I had 2 hard drives fail in one year. I understand your pain.

I now have 2 internal hard drives and 1 external backup drive. All my programs go on the main harddrive. All my content (installed & zipped) go on the second internal hard drive. And I back it all up to an external backup drive.

I first bought a 1TB Western Digital external backup drive but it's software failed to work properly with Win 7 even after the WD patch I downloaded, so now it's just a dumb external harddrive. Then I bought a 1TB Seagate external backup drive that purrs along nicely. However I notice since adding the external backup drives my PC takes longer to startup and shutdown.

If your getting a new PC then go Win7 Pro 64bit so you can pile on a lot of RAM upto whatever you motherboard has slots for. Also the Pro version of Win 7 gives you backward compatibility to 32bit programs.

Hmmmm...Reading what I just blurted out above; that's a good bit of prose.

I'm a poet and didn't know it. LOL.

@SeanMartin - In someways you are right and taken to the extreme one could say that all that we have been, all that we are, and all that we will ever be won't even rate an eye blink on the face of Eternity so it becomes meaningless to gripe about anything.

However I live in the momment, and each momment to the next momment is measured by the breath of Life I take inbetween. So those momments become precious to me not knowing when my last breath will be.

And those momments become wasted as I wade through the war of exlamation marks !!!! and bad content structure in my runtime. Actually it shouldn't be called a "runtime" folder anymore; SM should rename it to a "crawltime" folder.

BTW no angst is directed personnally; just venting my frustration, that's all.

@ElZagna - Poser Debut & Daz Studio in Schools to get kids interested in / exposed to 3D creation (which is a fair size market interest now because of movies like Avatar). That would open up new market.

Of coarse they will have to be careful about content to kids (parents would be waving a big stick). You know how irresponsible & experimental kids can be. They should wait to become adults to become irresponsible and experimental like the rest of us. LOL.

May have to introduce ratings for content to kids just like movies, G, PG, M, R, XXX, WTF ;-)

I missed out on a lot of clearance stuff gone because I procrastinated, ummed and ahhed, waiting for my next pay check, and was busy paying off the credit card from other sales inspirred mad buying. Sigh!

Anyhoot if they must stick to having clearance items then I suggest a countdown indicator. It could spur on more sales for a clearance item. The indicator could reset on every sale made so as to extend the countdown. It's a fun idea. Maybe also a toon image of some goofy sales guy who's expression changes as the coundown approaches the end.

Another suggestion is to have special comeback sales for most request items from a list of items that have been cleared. I'll put my vote on for a lot of motif's textures, please! And some Aery Soul V3 stuff I missed from their last clearance (I'm sure they did it to give other vendors a chance at Vendor Of The Year title. LOL).

One thing I do agree with is that putting items quickly into clearance does stiffle both creativity and versatility in the market place. I would love to see more M4 fanatsy clothes. I note this is happening at DAZ, they have a lot more cool stuff for M4 than they ever had for M3.

And as far as the excuse of storage space is concerned....come on guys! Terrabyte hard drives are now avaiable as cheap as fish & chips (well maybe the chips. A good piece of fish is still kind of expensive).

Yer a countdown indicator could spur on more sales for a clearance item. The indicator could reset on every sale is made so as to extend the countdown. It's a fun idea. Maybe also a toon image of some goofy sales guy who's expression changes as the coundown approaches the end.

@Geep - Great tutorials.

@Michaelab - You may also want to consider purchasing Semidieu's Advance Lights & Camera Guides (at RuntimeDNA). They're a great visual aid to setting up lights and camerals. Maybe able to grab them at the next special sales (I did).

@Andrew-DEC - Good list. Short, simple and to the point. Point one was the issue that started this thread. All those exclamation marks !!!! should be thrown out or used very sparingly for specific files (such as INJ/REM as suggested by Kieth under Rule 5) . Also I like the list name change to "Compliance". It's less of a grey area than Quality.

Quote - Even as a hobbiest, I'm glad products give me the option of High Quality textures, which I can scale down myself if I don't need them. You can't scale up though.

True. I used a poor example.

@Andrew_DEC - Sorry for my missunderstanding. I remember suggestion a Quality system last year in the Adimistration forums. It was noted as a good idea but not sure if it was ever implemented.

One thing that has to be sorted out is what does "Quality" actually mean and what should it cover.

For example - I know professional artists want whopping huge texture files 2000x2000pixels and larger because of render quality on close up work. But for me a hobbiest I don't really care and such large texture files are a burden to my PC CPU/RAM/Video Card whatever.

So already a professional artist and a hobbiest are going to have different perceptions of Quality they want from a product.

@Andrew-DEC - No vendors names has been mentioned yet, which is a good thing.

One can't really raise an issue with freebies. They're free and so one has to just grin an bear it and maybe get their hands dirty fixing up the files. Actually I learnt a lot about Poser files and how Poser works by fixing up others freebies, and I can get about 90% of them to work in Daz Studio (my 3D tool of choice).

So the issues here are really about sold products where one would expect a bit more attention to detail and understanding of the structure of Runtimes.

The thread started with an issue about using exclamations !!!! in file/folder names (which I agree with). Then others added their issues, including yours truely (being human I naturally had to put my 2 cents worth into this mix). A list to single out vendors was suggested (make up your own title to the list) and I hope will not be implemented. And of coarse the thread sort of drifted about as we brain stormed.

Anyhoot I feel the core of the issues are really well summed up by Keith's excellent list (which should maybe be turned into a mantra for vendors, possibly as a post-it-note superglued to the foreheads of some vendors. LOL).

@Doran - Ok the term "hit list"is a bit extreme but honestly I couldn't think of another name for a group of people getting together to single out others. Having myself been bullied at school when very young strong emotions still haunt me.

If enougth customers lodge complaints to Rendo about a product or vendor then I'd thrust they will act. Hopefully act faster than they do in the galleries against nudity in thumbs; which is neck breaking fast. LOL.

Also customers have the Administration forums to also voice their dissatisfaction in. Worth checking out now and again. Some juicy stuff turns up there; even from vendors against other vendors.

Spiderman's Uncle "With great power comes great responsibility". Just be careful about your list, whatever you call it.

@Terrymcg - LOL. Your comment cracks me up!!!!

@SamTherapy - Thankyou for your efforts to help keep runtimes organised. I see it as a win-win senerio; the vendors help keep my runtime organised and I will remember to credit their products in my gallery.

@Keith - What a fantastic list!!!!!! (exclamations very appropriate in this instance. LOL).

BTW to others, I don't like to single out any vendors on some hit list. I think that's a bit extreme. Hopefully Rendo staff can mediate if there is too many complaints lodged to them against certain vendors/products.

I have communitated with only a few vendors and always had positive responces. Considering their products were made for Poser and not Daz Studio (as I said that's my 3D tool of choice) they have accomodated my feedback well.  A couple have even posted updates.

Vendors should keep the old marketing addage in mind; "Make customers happy and they tells their friends but make them unhappy and they tell the world". This is more true when you consider the power of the internet to create global communities AND I note from "artists on line" up top of Rendo's web page that I have never seen the number drop below 2000 AND has recently tripled to 6000!!!! (more appropiately placed exclamations. LOL).

Besides the !!!!! (which I also despise),  it would nice if vendors put their files under a folder with their name on it so I know who to credit on my renders and to find their files easily for correcting (a constant necessity because I use Daz Studio).

Example if vendor name FRED001 then I would expect the following:-

Runtime:Geometries:FRED001:productXYZ:product.obj

Runtime:Libraries:Props:FRED001:productXYZ:product.pp2

Runtime:Textures:FRED001:productXYZ:product.jpg

If the vendor are truely after more sales then having gallery credits by the artist (purchaser) is good advertising for future sales. And the best way to remind us artists (purchasers) to credit them is to have their products under a folder with their name so as to differentiate it from all the hundreds (maybe !!!!thousands!!!!) of folders in our runtime.