Current Mood : Happy and busy
Current Image Notes : Here's the frame mat I designed for Beloved Hubby's 'Blood-borne Pathogens' class Certification. Shh - don't tell him yet !
As the proud owner of a licensed copy - no longer the trial version ! - of Alphabet XPress, I want to share my questionable taste with the world, using it as the medium. You may recall that I made a ‘naughty' Christmas ( or anytime !) ornament using a fairly generic swear word - yes, the ‘s' one. I reserve the ‘F bomb' ornaments for close family members and those who deserve it. Anyway, finding out if I can give the ten-minutes-to-make design away has been a comedy of errors so stupid, I'm seriously considering sending AnnTheGran one of my little ‘bombs'.
First, I did what could be construed as extremely dimwitted. I read the sketchy Help files, which don't really deserve the title ‘help', but I was willing to let it go. Then the bog-standard Byzantine licensing agreement. Which basically says, if this program blows up your computer which activates Skynet and brings about world devastation, well, it's your own fault for choosing to download it and install it, ya bum. Not our problem. We'll sue you and disable the program you paid for if we find you using it any other way than what we intended it for (not that we'll actually tell you what we intended it for anywhere in here), so there. Please enjoy our product, and tell your friends.
Okay, nothing there. They have a forum, so I'll see if it's been discussed. Surely someone besides me will have asked. Even just out of sheer intellectual curiosity ? After two days of listening to folks complain about how AnnTheGran went from offering 5000 free easy-to-download with ads designs to maybe 50, and made even access to those a PITA (this happened back in February, but they're still snipin') , I again found squadoo. Lotsa people had trouble getting AX to work with Vista, so I must be supremely lucky. But not in finding what I was looking for. So I asked. Several days pass. And then...somebody responds !
Yep, they tell me to e-mail Support. Um, the site asks for program owners to use the forums first, Honey. And it wasn't a site moderator or anyone in charge or on staff - just another forum user. But, what the heck, I'm about to give up anyway. I sent a brief (amazing, me being brief - you'd think that'd bring about world devastation, right there !) note again, and send it off into the ether. I get a form note back, saying that if I was writing concerning a licensed-to-me product, they'd respond within 24 hours. If it was to whine about the freebie situation, it'd take three days or more. Guess they're tired of the sniping, I figured they were simply ignoring it.
So today I get a response ! Well, not really. In response to ‘As a licensed user, can I give away or sell designs made by your product using your font ?', I get four inches of ads and a greeting, then, "I will verify this and get back to you." And a business-like sig file, showing that I've just ‘talked to' Person's Name on the ATG Support Team.
Um, what is she verifying ? That I'm a licensed owner ? I had to give the order number and the serial code to send the note to Support to begin with. There's nothing here to verify - yes I can, with permission and within limits, or no, I can't, so I'll just make ‘em and give ‘em away instead. This has never, in their history, come up before ? Unbelievable.
I'm starting to think I wasn't far off when I joked with Beloved Hubby that the reason I got no response on their forum - before I wrote Support - was that their lawyers were already out of the office for the weekend. It may be that they're contacting them to get the answer !
I got all the piled-up doll clothes put away, finally. Opened up a few more inches of space ! Now I'm looking at other piles ‘o stuff, and thinking of where they'll have to go. Some of them, I'll have to decide if they go or stay, since I'm at about max capacity in the Lab. I'm thinking of setting up the nearly-vintage Sears ‘Olympic Gymnast' set I got last year, taking some great photos, posting them to the main site, and then let the actual set go. It's all kindsa cool, but aside from the 70s box and Malibu imagery, it's not really something I'm interested in, or even really like. It was a great find, but I don't appreciate it enough to keep it forever, ya know ? I got at least another boxload of stuff that's much the same. I hate to let it go, but I already got boxes of stuff I really love, and I can't keep it all...
That's why I've not been seriously yard sailing this year. My space limits are far more severe than the money ones. Nearly every time I go out, I find something amazing I just have to have, and heck, I already have stuff darn near suspended from the ceiling ! Closets are packed, shelves are crowded, floor space is darn near at a premium. I gotta draw the line somewhere, or I won't have time to play because I have too much to play with !
But at least I got some stuff put away. The interfacing, stabilizers, and such that I use with Brody have outgrown the yard-sale Disney Princess trash can I scored last year, so I figured I'd look for new storage alternatives when we went grocery shopping today. Turned out that the 50th Anniversary "When You Look This Good, Nobody Cares If You're Plastic" Barbie tote holds it all perfectly, and it fits into a small unused nook, which uses less space than the can did. I was also gonna look for a new desk-side trash can, since my old kitchen one is too big for the new space in the living room. But with the Princess one freed up, I can use that instead. So I got new, improved storage and a trash can without spending any more money ! And the Princess can uses Mal-Wart sacks perfectly. I'm happy how that worked out.
