Animation Shop 3

In another one of Alvin's classes we had to make some graphics and one had to be an animation. Well, I don't have any programs that do animation so I had to download something. Jasc has a program called Animation Shop 3 which has a free trial. So I tried it. Amazingly enough it is very simple to use. It doesn't create the graphics, I had to use another program to do that, but once you have the slides you want to animate it is real easy. Animation Shop asks you which files you want to import, so you find the slides you want, put them in the correct order, and continue and it's put together. Then you can go in and add transitions between slides or text/image effects within each slide. This program was very simple to use and it had many features. I would recommend it to anyone who needs to animate graphics.

Jasc's website is at http://www.jasc.com/ and Animation Shop 3 is at http://www.jasc.com/products/animationshop/

Paint Shop Pro 9

Well, I wasn't having much luck with Adobe Photoshop, not to mention, the computer it is installed on is in the spare room and not hooked to the internet, so I decided to download the trial version of Paint Shop Pro 9. With my high speed connection, the 98MB file didn't take very long to download. And once installed, I was left to fend for myself on how to use it, since I didn't have a manual in my lap (and I can't stand to read long documents on computer screens, makes my eyes bug out). I figured it out, similar to Adobe Photoshop, and I created the graphics for my Assignment 5 using it. I really haven't had the time to go in and explore all of the options it has, but it looks like a really great program. Unfortunately, I don't have the $130 to buy it, so I told my mother-in-law about it as a Christmas gift. So hopefully, by the end of the year, I'll have the full version.

Pen Drives

There's a new thing called a pen drive and it's not much bigger than a keychain but it can hold upwards of 256 MB and 512 MB and I'm sure there are (or will be) some that will hold over one gigabyte of information. So instead of carting around thousands of 3.5" floppy disks you can wear these pen drives around your neck (the one I purchased actually came with a laynard) and they just plug into an empty USB port on your computer or notebook. Now, of course these aren't cheap. The 256 MB pen drive I purchased cost about $60, but there was a mail-in rebate, so I got the pen drive for about what an external 3.5" floppy drive would have cost me!!!

Now that I think about it, I think someone else has blogged about pen drives. These are definitely a new wave that is very practical.

New Notebook

Well, I had been talking about it for quite a while, never really had the money, but I finally broke down and bought myself a notebook... ie laptop computer. I asked my husband instead of him trying to figure out what to buy me for Christmas, my Christmas present would be that he makes a few payments for the notebook and he agreed. So after doing homework on the web, we went to BestBuy and got a notebook. I was dead set on an HP... that is until we got there and talked with a rep. He said he could not sell me a HP with a clear conscience. Supposedly HP has the highest breakage rates. Who knows; my husband has a HP desktop and we haven't had any problems, and he knows other people who own HP's and have never had any problems.

I knew which HP notebook I wanted, so I asked the rep what other brands they had that were equivalent to what I wanted. He suggested Toshiba and eMachine, and explained that eMachine bought out Gateway. He showed me an eMachine comparable to the HP for a few hundred dollars cheaper, and it also had a better processor. That's when I learned a 2 gig AMD 64 Athlon was better than an Intel Pentium 4 - 3 gig processor. Okay, so with a cheaper price and more speed (flashbacks of Fast and Furious come to mind) the eMachine was looking better and better. I asked if they had any Toshibas comparable, and he found a couple, but they were a lot more. So after I finished asking my questions, and listening to the rep's (might I say rehearsed) bit about the $300 extended warranty, I moved on to my other questions. I knew I wanted a mouse, originally I wanted a 3.5" floppy so I could easily transfer files from work, to desktop to notebook (I changed my mind when I found out about the new "pen drives"), I needed a carrier, and I also got a surge protector.

So in the end, I spent over two grand on the notebook and accessories... and all I can say is hoorray to UF for providing cheap Microsoft products!!! I've only had the notebook about three days now and I am in love with it! I like the portability, I have can do all of my work on here whether I'm at home or at work so I don't have to transport disks or put stuff in the digital drop boxes. I just love it!!!