I had to use my gmail email address to get the registration code. The ones to my sbcglobal.net and yahoo.com never came through. Just FYI for future problems with emails from GOTD companies. :)

Hello everyone,

Downloaded and installed BUT registration failed!!! Go figure! I used the registration info they sent me. ???

BTW Aurora 3D, why provide links that are TRIAL basis when you are offering this software free via GOTD today? Plus, what's the point if the software can't be registered?

I'm amazed at this company's answers to deal with customers problems. TOTAL LACK of professionalism!!!

People often make unfounded negative comments here but today ALL were justified. I'm surprised even that there isn't more. I suppose people gave up on the product early in the run. Nice way to advertise and make potential clients Aurora 3D.

I don't usually make comments like this one but today...it's well deserved.

Thanks GOTD for all the good work you do. Have a great day everyone :-)

Worked great now. Download and follow direction on post #53. I receive the serial in my email url within seconds. Already registered and ready to go. Layout look nice. So far so good.

I followed the instructions in #46 (and #53) and it registered immediately (no need to provide name, either, just email). As an Adobe Design & Web Premium CS6 user, to me, this is pretty basic (especially Painter—eeew). OTOH, a few of the effects are pretty good for one-click applications, and as a print designer and Web developer, the QR generator alone makes this a keeper. (Hey, Aurora, let ME decide how I want to open the app! Don't open in full-screen mode when I don't shut down that way!) Other than that, though, not a bad little app, all in all. Thanks, GAOTD.

I subscribed email this morning and this evening, yet no email received. I only hope the folks I have told about gotd did not try it today..

No registration information sent after an hour of waiting. Program files deleted. I only hope I can unsubscribe from the mailing list and they don't sell my information to others.

Giovanni, having been myself one of your greatest fans for a long time, I suggest that you try to refine your posts a little bit. Often you do come up with very useful suggestions and recommendations, but some of your posts are not always quite accurate.

Today, I have found some discrepancies in your post again.

First, you are making your usual general claim that your recommended free alternatives “can do the same things or even more” than today’s giveaway.

But it looks like you have not done your homework, again, even though Italy did not play today. So there is no excuse for it! LOL.

In your post you are stating authoritatively “why pay 20 bucks ………. if it’s possible do THE SAME THINGS AND EVEN MORE with great FREE APPS like:…… “, and you mention among others Ashampoo Photo Optimizer Free.

Just wondering, how you can make such a claim and comparison, if by your own admission, you haven’t even installed or tested today’s offering, or checked its functions? LOL

By the way, in my opinion, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer Free does not even come close to today’s giveaway. It doesn’t even have a fraction of the functions and abilities Designbox has.

Again, I truly appreciate your efforts, but it would be great if you could refine your recommendations a little bit in order to make them more accurate.

Keeping fingers crossed for Italy.



Ciao.

Oh Dear...

Anzway, now, feeling a bit sorry for the guy.
All these comments for so much effort, eh....

He'll learn

:)

The registration process for this giveaway seems to be more to get email addresses and names than anything. Yes, you can unsubscribe....at least there is a link for that. However I have no way of proving that it works as there was no email sent saying unsubscribed like they send to say you have subscribed successfully.

Terrible way to get customers in my opinion.

There is NO PLACE on that form that suggests even a hint that it is for registration or to get the registration key.

Terrible lack of the company to exclude pertinent information on the page. At the bottom of the "Subscription / Registration" page there is a button that leads to Mail Chimp....an email marketing and email list manager. Maybe it is just me...but I expect a company that wants people to pay for their programs to at least be able to handle their own customers....not use an outside company to do that for them.

It seems very unprofessional to me. Also, whether English is spoken as native language or not, customers can very easily tell if the company cares or not. This one doesn't seem to all that much....unless they pay first before knowing if anything really works. Another poor and terrible way to do business.

Outside of all that....

The registration information finally arrived via email. As soon as I started the program and attempted to input the registration information the program became unresponsive. I had to force close the program. Restarted the program and on the 2nd attempt the registration worked. (Unsure if it will remain registered or not yet).

Seems very simple to use for the limited effects offered, just point and click...however more is needed given and shown for other areas. It lacks some basic things and looks very plain and incomplete. The toolbar buttons and many options throughout (such as in Advanced for the GIF Maker) are too close cutting off some text and needs fixed. Those should all resize automatically according to screen resolution and users' settings.

Nothing spectacular or better in what it offers over other programs...free or paid....that I can see thus far. It is very plain and lacking in many ways - options and looks. However it does have a User Guide - help file included which is preferred over having to go to the company's website for help.

Not worth $19.95 US in my opinion.

My suggestions to the company would be to take a step back. The first thing you need to do is learn how to deal with the public correctly. Properly and professionally.

Whether the program is good or not...Customer Service and the attitude of those dealing with the customers effects sales tremendously. Poor communication and response can and does effect sales.

Also...take care of your customers YOURSELF....not use an outside site to harvest emails. Change your registration process...that is completely DIFFERENT than subscribing to a newsletter!

You've had your 20 minutes.. ;o(
Thumbs down.

We need to confirm your email address.

Account #1
There are no emails present in the inbox right now.

Account #2
No messages found!

Their 'website' is a blog. Thanks for the free software offer but I'm going to pass.

Its Nice but way too basic, needs cut and paste and layers. Thanks tho.

To be honest except for the "super secret" way you have to register this program I find it very useful.

It is worthy of download just as an animated GIF maker.

I have wanted to colorize an image to match one I had and it did it in an instant.

Thanks again to the Giveawayoftheday team for putting this out there!

Don't worry. Be Happy. Free is good. More free is even better.

Testing 1, 2, 3. All system ready to go.

Trying out new software for free? What's everyone's problem!! At least the company have been on hand to rectify the problems-if you don't like, go try something else surely!!
Downloaded, activated no problems and I like! The link works-maybe you need to disable a firewall or something and you subscribe-no big deal really!
Nice for what it is-add effects and your pics look pretty cool but if you want Photoshop then go buy Photoshop

Downloaded sometime after midnight. Installation went smooth on Win XP Pro SP3. Registration went very smooth. I like newsletters because I learn about new things. So do not mind the registration process. I personally, like the layout. Have been working with the program awhile and so far like what I am seeing. Tried an icon and am happy with the transition-have many more images to do. Thought the QR Code was very interesting and will work with that some more. The converting of some of my images was really quick. All-in-all there is still much to learn. But an easy program to work with. As always, I enjoy GAOTD and the software they present and the opportunity to learn something new. I am not a techie but an artist, so I cannot talk on the tech issues-just an end user here. As with any software program, you have to start somewhere, learn, improve and incorporate new ideas/suggestions. However, I have been around alot of Computer Engineers, System Analysts, programmers, etc,. and it is not easy to plan, plot, write and build programs. I am sure that Design Box will do that. Thank you GAOTD and Aurora 3D for the opportunity to try something new. Have a good day everyone. Stay safe. :o)

1. Thank you Giovanni for a great list.
2. Thumbs up/down ratio is about 50/50 right now, which translates to a pretty good rating if you cull out all the folks who give thumbs down because of registration, installation or other issues not related to the actual program.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE READ the webmaster's instructions just above the comment box: Please comment only on the software here. If you have technical problems or suggestions on our project, please leave us a note in our forums. Put installation & registration issues there, not here. It would be nice to get advice, positive or negative, about the actual program, not whether you can or can't register it.

To the publisher.

There's a bug in the Painter. The font size above point 9 cannot be seen, even though the larger font sizes are there.

Please provide an updated version for this GAOTD and let us have it.

Thanks!

I dont know what I would do without Giovanni! He is SO helpful to me!!

Amore to Giovanni!

The today's software version is 1.06.02. You have to indicate it so users like me who have already a non- updateable giveaway editions installed on their pcs can easily decide to install the today's version or not. Thanks!

@47 Comment by Giovanni : and this is what I LOVE about GOTD : in the comments I can find links to real gems like this (Portable) StylePix !!!
Amazing tool. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting program for the beginners. Installed on WIN7 Ultimate without any problems, for registration code I had to subscribe to some newsletter or something, after that I received the code by mail and registered this program successfully.
I like few option there :
1.Possibility to make a QR Code
2. GIF maker for easy animating pics
3. Picture convert and resize option

Thanks

Downloaded and registered without a problem. I had the trial version of this software before so good to get full version. The functions of making GIFS and ICONS in one package is useful but they are also much better than the freebies.

The other functions didn't interest me so much except the EFFECTS function. I can do this effect in other software but it is handy to have a ONE TOUCH button instant effect.

The improvements I would like to see are;-
Have a before/after twin screen. This is important to judge changes made.

Add a SLIDER control for the actual effects. For example the LOMO effect highlights the centre of an image, allow user to move position of highlighted area to any part of image.
Allow layering to give different effects to different parts of the image.

Add some extra fuctions such as cropping and magic wand. This would save from using external software. Which is the point using software like this to make instant icons and gifs etc.

Improve the effects. Turning an image upside down is not a 'mirror' effect.

Thanks AURORA and GOTD TEAM.

Installed easily enough but registration was a bit of a pain. As others have stated this is very basic and geared more towards someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with adding effects to photos. I think it would be better though if you had more effects and a little bit better effects. You can add more than one effect to a picture if you wanted. You just have to click apply first before adding another effect. The Icon and GIF maker both work good, however when you load multiple files at one time in the GIF maker it stops responding for a minute or two.

Hello everybody,
Visit this link, follow the step to get the serial number:
http://eepurl.com/lyxYn
1. fill in your email subscribe to our list.
2. open you email inbox, find the confirm, click “YES, subscribe me to the list” button.
3. You can get the Registry Info and Serial Number.

Download the correct from this link: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/download/?id=31431

Best Regards
Aurora3D Software

Registrtion was perfetly fine on win7 64 bit. maybe after all this time the got it right.

Now I'm using a Yahoo email address. Still no luck receiving the company's email.

With 3 apologies and "suddenly" free trial versions of other of their products, I've decided to NOT install another free headache on my system. Not ready for prime time, as they say in the States.

Happy Dae

I can't activate.... haven't been able receive the email for over an hour and I did enter the company's email address to my safe senders list. Guess I should get a non-hotmail account.

After reading all the comments here no way I would install this software, what happened today is just not acceptable by the developer.

GOTD I downloaded excellent software from here in the past and are grateful, wont let this blunder today but me off, I check this site out everyday and will continue to do so in the future...Thank you again!!

Jay

Today, I've just one thing to say. Thank you so much to the team behind GAOTD for your time and effort to bring quality software to us every day. However, even if I was interested in trying out today's offer, I'll skip it. Excuse me, please, if this comment is out of line, but never ever I'll be a customer by Aurora 3D Software after today's event. What an insult to the team and the users. I'm sure, tomorrow brings a serious offer. With love and respect from Denmark ;o)

This tool is not bad at all but the annoying and silly registration process discouraged me to install it in my machine.

Great way to...lose new potential customers: congratulation to the developer of this program...LOL!!

And besides that, why pay 20 bucks or waste my time to fill in cumbersome and useless online forms, if it's possible do the same things and even more with great FREE APPS like:

* (Portable) StylePix (==> my personal First Choice)
http://hornil.com/en/products/stylepix/Features.html

Screenshots:
http://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/StylePix-Screenshot-133549.html

(Video) Tutorials:
http://hornil.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=sp_tip
http://hornil.com/en/community/HornilStylePixVideoTutorials.html

* GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/

* PaintNet
http://www.getpaint.net/

* PHOXO
http://www.phoxo.com/en/

* RawTherapee
http://rawtherapee.com/blog/features

* Pixia and Phierha (==> Softpedia pick)
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/aboutpixia.html

* Ashampoo Photo Optimizer Free (just for once NO SPAMMING involved...LOL!!)
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/Ashampoo-Photo-Optimizer-Free.shtml


But if you don't want to install anything in your PC....

8 FREE ONLINE IMAGE EDITORS (==> Free Photoshop alternatives and photo quick-fix tools)

http://dottech.org/tipsntricks/12196/

My 2 cents...

Enjoy!!

Visit this link, follow the step to get the serial number:
http://eepurl.com/lyxYn
1. fill in your email subscribe to our list.
2. open you email inbox, find the confirm, click "YES, subscribe me to the list" button.
3. You can get the Registry Info and Serial Number.

Download the correct from this link: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/download/?id=31431

Best Regards
Aurora3D Software

@34 and perhaps.. other comments from Aurora 3D Software - GAOTD is an English language based Site for all, and people kindly take exception to occasional "bad English" of Commentators, as English is not everybody's first language, some know it better, some less, I'm sure I'm speaking for majority of this Forum when I say - All Comments are invited, welcome and embraced:)

However! Developers being invited to this (English) Site to promote their Software are expected to know English much better, and please understand, I'm not trying to sound patronizing - but, "GAOTD experience" is as much for Users who are testing Your Software, as it is for You, Developers, to understand what we are all talking about, and it SHOULD NOT be JUST about You promoting Your Software!!?

So if You, Aurora 3D Software cannot express yourself in better English - can You understand (in depths!) what us, testers, are telling You about Your Software - regarding improvements, ideas, difficulties a.s.o ??

So far any constructive criticism is being strangely downvoted..(how big is Your Office/Fan Club?, lol)
Not being horrible to Your PR Team - This doesn't help Your Software at all!! Poor display of Your intentions here doesn't go well either - whether You are giving something for free (on this occasion), or trying to build trust in Your Software.

And if Your Software is designed in various languages (I don't know) You are presenting here English Version of it, and that is Your responsibility for today and future relationship with English using Customers?

Hardware: Toshiba NB305 netbook, 2gRam, 500gbHD
OS: Win7

Text file insists that we must go to a web site and fill in a form to get the registration code. Filling in the form is actually a subscription application to a newsletter or some such. You get an email that you must respond to to get the code: this also confirms that you 'want' to subscribe to the newsletter. News for the developer, in whatever country you reside, if you want to market to the US, you're going to have to talk to someone who lives in the Free World about psychology. Being forced to sign up for your newsletter is a definite turn-off for people who don't just do what they're told because they're told to, like the USA.

Installation: one step requires entering user information, and comes up with what it assumes is your username. For win8, this is very Bad. Some people have used their email address for their user name (Microsoft encourages this more and more, and some sysadmins require it, for no sensible reason I can imagine) so this is what pops up in the user name spot. Sorry, guys, I don't install software with my email as a user name. (Yes, I have issues with win8 because of this, too. But they're a different avenue of betatesting.)

Once installed, there is no obvious sign of how to register it, although, of course, it requires registration. If you intend to hawk this as shareware, that almost makes sense (and at least it isn't a nag screen in your face on every startup!) So this isn't a negative, but you might wish to consider having a menu button for registration, which you can make invisible once registration has been accomplished.

Once registration _is_ accomplished, the message "Register Successfully" is displayed. Without proper grammer and punctuation, this message says "you must still register successfully", not "you have succeded in registering successfully." You can use "Registration succesful" if you like being terse and impersonal, or "Registration succeeded" if you want to be a bit more upbeat. "Registration accepted" works very well and looks gracious. But "register" is either a verb, or describes a thing (as in cash register) while "successfully" is an adverb, which describes how to register (if register is a verb) or has no real meaning at all. I had to look at it three times before I could get myself to believe that you actually meant that I _had_ succesfully registered, rather than that I still had to try to register successfully.

The English-speaker for copywriter suggestion doesn't stop at the registration. Help is full of awkward and senseless phrases, and the requestors for the actual program have a lot of "I want to" instead of just having the command. If I wanted to rotate a picture, I sure would have to find a label that tells me that I want to do it, you bet. Quite the contrary, the _program_ should not be telling the _user_ what they want to do...even when it is obvious that the user wants to do it.

Other than this, and the suggested addition of batchable crop, I'm quite impressed. In spite of the stilted English in places, it is quite usable and pretty intuitive. I loved the "live generation" of QR codes, and the pretty complete coverage of possible encodings/styles/infocontent formats. One big gripe here, though: The red "URL not valid" statement until the first period (and this is echoed elsewhere) made me think that somehow I had managed to make an incorrectly-formed URL with one character! Again, this is a user interface issue, and while it's marginally useful to know that what I've put in so far doesn't yet constitute a complete URL, can't it say "URL incomplete" until I've actually made a _mistake_ rather than just an _incomplete_ URL?

Win xp.sp3

I had The same problem regarding registration.

However, I am happy to report that the registration is working now.

the link provided in the download goes to there newletter not the the activation key?

I do not understand how we are going to activate it can someone help please thank in advance!

Not good!! - Installed software and registered (yep, I actually filled in my email address and name). After 15 minutes, still have not received the email: "To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you." I even checked my junk mail.
GAOTD, Please note, in no way does this reflect on your services, but it is a BIG RED FLAG regarding the company: Aurora 3D Software Co Ltd., especially after some of their responses!

@ 38. P.Wallace

What you say has certainly validity.
What concerns me is, that there is an issue for some users registering the free software offered. This should not have been a problem, yet, the problem seems persistent.

What makes me uneasy, however, is the software developer's apology by saying: "if it doesn't work with the registration... buy it".
I'm sorry, but your way of dealing with customers, that's not working in the western world. Here you have to entertain our rules regarding customer relations.

By saying this, mistakes can happen.
Some can be fixed, some can't.
Let this blunder be your lesson.

Be better next time.

- Thank You -

What's the version of this software? I have already the version 1.05.05 installed on my pc

Excuse me if I am incorrect in this, but I just downloaded/installed this software and inspected/used it. From what I can determine, this is just the VERY BASIC of image software programs. Even the free ones offered at CNET can do more than this software can. This is no reflection of GOTD - they are wonderful to find free softwares for us, but this is totally on this software/company. Why would ANYONE wish to pay for such a basic program when there are free/better programs out there? Like I said, perhaps I'm incorrect and have missed something? If so, I apologize. But based on what I have determined, despite the fact I'm still waiting on my registration code, I'm going to uninstall this. There's no reason for me to *clutter* up my computer on something that does absolutely nothing special.

On Windows 7-64. Registration was a breeze. The program itself is very simple but with so many effects that you will surely have a lot of fun manipulating your everyday photos. It is not for professional types (perhaps), but for regular people is it quite ok.

Exactly where is the description of the product being offered? I don't see anything about Design Box.

Full Free Trial Version means: Full functions, free trial, only days limit.

Sorry, we said you can consider buying it in the future, just means we released this special version and use this way to send the free license.
And we're trying to find the reason why somebody can't work.
We're sincerely hope everybody can worked fine.
Our products can work on MAC and WINDOWS. and already available on Mac App Store. Check links in above comment .

Thank you GOTD for your effort in bring us another fine software, unfortunately, the software company was not prepared for the responds it has received. There comment was, buy the product and well be happy to assist you. I guess I miss the meaning of free and with the way they have responded to the request for help from the GOTD members, I will not be using this software now or in the future.

YES.
These is these products link on Mac App Store:
Aurora3DAnimation: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora3danimation/id460076754?ls=1&mt=12

Aurora3DMaker: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aurora3dmaker/id459407923?ls=1&mt=12

iBarcodeGenerator: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibarcodegenerator/id483151396?ls=1&mt=12

DesignBox: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/designbox/id512988906?ls=1&mt=12

Still cant register from UK.I have checked and double checked the licence info and I still get the same old rubbish about date,time etc.Think I will give up on this one.I have never had this much trouble with any of the other software I have had from GOTD.Time to un-install everything and get on with something productive.

Wow. An absolutely classic case of how NOT to run a GAOTD giveaway: if today's developer can't even master a simple activation & registration process, then who knows what the product itself will be like in longterm usage?

Last time I encountered a mis-time problem with software was 15 years ago. That was solved by simply altering my computer's clock. I've done so on this occasion, advancing the time by 12 hours, so there's still 8 hours activation-time availability.

The download was quick and easy. GAOTD logged the installation and referred me to the vendor's registration website. That asked me to provide my name and email address so as to subscribe and receive the license key. Subscribe to what though? No idea.

An email from the vendor arrived in 30 seconds. It reads: Yes. Subscribe me to this list. What list? No idea.

Clicking the 'yes' button took me back the vendor's site and a message panel reading: 'Your subscription to our list has been confirmed. This is your DesignBox free license.' Still no explanation though as to the nature of 'my' subscription and the vendor's list.

I then ran the software for the first time and went to the standard location used by every software developer for product registration: the 'Help' drop-down menu. But there's no link there at all. Only an invitation to buy.

There is, however, an entry called 'Registry', which as we all know, relates to the computer's registry. Except it doesn't. 'Registry' -- which you're likely to ignore, because you're trying to get this darn thing licensed, not mess around with your computer's innards -- actually means 'Registration'. Sigh . . .

Anyway. Even if you do go through all these hoops, there's still no point: despite my computer's clock running 12 hours ahead of itself, the app reports that the license isn't valid because the time is still not UTC+1 08.00.

I see from the developer's latest comments on here that this unmitigated shambles is all to do with 'traffic demand' and 'a website issue' and that all GAOTDers are now being encouraged to by-pass GAOTD and go get trial products directly. Yeah. Right. Of course everyone here is daft enough to do that.

There's really no excuse for this kind of time-wasting lunacy: a developer that insists you subscribe to who-knows-what kind of a list and can't tell a computer registry from a license registration process really is in a class of weirdness all its own.

As usual, of course, I used one of my standard disposable gmail addresses to "subscribe" to the "list" but it's been a quick and easy job to apply a gmail filter to ensure that anything ever sent out to me from this vendor will by-pass even my spam box and go straight into trash. (Quite why so many drama queens are on here today, lamenting the developer's insistence on email address registration, I've no idea: are those posters not able to take control of their own lives, and their own computers????)

And I've just Revo'd out the entire Design Box app, too.

Verdict: well, that's a fair chunk of my time wasted. If you want to waste yours, then by all means, do so. But perhaps you've better things to do with your life.

Thanks then, GAOTD, but no thanks. The situation with this giveaway is definitely NOT GAOTD's fault. But a time-wasting mess it truly is, the blame for which rests squarely with a developer who seems to know a great deal more about lists and subscriptions than license registration . . . and whose protestations about traffic demand and website problems aren't even remotely credible.