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08/18/2010 09:44:41 PM · #1 |
| I never rant. It's not ladylike, but I'm so pissed right now. I needed to make a slide show for a cancer benefit that I did recently. I did a web search of software to make a slide show that I could burn to dvd that was freeware. The search named tons of sites, but I went with what was at the top. I picked a site called KIZOA, which advertised free slide show maker, free to burn dvds, etc. & so forth. So as I'm making the slide show I notice that a lot of the transitions have a little P in the upper corner. I realize that after spending hours making this, I'm either going to have to pay for a premium account to use what I did or change the whole thing. So, I check and it's $30 for a one year premium account, $50 for a 2 year. I only needed to make one slide show. I'm sure I won't need it again. It's not like I do this for a living, right? I pay with paypal for a one year account. I finish adding the music, run it, looks great. I go to burn it to dvd, and lo & behold, I can't. You need a 2 year plan for that. Now they're willing to give me a 50% discount on a 2 year plan, which will be added to my 1 year plan. So for a grand total of $55, I can burn a slide show. I kind of went ballistic. I sent them a help ticket asking them to upgrade it so I could burn this slide show then they could delete my account. Hell, $30 to make one slide show, you'd think they'd jump on it. Nope. No response at all. I took it to paypal and said it was not as described. But apparently you can't make a claim unless something was actually shipped to you. No help there. Though at this point KIZOA offered to upgrade me to a 2 year account, only a week too late for what I needed. So I'm out $30 for something I'm never going to use. I ended up starting over from scratch using DVD slideshow GUI. Not the most user friendly thing in the world, but I did it and it's done. Bottom line here, KIZOA is a bait & switch site, don't use them unless you've got money to throw away or you plan on doing lots of slide shows. |
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08/18/2010 11:40:37 PM · #2 |
| I don't think you can fairly call it a bait and switch. It took only one click from the front page to get to the feature list of all services, clearly indicating burns aren't included in the lower end. You probably should have read the service description before buying. |
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08/19/2010 02:12:40 AM · #3 |
Originally posted by Louis:
I don't think you can fairly call it a bait and switch. It took only one click from the front page to get to the feature list of all services, clearly indicating burns aren't included in the lower end. You probably should have read the service description before buying. |
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I have to agree. (damn.. not with Louis... ;) damn damn damn..)
Seriously though, I'm only posting to offer you what little advice I have that might prove to be helpful.
When I do this (and I'm the IT manager @ my corp, so I do it often.), I setup a spreadsheet and research the top 10 or 20 products, plus perhaps 5 unique offerings, and enter the data into my spreadsheet. I find that this approach allows me to not only make much better decisions regarding purchases of software and services, but also allows me to communicate the reasons for my decisions in a clean and effective manner. (not that you need to be able to do so, but it damn sure helps me...)
So, give it a shot, I think you'll find the process to be very helpful. Then again, I could be quite wrong.... :) |
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08/19/2010 08:58:08 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by Louis:
I don't think you can fairly call it a bait and switch. It took only one click from the front page to get to the feature list of all services, clearly indicating burns aren't included in the lower end. You probably should have read the service description before buying. |
Yes, I should have done my homework. But, the page I started out from listed burning dvds as a free service. It had a whole checklist of things that you could do with the software for free. That was all I needed to know at the time. Want to know the worst thing? I can't find that page anymore. As a matter of fact, their whole page front has changed since the first time I used it. |
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08/19/2010 01:56:03 PM · #5 |
I know this will not help now, however look at Picasa as it will do what you wanted.
Daryl |
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08/19/2010 02:12:43 PM · #6 |
| I have Picasa, and it's a little more basic than I wanted to go. You can only use one transition for the whole show, you can only use one song, etc. I had 175 pictures in the show and needed 3 songs. Anyway I do recommend DVD slideshow GUI. It has animations, many transistions, all kinds of goodies. And it's completely free. |
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