Palbum Picture Viewer Giveaway

[Brad Adrian]

<a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&amp;platformId=2&amp;productType=2&amp;catalog=0&amp;amp;sectionId=0&amp;productId=27441">http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&amp;platformId=2&amp;productType=2&amp;catalog=0&amp;amp;sectionId=0&amp;productId=27441</a><br /><br />One of our good friends, Vassili, has let us know that his company has launched version 3.0 of its Palbum Picture Viewer. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/adrian/palbumpv.gif" /><br /><br />This image viewer is chock-full of great features:<br /><br />• Fullscreen view<br />• Thumbnails view<br />• Images panning, zooming, rotating and fit-to-screen mode<br />• Slideshow mode<br />• Optimization for 4096-color devices such as 36-series iPaq<br />• JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG formats supported, others supported with plug-ins<br /><br />Picture Viewer also integrates with other photo album-related applications from Vassili's company, Spb Software House.<br /><br />To mark this product revision, Spb has agreed to give a free license of Picture Viewer to five registered (and randomly selected) Thoughts readers. We'll select the winners from our list of all registered readers in a few days. Of course, you must be <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/profile.php?mode=register">registered with this site</a> in order to win. (Otherwise, how could we draw your name? :))<br /><br />In addition, in honor of the diligence that so many of our readers have in posting to the Pocket PC Thoughts forums, Vassili has also offered to give a free license to each of the five readers who (as of this morning) have posted more than 250 times since the birth of the Thoughts forums (excluding the Thoughts "staff"). And, who might those dedicated individuals in serious need of a real life be? Of course, if you visit the forums, you recognize their names: <i>pdadave, JonnoB, spg, Foo Fighter and Paragon</i>. Thanks for such dedication!

[JonnoB]

Wow, I actually get something for 'not having a life' - sounds like my wife speaking to me. :twisted:

[Pony99CA]

Speaking of Vassili, did anybody else get a private message from him about beta testing? I'm not sure whether to feel honored because I was selected for my excellent posts :lol: or angry because we were just spammed.

A copy of the message I got is at the end.

If this is a limited thing, I don't mind, but I'd hate to see this become too prevalent. I recognized SPB as a legitimate vendor, but there was also that recent problem with some hosting company's representative collecting E-mail addresses and spamming people.

Steve


From: vassiliphilippov
To: Pony99CA
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2002 7:24 am
Subject: Full Screen Keyboard

Hi,

we have finished a beta version of full screen keyboard for Pocket PC:
http://www.softspb.com/downloads/photo.jpg

We need beta testers.
We give this product for free when it is released and Palbum Picture Viewer 3.0 (http://www.softspb.com/products/palbumpv/).

Are you interested in beta testing of this full screen keyboard?
If so please contact me.

Best regards,
Vassili Philippov
E-Mail: [email protected]
MSN: [email protected]

MS-MVP Mobile Devices
Spb Software House

[Jonathon Watkins]

Yup - I got that too - I was not sure either whether to be annoyed or flattered. Is it legit?

[Pony99CA]

Yup - I got that too - I was not sure either whether to be annoyed or flattered. Is it legit?

SPB is certainly legit, and apparently Vassili is, too, as Jason seems to know him. I sent Vassili a private message asking about the original E-mail, and I have attached the reply.

So unless I hear otherwise, I'll assume it was a small mailing, and I offered to help beta test the program.

Steve

Steve,

sorry to disturb you.
We really did not want to "spam".

I sent the private message to few people that we would like to see as beta testers. We really appreciate links to our developer websites (Pocket PC Developer Network and Spb Software House) that you put on your webpage so we thank that make be you would be interested in beta testing. We did not want to make it in public so we did not use posting in webforums or in newsgroups.

Sorry again, we will never interrupt you again.

Best regards,
Vassili Philippov

[rubberdemon]

Well, I'm just an average poster and I didn't get an email/private message, so I'd assume that they were targeting people and not just spamming all of us. They'd probably do better to personalize each email so as not to make it look too much like spam.

[Jason Dunn]

I'll talk to Vassili about it, but right now there's no way to for anyone other than an admin to get an email address from this site. We've literally removed the email column from the membership list, and it's also been removed from your profile. You should be 100% spam-proof via email on this site.

EDIT: Ok, it was a private message...now I understand. Vassili meant well, and only the top posters seem to have gotten the message, but I'll ask him to refrain from doing it again. Unsolicited messages are still unsolicited, no matter how good the intensions. But the keyboard does look cool... :D

[vassiliphilippov]

I wrote private messages to few people that I thank would be interested in beta testing. I did not post a message in the public forum because I was afraid to get too a lot of responses and would not be able to handle them.

We have already found necessary number of beta testers and have already received very valuable feedback - thanks to all of them!

The interesting thing is that this input methods works on all Pocket PC except T-Mobile XDA. But the most interesting thing is that on unbranded XDA it works OK. Do you have any ideas what could T-Mobile do with XDA that the input method does not work?

Vassili Philippov

[JMountford]

I was also contacted. At first I was dubious. I contacted Vassili and he has cooperated with all my questions. I was not too interested in this application at all, but I have to say that in using it, it is pretty cool. There are a few things I think they need to change. Overall great app. I was very impressed that a developer took the time to personally contact people who he wanted to beta test his product. To me that shows an amazing level of commitment, not to mention true attention to this community.

Good Job!

[Kirk Stephens]

• Optimization for 1024-color devices such as 36-series iPaq

Shouldn't that say 4,096?

I would hate to see what a nice picture would look like on a 1024 color screen :pukeface:

[Jonathon Watkins]

I am happy to take part in Beta testing (even though SW testing is my day job :wink:) but I would prefer if people go through Jason in future i.e. organise it a bit more officially.

[Pony99CA]

Vassili meant well, and only the top posters seem to have gotten the message, but I'll ask him to refrain from doing it again. Unsolicited messages are still unsolicited, no matter how good the intensions. But the keyboard does look cool... :D
I suspect that many messages, E-mail and private, are unsolicited. It's the fact that they're commercial, often scams and opting out often doesn't work (but instead gets you more Spam) that people hate.

Now that I understand the selection process, I don't mind that I got this offer. I just wish that the selection criteria had been explained better in the initial message. It was probably just a copy-and-paste into a few private messages, but that lack of personalization (other than my name) raised my Spam hackles.

All's well that end's well, though, and I'm beta testing the program. :-)

Steve

[seeker]

this looks like interesting software.