Just sharing 2 things for future reference: one is great, the other is frustrating.

1 - The Great: In mid-July, E-on responded within a day of my request (or sooner!) to my activation requests for 2 REALLY OLD versions of Vue: both Vue 7 Infinite & Vue 6 Infinite.

When I casually mentioned an issue later on, Walther graciously wrote me back with a solution. It was a gesture done in kindness, not obligation. I'm still blown away by that!

2 - The Frustrating: As of today, both versions of Vue are telling me AGAIN that I have a "bad' activation. :(

Basically, right now I'm just tired of Mama E-on forcing me to constantly check in from time to time to use the apps I paid to use ages ago— and grounding me like I'm a guilty child who's up to no good. I wanted to work on & render my scenes without watermarks tonight. But this constant-call-home activation method is ruining my gusto. : (

Quote - Look, we got all of that down pat. 

Let's leave all the controversies, tabloids and what-have-you to the other places on the web --- not here.  Not to bash anyone, but I don't want this to be free-for-all whether you're for or against him.  We're all not perfect, but jeez, lighten up a little....

Not sure if you're responding to my post. If so, just to be crystal clear:

**The entire purpose of my post was to point out the GOOD message in the song that Michael personally said he was trying to portray. ** I did that to try to help assuage the bad feelings that arose due to misunderstandings over those lyrics.

So if anyone just glanced over my post, saw a link and a quote, and thought I was being anything less than kind and empathetic, umm... Please take the time to actually READ what I said... My post was 100% positive. Thanks to all.

Quote - ...The song had originally been recorded with lyrics that included the phrase "Jew me, sue me", and "Kick me, kike me".

Now, I'm not responding to this with the intent of starting trouble. It's just that... I understand where David is coming from. I remember when that controversy erupted; as a lifelong Michael Jackson fan, I was confused and appalled when the media brought attention to those words.

But later, I read a response Michael gave to a reporter regarding the intent of those lyrics. The meaning he said he was trying to portray fell in line with everything he 'preached', so to speak:

Quote - Mr. Jackson gave a statement to The New York Times this afternoon...
The idea that these lyrics could be deemed objectionable is extremely hurtful to me, and misleading. The song in fact is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking. It is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them. I am angry and outraged that I could be so misinterpreted.

As an artist and songwriter, after I read that, it made perfect sense to me. Sometimes the singer takes on a "roll", much as an actor does. Especially because of Michael's own explanation, this rings a very true bell with me. Anybody ever heard John Lennon's song "Woman is the Nig*er of the World"? It's the same thing, you know... Using a well known epithet to speak out against the treatment of a specific group of people. As a minority of mixed racial background, AND a woman -- I love that song.

AnyHOO, I felt the need to address this because.... well, I really did empathize with David. One of the most awful things we can experience as human beings is when we feel we, or those we love, have been attacked (I'm referring to how David considered the lyrics, not to forum responses) -- yet others seem to turn a blind eye to it or brush it away. I ought to know; I've experienced similar things my entire life.

That having been said, I'm very grateful for this thread.
I grew up loving Michael Jackson's songs, dancing, artistry in general...
My younger years flashed before my eyes when I heard about his passing. May his family and loved ones be comforted.

God bless!

Quote - ...Speaking as a dinosaur...
Folks shared their stuff freely: you didnt see righteous threads about "someone stole an acne scar from my texture...
Someone put up a texture, someone took it and modified it and put it back up, and so on and so on. You learned along the way...
...But now, we're all so obsessed with "make me this!" and "make me that!"

Quote - Actually, it IS our fault as a userbase. Smith Micro bought Poser, and inherited a community that wants everything done for them. If change is going to happen, it has to start with us....

Quoted bits of the above two posts because... well... I applaud you both.

Quote - Have a look at this. It seems as if the hair has gotten WAY better:
http://www.seventhstreetstudio.com/simplecg/299/blue-eyes-2

To be clear, that image wasn't created using any recent version of Poser. I saved that image from seventh-street 4 years ago. ;)

And yet, all this time later, it still amazes me...

Quote - So sad.  Farrah earlier today and now Michael Jackson. Its a very sad day :(

AnnieD, thank you for this topic. It's hard to digest...

StaceyG, I couldn't have said it better; it is a very sad day indeed.

My prayers and thoughts go out to the families and friends left behind...

Quote - T-shirts we have :biggrin:  What else were you looking for? 

cough Bags anyone?

Yes, I'm still in love with the rendo bag I got from the contest!! I LOVE that bag, I want MORE!
Come on now, I can't just have ONE!! 

...But I have a feeling it's a special item not available for purchase... 

Quote - How can that be.  Here is the user agreement from e-on:-

"Effective Date" is the date at which you purchased the maintenance plan."

The problem is that the detailed explanation at 4.1 of the Maintenance Plan Agreement popup window (here) -- is contradictory to the bit you copied:

"4.1     Effective Date; Term.

The effective date ("Effective Date”) of the initial term ("Initial Term”) of your Maintenance Plan will be the earlier of (i) the date at which you initially purchased the Maintenance Plan, (ii) the date of first activation of the product placed under maintenance and (iii) the date of release of a full or .5 upgrade to the product version for which you purchased this Maintenance Plan..."

According to (ii), since I bought Vue last Nov., if I bought the plan today it will expire in November 2009, not in May 2010; because it is the earliest of the 3 events above. Unless I'm misinterpreting this?

P.S. Thanks for beating me to it, surveyman!! 
AnyHOO, I put a link directly to the agreement, so THERE! lol

Quote - When did imitation cease to be the sincerest form of flattery?

Put another way, does the owner of the Raider of Tombs franchise really feel that images similar to their character, created by hobbyists for their own enjoyment, threatens their economic opportunities?...

Believe me when I tell you, the issue is certainly not related to "images similar to [Lara Croft]".
Eidos is all for flattery via imitation , which is why, for years,  they've been posting fanart on their site and providing fanart kits.

Quote - Action Hair is gone.  Apparently someone trademarked the pony-tail.

Hmmm, looks like it's back now. : )
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=60812

I'm very impressed, and I'm interested in how you did it! I won't even attempt such a thing, I have no skills in this department. :p But it's very intriguing!

I liked the before and after, because it was a perfect example of how easily we can be deceived by the simplest things we see in movies & media all the time. I would like to have seen 2 comparison stills at the end of the video to show the dramatic difference between the wall in front of her and the broad landscape.

Beautiful job, keep doing what you're doing!

Quote - ...When my last very popular item got torrented, I was watching my sales. I didn't see any downward trend in it's sales around the day it got pirated or within that week.  I expected to see at least a tiny drop off in sales, maybe 10-15% when it was pirated, but I didn't.

It's great to hear that your sales weren't affected! :D

I think the more products a merchant has in a store, the more susceptible he/she may be to the kind of thing I perviously mentioned; because the comments I mentioned most often pertained to products by creators who have been well-known for years, (many of which remain year after year in 'top' merchant lists).

I guess it's like that with anything: the more items one has in any area (music albums, gallery pics, etc,) the more often it will draw the eye of both the good and the bad. 

.

Quote - Piracy is as old as the software industry.
The FBI is not gonna break down your door and confiscate your computer because you stole a pair of fairy wings...

LOL!! Sorry for laughing, but I got a real funny visual reading that. :p

Quote -  Sending ANY response puts you on a mailing list that is given to tons of these folk.. You just set yourself up for more of the same..  I send every single one to the FBI email fraud devision with a copy of the email with the headers included.. It always ends up discontinued and I guess word got around because it has been 3 years since I got my last one..

Very wise!

I always had funny thoughts of entangling the scammers like Dean did; but in the end, self-preservation and cowardice won.

I wuzzn't gunna send my IP willingly to anybody, regardless of how much fun it would be to mess them about! :p

Quote - BTW, I have collected a lot of pictures from scammers, but no money yet

Quote - Have you thought about trying for some sculptures? Make 'em 'really' work :laugh:

LOL!!!

Quote - Yeah, that's understood now. Actually I'm in the middle of a bunch of stuff, figured I'd check my email and saw your post via Mr Ebot. So I really wasn't paying close attention and my mind was elsewhere.

I'm not sure I agree with you though. Some nagging thing tells me I don't but I'm still distracted and your earlier reply is on the previous page, and I gotta get outta here now. ;-)

Well, you're not the only distracted one! lol
I have a lot on my mind today, so maybe I wasn't absolutely clear in my 1st post here. I wouldn't doubt for a second that I couldn't have been more coherent. :p

So.... lol.... don't worry about my post. : ) There are far more important things in life than my rambling thoughts. :P

And I could have shortly summed up my gist by saying this: it made me sad when I saw people saying certain items were in their carts, but they were [saved from buying them] because someone posted it. :(

Those same people then wonder why a vendor they admire stops selling...

"Do you really think if such a person has an item in his/her cart, he/she will still buy it once they see it at a warez site?"

Quote - That's a kind of dismal outlook, don't you think? Not a particularly fair generalization, either.

Do you think that everybody who finds a wallet with money in it is going to keep it?
Do you think everybody goes to the warez sites?

MikeJ, you didn't understand what I meant. My statements were connected, ("pirated items were bought by someone out there" -- and -- "Do you really think if such a person...."
Such a person referred directly to those who pirate. Some pirates buy items and share them.

So... my point was about **SUCH **a person that buys AND shares item. If someone pirates items though they still make purchases, would you think they wouldn't hesitate also to download something without paying for it?

I NEVER generalized. I NEVER said "everybody goes to warez sites."
Dude, I was talking ONLY about people who already DO go to warez sites!

"Lastly, it's a fallacy to believe that warez doesn't hurt vendors' sales. Think about it: pirated items were bought by someone out there.."

Quote - That doesn't make any sense, and it certainly does nothing to discredit the allegation people might not have bought the stuff in the first place.

It only makes no sense to you because you didn't understand what I was saying.
I never addressed the allegation of people who didn't buy an item in the first place.
I was, however, stating the obvious, which is that some who DO purchase are pirating items they purchased.

Some time ago, a vendor here linked to a warez site in which many people were requesting and buying items for each other. Point and case. Oh, and at that same site the vendor linked to, I saw several posts in which people expressed that an item was 'in [their] cart', and now they were saving money thanks to the great uploader.

So when I say warez sometimes hurts sales -- it wasn't a random guess.

Quote - Think about it: The pirated item was in fact bought at one time or another by someone, but that doesn't automatically mean that everyone who sees it would have bought it anyway.

I never said that everyone who sees it would have bought it.
Some who would have bought it sometimes choose not to when they find it 'freely' available.

You have derived many generalizations from my post that I neither implied nor directly stated.
I was speaking only about a very specific issue regarding purchasers who pirate.

Hope that's clear to you now.

Maybe it's just me... and it could be just me, 'cause I tend to be the blue orange in the apple tree :p -- but I didn't for a moment gather anything accusatory in Dark_Anvil's post. I saw only a merchant who rejoiced (perhaps very prematurely), about a verdict against enablers of illegal file trading.

And when I read, "...If you have pirated dark Anvil products, we'll forgive you if you get on Rendo quick and buy the official product...", I remembered reading about Curious Lab's Poser 4 Amnesty Upgrade for those who had "a questionable Poser serial number of any origin".

(Article here, archive of Curious Lab's page here).

Dark_Anvil's tactic seemed the same to me.

Lastly, it's a fallacy to believe that warez doesn't hurt vendors' sales. Think about it: pirated items were bought by someone out there...

Do you really think if such a person has an item in his/her cart, he/she will still buy it once they see it at a warez site?