[Ron Lindeboom]

The green, red and blue picons just below the leaders heads and just right of the date range pull down menu set the kind of interface that you want: Green for our default thread view; blue is for a date-range filtered presentation; and red is for the topical style presentation that some prefer.

The green T to the left of the individual threads is where you click to view the thread at once. The first post in every thread has a green T next to it. Click that and that is how you get into the threads in a single click.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Ron Lindeboom]

Actually, Curtis now consults with us on headier issues than the basics of the site and you would write Eric for those issues, at eric@creativecow.net

Best,

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

I think you just did…

You just come to the site and go where you want to. There is no log-in.

We have never used a log-in scheme as we have many, many times the number of lurkers than we do active posters. It runs about unique 11,000 people that have posted in the last year but we get 210,000 unique IPs a month. Some months go as high as 248,000 unique IPs. If just one person per IP is logging in — and some of these unique IPs include Apple, Adobe, Avid, Autodesk, etc., where many of their people log in from just a few IPs in total — that is a lot of people.

To make it easy on those who come to find answers or just see what’s going on, we do not require a log-in. The sites we have seen that require a log-in are usually too much bother for casual users who then quit going there.

Our log-in is simple: You come here and look at what you want, when you want. If you want to post, you must have an account and your username must go into the username field, the email address must go into the email field. For the actual split second that you click down on the send key, you are “logged in.” Log-ins last only as long as that split second that you click the button. The rest of the time, we simply have a huge number of people floating through the site.

But because some people think in terms of log-ins, we are going to create a fake log-in and -out function that merely resets people’s cookies for them but they will feel like they have “logged in” and it will end the confusion of a site than is “log-inless.”

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Ron Lindeboom]

Toke,

I do not speak for Panasonic and I do not work for them, nor am I an agent of theirs and merely speak for myself and those of us here who make the Cow site. As such, I am really getting sick of reading the same tiresome post over and over.

The truth probably is — and Panasonic is likely just too nice to tell you (but I am not) — that you have nagged and nagged on people so damned much with the same tiresome rhetoric that no one wants to take your calls anymore. It happens. They know what you are going to say before they even get to you. I know I do and I am sure many here think the same thing. I wouldn’t take your calls if I were a service person. I am not saying that that is what is happening but it’s a possibility. I mean, ask yourself if you would want to deal with someone like you if you were in their shoes. Would you want to hear it over and over?

Why?

You do NOT listen. You get an idea in your head and you will not let go of it — even if it’s wrong.

Panasonic is NOT telling you what your twisted reasoning espouses. It is simply NOT the way that things get done. But you do not want to hear that. You would rather repeat the same thing over and over as if repetition gives your words some kind of moral and situational integrity. The truth is, they are nothing more than the rantings of a guy who is asking for something that is outside the purview of the way that this industry and market operates. Dreaming is okay but you can hardly expect the world to line up based on your dreams. But you do not like that and so you climb onto the back of the same old underfed, rarely watered, never brushed retired plow horse and force the poor damned emaciated animal out of the barn and into your latest tirade parade — again. Let it die and send it to the glue factory for crimanny sake…

It’s really tiresome and if it doesn’t stop you will join the list of people who became anathema at the Cow and are no longer welcome here.

I really hate to play the heavy but at a certain point things have to change or the forums end up ruined by those who highjack them and post the same thing over and over — just as you have been doing.

Please heed the warning,

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Ron Lindeboom]

Animated gifs were never intended to be smooth-motion animations, they were intended to allow people to short, very limited animations that are usually a few frames a second. A real animation would be between 24 to 30 frames a second and most animated gifs are usually done in the range of about 5 frames a second or less. That’s what they were intended to be.

Animated gifs are not a format that you want to think of as a full frame size, full frame rate delivery mode. If the web is where you are going to deliver your animations, then Flash is what you want to consider. If video is your destination, then look at After Effects.

ImageReady is for making web banner ads mostly. That was its intended use.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

Hi Michael,

I changed the name of the thread because I didn’t want it to appear that I was responding to anything you were saying.

You make money, Michael, and so my comments were not addressing your situation but really pointing to the general populace of the forum and those that find themselves always looking for the next gadget rather than serving the clients they can serve today.

While you are clearly one who loves to have a vast arsenal of tools at your disposal, Michael, you are also someone who uses them to make money and to make things happen.

I was merely playing off of Tim’s words to illustrate the point that there are some who find themselves always looking for the next thing before they will allow themselves to feel and act like they are truly in business today. Being in business is not about buying tools, it is about turning a profit — whether that is serving a client base, selling your business or whatever pays the bills.

Tim’s words just brought back to me the number of people we have seen over the years that chase tools until they are out of gas and have never built a client base. This is a mighty expensive hobby that some learn the lesson of much too late.

Best always,

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Ramona Howard] “It was a pleasure meeting everyone at the cow breakfast and we look forward to what Ron and Kathlyn have up their sleeve for next year. The magazine, WOW! even better than I imagined, you guys hit a winner.”

Thank you, Ramona, for the kind words, we truly appreciate them. The magazine has been a lot of work but everyone really seems to like it. Thank you and Jason for having been a part of it from the very beginning. Truly, the COW would have evaporated into a puff of smoke a few years back if you guys had not helped us get through our administrative nightmares that were happening at the time. Thank you for all your help and friendship over the years.

Ron & Kathlyn

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Tim Kolb] “I’m fighting the urge to grow like crazy. I’ll concentrate on surrounding myself with the gear I need and do less projects. So far I’m liking it…”

When I grow up, Timmie, I wanna be just like you. ;o)

Once again, you toss a grenade as an understated offhand remark that jumps off the page the way that everyone leans in to hear when someone whispers.

;o)

I know many people here in the Cow who make good money and know their limits and who work within the context of the equipment they have and NEED. Conversely, I know others who never make any money and are always buying more and more stuff; thinking that they need that next big thing before they can be in the position to make themselves “real” or something…

There are people in this site who have old Media 100s and Avids that are a decade old and are still making money from them. It’s what you do with the tool, not the tool itself, that determines if you are a pro or an amateur.

Thanks for the visit with commonsense, Tim.

Best always,

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

Yes, it reminds me a bit of iTunes for Fonts. Very straightforward in the interface and very useful.

And free.

Now out of guilt I have to buy some Linotype fonts from them.

:o)

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

Wow, not much in the way of expectation, eh?

Do you honestly believe that any user has this kind of pull with Apple? I don’t. I know plenty of users who are VERY well connected at Apple and they do not have this kind of pull. I know companies that work with Apple that do not have this kind of pull.

For its own internal reasonings and machinations, Apple does what it does. They may watch the Creative Cow forums — I know, because we were right across from Apple at NAB this year and so many of their people came over to our booth and talked with us (they even brought over a film crew one day and interviewed us for the Apple internal non-public podcast channel) — but Apple has and will likely always march to the beat of their own drummer.

It is NOT Shane’s job to explain to you what he can or cannot do for you in the position you are in. While I do sympathize with you in your plight, and I am sure that Shane does also, we do not pretend that we have some magic conduit into the Apple brain-trust and can tell them what to do.

I am sorry that you are in the position that you are in but dumping it all at Shane’s feet and demanding an answer as to what he is going to do for you is not only unrealistic but quite disrespectful.

That’s my two cents…

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net