Hey all!  Adam was able to polish off the P2L Credit lottery feature on the site and it's officially live as of this week (or last week if you caught the early announcement on Twitter).

Here's the announcement:

Do I feel lucky? Well? Do ya punk? If you do, then you'll be pleased to know you can get the betting urges out of your system by bidding precious credits in the P2L credit lottery, reset weekly for your gambling pleasure. In case you have no idea what the heck P2L Credits are and you've been completely ignoring my posts for the last year or so, P2L Credits are earned by members that perform specific actions within the community, such as submitting tutorials, writing tutorials in our publishing area, commenting, voting and much more. Members can then cash in credits for prizes, advertising or other extra contests we hold on the site.

To add a little excitement to the P2L Credit format, you can now bet credits on a weekly credit lottery, with the total pot going to a single winner, randomly selected every Monday at 12AM. Once the lottery is over and the credits have been awarded to a lucky contestant, the pot is reset and a new name is drawn the following week.

Aaaaand to make things a little more exciting, admins can't win BUT we can bet credits to build up the pots a bit. So you might want to keep your eye on the pot total because you never know when a huge chunk of credits will be thrown in there by an admin (me).

So, how do you get the ball rolling on your new-found gambling addiction? Head over to P2L Credit Corner at http://www.pixel2life.com/credits/ and you'll see the Credit Lottery box just under the Credit Corner menu on the left side of the site. Click on the "Bid Now" button to bid some credits and get in on the action!

Enjoy and good luck to anyone that participates!
Dan

ps. A HUGE shoutout to our P2L developper Adam who was able to complete this module for us. Stay tuned, I think Adam will have more goodies for us in the none-too-distant future!
 

After a recent experience of mine with some SEO related service questions, I wanted to put together a few thoughts on SEO services, tactics and maybe put some of your minds at ease…  if you're trying to find the secret ingredient to SEO success, you might like to read this.

You've probably seen the emails…  a company in India is a leading SEO specialist, and for a monthly fee ranging from $100 a month to over $1000 will perform some SEO magic on your website, making you more visible, higher ranked on keywords, increased PR and even possibly a better lover!  You've been busting your head trying to figure out what these guys are doing that you're not…?  your site has been stagnant and after a couple of months of work, you're not really getting anywhere.  So what the HECK are these guys doing that's you're not?  What secret recipe are they using that will yield the amazing results you've been after but have failed to produce?  What do they know that I don't?!

Read the rest of my tutorial, published on the P2L Publishing System, by clicking HERE!

Besides, how can you NOT read a tutorial with Admiral Ackbar in the title image?!  Enjoy and please be sure to leave your thoughts and comments by clicking on the comment button below!

Dan

In my recent trip of Cuba, I had a BLAST checking out the old cars from the 30s and 40s, as well as 1950+ muscle cars that are more glorious and sexy to me than any modern million dollar super car.  When looking through the photos when we got back, I noticed several would look like totally legit 1950 photos if they were black and white… so here's a little tutorial I put together on how it's done in Photopaint.

This tutorial was written using the Publishing System at Pixel2life.com – please read the full tutorial by clicking HERE!  Please feel free to post your comments below by pressing the comment button, I will answer any questions as quickly as possible.  You can also find a complete list of my tutorials by clicking HERE.

Enjoy!
Dan

Good morning everyone!  Wow, this whole "error 24" issue out of Corel that I figured was a small error I had somehow generated through some magical Vista voodoo ended up being quite the event, not to mention my most commented article to date on this blog.  I want to thank everyone that stopped by to post a comment, be it to thank me for the help or to slap my wrist for helping folks with pirated copies circumvent the error.  All comments are welcome on here as long as they are civil, so no worries.  Anyhow, Corel has posted their final statement on the issue and have offered a deal for anyone that has been scammed by a retailer as long as you have proof of purchase, or if you want to purchase X4 outright.  Please check it out HERE.

At this point, it's obvious that Corel is acknowledging the fact that many users have paid for software thinking it was legitimate when in fact it was not, or people were using valid NFR or demo versions, or you were using a pirated version with a generated serial number.  The application is programmed to expire on these non-retail type passwords June 1st, 2010, hence the shenanigans that kicked up this week. I personally have been using NFR copies given to me directly by Corel since version 12, and quite honestly, this is the first I hear of any kind of expiry on them.  I called Corel this morning and they confirmed that my X4 was a vendor eval version and unfortunately has expired and I can no longer use it.

This is frustrating to me because when I was given this copy, I was not told of any expiry date or time limit, nor did it mention any in the terms and conditions I agreed to when installing the software.  Granted, I was given this software for free, but I don't think it's a far cry to say that I have since sold many copies to potential clients through my constant plugging of this software, not to mention the thousands of views my Corel tutorials and articles have received.  Either way, my X4 has expired so the question becomes, what do I do now?

First up, I've removed my X4 install and re-installed by eval copy of version 12… and low and behold,it works fine with no error.  So it would appear that the expiry date on vendor eval copies is new in X4 (unless X3 had the same expiry date).  Next up, I'll see if I can get a copy of X5 in the same manner, otherwise I'll pick it up… upgrade is $200 from the Corel store, so not a huge deal when compared to Adobe's pricing, although Photoshop has clearly become a heck of a lot more powerful vs Photo Paint, and there's no touching Illustrator.  But I guess when you've been using the same software brand for 15+ years, you get a little attached to it.

OK, moving right along… in terms of folks linking to the dr14.dta file in my previous post about this topic, I'm afraid that because this is a confirmed issue with eval versions expiring or generated serial numbers being invalid, using this workaround is not legal.  I know many of you have paid good money for your Corel software, but you've been unfortunately scammed and need to contact Corel ASAP to get your issue resolved.  So that being said, and after speaking with the Corel rep directly to confirm all the facts, I will be removing all the links to the .dta files in the comments area.  I know anyone can find these doing a simple Google search, but it's not exactly in my nature to support software piracy seeing as it's almost a daily struggle for me to stop people from copying my sites, stealing content etc.

So thats it from me on this issue…  now to get back to writing tutorials!  By the way, in case you are new to this blog and found out about it when you searched for a resolution to the "error 24" thing, thanks for stopping by!  If you're fairly new to the world of CorelDraw and would like to check out some Photo Paint tutorials, check out my complete list HERE!  I also run a huge tutorial search portal with thousands of free tutorials for graphic designers, programmers and webmasters and you can check that out at Pixel2life.com.

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback guys, take care and happy drawing!

Dan

Nothing like settling down to get some work done in Corel and the stupid thing won't start suddenly and you're greeted with this charming error message:

Product Installation Unsuccessful Please Reinstall Error 24

This is a problem we are all experiencing with the date change to June 1st, 2010 and pretty much everyone seems to be experiencing it and Corel is working on a solution as of right now.  The only solution for now is to set your PC clock to February (don't change the date or year), run the program to start it up, then change your date back.  There is a huge thread on this issue on the Corel forums and they have confirmed this is a program issue and they are working on a patch right now.  Gerard Metrailler says to keep an eye on the blogs for the patch when it's released ASAP.

I'll post an update as soon as the patch is released.

Take care!
Dan

UPDATE! Looks like if you have a demo version (which is what I have direct from Corel) or a naughty pirated version, you're SOL.  The issue doesn't seem to exist "apparently" for folks that have the regular retail edition.  You can read the official post HERE.  Looks like I'll be calling Corel tomorrow!

UPDATE 2! There is a patched dr14.dta floating around on the net that fixes the issue by replacing the old one on your system, however all known download links are no longer functional.  Please contact me if you have it (select contact the webmaster from the dropdown on the contact page)!

UPDATE 3 – Another solution!

Hey guys… ok here's a little something I just found that allows you to run an application under any date and time you specify but WITHOUT changing your actual system date.  It's called RunAsDate and it's free… unfortunately it will only run on 32 bit Windows versions so I can't use it myself as I am on 64bit Vista, but looks like a neat little app that won't mess with your system's actual date.  Check it out and download it at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/run_as_date.html

UPDATE 4 – FINAL FIX!

Thanks to everyone that has posted comments and links to the patch!  You can find it here: *link removed*

Simply overwrite the old one in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 or wherever your "All Users" is located.  In vista and Windows 7 it will be in C:\Users\All Users\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4

NOTE – If you do not see the "All Users" folder, it's because it's a hidden folder and you have your Windows Explorer set to hide hidden files and folders.  You can change that setting by going to Tools > Folder Options > View and then click on Show hidden files and folders.  Hit OK and you're good to go!

UPDATE 5 – For those of you using this fix and you have a legit version of Corel, you should still contact Corel directly to report the issue.  I just called them and they confirmed issues with buyers that purchased from legitimate big box locations, so this is a serious problem.  So please contact Corel directly if you have bought a real copy and you are having this issue, it's important.  For anyone that has a stolen/warez copy, come on guys…  help support the programmers that made this product and pony up for a legit version or haggle Corel for a NFR copy!

UPDATE 6 – Guys, just finished speaking with Corel about what's happening with my eval copy and the issue in general.  Please read my new post by clicking HERE. Please don't post links to the dta file in the comments as it's no longer needed… Corel will help anyone that is having the "error 24" issue and has proof of purchase for the software.  Just call them up and they will help you.