site where they can quickly download and install MacroMedia Flash. Just click the link below. I've set a 10 second delay (buffer time) which you can vary as you need within Riva Producer. The buffer is to allow those with slower connections some "lead time" for the download. The streaming is actually done from the user's computer but appears just as if it were streaming from the server. Expensive server side software is needed for true streaming - not something you want to get involved in I'm certain. http://www.lin-evans.net/rivatest/fruit.html Best regards, Lin

Jenny, There are several ways you can share your slideshow. Actually it's not difficult to zip the executable file. You really need a program like PKZip or similar to do this. Once you have the executable zipped you can email it as an attachment, but if the show is really large with large images, etc., the file size will be prohibitive unless you as well as the person you are sending it to have broadband capabilities. In order to put your slideshow on a web site you have a couple options. You can put it somewhere such as your own web site (if you have one) in a zipped format so the viewer can download and play the full resolution show on their own computer, or you can put it on one of the sites such as Beechbrook Cottage who are nice enough to host slideshows for P2E users. The viewer also downloads from this site to view on their own computer. Link below: http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/ You can also use a third party software to make a slideshow saved as an AVI in P2E into Flash or other format and store that on a web site. Go here and read: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4011 Lin

Hi Abe, The best way I can suggest at present is to save the slideshow as an AVI then convert it to Flash. There are a number of conversion utilities but personally I like Riva Producer Lite. Riva is available for about $30 and includes a free player which resides on your web site. P2E creates executable code which can't be run on the web - at least not on the vast majority of servers. So to make a show which can be web compatible you need either an html version (loose the nice transitions), a Flash or Java conversion of either an AVI or MPG3 or MPG4. Since P2E can export the file show to an AVI format, you can use conversion software such as Riva Producer Lite to convert the AVI movie to Flash. Then the slideshow can be played over the web. Necessarily there will be a decrease in image quality because the full sized files require so much memory and such that few would be able to play them at full resolution. Generally a 640x480 or somewhere in that file matrix dimension will be satisfactory. Riva can be seen and an evaluation copy downloaded here: http://www.rivavx.com/index.php?rple&L=3 Lin

Bill, IMHO = In My Humble Opinion Lin

Actually, there are two ways. One way is to "try" to put all the fles back where they were. The other way is to locate and write down the present path to each file and modify the .pte file with the Windows text editor to provide the current locations. In some cases it may be easier to simply modify the .pte file because the Windows editor has a search and replace all feature. It's not difficult to use. You may want to simply use the Windows search to find each file then carefully write down each file and the path where it currently exists. Then open each .pte file and use the Windows editor to find the files and paths and replace them with the new paths. Otherwise you will have to search each .pte file and be sure you copy each file exactly where it was. I suspect it would be easier to do it the other way. Lin

I've noticed that some are having difficulties with portable devices such as external USB or FireWire hard disks, etc., with cascading device names and how this affects P2E being able to find the data. when you create a slide show and save it to a particular device (hard disk, rewritable CD/DVD disk, etc.) a file with the extension pte is created which holds the P2E data identifying the file names and all specifics pertaining to the particular slideshow. This includes the "drive designator" or the name of the hard disk, CD/DVD drive, etc.). Let's say you are using a portable USB hard disk and between the time you made the slide show and next time you want to modify it, etc., you have plugged in another USB device. Windows uses what is called a "cascading" method of assigning drive names such as: E:, F:, G:, H:, etc. What may have been called H: when you created your slideshow now becomes I:, etc. There are two things you need to be aware of. First you can assign a rather permanent drive name to a particular device so that next time you use it, even if you have plugged in different devices since that time, it will still have the same drive name. This is strongly suggested. Here's a quick link to the easy method of changing the drive name: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000038.htm It's quite easy to do and once you have set it to something meaningful, then it will keep this new drive name until you change it again. But this brings up another issue - the issue of the PTE file knowing where to look for its data. Once you have stabilized a new drive name you will need to modify all the pte files which formerly looked for their data in a different place when your external drive had a different name. Fortunately this is very easy to do. There are several ways to do this, but the following will work for ALL Windows systems no matter which version of Windows you use. First find and write down the location of and names of the files with the extension .pte on your newly named external hard disk. Next, go to the system prompt (also referred to as the DOS prompt). You will see something like this: C:\ or P:\ or F:\ etc..... The backslash may be followed by some path such as C:\Documents and Settings\Owner etc., it really doesn't matter. What is important is that all versions of Windows have an Editor which can be used to easily make the changes you need to make to the .pte files. Now assuming you have written down the names and locations of all the pte files which are now located on your newly named external hard disk simply type in the word Edit followed by the location and specific file name you wish to work with. Example below: Edit P:\myfiles\myslideshow.pte then press the ENTER key. The Windows Editor will open and open the .PTE file you want to work with. At the top of the screen click on Search then on Replace then the old original location such as H: or I: or whatever the former location (you can easily see what it was by examining the file - look about nine lines down from the top). Type in the old designator such a P: (don't forget the colon) then type in the new drive name and choose "Replace All" . In an instant the Editor will replace all the formerly designated P: or whatever with the new R: or whatever. Save the file and proceed to the next file and repeat the process. My suggestion is to choose a device letter which will remind you of the drive. For example, I use a Western Digital external drive so I call it W: If you had a Maxtor you might call it M: or a Seagate may be called S:, etc. Hope this help a bit. After doing this P2E will be able to find the files on the newly named hard disk. This is never an issue if you always use your C: drive, but since portable devices are popular it's become an issue lately. Best regards, Lin

Definitely read the link Jim has provided, but you really don't need to use the timeline to do what you want to do. Just select the slide you wish to change the display time for in the slide list by clicking on it, then click on "customize slide" (next to Object Editor) and on the "main" tab click to put a check mark beside "use own time preference" and type in the number of seconds you wish the slide to display. Next click on the "effects" tab, put a check beside "uses own transition", choose the desired transition effect and change the display time for the slide as you wish. Do this for each slide. Lin

Hi Steph, Of course we all have a right to our opinions about these things, but as someone who has used both products since their beta days I have to disagree. As a professional photographer I must have a product which performs as expected and do it consistently. From your posting history and forum join date I suspect you have limited experience with P2E and perhaps do not fully understand all that it can do. The Ken Burns Effects of Pan, Zoom, Rotate, and ability to use video clips are "frosting," but far from the "core" ingredients necessary to make a slideshow program truly useful for professional purposes. Yes, it's necessary for P2E to add these features, but let's look at the things which are central to performance. Try to make a manually advanced slideshow program with ProShow Gold. One which can advance forward, go backward, allow the user to print an image or not, jump to the first slide or to the last slide, etc. These are important core features which P2E has always had and which ProShow and the others still do not have. Try to run external code from within the slideshow then seamlessly return to the slideshow (the ability to use objects) with ANY other slideshow program including Producer, ProShow Gold, Vegas Video, etc., Guess what? You can't. The ability to use "objects" allows the user to customize and create their own menu system which is miles ahead of any other currently produced slideshow program. Try to precisely synchronize sound with ProShow Gold or Producer. It's quite "iffy" and always has been. Want to "go backward" in the smoothness of a Ken Burns Effect? Just install the latest version of ProShow Gold and try to get a smooth pan on a large panorama. Guess what? Two version releases ago it worked somewhat well with some computer systems. Then one version ago the entire release had to be "updated" because any previous shows you attempted to update became corrupted beyond use by the "latest and greatest". Aside from all the "hype" this has been the history of ProShow Gold. Want to waste $500? Talk to the people who have purchased ProShow Producer. Want to spend a year trying to learn to use a program? Purchase Sony's Vegas series. Want some tech support? Try to get it from Photodex or Sony. How about transitions? Try to untangle the mess that PhotoDex has and figure out what and how to use their transitions. Want to do some individual slide voice overs? Try it with ProShow or any of the myriad other newer slideshow programs which have the Ken Burns Effects. But when you are finished with testing these other programs which do in fact presently have the Ken Burns Effects and the ability to drop in video clips, come back to the stability and power in core features that PicturesToExe has always had and you begin to appreciate what can be done with it. P2E is a "tool box" for the professional user. It allows the user to make stable slideshows which work and work correctly on a large number of different systems. It can do thing which no other existing slideshow creation software can and do them seamlessly. Not only that, but you have lifetime free upgrades. Do you know of ANY other slideshow program anywhere where you can get that? I don't - and I have and use about every currently and previously produced slideshow program ever released. In my experience the ONLY place where P2E is not and has not always been miles ahead of the true competition is in the video areas which allow the so called Ken Burns Effects. These are flashy and highly desired by the masses, but certainly not core features which provide the extreme flexibility of P2E. Yes, I disagree with you but that's what's nice about our abilities to have different opinions. From my perspective and experience P2E is and always has been the best slideshow program available. With the addition of the new graphics engine and features I'm confident that it will indeed "leapfrog" over ProShow Gold and other slideshow presentation products in every respect. Best regards, Lin

Yes, I suggested that possibility quite a while ago when I began using Riva Producer, however Wild FX outputs SWF rather than FLV streaming files but is designed to add text to videos whether they be output as QuickTime, MPG4, AVI, Image Sequence, FLC or DV Stream. It's easy and inexpensive enough to convert the AVI output to FLV with tools like Riva, but the purpose of this software is specialized text effects. With ProShow or Media@Show I can simply create a text intro using WildFX, output it as a small video file and drop it in just as you would a jpg file. The output is seamless in that you can go from the video with over 1000 possible text effects to the regular slideshow and intersperse the specialized text effects whenever you want something flashy. One of the beauties of a video engine such as the one needed to run the Ken Burns effects (Pan, Zoom, Scroll, Rotate) is that it I believe it can usually run one or more of these video types without much additional programming effort. One of the beauties of Media@Show is that it has some incredible text effects such as flying, twisting, turning, rolling, scrolling, etc., which "can" add some impressive professional touches when not overdone. Media@Show is pretty much now a "dead" technology since the original code was sold to a Chinese company which appears to not have a good handle on how to continue to improve on it or even fix the present bugs. The great text effects and seamless integration of video came about because the parent company had their roots firmly in the video world and adapted their technology to still slideshows. In the early days when Igor & company had P2E still in Beta, Media@Show was serious competition, but P2E has just gotten better and better every year while Media@Show has pretty much been left behind. I used to use the "object" capabilities of P2E to call my video clips embedded in a Media@Show executable, but the integration required the intervention of the user via menu which was less than seamless. I began playing with ProShow Gold in beta as well and it handled the video seamlessly, but has always been plagued with an unreasonable (in my opinion) number of glitches and bugs which make it less than desirable as a professional tool. Their new release of ProShow Producer is even worse in my experience and their latest upgrade of ProShow Gold is already showing issues which I'm frankly tired of dealing with. These are some of the reasons I've been anxiously awaiting the release of P2E 5.0 beta because I know Igor has always been miles ahead of the competition in terms of stability, interface and important features. I think we will find that P2E is about to "leapfrog" ProShow Gold and probably even Producer as the best slideshow tool available next to the ridiculously expensive Vegas Video and its many iterations. Best regards, Lin

Will we be able to drop in small video files such as AVI or MPG4 as a slide and play them seamlessly as with ProShow Gold/Media@Show, etc.? If so, there are some fantastic text effects software such as WildFX Pro where it's very possible to get literally thousands of dynamic text effects which can be output to SWF Flash, AVI, MPG4, etc., and used on top of images as a brief video show. I use them now with ProShow and Media@Show and they could be very nice to include in a P2E slideshow if it will be possible to simply drop in a video as one of the slides right along with jpg's, etc. Lin

I'm assuming you are using a DVD player which is capable of reading jpg formats from a CD or DVD and making an elementary "slideshow" on your TV. To play a prepared slideshow from P2E or any computer program on a Television it must first be transformed into a format palatable to the television. The TV itself is an analog device which creates an image by tracing lines with data in an interlaced pattern. In the U.S. for normal broadcast thats 525 horizontal lines of which not all are actually visible. These lines are "traced" across the screen in an interlaced pattern so that lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc., are traced completely followed by lines 2, 4, 6, 8, etc., and this is all done so quickly that the persistence of the phosphors which make up the red, blue and green hues make it "seem" like a continuous image. The computer uses a digital rather than analog signal and this has to be converted into an analog signal for the television to "understand" it. The DVD players which allow you to see jpg images have a built in analog to digital converter, but only for jpg images. To make a computer slideshow compatible with the TV in PicturesToExe, you must choose the option to output to Video and create an AVI template. This template then must be converted to a DVD format by another program such as Ulead Movie Factory then properly burned to a DVD disk. In many cases the actual DVD player may not recognize the DVD+r format so you need to use DVD-r DVD's and your player must be able to read DVD-r formats. Some of the older DVD players do not do this, but most of the newer ones do. Check the video section of this forum for further help with actually creating a DVD slideshow compatible with your TV. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Isn't NYC Software still distributing the software? One would think they could help you find the developer. I would be a bit concerned about the legality of "copying" their product since it's apparently still being sold. See link below: Lin http://www.nycsoftware.com/DVDxCopy/products.htm

Amen - and I'll drink to that! Happy New Year to all at the Wnsoft Forums and have a safe and wonderful day tomorrow! Best regards, Lin & Sherry

There really is no way to copy protect CD's or DVD's which can't be easily broken with commonly available software. Copy protection only prevents copying by those who have no real interest in copying anyway so probably not even worth worrying about. We don't even want copy protection or country codes on our commercial slideshow CD's or DVD's because we know it will happen and want maximum flexibility for our customers. Best regards, Lin

Not having seen the competition, it's difficult to judge, but I didn't find that the dream sequences were objectionable in terms of exposure, etc., actually very nicely done. My only suggestion would have been to alter the timbre of the narration so that there was a bit more bass and a bit less "bite" in the voice. Also I would have diminished the volume of the rain a tad in the last sequence vis a vis the background music and perhaps used an audio fade a little stronger in the last five seconds. All in all I found it to be an excellent job. Best regards, Lin

I notice there seems to be a bug in the slideshow (add all) feature in the new version - at least with my Windows XP home edition. It sometimes adds all images, sometimes it's selective for no good reason and sometimes it doesn't add any - I've emailed Irfan and wished him a Merry Christmas, suggested he take a break and check it out after he recovers from the holidays - HA! Lin

Beautiful and traquil with wonderful old European charm - very nice presentation of a lovely place. Great job, Patrick! Best regards and best wishes for the season and the coming year, Lin & Sherry

Just a simple slideshow with Christmas music - mostly Colorado and New Mexico nature and wildlife with some Jon Anderson Fimo Polymer clay art - all taken with my Sigma SD10..... Broadband necessary for download - about 80 megabytes. It's actually an executable file renamed to a zip extension so after download please rename to sigma05.exe to play. http://www.lin-evans.net/sigma05/sigma05.zip Lin

And best wishes to you too Hank and to your friends and family from ours... Lin & Sherry