Does any other program (windows or linux) do screenshot annotationefficiently?

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:38:32 +0200 Poutnik wrote:

You need in payware something you miss in freeware,
otherwise freeware is sufficient.

Exactly!

This is the three-step software-purchase process I recommend:
1. Try to do the task with the tools you have at hand;
2. If that fails, find & try the best freeware for that task;
3. If that fails, now you know exactly what you want payware to do!

By the time you get to step 3, you'll know what the freeware
does (which will be basic tasks); but if you need more, then
you know exactly what questions to ask of the payware before
plunking down your hard-earned dollars on it.

For example, I bought the Adobe Acrobat Writer even though
CutePDF (and others) creates PDFs; & Foxit (and others)
reads PDFs; & PDF Toolkit (and others) manipulates PDFs.

What I liked about the PDF writer payware was the distiller,
the ability to make text edits, and the shrinker, plus the
ability to convert an entire web page hierarchy to a
link-clickable 8.5x11-inch format PDF document.

Similarly, I bought Recosoft "Pdf To Office" because the
freeware methods failed (however even PDF2Office is highly
imperfect).

Interestingly, I bought Microsoft Office not because it did
*anything* better than the StarOffice OpenOffice equivalents -
but simply because Microsoft Office turns out to be more
compatible with what other people were using.

And, certainly, I buy Turbotax because it provides something
that I am under the impression that freeware doesn't do.
(Although I haven't studied that topic in years so maybe
that isn't the case anymore.)

However, when it comes to image editing, I can get almost all
I need done with freeware. Likewise with simple video editing
(e.g., avidemux); DVD authoring (e.g., DeVeDe); audio editing
(e.g., Audacity); mail user agents (e.g., Thunderbird);
encryption (e.g., TrueCrypt); Chat clients (e.g., Pidgin);
video players (e.g., VLC); recording (e.g., recordmydesktop);
DVD burning (e.g., K3b); iPod sharing (e.g., SharePod);
EXIF manipulation (e.g., jhead, exiftran); WiFi (e.g., Kismet);
etc.

My simple rule that I teach my kids is:
"Never buy payware for a task until/unless freeware can't
do what you need done". You'll buy wisely because you'll
know (by then) exactly what you need the payware to do!

Freeware is the first step in the payware decision tree!

On 2013-04-23 20:47:42 -0700, Eric Stevens said:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:54:48 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2013-04-23 16:51:48 -0700, Eric Stevens said:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:50:58 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2013-04-23 03:11:38 -0700, Eric Stevens said:

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:09:49 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2013-04-22 22:16:20 -0700, "Danny D." said:

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:14:36 -0400 Tony Cooper wrote:

If you want a second or third arrow, you merely copy/paste that layer
and move the arrow on that layer. You don't have to re-draw the
arrow.

That's a very nice feature, especially when you have tiered arrows,
as shown in the Bugatti picture.

Mercedes is going to be miffed that you think that 1936 540K Special,
is a Bugatti.

This is a Bugatti:
http://db.tt/HAs3aoEP

Do you call that a Bugatti?

THIS is a Bugatti!
http://www.carsmoveus.com/wp-content...9990841497.jpg

(With apologies to Crocodile Dundee).

Oh! Come on! You could have come up with a more recent shot of what
probably became German mess kits in 1940.

The last time I saw it, it was in the International Automobile Mueum
in Geneva. That would have been about 15 years ago. The museum has
closed since then and I don't know what happened to the cars.

...and even if it survived WWII, it was just a boulevardier, an
overweight sled, which oozed down the road and would have been less
than adequate on the track.

It was never made for that. Basically it intended for royalty and
Ettore Bugatti had to approve your table manners. I kid you not.

In any case, 120 mph whould not have been called 'oozing' in the
1930s.


The magnesium body, 1935 Type 57S Competition, "Electron Torpedo", I
shot at Laguna Seca in 2010 would have left your sled in its dust.

Not in a straight line. They both had about the same maximum speed.

The car you shot appears not to be an entirely genuine Bugatti.
Certainly all major parts are genuine but different parts seem to have
come from different cars. I suspect it is patterned on the Bugatti
Aerolithe.

See http://www.bugattibuilder.com/forum/...php?f=1&t=2120

Your bugattibuilder.com site seems to have mis-IDed the photos in its
story and speculated on replica status.
Note the "?", the writer seems unsure.

He's still talking about a replica using Bugatti parts. I think he may
be confused by the unusual chassis taper. It may be that he is looking
at one of the prototype chassis, maybe even that of the Aerolithe.

This is the reconstructed Type 57SC with a replica body.

http://www.mullinautomotivemuseum.co...-roadster.html


....and

then there is this very driveable 1937 Bugatti Type 57 SC.
http://db.tt/8JKBVixQ
or this 1938 GP streamliner
http://db.tt/DZTELetj
--

BTW: the term "Electron" or "Elektron" as used in the context o Bugatti
bodies, refers to the magnesium-aluminum alloy used in the coachwork.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

Danny D. posted Wed, 24 Apr 2013 05:18:18 +0000 (UTC)



On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:38:32 +0200 Poutnik wrote:

You need in payware something you miss in freeware,
otherwise freeware is sufficient.

Exactly!

This is the three-step software-purchase process I recommend:
1. Try to do the task with the tools you have at hand;
2. If that fails, find & try the best freeware for that task;
3. If that fails, now you know exactly what you want payware to do!

..................

My simple rule that I teach my kids is:
"Never buy payware for a task until/unless freeware can't
do what you need done". You'll buy wisely because you'll
know (by then) exactly what you need the payware to do!

Freeware is the first step in the payware decision tree!

There are 2 extreme ways in approach to software.
One is celebrating freeware and looking with despect to payware.
The other is doing exact opposite.

The reasonable way is to use what in particular case
fits better you overall needs or requirements.

I prefer freeware but do not make from it unbreakable rule,
even if I have bought except of Windows just 1 SW ever...

--
Poutnik

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:56:31 -0400 nospam wrote:

but when have facts mattered to linux zealots anyway.

Actually, I'm not a Linux zealot.

The main reason I'm on Linux is simply that I had replaced my hard disk
and the PC manufacturer wouldn't give me a replacement installation disk
for Windows (even though the license stickers were on the bottom of the PC).

So I put Linux on instead - and I've never looked back.

For example, installing iTunes (freeware but also bloatware), takes
quite a long time, adds hidden daemons (such as bonjour & apple device
services),

those *have* to be installed for itunes to work.

Trust me that you can live perfectly well _without_ iTunes!

The _only_ thing that I ever needed to do that only iTunes did well
was to initialize a brand-new iPod or iPhone. While there are Linux
alternatives to iTunes for initializing, iTunes is far easier, in the
end for initializing devices.

However, my rule is to IMMEDIATELY (if not sooner) remove iTunes once
the brand-new device is initialized; then SharePod or copyTransManager
or any of a host of much nicer iTunes replacements are used instead.

Unfortunately, due to iTunes bloatware, you _also_ have to uninstall
a host of unwanted badly behaved programs that came with iTunes, such
as Bonjour, QuickTime, Apple Application Support, Apple Mobile Device
Support, Apple Software Update, etc. (Note: QuickTime Alternative is
a good alternative to Quicktime if you must have it.)

and doesn't even respect the place you tell it to put it.
that is a flat out lie.

Trust me. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

I've installed hundreds of programs, for example, on Windows, and
absolutely NONE of them go into "C:\Program Files".

I know that because I have what I consider to be one of the most organized
software hierarchies in the history of PCs. Absolutely nothing is organized
by brand name, for instance. And, my menus exactly mirror my installation
hierarchy, 1:1, like God meant them to. I could go on and on about how
to properly set up a PC - but - suffice to say, for the longest time,
I never even had an idiotic "Program Files" or "My Documents" or "Common
Files" directory (the defaults being set otherwise in the registry hives).

Suffice to say, you can tell iTunes where to go, and it will go there - but,
ALL THE OTHER bloatware that comes with iTunes (see list above, including
Bonjour) will NOT respect your decision!

Please don't say that's a lie until you've actually tried it (like I have,
very many times over the years). And, trust me, I'm a detail kind of guy
so you can rest assured I took it up with my friends at Apple. It is what
it is and I'm not going to change it - but you calling me a liar doesn't
make it a lie.

In fact, when I had no "Program Files" directory, guess what Bonjour did?
It CREATED its own "C:\Program Files" directory! Can you believe that?

That tells you how badly written Apple software can be?

Note: I'm in the Silicon Valley and my very good friends at Apple tell me
their developers fume about the same stuff that I do ... so I can't blame
the coders. It's a marketing decision. Most Apple customers won't even
understand what I'm talking about because they're a different class of
aficionado. They know stuff I'll never know - but - I know stuff they
can't even fathom because it's just not important to them. They're a
wholly different class of thinkers who don't mind having both a resource
fork and a data fork.

Likewise with Office, which takes forever to install
big apps take longer to install than small ones.

I'd correct that generalization to be the generalization that apps from
big companies generally take far (far) longer to install than apps from
small companies do.

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:56:29 -0400 nospam wrote:

the best way to make a decision is ask those who have done
similar tasks what the various options are.

Which is why I posted on the USENET thousands of times, over
the past 20 years (under a variety of privacy-protecting nyms)
asking questions, testing the answers, and summarizing the
results so that others could easily follow in my freeware footsteps.

For example, here are just a few ways to create pencil drawings
on Linux from photo portraits using vector tracing and edge
detection freeware methods:
- Gimp: Filters-Edge Detect-Difference of Gaussians
- Gimp: Filters-Pencil-Drawing-Blur Radius=4,Strength=1,OK
- Inkscape: Filters-Image effects-Pencil
- Inkscape: Path-Trace Bitmap-(o)Edge detection-Update-OK
etc.

That information was thanks to erudite folks such as
Savage Duck, Bear Ederson, Floyd, Davidson, P-0'0h the cat,
Eric Prilovich, wexfordpress, and others, by way of example.

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:28:50 -0400 nospam wrote:

sometimes it's unbelievable the crap people use just because it's free.

Offhand, I used the following freeware (from memory) when I was on
Windows ...

Which of these do you feel is crap?

- editor/photo/edit/{Gimp,FastOne,IrfanView,Paint.NET,VicManPhotoEdito r}
- archiver/IzArc
- browser/{Firefox,Tor,Curl,Lynx}
- cleaner/os/CCleaner
- cleaner/malware/{ad-aware,spybot,spywareblaster}
- calculator/math/geogebra
- uninstaller/{total,zsoft}
- editor/audio/{audacity,mp3_tag_editor}
- editor/cad/sketchup
- editor/text/{gvim,vim}
- editor/pdf/{ghostscript,ps2edit,gsview}
- editor/hex/hexedit
- editor/suite/openoffice
- player/video/{vmediaplayerclassic,vlc}
- format/codec/k-lite
- hardware/burner/imgburn
- format/converter/super
- hardware/dvd/authoring/dvdflick
- hardware/mp3/ipod/sharepod
- hardware/os/process_explorer
- usenet/40TudeDialog
- hardware/chat/pidgeon
- security/encryption/truecrypt
- mailer/thunderbird
- hardware/vaccine/avast
- hardware/wifi/{netstumbler,netcrumbler,wireshark}
- hardware/voip/skype
- hardware/printer/cutepdf
etc.

DISCLAIMER: This is just from memory ... wholly off the cuff ...
so I'm quite sure I missed a bunch ... but tell me which of
this freeware that I remembered above are "unbelievable crap"?

Note: In Windows, it's trivially easy to install into a defined
function-based hierarchy, and, most importantly, to mirror that
hierarchy with the menus. Surprisingly, organizing your software
and mirroring that organization with the menus, is a set of
related tasks that are much harder to perform on Linux than on
Windows. Go figure.

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:36:39 +0200 Poutnik wrote:

I prefer freeware but do not make from it unbreakable rule,
even if I have bought except of Windows just 1 SW ever...

Well, to be clear, no rules are unbreakable - they're just
generalizations.

For example, I told my kids today that processed meats such
as liverwurst and bolongna have tons more bacteria than do
meats closer to the bovine ... so my rule ... for them ... was
buy the food as unprocessed as possible.

Similarly, I've told them that sugary candy is often as
expensive as fruits and vegetables, so, my rule for them was
to look at everything as vitamins per pound, or protein per
pound.

And, perhaps more apropos, I've often postulated the general
rule that most fluids just aren't worth the money you pay for
them at the supermarket ... since they're mostly water anyway ...
and ... more to the point ... water is freeware; so it's just
not worth buying the sugary payware (specifically sodas or
drink mixes that aren't anything but sugary flavored water
anyway).

To bring it back to freeware vs payware, some payware is nothing
but sugary flavored water - in which case - it may be better
overall to just use the freeware water instead!

On 2013-04-24 00:06:21 -0700, "Danny D." said:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:36:39 +0200 Poutnik wrote:

I prefer freeware but do not make from it unbreakable rule,
even if I have bought except of Windows just 1 SW ever...

Well, to be clear, no rules are unbreakable - they're just
generalizations.

For example, I told my kids today that processed meats such
as liverwurst and bolongna have tons more bacteria than do
meats closer to the bovine ... so my rule ... for them ... was
buy the food as unprocessed as possible.

Obviously you were too busy to read this:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/a...ts-4456184.php



--
Regards,

Savageduck

| For example, I told my kids today that processed meats such
| as liverwurst and bolongna have tons more bacteria than do
| meats closer to the bovine ... so my rule ... for them ... was
| buy the food as unprocessed as possible.
|
| Obviously you were too busy to read this:
|
|
http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/a...ts-4456184.php
|
|

I think there's a rule that one should never try to
introduce rational thinking, ambiguity or complexity
when dealing with a rule lover. Certainty is a generous
but jealous god.

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:50:47 +0100, Danny D. wrote
(in article ):

(c) use straight lines, with or without arrowheads and boxes or circles, to
link each annotation to the relevant sections of the screenshot.

Straight lines are fine; but sometimes a curved line will avoid
obstacles and provide a more seamless integration. Any good

Obstacles can be avoided by using angles in straight lines.

However, my point here is to say that I don't recall you mentioning
TechSmith's SnagIt for Mac and Windows as something you've tried out. I
stumbled across it today and immediately thought of you.

SnagIt is not freeware (rather it's 50-dollar-ware) but it has a 30-day demo
which you might like to try out. As far as I can tell, it can't do
over-under arrows but it seems to meet all your other criteria with a certain
panache. It also does video capture.

Have a look at the videos on SnagIt's Mac page - these seems to have more of
the software in action whereas the equivalent Win page mostly just shows
people saying how good it is:

http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-mac-features.html