dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

In a previous post, my concern was with a company I had not done business with before, "Mashable Shop." Once I found out they allowed for the use of PayPal I went ahead with the purchase. At $29 for the two bundled programs, a buy too good to be true. Altho, previously with searching, I have purchased at low-cost W-10pro and MS Office 2019 at low cost, both accepted and registered with MS. Pays to shop!

The Dynamic Auto-Painter is a program to turn a photo into the style of classic painters, the Pro has many adjustments that I may never use, but me being me why not. I have used previous versions, 4 & 5, so 6 pro was a step up. The programs was discussed in previous UHH posts. In "search" at the top of the page, [under the caption Ugly Hedgehog - Photography Forum] type in "dynamic auto painter" and many discussions links are shown.

The two programs downloaded and the necessary S#s and the Activation # were included with instructions and links.
Tricky is that for DAP the S# and Activation # are in one "copy" file. So, they must be pasted and copied separately.

The previous UHH ... uglyhedgehog.com/t-707874-1.html#12484178 in the last post give the link.
I want to thank Paul Diamond for helping me with some details. If you purchase mention his name so he can get points to use for a future purchase. You will find the program at the Mashable site by search or by adding /sales/dynamic-auto-painter-pro-photo-reactor-bundle

The sale price is valid for two more days the 20th?

MDI Mainer

Glad to hear you went ahead with the purchase and had a positive experience.

A year or so back I took a gamble on a Nomatic camera backpack (list $399) for $39.99 and hit the jackpot, so unbelievable deals are out there for those who are willing to be adventurous.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Indeed, it pays to not just shop, but to really-really shop. The W-10 deal was explained and recommended by a UTube computer builder show... he said that for a home-built computer you are essentially getting the deal he does as a custom builder... wholesale. Some programs are low-cost in poor countries else they would not sell. Ashampoo partners with companies to sell their previous programs... for example, Photozoom 6 when Photozoom 7 is the new one. I bought a Canon TS9020 for $50 When the TS9120, [$400?] was introduced with no significant change.

MS OFFICE 2019 can be purchased at about $100 discount as explained:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/get-microsoft-office-free-or-cheap,6348.html

GALLERY of DYNAMIC AUTO PAINTER: https://mediachance.com/wp/dynamic-auto-painter-gallery/
The techniques of famous artists are used to convert your photographs. Stange!, my paintings of the mid-1960 are not on the list... oh well President G W Bush painting techniques is not included either.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

My experience was a total bust. The download they gave did not load properly and the "help" just kept sending me the same download. Also, I received a mass of junk email. If I can get them to respond, I am going for a refund.

MDI Mainer

Nor likely Tony Bennet's.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

What, it would not install on your computer? or would not download? Did you save the EXE file. I download the and save the EXE files then click on the saved EXE [execute] file download and the computer asks install? click "yes" and it installs. Typical steps of accepting the license agreement etc.

Are you running W-10 and how old is your computer. How much memory

Mike reboot your computer and try again... at times I go too long between reboots and my computer gets sluggish or freezes... My only problem was realizing that the DAP 6 Pro S# and unlock # were in one chunk... one I divided that 6pro activated fine.

Sorry for your problems Mike

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

I have a 2020 iMac with 2tb of operating and memory. The download showed up each time (6), but when I clicked to put it on the hard drive I received a message that the download was not complete. The circle icon never filled up. After communicating and getting downloads that did not work, my last attempt informed me that my time was up. It is not your fault. Any perusal of Mashable shows very low ratings, particularly as to customer assistance. I should have known better.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

My bet is that the sale price is for Window ... Mac is not mentioned in the ad.
Sorry if that is the case.

You may be able to run W apps on Mac, but that's a lot of fooling around.
https://www.parallels.com/pd/install-windows-on-mac/?gclid=CjwKCAjw3_KIBhA2EiwAaAAliufNvLYJ6TDe0cjod8nU_QdSVCYaMhJXVVHoEcJD3gWF3oPEnSGZzBoCv6YQAvD_BwE

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for the update. I'm glad it worked out for you.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes Jerry, I am pleased with the purchase. Paul Diamond of UHH helped me solve the DAP S# Activation # being combined when i just copied and pasted... the Activation # was there but hidden until I pasted and then copied as two separate #s which I then pasted onto their appropriate places and then "click" the DAP was Activated. Reactor only required an S#.

The DAP 167 page manual is located:
https://www.mediachance.com/files/DAP6-manual.pdf

A basic tutorial for the Reactor portion of the combo is on UTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUolSDRc72Y

A quick overview of DAP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwdEXR6bIMo

JBRIII

I had the same experience with an astro program from a highly reputable company. Just would not allow me to enter key code to activate an updated copy. Eventually erased even empty folders (no hidden files I checked) to clear something.
I get some emails from Wolfram,. others vanish into ether, both from same basic address, no one can explain. Such things are extremely irritating to say the least.

gessman Loc: Colorado

It has become totally a crap shoot to buy anything at a reduced price no matter where you buy it from. Scam artists are taking advantage of the fact that there ARE indeed some instances where a person can catch a break on the price of an item when it appears to be "too good to be true." I have bought several things via Facebook Marketplace and Instagram adverts and have yet to buy anything from either place that has not been a petty scam which I'm sure adds up for the scammers. All my purchases were with Paypal and I have had to fight with them to get a refund, been turned down three times when it is clear I've been scammed and had to repeal and argue with them to get redress. The scammers are using the adverts copied from the legitimate merchants and either sending a cheap substitute product or no product at all. The scammers convolute their company name, address, etc., from the original advert, send you a tracking number under another name, bill Paypal under another name, and the bogus product arrives to you either with no return address or a different name and address than previous correspondence, email, etc. If you try to contact the support number given and you're lucky enough to not have your email returned for "no such address" or "there was an error in the process," you get a reply reassuring you that your product is legitimate and "on the way" but it still may never arrive. Your tracking is for China Post and your tracking facility is a third party. Once your package arrives at a USPS facility it gets a USPS tracking number but if there is no package sent or if it's a bogus product it makes no difference if you can track it or not. Paypal forces you to make contact with the seller in an attempt to get redress and the company tells you if you return the merchandise they will refund what you paid minus the shipping and you have to pay the return shipping which is at a rate often greater than the cost of the product you bought. Paypal is often a joint culprit in this process because they fail to vet the merchant. These Chinese scammers are not just hurting the buyers - they are also making it impossible for a legitimate liquidator to get rid of their merchandise in case such as bankrupt stock disposal. I don't know what the answer is and I don't know how it's happening but somehow these Chinese scammers are making some money out of this process or they wouldn't be doing it and they're doing it with Paypal' help even if Paypal isn't aware of the fact they are complicit.

A few months back there were some huge adverts scattered around about a warehouse located in California that accepted and handled all the "returns" from Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc., was "bundling" photo equipment in mystery bundles and you could buy a "box full" for $39.95 and it might contain a returned camera with multiple kit lens or it might contain just a bunch of accessories, straps, filters, flashes, etc., but guaranteed it would be worth more than what you paid for the box - all major credit cards, Paypal, Venmo, Google Pay, etc., available. The payment method has traditionally been the tipoff to a scam but no longer. All these legitimate credit forms are being compromised with this stuff. Being a bit of a gambler, I bought two of these boxes and the process I outlined above was set in motion. A month later I sent an email to "support" and got the runaround - "rest assured and please be patient, the boxes is on the way."

Now, if you buy several items within a certain time frame so you're waiting on several items to arrive, which I often do especially during the pandemic and no local shopping, and you don't keep meticulous records of what you're supposed to receive, when, from whom, and where, with the convolution described above, it can be almost impossible to figure out what you have received and from whom. I kept waiting to receive these two one cubic boxes full of goodies and I received two little envelops, one with a "cube camera" I can buy for $6 and the other a small envelop with a child's ring worth about $1.50 neither from an address mentioned in any advert I had responded to. I complained and the process began -"send it back and..." the process I outlined above.

I WILL NOT buy anything else advertised on Facebook Marketplace or Instagram which is going to hurt those who are legitimate. For those of you who like to dump YOUR morality on others by saying "you're a damn fool and deserve to be scammed" because there is no such thing as a bargain and "you get what you pay for," you are the one being screwed in life a little bit at a time every time you pay full price for something because there are legitimate bargains out there and have been for many years. Bonafide liquidators who help dispose of bankrupt stock are vital part of our society and there are many, many people who sell very valuable stuff way underpriced due to ignorance, negligence, and often even on purpose and I have been the beneficiary of their generosity on many, many occasions. To be sure, there are times when it's better to not avail yourself of those bargain situations but there are some highly valuable rewards for shopping secondary markets if you know what you are doing. This thing that's going on with the Chinese scammers needs to be shut down but apparently it'll take time for the likes of Paypal, et. al., to see the pattern and put a stop to it.

In the meantime, the scammers are altering the benefits to those attempting to utilized a traditional necessary alternative method to the normal retail process who have something they MUST sell and those who would be their customers trying to maximize their buying power and keeping our landfills from overflowing in the process. To me and many people like me, it is the person who always pays the highest price they can find for something they want is the idiot here who is willing to pay good money unnecessarily for something they can get cheaper and I'm not even a borderline skinflint. Think twice before you say "you get what you pay for" when you are meaning to say that if you don't pay top dollar you cannot get something that's of value equal to that for which you pay top dollar. That is an overly conservative statement that is just not factually correct and make no mistake about it, regardless of what our official government policy is, we are allowing foreign sources to alter our way of life and our commerce methods in this country. They are taking unfair advantage of our traditional mode of "giving the benefit of doubt," and "playing by the Marquis of Queensbury's rules" with regard to our respect for our fellow man and the concept of fairness. We are within a hair of being dependent on the Chinese because we have allowed them to produce too many things that we traditionally need in our society as it currently exists and we have no alternative but to be at their mercy or do without.

Sure, I don't have to have "mystery packages" and I'm "broke from sucking them eggs" but the worst part is that our society and traditions are being systematically broken down. It hasn't been long ago that it was not easy to get a merchant's credit card account from the likes of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express even if you've lived in the U. S. all your life and wanted to start a legitimate business and now apparently every petty Chinese scam artist is qualified???

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes gessman, it is a spooky world and getting worse. Before I found out that "Mashable" took PayPal I bought a $50 Visa temporary card rather than use my real card. I figured that my number and details might get sold and I would have to watch til eternity and hell froze over.. me looking for false charges.

It is also wise to use temp visa cards for subscriptions... because sometime later it is no longer the tempting $5 subscription and turns into a $39 a year magazine charged to your account. Newegg, I trust but an unknown to me company, no.

I have bought refurbished and not had a problem... as you say... crap shoot. I have also bought "last years model" and come out OK. A Newegg special desk was a great price... ooops the holes did not line up so the top is uneven... me, yep drilled and fixed, but many would not.

Even when you pay full price, QA/QC is not on every item. I recently bought a small tool and started to fill out the grantee .. I stopped, realizing that I would have to pay the shipping to get it fixed and then shipping to get it back... no thanks that would cost more than the tool.

Bank of America recently had a scam site that looked like their site, some fellow lost a pile of money in a transfer and it was not a real account. His problem was on UTube. Today I drove to the bank because I had a sizeable check to deposit, to photograph and deposit by net, no think you ... to feed to the ATM for the deposit, no thank you. I appeared at the bank in person and have a deposit ticket and feel comfortable.

In Argentina, the bank is where you go to get counterfeit money... draw out 200 and from time to time there is a phony USA $20 that the ATM gives you. The bank will not make it good.

So it is not the nice world I grew up in. Money moves at the speed of light via the net.

Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

Suggestion. Copy and paste the two window 'codes' into a text document. You will see that the first code is both an activation code and a registration code in the first window. You will have to paste about 1/2 of the total in the first window and 1/2 in the second one. (Not 'clear cut', but it works.) The second code is for the second application.

I loaded the 3 codes, registering the software and getting a $29 purchase price at a savings of over $89! - Worthwhile? I think so.

Also, suggest you use the mind set of software providers who are not 'deep thinkers' - be a bit experimental and creative. The benefits are numerous. (And use paypal to hide your actual credit card info from an assortment of online vendors you might encounter. - Paypal gives you a 'safe out' if you encounter a seller that is less than legit.)

gessman Loc: Colorado

You might want to scroll up and read my post above yours. Paypal, in theory, matches your statement but they have some idiots working there making decisions about claims who don't have a sense of traditional redress in cases of fraud and scams and "once we make our decision it is final and there is no appeal."