Alex D's dashboard

Alex D marked one of Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni's replies in Balsamiq as useful. Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni replied to the idea "Rotating elements (for vertical text, better arrows and more)".

Alex D replied on April 28, 2009 23:04 to the idea "Rotating elements (for vertical text, better arrows and more)" in Balsamiq:

After some additional playing around, I realize I misunderstood the slider control next to the curvature direction selector. It does exactly what I wanted. So ignore that part. General rotation controls on any element would still be useful; but vertical text is obviously the biggest case where that is useful. Thanks.

Alex D shared an idea in Balsamiq on April 28, 2009 21:36:

Colo(u)r anything?

I love that the scribble, text and other elements can be colored. But, it would be great if the implementation was consistent and universal. For instance, I use the Field Set/Group control often, and it does not allow me to color it. Yet the Rectangle/Canvas does, as does the Text String.

A single color for all of a mixed element (like a Field Set/Group) is fine. If you want to go whole hog, for combined elements have color choices for Line, Text, and possibly Fill.

For instance, a Rectangle is filled with white today, but a Field Set is transparent. I'd love to swtich that, or to put in a roughly sketched background fill of pink or yellow on certain rectangles in my mockup to draw more subtle attention to things than the scribble, callout and sticky give me. This simple change would make the app immensely more useful for a whole bunch of different scenarios.

Alex D shared an idea in Balsamiq on April 28, 2009 17:39:

Rotating elements (for vertical text, better arrows and more)

I love the product and have been using it for a lot of things beyond just UI mockups. The tools are very useful, but are missing a few basic things that would make them even better. 1) arrows curved down instead of up. You could achieve this by just adding two other curvatures to the list. And vertical text, which could just be a new control under text.

Alternatively, if you want to achieve both with one simple change, I'd reccomend just adding a rotate handle to all elements, letting you rotate them to an arbitrary angle, with guides to snap every 45 degrees. That would be an immensely useful addition.

Alex D replied on August 22, 2008 18:25 to the problem "It worked fine yesterday night !" in Microsoft Live Labs:

We are sorry you are seeing these issues and will try to resolve them. Could you provide a few additional details:

What is the full URL of the page this happens on?
Chris, are you running 32-bit or 64-bit?
Did you have the technology preview installed prior to this release?

The first troubleshooting idea I can suggest is to try uninstalling and reinstalling the Photosynth software. If that does not work, or you need additional details, please let us know.

Alex D shared an idea in Microsoft Live Labs on August 21, 2008 22:49:

Photosynth.com is back online.

Uploading new synths is still turned off for a short time. The website is back up and you can explore and comment on synths.

Alex D replied on August 21, 2008 20:55 to the problem "Photosynth is in static mode. See our blog for details and updates." in Microsoft Live Labs:

Thanks, Ted. Unfortunately, that only sticks at a company level and not at a product level. Our link comes in at the product level.

Alex D replied on August 21, 2008 18:30 to the problem "Photosynth is in static mode. See our blog for details and updates." in Microsoft Live Labs:

pushing back to the top... (sticky topics, there is a feature suggestion for the great folks at GetSat)

Alex D reported a problem in Microsoft Live Labs on August 21, 2008 18:19:

Photosynth is in static mode. See our blog for details and updates.

Details on why Photosynth.com is in static mode for a little while: http://blogs.msdn.com/photosynth/archive/2008/08/21/photosynth-yikes.aspx

Alex D replied on August 21, 2008 17:08 to the question "what does error A0000009 mean" in Microsoft Live Labs:

To add to my original post, the reason you cannot upload a synth with the same name is that, when the synther hits a snag right at the end like that, our backend servers have the synth and the name is in our database, only it is not 100% complete so we don't show it. Just like if you had a completed synth in your account, you couldn't add a second with the same exact name.

We are looking into changing this long term, and cleanign up failed synths. In the mean time, just add a unique name for each attempt, like "My Synth (2)".

Alex D set one of Alex D's replies as an official response to "what does error A0000009 mean" in Microsoft Live Labs

Alex D replied on August 21, 2008 16:59 to the question "what does error A0000009 mean" in Microsoft Live Labs:

(cross posting from another thread on the same issue)

Photosynth has been under incredible demand since we released late yesterday evening. Getting ready for the launch we did massive amounts of performance testing, built capacity model after capacity model, and yet with all of that, you threw so many uploads at the service we had to throttle them back for a few hours.

At the same time, we tried to tweak a few database settings to allow us to handle more uploads and inadvertently introduced a bug that is causing a small percent of synths to fail with an error code or hang right at the end. We're rolling back that change now and that should fix the majority of those errors.

While that is being fixed, we are adding capacity as fast as we can and letting in more and synthers. Keep trying, but it might be a few hours before we can get everyone in. In the mean time, we hope you will check out our "How to Synth" video (http://blip.tv/file/1190926/), grab a camera, head outside and start taking pictures for the next awesome synth.

No excuses; just the facts on why you are seeing these issues. We really appreciate the enthusiasm and are hard at work ironing out the issues and adding more capacity.

Alex D set one of Alex D's replies as an official response to "Issue at publishing stage" in Microsoft Live Labs

Alex D replied on August 21, 2008 16:57 to the question "Issue at publishing stage" in Microsoft Live Labs:

Photosynth has been under incredible demand since we released late yesterday evening. Getting ready for the launch we did massive amounts of performance testing, built capacity model after capacity model, and yet with all of that, you threw so many uploads at the service we had to throttle them back for a few hours.

At the same time, we tried to tweak a few database settings to allow us to handle more uploads and inadvertently introduced a bug that is causing a small percent of synths to fail with an error code or hang right at the end. We're rolling back that change now and that should fix the majority of those errors.

While that is being fixed, we are adding capacity as fast as we can and letting in more and synthers. Keep trying, but it might be a few hours before we can get everyone in. In the mean time, we hope you will check out our "How to Synth" video (http://blip.tv/file/1190926/), grab a camera, head outside and start taking pictures for the next awesome synth.

No excuses; just the facts on why you are seeing these issues. We really appreciate the enthusiasm and are hard at work ironing out the issues and adding more capacity.

adaley, an employee of Microsoft Corporation, replied on November 12, 2007 22:40 to the problem "IE7 crashes just when you need it the most" in Microsoft Corporation:

I have experienced the same problem a number of times. My solution has been to actually use an add-on I found: http://www.ie7pro.com/, which enables automatic recovery of your open tabs after a crash.

adaley started following the problem "IE7 crashes just when you need it the most" in Microsoft Corporation.