Kick Ass Brass (Virtual Instruments) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this product with great expectations. I installed it on a Vista Machine and got my one Authentication Code that the company allows. The software is tied to a single machine. In todays use of security dongles (like Steinburg software) I would of thought that would have been a better licensing method since the dongle could be moved to machine to machine but then the software could only be run in a single instance at any given time. It seemed to work ok in Vista, however vista had issues in itself. I found myself re-installing the OS back to XP because other problems with hardware not working in Vista.
Getting a code for the XP install was a lot more of a hassle and numerous emails later I got it but it was very painful to get to that place (replacement Auth Code). The company doesn't like giving out codes other then the first one.
As for the sounds, the trombone sounds are horrible. I can say this because I was a trombone player for 20 years. If I sounded like that I would have never got a paying gig. The trumpet sound was good. The sax sounds didn't sound that real to me either.
Also about 4 months later my motherboard went out on the computer and bought a replacement and then reloaded the OS with a new hard drive for that replacement machine ( since the other was toast ) Contacted the company via email for a replacement Authetication Code (not a second code but a replacement code).I got a very lengthy email stating this was againist company policy to give out additional codes. So bottom line computers being computers ( they do break ) the company will not work with existing customers who have purchased the software if hardware fails. The dealings with this company left me with a very bad experience. This company gets your money and you get one licenese file ( maybe two ) but after that if anything happens to your hardware your SOL. I would never buy a software product made by this company again.


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Poser 7 3D Figure Design and Animation Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been working with Poser 6 for a while, I finally decided to make the leap to Poser 7.
Intalled it. Started the program. And CRASH! I don't mean an application "not responding" message. I mean a total system crash. My PC needed a hard reboot (cut the power reboot). I found the service pack 1 on the efrontiers website. Installed it. Opened the program again. CRASH.
After spending $180 for the program, I decided it was worth one more try. Started the program. This time I figured out the system seizure happened when I moved the mouse cursor over the document window. Reboot again. Avoiding the document, I ran my mouse cursor over the top menu, Deleted Figure. The default loaded Simon. Once Simon was gone, I was able to work for a little while.
Addendum 4/18/2007
Other disappointments with the program:
One of Poser's Features is the Face Room.
The kids' figures are not compatible with the face room, which is a total shame.
The Cloth room is very complicated to learn how to use. Using the program's documentation, plus buying two User Guides, I haven't been able to make cloth. But I could be exceptionally dense.
Head paramater dials don't include ears. Only Judy, carried forward from Poser 5, lets you shape elf ears.
Action poses and their back geometries. I loaded James into my project, and posed him with one of his action presets. Something really unnatural looking happens to his back.Addendum May 25, 2007:
I worked for several hours without crashing. The new feature in Poser7 is the Undo option. By default, the software sets the Undo level to 100. After changing the Undo level preference to 3, so far so good!Addendum June 26, 2007:
Service Pack 2 is now available for the program. I've been able to work without a PC crash, I'm feeling better about having spent the money for the software.
The community supporting this software is surprisingly friendly, and global. I've posted numerous questions on the Content Paradise Forum website, and almost always received an answer, if not a friendly bit of encouragement.
It's like playing with paperdolls. You can buy shoes, dress, lingerie, sets, and scenery, props, etc.
To achieve commercial grade results, you'll need to read the Poser Manual from cover to cover. Plus, Poser doesn't include a modeller or UV Mapper, you'll need extra software if you want to tailor results to your needs.
Cheers,
Lara

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Poser 7, the Premiere 3D Figure Design and Animation Software Brings Life to Any Digital Project with 3D Imagery and Animation. Poser is the standard for depicting the human form in 3D. Poser is used for figure design and animation by hobbyists professi

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Freeway 5 Express Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been wanting to get a website up for YEARS but was always intimidated by the software and having to learn html. Push finally came to shove and I decided to JUMP and get this program. I had thought about doing one of the 'freebie' template based offers but I am an artist and wanted ultimate control. Same thing goes with paying someone else to do it, I wanted the option to change it on a whim.
One thing I could NOT live without is a hard copy of the manual. You get it as a .pdf file and my friendly neighborhood print shop (Paradise Copies, Northampton) printed out back to back and bound it for about $14? INVALUABLE. The little book that comes with the CD-ROMs is also very helfpul for what it is and worth reading. There are also online tutorials.
My Mac is almost 5 years old (OS 10.4) but the program worked well except for a glitch in resizing graphics that should be fixed with the new update. I didn't want to update in the middle of my project. I ended up resizing through the drop down menu instead of with key strokes. It's not difficult to learn and works a lot like Illustrator. You draw an html box and type in it. You draw a graphic box and either import visuals (photos, little things you've created in Illustrator or Photoshop) OR you can do 'graphic text' with any of your fonts but whatever you type in this way is treated as a graphic and won't be picked up with search engines.
So far, I have only done one page things (my own is at figleef dot com) but for a quick and easy web presence, I could knock out something simple in a couple of hours. You certainly CAN do sites with more pages, I'm just lazy. Adding music was very easy. And 99% of the time, what I placed on the page is what showed up in the browser (you can check how it will look/act in a browser while you are working on it). I also chose different colors (outside of the 216) with the help of the sliders. I only touched the surface of what this little program can do. If you are pretty tech savvy, you'll probably REALLY be able to do more than I did.
The ONLY glitch was uploading it and that took a week of calls and emails to GoDaddy (where my hosting account is) and the Freeway Express USA office. I'm going to explain how to do it here, as I had to get JUST the right guy at GoDaddy to figure it out. I use Fetch to get into my hosting account. I have several websites so I had to click twice on the folder for the site to which I wanted to upload and THEN, 'PUT' the contents of the SITE folder. That's all. Just the stuff in the site folder. Seems simple now but it took EONS to figure this out as I was uploading the actual Freeway file (has a yellow circled f). Once we figured it out, it was super easy.
I do ramble don't I? Anyway, it's great and if I can figure it out, you can too. I have NOT tried any other software but did a lot of research before deciding on this one. Hope this helps someone struggling with wanting to make their own website and not being particularly techy.

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Norton 360 Version 2.0 Premier Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Over the years I have used many Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware / Defrag programs. I have gone from McAfee to AVG to many others. When Norton first came out, it was by all purposes a "memory hog". On top of that it would spam your computer with countless messages of "invasions" or "attacks". Many of which would be irrelevant.
Now fast forward to 2008. Norton has now put all it's products into one nice handy package. While to some it might be Norton Products Lite, I feel that the program as a whole is sufficient enough for the needs of the average computer user. It comes with a spam filter, anti-virus, defrag, temporary file clean-up and backup program. To the average "non-computer literate" consumer, the fact that this is all together and is easy to manage is a blessing. It is also very quiet. What I mean by this is, you do not get all the annoying messages I spoke of earlier. Norton simply keeps out all of the invasions, and runs all it's processes in the background. The only indication that anything is going on is simply a little clear "bubble" in the taskbar letting you know what tasks are going on. They also include a log that tells you what all Norton has done.
As a computer technician I would suggest this to the average computer user. It's simple and easy to use and comes bundled together. That being said, if you are an advanced computer user, you might feel that this program is lacking. By being bundled many of the programs do not come with the many advanced customizations that you might see in other programs. One example is in the Disk Defrag program. You do not get the option of putting, say for example, *.exe files at the first of the hard drive so it takes less processing of the HD to find your program files. Also despite the reliability of Norton as a whole, I find the Spyware removal program to be lacking a little bit. While I do love the Phishing Protection (harmful websites), I feel that Norton does miss a number of typical Spyware programs. But to counter that, there are many free spyware programs out there on the net that can pick up that slack. And as most avid computer users know, one product alone will not prevent ALL spyware due to the ever changing methods out there. Either way to a computer guru this product is stripped down. But to the average user, it's just right.
Regarding the many people having installation problems, all I can say is I have installed this on 3 computers, each with a different setup. One has Windows XP Service Pack 1 (Old Pentium III 750 Mhz Processor). Another computer has Windows XP Service Pack 3 (AMD Athlon XP). The last has Windows Vista Home Premium (Intel Pentium Centrino Duo) Service Pack 1. I have had no installation problems, update problems, or application conflicts. I even run Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware as well. Both applications are notorious for supposedly having conflicts with Norton 360.
With Norton 360 Version 2.0 Premium you are getting a good deal with this program (Defrag, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, and Disk Cleaner all in one). If you don't need the extra storage that Premium allows then you might just go with Norton 360 Version 2.0 (Regular) as it provides a cheaper alternative. Either way you can not go wrong with this product. And if you seek technical support, I'd suggest the online method as I do agree that many of the technicians I have spoke to on the phone are either hard to understand or seem to lack the technical proficiency I ask for in my help. If you need a one-stop solution for your Security needs this is the way to go.
Pros:
- Easy Installation
- Quiet Processes (Runs in Background - No Alerts)
- Several Programs in one
- Low Resource Usage compared to previous Norton products
Cons:
- Lack of Customization
- Anti-Spyware does not always clear out everything
- Renewal Process is a bit iffy (Online process messed up a few times)

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