Xequte March Newsletter: DVD PixPlay 8 Released + Two Updates

5 March 2014

 

In this Issue

  • DVD PixPlay V8.0 Released
  • V8.0 Upgrade Information and Offers
  • MailList King V12.05 Released
  • ImageEn v5.0.6 Released
  • Program Tips

  

Dear Xequte Software User,

If you are not of a technical bent, then you may not know Donald Knuth, who is one of the grandfathers of computer programming and widely respected by geeks like me. It was with some surprise then, to learn that Professor Knuth does not have an email address, and, in fact, has not had one since 1990. If you want to contact him, you need to hunt out a pad and pen, scratch out your letter and then plod down to the post office to send it with actual stamps. Fortunately, he endeavors to reply within three months. Apparently this allows him to stay on top of things.

Now as someone who has seen their fair share of emails, and replied to around 153,000 of them, I can sympathize with this plight, and possibly even in my most jaded moments, I have even romanticized about permanently disconnecting myself from the internet. Of course, I could never actually do it. My business requires constant email contact with customers and partners, not to mention many family and friends around the world who would essentially cease to exist where there not an electronic method to reach them.

So, I won't be giving up email in any hurry, or the internet for that matter. This was brought home to me earlier this week, when I was punching out some code and suddenly my screen, and every other device about me that beeps, whirrs and whistles suddenly became deathly silent. It was during a storm, so presumably a rogue tree had taken out some distant power lines.

No worries, I thought, my laptop has power, so I'll reply to my emails. Only I couldn't actually download any new emails, send my responses, or view embedded messages, so that did not keep me occupied for long. Clearly anything productive was out of question, so I fired up my browser to read my blogs rather quicker than it occurred to me that obviously it wouldn’t work. In frustration, I headed off to read the new Bill Bryson book I purchased earlier for my kindle, only to realize I hadn't yet sync'ed it. Finally, I ended up with an actual book, you know, the old kind, with pages of pressed wood. Of course, it's as heavy as a wheel of French cheese and has a very inefficient search system, but, boy, is the battery life superb!

 

Regards 

Nigel Cross
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com

www.xequte.com

P.S.  If you find this newsletter interesting please forward it to your friends :-)  Via email, preferably, but you can send them snail mail if you are going offline ;-)

 

* DVD PixPlay V8.0 Released

DVD PixPlay allows you to create slideshow discs from your digital photos and videos for playback on DVD players and computers.  V8 adds some fantastic new features…

Top Ten Enhancements

1.     Can now automatically insert maps based on the GPS data in your photos or using your own custom design (View)

2.     New Word transitions to display text or a letter sequence as images change (View)

3.     Display times for each of your images can now be specified as you preview your slideshow for perfect alignment with your music or presentation

4.     Forty new transitions including Pacman, 3D cube rotation, soft wipes, twists and puzzle pieces, plus enhancements to many existing transitions (View)

5.     "Alternative Style" option adding a further eighty transitions

6.     Slideshows can now be exported to an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file or as a set of images

7.     HD formats are now supported for YouTube uploading (View)

8.     Enhanced Screen Saver for display of your PixPlay project when your computer is inactive

9.     Wider support for new camera, video and audio formats

10.  Many optimizations to improve speed of slideshow generation

 

 

Complete change list and screenshots at: http://www.xequte.com/pixplay/changes.html

 

* V8.0 Upgrade Information and Offers

 V8.0 is a free upgrade to all users who purchased a license or upgrade after October 1, 2013.  If you qualify and have not been emailed a new serial then let us know.

Other registered users can upgrade at:

http://www.xequte.com/pixplay/upgrade.html

Also, if you are not yet a user, you can buy DVD PixPlay Professional for 30% off for the next five days at:

http://www.xequte.com/cgi-bin/dpx8.asp?v=dx3

 Note: This offer is only available from this link and expires on March 14.

 

* MailList King V12.05 Released

MailList King allows you to manage and communicate with a mailing list from your own computer.  V12.05 is a minor update that improves the user interface and fixes several issues.

Registered Users can download the update by selecting Help > Check for Updates or by completing the following form:

http://www.xequte.com/support/serial/

 (Simply install the new version over your old one.  No new key is required if you are already using v12.*).

 Upgrades: http://www.xequte.com/maillistking/upgrade.html

 More Info:  http://www.xequte.com/maillistking/

 

* ImageEn v5.0.6 Released

ImageEn is a photo editing and processing library for Delphi, .NET and ActiveX developers. V5.0.6 adds many improvements including ImageMagick support and rendering of photosphere images.

Top Five Enhancements

1. ImageEn now supports all formats of the installed version of ImageMagick (including PDF via Ghostscript)

2. Includes an Equirectangular renderer to view 360?? Android-Google Photosphere images

3. Can now read BigTIFF format (>4GB TIFFs) and PSB format (large Photoshop PSD)

4. Vectorial objects can now be saved into JPEG and TIFF files

5. New "Fill Page" option to print images to full page size while cropping edges

Complete Change History: http://www.imageen.com/info/history.html

 This is a free update for all purchasers in the past 12 months. You can download the update by completing the following form:

http://www.imageen.com/support/downloadrequest.html

Other users can extend their registration at:

http://www.imageen.com/order/#Extensions

More Information: http://www.imageen.com

 

* Program Tips

- DVD PixPlay: Inserting Maps into your Slideshows

V8 offers a new function to insert a map into your slideshow, complete with push-pins to highlight locations. If your camera supports GPS data then a map can be generated automatically showing the location of all selected images. To do this:

  1. Select the photo(s)
  2. Click Edit > Insert Map of Selection
  3. Zoom and scroll the map as desired
  4. Click OK

If the "Insert Map of Selection" item does not appear on the menu then your photos do not include GPS data, but you can still generate your own maps:

  1. Click Edit > Insert Map
  2. Search by a city name or scroll to a location
  3. Double-click the screen wherever you want to insert a push-pin
  4. Zoom and scroll the map as desired
  5. Click OK

 

- MailList King: Setting a Field of All Selected Members

MailList King offers a quick way to set a data field of all selected members without needing to edit each record in turn.  For example, you may select all members of the domain, *@ABCco.com, and want to set the Company field for the selection to "ABC Company".

You can do this in MailList King using the "Update Field" dialog, which allows you to set a specified field (or add a custom field) for all selected records.

The function is only displayed when you have selected multiple records (as with one record it is quicker to use the "Edit Member Record"). When you have more than one record selected you can access it via the “Member” box on the Home toolbar by clicking Other > Update Field of Members.

 

- Smart Pix/MegaView: Rating your Favorite Images and Multimedia

The rating toolbar in Smart Pix and MegaView allows you to specify a star rating to each of your multimedia files, e.g. 5 stars for those you love, down to 1 star for the less desirable ones.  To display the rating toolbar choose the relevant option under View > Toolbars on the menu.  Assign a rating to the selected file(s) by clicking one of the stars on the toolbar.

With Smart Pix Manager you can use the Filter function (available under the Database tab, if you have the Simplified User Interface option turned off) to hide all of the files that have a rating lower than desired (e.g. only show images with 4 or 5 stars).

 

 

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