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ThumbsPlus viewer/editor

Document Image Conversion Specialists

I've got a 80G image library that I manage for my company. Thumbsplus has proven to be a pretty good solution, although I admit to not using the query function very much.

As TP asks how you want your database created (proprietory or MSAccess compatible), you can run your own querys outside of TP if you wish. Lots of metadata tagging features too.

It's not that expensive ($49 for Std 1 user license; $89 for Pro, which has more database functionality), and higher licenses allow for multiple concurrent users.

http://www.cerious.com/ (no, I don't work for them. Just a happy user)

* Crimson Editor An amazingly powerful freeware text / script editor.

  * uTorrent Is there an open source Torrent Client in under 200k? Does it have RSS searching, bandwidth scheduling, automatic resume, and trackerless support? Yes? Oh, good then.

  * As -U- Type. Spell check anywhere. It's a great piece of software, if you can get over the fact that the author barely speaks any english.

  * 3 Plane Soft Screensavers. Ok, they're screensavers. And they're a rip off. But damn they're nice.

  * Trillian. 'nuff said.

  * The Bat! The second best mail client created, behind only KMail.

  * IZarc If there were need for zip clients anymore, this would be the one to have. Also handles about 50 other file standards, integrates really well with explorer, is small and efficient, and did I mention free? Best unzipper out there, including the pay options.

  * Folder Size Shows you how big your folders are. If explorer were made by Apple, it would do this by default.

  * True Crypt Data so secure even it doesn't know if there is more to be found in a file.

  * Thumbs Plus Arguably there are a lot of good applications in this space, and there are ones out there with better interfaces. But it is the only thumbnail application I've ever used that can handle upwards of 20,000 files in a single directory. If you take lots of pictures, this is the one.

  * DVD Decrypter Recently bought out by Macrovision to shut down it's decryptey goodness, DVD Decrypter is really a no-nonsense, no-fuss DVD ripper and burner. Want to rip a movie from a DVD so you can watch it later? One button. Want to rip it back to a DVD? Another button.

  * Microsoft Power Toys Nifty stuff from people who both hate and make the operating system.

And remember to use an antivirus, a firewall, and two anti-spyware suites. My personal favorites are AVG Antivirus, Kerio Personal Firewall, Spybot, and Ad Aware.

I have may 98% of everything I need at home and work function with Mac OS or Linux.

Other than Windows, I have no Microsoft products installed on my system.

I've done this myself. In my case, it was to automate a job that queried a SQL Server and synchronized a file system with the database (think VERY crude content management here) using Python 2.3. os.walk() is your friend! :+)

If you need to do image manipulation too, then you might also want to check out a tool like ThumbsPlus Commander (http://www.cerious.com/tpcommand.shtml). You can probably also use this from Python with Win32 extensions.

You know, you can still have fun putting solutions together under Windows. It doesn't have to be a bad experience just because it's not OS X.

Best of luck!

Document Indexing/File Organization: A Wiki is the proper tool for this job, in my opinion. It makes it very easy to edit, and hyperlinking is instictive. You can easily attach documents to pages, you can usually export the whole thing as a directory tree. Most Wiki software also keeps track of all of the versions of a page, so you can worry less about making bad mistakes.

I've used both MoinMoin, which is a traditional web based Wiki, and WikiDpad, which is an IDE environment for Windows that does Wiki-like things. Both of these programs are open source, Python based applications.

You also might want to check out ThumbsPlus by Cerious Software, which stores thumbnails of images in a database (including SQL backends), along with keywords and user fields. It can help you as well.

--Mike--

Seriously, by 2008 every vendor with any sense will sell both Linux and Windows ports of their software

I wish it could be true, but I seriously doubt it. You think Cerious Software, for example, will port ThumbsPlus to GTK (or whatever)? No way. I've been buggin' them for years, and not only do they not have the money to do it, it's completely out of their league.

I would seriously like to be wrong here, but I think it's completely nutty to think the hoards of small companies out there will be able to afford to port to UNIX.

It also features a slideshow mode which I use to browse the photos I take, and make my picks for keepers. I recommend this to everyone who asks.

Now I can search manually by date (October 2000 was our honeymoon, for example), or by Keyword (such as DoorCounty, or RoadTrip). I'm carrying the last 3 years around on my laptop, weeding out the lesser half in terms of quality.

--Mike--

It saves the thumbnails as JPEGs in either an Access compatible, or can use an SQL database, so its wicked fast. The format is open, so you can tweak it with Python, or whatever.

I've only got about 80,000 of my own photos (it's a hobby for me, not a career), but it does everything I need it to do.

--Mike--

And if you move those files with explorer.exe, instead of an EXIF capable image reader/organizer (like ThumbsPlus, or others, you'll lose all that extended data.

I have done this a few times, and lost all the important data from my G2, which I rely on for archiving purposes (date, time, etc) and for learning purposes (fstop, etc).

But I hear that XP automatically uses the EXIF, or is it just the media centre version?

When the software is there, the big companies and users will follow. Not until.

Much like stores have to plan for losing 2 - 5 % of their inventory to theft ("shrinkage"), so too must software companies accept that someone, somewhere is going to hack your software if anyone likes it. If they have all of the bits and bytes of your system sitting in front of them, and they have no need to communicate with your server, they can always strip it out. Your purpose should be to encourage the maximum number of users to pay for the full version, not to have the minimum amount of piracy.

A freeware version is a good idea, as it will raise your visibility... If someone is so cheap that they would use a pirated version, you might convince them to become a customer by offering freeware, then enticing them with the full thing. Most of the copies of WinZip out there are the freeware version, but there are a heck of a lot more paid copies than if they didn't offer the free one.

A 15 day trial is too short. You are not just trying to show users the full value of your software, you are also trying to get them so used to using it that they are willing to shell out the cash to keep doing what they are doing. Most people have settled on 30 days, but 60 days wouldn't be out of the question.

I'd also charge more for the software, as price creates a perception of value: 25 - 35 dollars should be sufficient. At 15 dollars you are putting yourself in the realm of cheaply made, junky Visual Basic apps.

You've probably heard the following, but as an avid digital photographer I would find your software difficult to use. For one, you don't have an intuitive, on-screen way to navigate through folders. There is a reason every other piece of image software out there has this... it's much easier to manually search your image collection, which is why you have a browser in the first place. No real image collection is a flat folder.

The single-level Thumbnail filmstrip is also a cute analogy, but it makes it difficult to, once again, search your pictures. There should be some way to have multiple filmstrips to facilitate easier searching.

On one hand, whatever algorithms you are using to handle large file databases is solid... ABC took a 10,000 image file folder with only a 5 second pause on this P3 800. And now that you have a solid program, the last bit of polish required is what brings in most of the money.

On the other hand, as you mentioned you are competing with literally thousands of other products, such as ThumbsPlus, SuperJPG, ACDsee, and many others which are all highly professional, tremendously polished, and mature products. Spidering websites is a good first step, but you need to differentiate yourself if you are going to see real success. Are you going to be the online viewer of choice, with auto-import from camera / auto-export to HTML via FTP features? Are you going to push yourself onto OEM machines as a simple, easy-to-use viewer for regular people?

And if you haven't read Steve Pavlina's excellent article on selling shareware, I strongly recommend you do so now.

Organization Stuff

Stuff the pictures into folders like this:
\yyyy\yyyymmdd
This allows the directory size to be managable, and since you're not likely to cause the camera to roll over, filenames aren't an issue.

Use a program such as Thumbs Plus to view the photos, and prune (if you must). The "slide show" mode lets you rip through images for review like a dream. For editing, I use Paint Shop Pro.

These programs have served me well for the 82,000 I've accumulated so far.

Gear

If you can, get an old laptop that burns CDs. It doesn't have to be fast, or pretty, it just has to run at least 2 hours on a charge. If that can't be done, try to get a pair of old Toshiba Librettos (they look like old PDAs, and are less likely to be stolen).

Get power adapters, cables, etc, for all the countries you plan to visit. If you're technical at all, take some alligator clips, and a small multimeter for use in rigging up power. (They make them small and cheap at Radio Shack)

Figure out some way to back the stuff up (via CD if possible, or cloning the Librettos)

--Mike--

Software for money is held to a higher standard than free software. iTunes is incredible: it's fast, has plenty of features, and works great.

iTunes is surprisingly good for a Mac app, but JRiver's Media Jukebox is better. In fact, it's in a class of its own. And it costs only $25. It seems to me that a lot of the "ihub" software copies best-of-breed innovative shareware from the Windows world and puts an Aqua front on it. Compare iPhoto with the awesome ThumbsPlus, for example. Anyway, I think once Mac people start paying for these applications, they will be better able to judge them on their merits versus similar software on other platforms.

And they were never "free". Their users have already paid a significant price premium for buying Apple's hardware/software combination and accepting the lock-in.

Next is Photoshop, which I use to adjust imperfect images. I tried the gimp, so please don't even mention it. It's not in the same class. What do I use PS for, specifically? Adjusting color and brightness of images, mostly. Even ThumbsPlus, which has these functions, isn't as good as Photoshop.

I used to watch TV on my Windows PC, but since I got TiVo, I never do that anymore.

I believe Quicken could be replaced with GNU Cash, but since I'm stuck on Windows for other stuff I've never tried it. I don't use the bill pay features of Quicken, since my bank (E*Trade Bank) doesn't support them.

I keep them with the name the camera gave them, unaltered, in year\yyyymmdd folders. The camera will wrap at 10k pictures, but I haven't taken that many in a single day, yet.

I used to try to give them good names, but it falls apart rapidly, and there are better tools available, such as ThumbsPlus from Cerious Software. It uses an Access97/ODBC compatible database, allows for the tagging of multiple keywords per photo. The slideshow mode is VERY handy.

For editing the photos, use Paint Shop Pro from JASC, it's good, cheap, and has a good thumbnail system as well.

I made two sets of geographically dispersed backups to guard against system failure, with CDs as low as $0.23 each (a sale at Target), it seems silly not to.

All of this works very well for me, as before your milage may vary.

--Mike--

I keep them with the name the camera gave them, unaltered, in year\yyyymmdd folders. The camera will wrap at 10k pictures, but I haven't taken that many in a single day, yet.

I used to try to give them good names, but it falls apart rapidly, and there are better tools available, such as ThumbsPlus from Cerious Software. It uses an Access97/ODBC compatible database, allows for the tagging of multiple keywords per photo. The slideshow mode is VERY handy.

For editing the photos, use Paint Shop Pro from JASC, it's good, cheap, and has a good thumbnail system as well.

I made two sets of geographically dispersed backups to guard against system failure, with CDs as low as $0.23 each (a sale at Target), it seems silly not to.

All of this works very well for me, as before your milage may vary.

--Mike--

The fact is that you really can't search for images with current technology, you can only search on the text that describes them. (Which once again brings GREP, etc. back into the picture).

Layout sucks, it's overrated, and is just a pain in the ass, (on the web, at least) for those of use who like to keep our monitors set to 1600x1200.

--Mike--

Here is a fractal decoder license.

I can't see why a fellow could in his right mind accept this license. It prohibits installation on SMP machines: "has one Intel 386, 486 or Pentium processor, Motorola 68036 or 68040 processor or IBM Power PC processor." Note: That's "68036" (nonexistent), not 68030, and not Motorola PowerPC (such as some PPC G4). It prohibits installation on dual-boot machines or on WINE: "operates only the Microsoft DOS and Windows operating system or the Macintosh operating system." It prohibits installation on machines whose primary keyboard is a wireless keyboard: "contains a keyboard (not an infrared remote)." It prohibits installation on machines that do not have a printer attached: "is able to produce printed output on a local printer." It prohibits installation on machines that have even one Windows share on them: "does not act as a server on any network."

The way to patent an algorithm is to first invent it. For fractal compression, you're too late.

You can write a compression program and GPL it, but first you have to be careful not to infringe on anyone else's patents.

Here is a fractal decoder license. I believe Iterated Systems Inc. holds a pretty comprehensive patent on fractal compression, but I don't have much in the way of details.

I have 27,000+ pictures that I have taken in the past 3 years, all backed up on CD. Everything adds up to about 11 Gigabytes, which is only 1/4 of my new $200 45Gb Maxtor ATA100 drive. I use ThumbsPlus to organize things, and it does a great job, doing the thumbnails, tracking keywords, all in an Access97 compatible format.

Ok.. here's the math.... Storage for 27,000 photos... $50. The backup on 24 CDs is about $12 of media.

--Mike--

PS: Yes, I still have ALL of my old floppies, and a 5 1/4" drive that can read them. Soon I'll put all that on my HDD, and back it up to a CD or two.