anthrodoc

Just saw "New Year" begin in Tokyo, on television-- it is still mid morning here in northeastern U.S., so I have a good part of the day left to prepare for tonight's celebration. Happy New Year to all here. It is great to "know" so many people from around the world, who are drawn together by the common interest of sharing creativity--around the wonderful work of Igor and friends. Best wishes, all! See you next year! Brian

It is 11:30 p.m. here in the eastern part of the U.S. Christmas is just about over at our household! We had 50 degree (F) weather today... felt more like spring, than winter. I live here in Rhode Island ("The Ocean State")--the state is so small that you can't get too lost when traveling in-state; just go about 15 minutes in any direction and you are in another state! Very best wishes to all! What a wonderful "community" here, that shares its talents and creativity. Thank you all! Brian

....just a note to those having trouble with registration keys.... Doing business over the internet can leave one feeling uneasy: "Am I being ripped off? Do the people on the other end really care about me as a customer?" etc. I have been using PTE for some time now (almost a year) and I am constantly amazed by the professional care and quality of Igor and friends, and their service. Once past the registration process, I can't imagine that you'll be disappointed by PTE. Welcome (and I am 'just' a customer).... Brian

Can you say..."Prolific" ? ...and "Terrific," ? and "Magnific" (well... I wanted something that rhymed) I have to say... besides PTE-- which I've found quite useful in itself, and which I have promoted to quite a few friends-- I have been trying to become proficient with another piece of software that one can use to make a variety of multimedia tools... (for a number of reasons, it has taken me a long time to learn). It just so happens that it is the same software that you (Granot) are using. I can't decide if I am more impressed, or more intimidated, by your proficiency! Wonderful stuff-- and you just keep producing! Thanks! Brian

... I can't read Russian-- but that made it even more interesting! Quite a nice slideshow. I got the main point(s) of the tutorial without reading the words. (And the music was stimulating, but relaxing at the same time). Thanks! On the technical side, I ran the slideshow on *my* computer (the slowest, the Win98 etc.) and half expected static of one sort or another. Instead, the slideshow ran smoothly, without a single problem. A tribute to the developer(s) of the software, and to Oleg's skillful production!

A Mac version is an interesting idea-- but I did finally get to use P2exe on a Mac laptop (souped up, with virtual PC) ....not worth the trouble. (I hate saying that, since I like Mac's so much, and P2exe as well. They just aren't a good fit right now). Brian

Just a plug for the Wizard Boxig and his utility for menus... After I started doing family slideshows (I come from a BIG family!) I wanted to have a nice way to autorun a cd that would then give me a menu that I could use as an index to my growing slideshow collection. Boxig's CD menu was just the thing--- and I have found that it works well on even my puny P2 system... Daveo (and anyone not yet familiar)... Boxig's utilities are worth the effort to download and try out. Anthrodoc

I just did the search, and found a whole bunch of exe files (including my sound volume control!) that seem to match the search criteria! Too many in fact to be an effective way to sort out picturestoexe created files. Am running WinME (yes.... I know, I know.... don't laugh!) Brian

It is Wed. night (8:40 p.m. eastern time) and I could not reach beechbrook. I also did a "tracert" on the address, and it said "unable to resolve that address." I did the same for a number of other addresses, and they went through OK. Brian

...should I wrap it in duct tape and plastic, just to be safe?

Access does accept images and/or other multimedia files. The caution, however is that by storing the actual images within the database itself, it can quickly grow to an enormous size. It is often recommended that images not be stored as objects in a database, but instead that their names go there, to be linked to their corresponding files. Of course then, this could be accomplished not only with commercial db's like Access, but also with opensource such as mysql (a very highpowered db in itself). Brian

I have not used the following, so I don't know if it is exactly what you are talking about, but at the link below there is an avi2exe converter.... http://203.162.17.98/weblh/kho/cnv/convert/default.htm Brian

Sorry for the long delay..... my son went back to school, his friend no longer has a phone number, and this has become the most frustrating "experiment".... that should have been so simple! (But I just helped my son, long distance, troubleshoot his music equipment (connected to his PC) so he owes me one!).... I haven't forgotten this question, though by now Alan's immediate need for an answer is long past. (Sorry Alan!) Brian

I am getting much out of this discussion! Thanks, all! My question goes to Ken's last point: I have seen reponses on here at times about optimum picture quality on computer screens-- and quality "overkill"; is there a point in a jpg or gif past which more density is just extra weight? On the one hand, it seems to me that even with some of my own, fairly low-end images, PTE does a nice job of smoothing and sharpening, without much intervention on my part. On the other hand, after shrinking some hefty bmp's to 100 k jpegs, and projecting these onto a giant projector screen through an overhead LCD, I have been quite impressed by the maintenance of image quality (for my purposes). Are there technical limits (with or without PTE) beyond which "more" density in the image is just not useful? (I ask this too because one of my first PTE shows on my home desktop was a real oinker-- and it would barely run. Then when I worked at reducing jpg sizes, trimming (and merging) mp3's etc., all with the great coaching found here in the forum, I found I had little trouble with subsequent shows on just about any system I was using. Brian

I followed that post by Jim, about Zpaint.... What a treasuretrove of stuff in that direction! (some of it is PTE related and some is not). But Thanks! I would highly recommend following that tangent some time! Brian

In a way, this is a tricky question... because when I first purchased PTE I didn't realize what I was "buying..." Now I fully realize that for my relatively small payment (compared to other commercial software, often of much less quality) I also got a very effective community of creative and technical support. This has continued without fail, as the software has continued to improve.... ( I know this isn't exactly what you were asking for, related to the software, but I think that it is a significant "feature" of this product.) Brian

...I had the same kind of reaction as LumenLux.... except, replace "Utah" with "New York State" (I grew up in Western N.Y. state, and have traveled through the state during each season...) Brian

....LumenLux mentions your site, Sharon, and I would be interested to know where to find it-- I a colleague who teaches at our place uses/studies fractals and I would like to share the site with him. Thanks. Brian

People might already be aware of the software I am about to mention, but then again... who knows? A long time ago when I started a web photo archive for a local historical society, I installed a nice perl-based setup to search the archive. Part of the setup included the minor installation of part of ImageMagick--- the part that would make thumbnails of pictures. Recenlty I had to reinstall the database, and so had to also reinstall Imagemagick.... (about which I had pretty much forgotten). It has only gotten better over the years! Imagemagick is worth looking into for various types of image processing. It is a little on the "techie" side (it has command-line processing for some things, etc.) but it is pretty versatile. I would love to hear others' thoughts on this-- especially if you have experience with it, and have formed your own opinions already. It can be found at http://ImageMagick.sourceforge.net and is opensource, and free (makes it all that much nicer!) It runs behind the scenes at: http://anthro.qvcc.commnet.edu/psearch.html and where it is used there is when someone searches the database for a picture. When results are found and returned, if there is no thumbnail for the picture yet on the server, the ImageMagick module on the server processes the picture found, and creates a thumbnail in a separate folder. Next time someone searches for the picture -- results are returned with the appropriate thumbnail image. I can only imagine (am am looking forward to exploring) how this and other parts of the program might be useful in relation to PTE. Brian

Rod, Thanks for your ongoing discussion here. Swish has been quite inviting, as a nice addition to my own PTE/MMB use (I started not long ago with MMB, when looking for a CD menu builder.... quickly found PTE (and love it!)... then saw some Swish possibilities to work together with the other two. ) In fact, some of the utilities on Beechbrook are MMB created (by one of our creative friends here on this forum)... I am having much fun discovering what I can do--- slideshows with PTE one minute, MMB the next, and can hardly wait to use some of the resulting presentations etc. in my classes. (and yes! No flaming in the process! A great plus!)

I like the fact that the focus has at least initially settled on a combination of these three pieces of software (MMB, PTE, and Swish)... I like it particularly because I've seen the combination come together in several places-- and it works so nicely. My only hestitation in jumping into Swish is due to my reading of *that* forum (several problems have cropped up apparently as the new version has been put into place, and these aren't ironed out yet, it seems). ...at the same time, I hestiate to comment on whether slideshows in themselves become boring. I hestiate at least because I tend to think of slideshows "in context); the same slideshow that I find excites and energizes a class I teach, might seem dull and strange to my family (or vice versa).... it depends, for me, on the context. Just some thoughts.....

it doesn't work on WinME?! I can't imagine that! It is such a good OS! ......(just trying to convince myself, since I am stuck with it on my laptop, for now!)....

I've had my laptop for about 2 years now, and it's 4gig drive was always adequate for all my school and home uses-- I can always transfer things to my home desktop when things get too cramped... Then along came PTE... Between the slideshows, the project examples, my own projects in progress.... this 4 gig drive now seems awfully small!!! A Happy Complaint... Brian

My son's friend has a mac laptop with Virtual PC... I am going to try this out tomorrow if I can find him! Will let you know my results. (He has the thing set up so that he can run Mac OS9, linux, and Windows....just to see if he can do it!) Brian

...but if it is running windows... wouldn't PTE/ or an exe... run on it?