Have you ever found something really badly designed? Something which obscurity of its functions makes it hard to understand its use? Something almost unusable to a point it would drive you mad using it too often? Perhaps, a fool's design? Then you have come to the right place. Post your findings here and help making the world a saner place.
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Steven W
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2013-09-15 04:22 »

I remember being in an Electonics Boutique in 1998 and running across a retail box of Paint Shop Pro 5. I was reading about its features and thinking that my Aunt had many family photos (some dating back to the end of the previous century) and that many of those photos had some scratches or other defects and that if what was being advertised on this box were true, I could possibly repair a lot of them. I was somewhat skeptical and also thinking that, at the time, $59 was a big investment. A woman working in sales asked if she could assist me and I clearly recall explaining what I wanted to do with the software and asking if I were disappointed could I get my money back. The woman explained ElBo's refund policy and told me, with a smile on her face, not to worry and explained that she did on a regular basis what it was that I was wanting to do.

The salesperson was absolutely right, I took it home and immediately began fixing minor issues (scratches) with photos. After some tinkering and reading I was fixing more complicated problems, removing an errant finger in front of the lens, fixing pant legs and shoes covered up by said finger, etc. Later I discovered that I could make flyers for friend's and family -- I particularly remember one for my cousin's Christmas pageant, the school had copies made and hung around school building and sent home with her classmates. The following year another cousin was graduating from High School and said he had forgotten to get announcements. Looking back on it, they probably didn't have the money to spend on announcements. I remembered some years earlier I had a Tandy Computer that had Deskmate software on it. Among Deskmate's utilities was one that allowed you to make a card from a piece of paper. I recalled that it would show four panels on the screen and that you and you'd draw or write text (perhaps the were labelled front/back etc., IDK) I recalled that when printing some of the stuff you drew or wrote would come out upside down so that when folded in the paper in four, you'd have a "card". Well, with PSP and a couple of practice sheets of paper later, we had the concept down. My mom had pulled out several old graduation announcements from her collection and my cousin's girlfriend went to buy some paper that had similar texture and color and some perforated business card paper with a similar color. I scanned in the logo for his High School using one from Mom's collection, removed some unnecessary bits, pretty much copied the text of the thing, changing the year, date and time of course. A couple of test-prints and revisions, we had our announcements. They came out beautifully. We printed his name in the center of the business card and placed inside of the folded announcements. Sure, we didn't have embossed text or anything fancy, but they really did look nice. I recall all of us, my mom, my cousin, Heather (my cousin's girlfriend) and I sitting around the table folding the things, rejecting a few because of imperfections in paper, etc. $59 for a relatively simple tool that brought all those happy memories and great photos along with. I say it was money well spent.

As the years went by, I did purchase version 8 at upgrade pricing, I found it to be a bit more bloated, but it did add some cool features and the bloat was nothing too serious. I remember hearing about Corel taking it over from Jasc. I decided to download a trial version of X (version 10). I could see then that it was over. It had useless utilities piled on it, bloated beyond belief, and being taken in the direction of a bunch of quick-fix tools for photos from your digital camera. I strongly suspected that they real talent from Jasc was gone or going to be gone quickly.

Recently, I reinstalled version 8 to fix a couple of photos my Aunt had gotten from another family member, I got curious and decided to see if anyone else felt they same way I did. Sure enough:

http://improvepsp.blogspot.com/

Having not looked back since the trial version of X, I find Mr. Prodanov's entry 'Part 6: Rest in Peace, Paint Shop Pro" revealing:

PSP now installs more junk services than ever, without even asking you of course. Virtual memory including background processes like MediaCataloger.exe, metadatamgr.exe, psiservice.exe, CorelPhotoDownloader.exe and standby.exe is 618 mb. And of course, PSIservice, Standby and Metadatamgr don't go away when you close PSP. They need to look after you, and check the sodium content of your food I guess.


His suggestion for the splash screen is dead on. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

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2013-09-15 05:11 »

Oh, don't get me started on this one... I have bought several versions of Paint Shop Pro. Used to love it. When I saw the junk in version X, I almost cried. First time with X, even though I had a legit serial which I had bought, I had to use a cracked version to get rid of the spy-services it installs. There is no crack version for X3 I believe and I guess it's probably because most people moved on from PSPX and they don't give a fuck about Corel no more. I personally refuse to buy a program AND need to use a crack to actually be able to use it in a private normal manner without spy-services in my PC.

Thinking of what Corel has done to PSPX makes me want to open a bottle of vodka. I still use it at work but for my own projects, I use GIMP, which really sucks but to hell with Corel, they will not get more of my money. Will also not upgrade the version I got for work. Motherfucking bastards filling up my PC with all kinds of weird services "for my own protection".

Whoever made that decision at Corel, I hope he/she/them find that special place in hell reserved for installing spy-services on peoples' computers. :evil:

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2013-09-15 15:31 »

PSPX is indeed foolishly designed.

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2013-09-15 15:36 »

You know, come to think of it, except the moronic DRM and spy-services it installs they haven't really improved it THAT much. I almost think they do this on purpose, killing it off slowly, that is. Doing so slowly will not raise suspicion that they are doing it on purpose. I mean, we all know why they bought JASC, because JASC was killing Corel off with PSP which was a superior product. Never trust them big corporations. :?

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2013-09-15 15:45 »

...and it continues the death spiral in 2013.

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CharlotteTheHarlot

2013-09-15 22:26 »

PSP 7 is indeed the last pure "tight" version.

PSP 8 came out with a radical core change that incorporated local python functions which works on maybe half the computers that installed PSP 8. The core windows, tools and dialogs are standard, but effects and other things would simply not work. Some standard PSP subfolders were renamed and moved around so if you updated inplace from 7 to 8 you wound up with some duplication from orphans of earlier 7 files still existing that are nearly identical in 8 but located in different places. I don't believe Corel was involved in version 8 unless they rereleased it again later.

I would suggest that if anyone locates the original Jasc distros of 7 and 8 ( they are on many varoius CDROMs of 3rd parties ) they grab them while they can, also get the Jasc updates and extras and "goodies" that used to be on their ftp ( maybe they still are? ). I might be able to since I am archiving about a thousand discs I collected to a HDD to save space.

PSP 7 and 8 stores almost everything in the registry so it can be a pain to tame unlike CorelDraw and PP. I actually still use a hybrid version of 7 and 8, mostly the former, pretty often although I prefer CorelDraw and PP. I use Corel for actual work on pro jobs since it keeps its prefs and MRU in private files which means that it is a bit more "secure" ( keeping client project filenames, like albums and lyrics and photos in the registry is theoretically available to any program that uses registry API functions which means they can read a well-known Jasc key and transmit its contents home ).

When making all these Microsoft Windows 8 meme graphics I'll just use PSP since I couldn't care less.

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Steven W
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2013-09-18 00:43 »

I never though about if before, but I can't help wondering if CorelDraw may have been the reason for buying and ruining PSP. Perhaps they didn't want a cheaper alternative.

Edit: sorry, didn't see someone else had the same thought already.

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2013-09-18 01:04 »

The story of Paint Shop Pro.

The origins of Robert Voit's business date back to 1990, when he was a 30-year-old pilot for Northwest Airlines. On his days off he dabbled in his hobby: digital imaging. He liked to tinker with software that allowed him to edit digital photographs and "paint" images with his computer. By and by, he came up with a graphic-utilities-software program and offered it as shareware on electronic bulletin boards. Users were invited to download the shareware, called Paint Shop, and payment was on the honor system.

Voit's start-up costs? The price of paper, envelopes, and stamps, says Voit, who bought the supplies so that he could send an encryption code to customers who had paid him for Paint Shop. With the code, users could disarm an electronic message embedded in the software that badgered them to pay up.

Although Voit incorporated his company, Jasc Software Inc., in 1991, he continued to fly for Northwest for four more years. "I'd go flying, come home, and have a backlog of orders," he recalls. In April 1992 he hired an assistant to answer the phone and fill orders, which freed him to write more code.

The advent of the Web caused Voit's business to soar. Based on users' feedback, he created a new version of Paint Shop, which he dubbed Paint Shop Pro and continued to sell as shareware. Without the Internet to turbocharge his marketing and distribution, Voit says, he probably would have needed a "six figure" investment to pursue an alternative strategy.

But by 1997 Voit had reached a plateau and decided to substitute catalogs and retail stores for the Web as his distribution channel. By then Paint Shop Pro had made its mark. His company had 80,000 paid users and 40 employees on the payroll, its revenues had climbed to a staggering $6.5 million, and its product had won kudos in the trade press. Distributors welcomed it with open arms, he says. In 1998 Jasc Software ranked #161 on the Inc. 500 list of America's fastest-growing private companies, and its sales continued to explode, totaling $17 million by year's end.

miii

2014-03-22 05:39 »

This thread makes me sad. I miss the old days.

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