New to group, need print program

[chameleon]

Can anyone recommend an EASY, FREE program to print simple posters.
I don't need all the bells and whistles and have no time to go to
college to learn these complicated desktop pub programs. Just need a few
24inch by 24 inch black and white typed posters and must be able to save
the output to a .pdf file. Looked at POSTER, but it is just too involved
and steep a learning curve. I want something easy and intuitive.

 

[jmatt]

This one may help.

The Rasterbator
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
If you don't like to queue, download the standalone version of The
Rasterbator!
http://arje.net/rasterbator
The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images
from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled
into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size.
The Rasterbator is very easy to use. You can either upload a file from
your computer or use any file that is publicly available in the
Internet. After you have cropped the image and selected a desired size,
the rasterbated image will be sent to you as an easily printable pdf
file.

Using The Rasterbator requires that you have Macromedia Flash Player 7
and Adobe Reader (or other pdf viewer).

 

[John Corliss]

This one may help.

The Rasterbator
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
If you don't like to queue, download the standalone version of The
Rasterbator!
http://arje.net/rasterbator
The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images
from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled
into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size.
The Rasterbator is very easy to use. You can either upload a file from
your computer or use any file that is publicly available in the
Internet. After you have cropped the image and selected a desired size,
the rasterbated image will be sent to you as an easily printable pdf
file.

Using The Rasterbator requires that you have Macromedia Flash Player 7
and Adobe Reader (or other pdf viewer).

Note the following about The Rasterbator 1.2:

"The application requires .NET Framework 1.1. To print the posters, you
need a pdf reader such as Adobe Reader. The application might also work
with .NET Framework 1.0 (comes with Windows XP) and Mono (available for
many platforms, such as Linux or Mac), but the compatibility has not
been tested.

 

[Vic Dura]

Note the following about The Rasterbator 1.2:

"The application requires .NET Framework 1.1.

John,

Are you still using .NET? What are your current thoughts about it?

I agree with your earlier views that it should be avoided and was
wondering how you feel about it after using it for awhile.

 

[jmatt]

"Are you still using .NET? What are your current thoughts about it?"

I can help on this one Vic, more & more programers are useing this tool
& I have had it installed a long while.

The only thing I did'nt like was , it added a logon screen to bootup,
this is easily disabled. other than that, you would not know it's
installed.

Start > Control Panel, doubleclick > User Accounts, doubleclick >
ASP.Net, click > Delete the account.

http://www.jsifaq.com/subl/tip5500/rh5595.htm

 

[Vic Dura]

"Are you still using .NET? What are your current thoughts about it?"

I can help on this one Vic, more & more programers are useing this tool
& I have had it installed a long while.

The only thing I did'nt like was , it added a logon screen to bootup,
this is easily disabled. other than that, you would not know it's
installed.

Start > Control Panel, doubleclick > User Accounts, doubleclick >
ASP.Net, click > Delete the account.

http://www.jsifaq.com/subl/tip5500/rh5595.htm

Thanks for the comments jmatt. Question: do you have to be attached to
the internet to be able to use a program that requires .NET?

Thanks,

 

[jmatt]

Vic, I have about 20 programs installed using .NET, most do not connect
to the internet.

 

[John Corliss]

John,
Are you still using .NET?

No, I've removed it from my system again.

What are your current thoughts about it?

World Wind was fun for a while, but then I got tired of the space it
took up on my hard drive and of the program itself. The resolution of
the imagery wasn't any better than I can get using
http://maps.google.com. After I removed World Wind, there wasn't really
any need to keep .net on my computer either, so off it came.

I agree with your earlier views that it should be avoided and was
wondering how you feel about it after using it for awhile.

Not entirely sure, but it seemed that certain actions on my computer
were beginning to take longer. For instance, startup and shutdown often
didn't occur as quickly as they did without .net on my system.

Also, now I can't get .wmv files to play in anything other than MS Media
Player (which I totally loath), whereas before they would open in Media
Player Classic. I'm wondering what other irreversable media changes
happened simply by installing .net.

At any rate, one of the factors involved in my trying out .net is that
I'm right on the cusp of doing a total system reinstall, and know that
any changes installing .net (as well as by installing several of MS's
"Critical Updates") wreaked upon my computer will be reversed at that point.

 

[John Corliss]

Question: do you have to be attached to
the internet to be able to use a program that requires .NET?

Only if the program that requires .net needs access to data or web
services that reside on various servers. I think a good example of this
is World Wind. On the other hand, a program like USA Photomaps:

http://jdmcox.com/

does pretty much what World Wind does as long as your geographical
interest only lays within the United States, but doesn't require any
access to web services.

I still maintain that .net is just a first step towards Microsoft's goal
of renting software instead of selling licenses to software that's
installed permanently on your computer.

Check out this doublethink-doubletalk from MS:

http://www.microsoft.com/Net/Basics.aspx

under the heading "What Are Web Services?" Microsoft seems to be
"innocently" unable to use layman's terminology and at the same time to
be more than capable of providing obfuscative non-answers to any
questions you may have that they don't want to answer. JMHO.

 

[Vic Dura]

I still maintain that .net is just a first step towards Microsoft's goal
of renting software instead of selling licenses to software that's
installed permanently on your computer.

Thanks for the comments. I may be wrong, but that's how I see it also.
I believe I will continue to avoid .NET until I see some very
persuasive reasons to install it.