Free Serif Software

  • Thread starter Thread starter JunkMonkey
  • Start date Start date
Agreed that PhotoFiltre is a good solution to PhotoPlus.
Click to expand...
Do you have viable alternatives to DrawPlus (vector drawing) and PagePlus
(desktop publishing)?
Click to expand...

Zoner Draw 3
www.zoner.com
http://www.zoner.com/support/download.asp

Eve
http://www.goosee.com/

For full DTP
RAG Time SOLO
http://www.ragtime-online.com/

--
----------------------------------------
Quantum Illusions: http://quantum.2ya.com
FORT Freeware: http://freeware.quantum.2ya.com
Pegasus Mail Support Site: http://pegasus.quantum.2ya.com
DATA Solutions: http://datasolutions.quantum.2ya.com

If you truly want to contact me click the link
http://quantum.2ya.com/email.htm
 
On 06 Jan 2004, Chris wrote


I gave up using any of the "free" offers from Serif a couple of years
ago. Not only did I get spam, they were sending me junk mail through
the post and -- worst of all -- even had a sales force that called my
home phone number to see if they could flog me upgrades.

(Yes: I was dumb enough to register with my real postal address and
telephone number...live and learn.)
Click to expand...


Serif are among the more professional marketing people around. If you
don't want them to call you with offers, tell them and they won't.

If you want to leave their mailing lists, just do it.

If you don't want to receive stuff in the post, tell them and they
will stop.

I have tried the first two of these, but I can't vouch for the last
one -- although they are legally required to comply -- because I am
happy to receive their offers in the post. As a user of Pageplus since
version 3, I am one of a bunch of customers who get upgrade offers at
truly silly prices. Usually around £10.

MK



_______________________________________________________________________
Michael Kenward Words for sale
 
Serif are among the more professional marketing people around. If you
don't want them to call you with offers, tell them and they won't.
If you want to leave their mailing lists, just do it.
If you don't want to receive stuff in the post, tell them and they
will stop.
Click to expand...

My experience was that this claim is bullshit. They wouldn't listen to
my mulitiple requests and the flood of spam continued until I changed
my email address.
I have tried the first two of these, but I can't vouch for the last
one -- although they are legally required to comply -- because I am
happy to receive their offers in the post. As a user of Pageplus since
blah blah blah bark bark woof woof.
Click to expand...

Spamming the group for Serif are you? Nice troll. Fresh bait, good
casting form, etc. I give it a 7 on a scale of 10.
 
That judgment seems kind of harsh. Is EVERYONE whose opinion differs from
yours a troll?

There is a large and satisfied community of Serif users out there and you
can satisfy yourself of this fact by going to the Serif User Support groups.
These groups project a positive and satisfied tone overall.

Serif makes no attempt to hide the fact that by GIVING you very good
software they want you to be so impressed that you will BUY subsequent
versions. And by and large, it works. It worked with me and it has worked
with many others. I wonder though about your motives. The tone of your
post makes me wonder if you are more interested in censoring any mention of
Serif in this newsgroup than you are in discussing your experiences with
Serif.
 
JunkMonkey said:
That judgment seems kind of harsh.
Click to expand...

I did overreact, and my apologies to Harvey. Also, I shouldn't have
altered the quote, so here it is in it's entirety:

"I have tried the first two of these, but I can't vouch for the last
one -- although they are legally required to comply -- because I am
happy to receive their offers in the post. As a user of Pageplus since
version 3, I am one of a bunch of customers who get upgrade offers at
truly silly prices. Usually around £10."

To me that sounded like Harvey was promoting commercial software.
Is EVERYONE whose opinion differs from yours a troll?
Click to expand...

No, of course not and I was too hard on Harvey. However, since Serif
was unrelenting in their spamming of my email account despite repeated
requests from me VIA THE LINKS IN THEIR SPAM AND ON THEIR SITE that
they stop, I will be likewise unrelenting in my exposing their
registration scheme for what it is. In the future I'll try to remain
civilized about it though.
There is a large and satisfied community of Serif users out there and you
can satisfy yourself of this fact by going to the Serif User Support groups.
These groups project a positive and satisfied tone overall.
Serif makes no attempt to hide the fact that by GIVING you very good
software they want you to be so impressed that you will BUY subsequent
versions.
Click to expand...

What they DO hide is the fact that they will continue spamming you
even if you ask them not to. And if a person gives them their real
address and phone number, indications from others are that Serif will
send junk mail and will telemarket those users.
And by and large, it works. It worked with me and it has worked
with many others. I wonder though about your motives. The tone of your
post makes me wonder if you are more interested in censoring any mention of
Serif in this newsgroup than you are in discussing your experiences with
Serif.
Click to expand...

Hey, if anybody wants to use their software that's alright with me.
And since this is an unmoderated group, any claim that anybody can do
*any* censoring is unrealistic. But I *am* going to continue to warn
everybody to give Serif a spam dump email address and to lie to them
about personal addresses and phone numbers.

As I've said in the past, I use a lot of photo editing software,
commercial and freeware, so I know what works. PhotoPlus is merely
what I call a "ho-hum" program and by taking it off of my system, I
lost nothing in functionality and features that other programs
couldn't provide better.

Besides, now that PhotoFiltre is here, why bother with Serif in the
first place?
 
JunkMonkey said:
That judgment seems kind of harsh. Is EVERYONE whose opinion differs from
yours a troll?

There is a large and satisfied community of Serif users out there and you
can satisfy yourself of this fact by going to the Serif User Support groups.
These groups project a positive and satisfied tone overall.

Serif makes no attempt to hide the fact that by GIVING you very good
software they want you to be so impressed that you will BUY subsequent
versions. And by and large, it works. It worked with me and it has worked
with many others. I wonder though about your motives. The tone of your
post makes me wonder if you are more interested in censoring any mention of
Serif in this newsgroup than you are in discussing your experiences with
Serif.
Click to expand...

Whoops, I made a mistake in attribution and apologized to Harvey Van
Sickle instead of Michael Kenward, to whom I extend that apology
instead. Hope this message corrects that mistake.
 
Whoops, I made a mistake in attribution and apologized to Harvey Van
Sickle instead of Michael Kenward, to whom I extend that apology
instead. Hope this message corrects that mistake.
Click to expand...


Well, your performance suggests that you need to get your brain in
gear before rushing to a keyboard.

Quite why you assume that someone who says nice things about software
they like is in the pay of the company is beyond me. Maybe you are
just one of those terminally grumpy people who can never speak good of
anything. Or maybe your prescription for Ritalin just ran out.

I often recommend the free version of Serif's image editing software
to users of PaperPort who are frustrated by its useless image tools. I
don't suggest they buy Serif's software for this because the freebie
does just fine for most people.

In this trickle of messages, the general feeling is that Serif
respects requests to "go away". The fact that you got different
treatment suggests either that something went wrong for once, or that
you are the sort of person who delights in getting hot under the
collar. Only you can know which applies.

MK



_______________________________________________________________________
Michael Kenward Words for sale
 
John Corliss said:
I did overreact, and my apologies to Harvey. Also, I shouldn't have
altered the quote, so here it is in it's entirety:

"I have tried the first two of these, but I can't vouch for the last
one -- although they are legally required to comply -- because I am
happy to receive their offers in the post. As a user of Pageplus since
version 3, I am one of a bunch of customers who get upgrade offers at
truly silly prices. Usually around £10."

To me that sounded like Harvey was promoting commercial software.


No, of course not and I was too hard on Harvey. However, since Serif
was unrelenting in their spamming of my email account despite repeated
requests from me VIA THE LINKS IN THEIR SPAM AND ON THEIR SITE that
they stop, I will be likewise unrelenting in my exposing their
registration scheme for what it is. In the future I'll try to remain
civilized about it though.


What they DO hide is the fact that they will continue spamming you
even if you ask them not to. And if a person gives them their real
address and phone number, indications from others are that Serif will
send junk mail and will telemarket those users.


Hey, if anybody wants to use their software that's alright with me.
And since this is an unmoderated group, any claim that anybody can do
*any* censoring is unrealistic. But I *am* going to continue to warn
everybody to give Serif a spam dump email address and to lie to them
about personal addresses and phone numbers.

As I've said in the past, I use a lot of photo editing software,
commercial and freeware, so I know what works. PhotoPlus is merely
what I call a "ho-hum" program and by taking it off of my system, I
lost nothing in functionality and features that other programs
couldn't provide better.

Besides, now that PhotoFiltre is here, why bother with Serif in the
first place?
Click to expand...

Sooooo...... thou art Sans Serif?????

/crawls away to avoid sundry tossed objects
 
Well, your performance suggests that you need to get your brain in
gear before rushing to a keyboard.
Quite why you assume that someone who says nice things about software
they like is in the pay of the company is beyond me. Maybe you are
just one of those terminally grumpy people who can never speak good of
anything. Or maybe your prescription for Ritalin just ran out.
Click to expand...

And so I guess you don't accept my apology so bite my ass. Life's too
short to deal with the likes of you. Goodbye.
 
Burp said:
Sooooo...... thou art Sans Serif?????

/crawls away to avoid sundry tossed objects
Click to expand...

Heh. You're not going to fool me into posting in HTML to prove it.
 
John said:
And so I guess you don't accept my apology so bite my ass. Life's too
short to deal with the likes of you. Goodbye.
Click to expand...

Oh, I almost forgot. Serif Photoplus sucks. And my experience was that
they spam you to death if you're foolish enough to give them a real
email address.

NOW goodbye.
 
John Corliss said:
They will spam the hell out of you. They did me, and when I tried
"unsubscribing", it did no good. Now I have a different email address
and they can drop dead. My advice to everybody is to steer clear of
anything from Serif.
Click to expand...

So... just use Mailinator.com to sign up. It's not that hard, the
game can be played both ways. If they won't respect requests to stop
emailing spam, don't give them a real address.

Just my $0.02...

Clint Olson
co-n-co at mochamail dot com
 
Clint said:
So... just use Mailinator.com to sign up. It's not that hard, the
game can be played both ways. If they won't respect requests to stop
emailing spam, don't give them a real address.
Just my $0.02...
Click to expand...

Clint,
I agree. Having and using a spam dump email address is the way to
go. Unfortunately at the time that I registered with Serif for my
access code, I gave them my real email address. Now, I have a Yahoo
account (you don't have to provide Yahoo with your main email
address.) Mailinator will do the job if you don't have to send a real
email to request an access code (that is, registration is not via a
website.) However, users should be aware of these aspects of
Mailinator (from their FAQ):
_______________________________
How is Mailinator different than some other webemail? Say, Yahoo or
Hotmail? The differences are easy to list. Generally speaking however,
anything you can do with Mailinator, you can do with some other email
service. In fact, you can do more with other services since they allow
you to actually send email (Mailinator only receives). The differences
are:

* Mailinator requires no sign-up. To create an account, you send email
to it.
* You cannot send email from Mailinator.
* Your Mailinator email inbox can be read by anyone. There is no
security here. If they know (or guess) your email address, they can
read your mail.
* You cannot delete your email here (you can't reply either), after a
few hours, all email is auto-deleted.
* Mailinator has strict rules about what kind of email it receives.
Plain text is best, html is filtered. Images, attachments, and fancy
stuff is simply stripped away.
_______________________________

Yahoo has their own agenda (bombarding you with ads- the other day, I
even kept getting automatically sent to an advertiser's site until I
turned off javascript), but for me it's one I can live with for now.
 
I loaded SodiPodi and played with it for about an hour. Well. . . it's OK
for extremely light duty use, but it for sure is no threat to CorelDraw.
It's really not much of a threat to DrawPlus either especially when you
consider the Serif Support Forums and newsgroups that are available. To me,
that sort of support for the free versions has always been a deal maker if I
want to do serious work. I think hobbyists will be happier with DrawPlus.
For the record, DrawPlus is no threat to CorelDraw either! But it is more
complete, and works better with my Graphire 2 tablet than SodiPodi does.

I don't know of any free "serious level" DTP packages other than Serif
PagePlus and I'm not sure you can really call the free version of it all
that serious compared to the commercial packages on the market.

At this point, Serif still provides the widest and most professional level
of FREE computer graphics packages.
 
At this point, Serif still provides the widest and most professional level
of FREE computer graphics packages.
Click to expand...

DrawPlus is nice, and has some really handy features. I really do like it,
but don't use vector drawing enough to form a good opinion.

I also like OOo's drawing program. It reminds me a lot of DrawPlus, and is
very nice to be free.

Bob
 
JunkMonkey said:
That judgment seems kind of harsh. Is EVERYONE whose opinion differs from
yours a troll?

There is a large and satisfied community of Serif users out there and you
can satisfy yourself of this fact by going to the Serif User Support groups.
These groups project a positive and satisfied tone overall.

Serif makes no attempt to hide the fact that by GIVING you very good
software they want you to be so impressed that you will BUY subsequent
versions. And by and large, it works. It worked with me and it has worked
with many others. I wonder though about your motives. The tone of your
post makes me wonder if you are more interested in censoring any mention of
Serif in this newsgroup than you are in discussing your experiences with
Serif.
Click to expand...

"Mom!!!!! Is this what they call a flame war??? I wanna' see a flame war,
Mom!!!!"

"MOM!!!! C'mere.... look at this!!! Is this the flame war stuff you and Dad
were talking about??!!!"
 
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