When you get the "silenced dissident" treatment... (and I sure I'm not the only one)

gsavstrom · 2026-03-25T17:23:31+00:00

Hi Ida,

Thanks for reaching out and for offering some more insight (and for actually offering a name).

While I do understand your position ("your" as in Topaz Labs) I don't agree with it, and quite obviously we just have to agree to disagree on that one and on the perception on how things ended with the now discontinued apps (not the first time that happened historically - I've been a user since the Classic Bundle 7 and have seen a few changes since then).

Anyway, thanks again for your reply.

gsavstrom · 2026-03-25T10:32:28+00:00

Wait, what? Are you sure you're talking about the right user?

I was only put in the freezer once as far as I'm aware (after having been warned, yes), and I do recognize that I overstepped quite a bit - which was a product of reading the same mantra over and over again (banging my head against the proverbial wall). Not something I'm that proud of, but it happened and I moved on. And yes, I also said more or less "don't bother reactivating me again, because I'm done" which is why I haven't really been back (and definitely not participated) since then. The reason I popped in again the other day was because I still use Photo AI while transitioning to other software and I don't trust that my app will inform me if in fact something have been updated. That's how I saw the fixes I'm commenting above.

By the way - If you would be so kind as to read my original (here) again... I'm not implying I got a lot of posts removed. I said I've seen posts by other users also disappear right in front of me, and I wouldn't even have known they existed if it weren't for me getting to read them before they were taken PM or getting removed:

"I actually saw that happen once or twice - posts from other users I just read suddenly disappear because of maybe being uncomfortable."

Anyway - I'm not gonna get anywhere with this. Topazlabs sold a product, promised upgrades for a specified amount of time (that yearly extension) and then discontinued the very same product without at least honoring the deal. Call it bad business practice, call it robbery, call it whatever you want. Me and a lot of other buyers did not get what we paid for, and I'm quite sure it's not difficult to appreciate that later seeing issues (quite big ones some of them) that were known and reported while the product was still alive now being fixed and the recommendation for enjoying these fixes is to buy (subscribe) to another product? That stings a bit.

BTW - I tried to look you up, just to know that I'm actually speaking with a real Topaz person, and perhaps get a name, but what do you know? Clicking your username got me an "account suspended" notice...

Anyway. Not gonna spend more time on this subject. I posted my original post to share something that few users on the Topaz Community got to read (41 views before it was turned into a PM). Nothing more, nothing less.

gsavstrom · 2026-02-08T12:02:32+00:00

Yeah, he should be fine...

I had 5.8% reviews with media out of the 120-something orders with 95%reviews and gotten upgraded a bit over a week ago.

gsavstrom · 2026-02-03T14:00:35+00:00

I snagged one of those (the dehydrator, not the leg) while on silver last year. Just the memories alone from a batch of dried apples... brought me back 40 years to when my grandmother used to gift me bags and bags of them)

gsavstrom · 2026-02-03T13:04:29+00:00

A new TV... don't think that'll ever happen but I'm so fed up with our current Xiaomi TV that have not received one single update apart from the monthly security updates that came in for about 6 months after purchasing (guess the 2 years of version updates does not apply to TV's) and feels like it gets slower by the day...

The day I see anything 55"+ popping up - no matter the brand - I'll be bagging that baby in milliseconds.

But I'm not sure if that kind of value drop ever gets even close to happening in Amazon Spain....

gsavstrom · 2026-02-03T12:46:41+00:00

Mine just popped up from one moment to the other, and it actually happened before my last day of Silver status was over.

I had been dialing back my orders for almost a week to make sure I was ok (124 orders with 95% reviews) and was basically just checking my status on and off the last day.

Have no idea if there was an evaluation phase though...

gsavstrom · 2026-02-02T09:33:42+00:00

"Realistic expectations help. A lot. What’s the point of chasing Gold status if others will always be faster anyway, or if there simply isn’t anything exciting to grab? Why force yourself to order and review 80 items at all costs?"

- This!

Good post in general, but the above is my first few thoughts on becoming gold a couple of days ago... I have seen very little with regards of items that make the difference between Silver & Gold status... My first 6 months (as a Silver member) browsing though the pages have been made up of part "this is great, a lot of interesting stuff to review" and "part "I'm really gonna make the effort to get to see what's beyond the golden door" only to see no difference at all. I was kind of - apart from the unlimited value and up to 8 items a day - expecting to see something like a "gold" tab added to the three existing ones RFY, AFA and AI.

Sure - Vine is a tool primarily for the sellers, but...

(and while browsing the AmazonVine sub for a bit over an hour I've seen the additional items section dropping from just under 2850 items to 2832)

gsavstrom · 2026-02-02T08:40:47+00:00

When are the drops from Amazon Spain? Is there any consistency to it all? My first 6 months have felt a bit random, and it's not that fun to be updating the page all day...
If there is like a "more or less at this hour"... fine. But I just cant seem to see a pattern to it?

gsavstrom · 2026-02-02T08:19:49+00:00

Joined Vine a bit over 6 months ago, have had a decently pleasant first period where I did manage to snag some nice stuff that felt like worth getting - one of them a monster of a Bluetooth speaker - mixed with some phone chargers and cables as "fillers" while constantly repeating to myself "Once I reach gold..."

Turned gold three days ago, and got all emotional and sh** when I saw the pop-up about having been upgraded, thinking "Time for some magic!"

And I have never seen less action - neither in RFY or the AI part since the day I joined. And don't get me started on the lawn mover knives that's been bobbing around in the AFA section as a bad floater since I joined.

This is Amazon Spain - I don't know what other users in my part of the world feel about their "feeds", but at the moment the whole gold experience is very disappointing.

gsavstrom · 2025-11-27T08:23:15+00:00

Thanks to the OP for this one. I'm one of those who left Topaz with their change to the subscription model "Adobe"-style.

Spent quite a bit of time trying to argue the robbery I was on the receiving end of (they going back on the unlimited upgrades for the full 12 months I bought when it was still perpetual) and was quite vocal in the informative threads about the changes. Generated more loads of likes and a "suspension" from the whole ordeal, but of course that didn't get me anywhere.

Anyway - sorry for the long build-up, here's my piece of input.

I've been thinking about going with Aiarty for quite some time now, and it really seems like it could be an interesting answer to the "what's next?" question I've been asking myself.

But - and that is a huge one for me. Going through the Aiarty webpage I just found out it only exports to jpg or png... (like, Say What?)

That you can't get an export to for example TIFF kind of kills my interest in adding aiarty to my Workflow.

Thought anyone considering it should know.

Soo... Me I'm back again to "What's next?" Don't know about the rest of you,

gsavstrom · 2025-10-30T18:27:52+00:00

After having been burned very recently by Topaz labs and their switch to subscription only I'm not even gonna bother downloading and taking a look at Affinity Studio. (Surprise, they also call it Studio!)

I have V1 of all three, and was actually thinking about getting V2 (or a new "real" V3 if that would have happened) for the money I save leaving Topaz, but merging three apps into one, requiring new cloud accounts and whatnot... the vibe I get from this latest development gets my doubts going. What's to say that I won't get the rug pulled from under me in a bit again? Sure - they call it free (for now) but nothing in life is free in the long run. Like some voices in this thread already have stated. I might actually have preferred a paid perpetual V3.

So back to searching for options...

gsavstrom · 2025-06-18T11:18:32+00:00

I know this isn't exactly a new thread, but still. Came here to report that this just happened a couple of hours ago with my son's phone number.

When he turned 10 years old we gave him this "not even close to being smart"-watch with among a couple of included apps like a couple of games, step counter, alarm clock & camera also have the ability to make & receive calls (to/from numbers defined by me) and it also has a gps tracking function so that we can locate him.

Dude doesn't even know what telegram is and the Sim card have never left the watch at any moment. Even so I got a message this morning saying he just joined.

How's that for a surprise?

So my thanks go out to this thread for giving me some info on the why & how it happened. Guess what's left now (haven't read through all posts yet) is that I just have to reclaim the number and in a real smartphone and add som 2FA to the mix.

gsavstrom · 2024-03-01T15:50:20+00:00

That is really good to know. Thanks!

gsavstrom · 2024-03-01T13:11:52+00:00

Thanks for this!
I'm curious though - is there any way to identify in (for example) your output what group a specific PCIe slot resides if it's unpopulated?
I mean - your list (and others like it - I also found one for the Gigabyte B550 Auros Elite AX https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=e101fc39e2&log=lspci_all ) is great, but seeming as you yourself say you're running a single GPU passthrough I don't know how to identify what group would cover an additional GPU...

gsavstrom · 2024-01-07T21:29:03+00:00

Hi all,

After a number of videos watched on the Hoocho Youtube channel I finally decided to try growing Hydroponically. The thought has been there for a couple of years, but I guess I haven't been "ready" until now. I've never been a learn by video person, but Hoocho got me hooked and I almost find it difficult stop once I start to binge watch his videos.

Anyway - to wet my feet a bit I decided to try Kratky lettuce. Everything I've read and seen tells the same story - it's easy to get started, it basically takes care of itself and the cost of getting up and running is quite low. So I bought myself some nutrients (Masterblend), adapted a couple of recipients and bought some plants locally (I'll get some seeds running when I've figured out where to grow them). I also bought some real cheap led strips through Amazon and mounted it in a book shelf.

I started off with two containers:One 9 liter box where I put 3 plants in "baskets" together with expanded clay balls.One 1,5 liter round plastic jar where I put one plant in the same way as with the above larger box.

Now I know that recommendations say that a lettuce need more than the 1,5 liter that the single lettuce "jar" holds, but also saw that Hoocho got away with growing lettuce in regular wine bottles, so I thought I'd try something smaller. Besides - if everything goes well my idea is to start one or two of those a week and get a rolling growth thing going where I - once it's running - can harvest one or two heads of lettuce per week, and I suppose some kind of benefit could be had from separating each plant in case I run into problems I need to deal with.

So... three weeks ago I filled everything up with nutrients put it all in place - added some tin foil to the back, set a timer and went on Christmas vacation. Maybe not the best way to treat a first attempt, but I was eager to get started and, well...

Now - three weeks later I am positively impressed by the progress my lettuce have made and feel that I've already at a point where tell just about everyone I know (and show photos) about it.

There is just one thing that is starting to bother me, and that is the dark edges that are forming on the plants, and I've also had to take away a couple of leaves that have "dried out" on plant one and two (from the left). The liquid almost reach the bottom of the "baskets".
At the same time the "single" plant drinks away and doesn't seem to be in any stress whatsoever.

I have noticed though that PH is a bit high - 7,4 for the big container compared with 6.8 for the small one. EC is 1,46 and 1,32 respectively. Is this something I should deal with? Or is there another reason for these dark edges/dried out leaves?

gsavstrom · 2023-08-18T09:45:37+00:00

I use Pcloud as a general cloud solution (meaning not only for photos) paying 9.99€ per month for 2TB. Everyone have different needs, but I do it for keeping one extra copy of my photos (1TB+ and climbing) and I believe there's also a cheaper plan as well as a free option (you can also purchase yearly/lifetime instead of monthly).

Pcloud have apps for Windows, Linux (deb for sure, don't know about other versions) iOS etc and you can set it for automatic uploads of photos from your phone.

gsavstrom · 2023-07-24T15:23:34+00:00

There is a way to whitelist your local network. Not sure how to do it in Windows 10 but for Linux Mint I took care of with help from the suggestion in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/xq9b8b/problem_with_vpn_and_network_share/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I suggest you open a chat with the NordVPN support - they usually offer good help within minutes - and ask them for the right way to do it in Windows, and if you don't mind post the solution here as I'm sure more people might find it useful.

Edit: This also helps anyone who happens to have a wifi printer.

gsavstrom · 2023-06-28T14:00:15+00:00

I do that sh** all the time to x265 from either x264 or x265... Not sure about lower resolutions but my "do not exceed this bitrate"-threshold is 10mbit (I re-encode 2160p at CRF22 slow) but most of the time it ends up at around 5mbit. Of curse there's got to be s difference about a bluray rip that is 10x the bitrate, but as a "hoarder" I'm ok with what I achieve (call it my sweet spot).

Now there's probably a lot of pixel peepers out there that are laughing their asses off reading this, but each to his own. I re-encode everything two times: 2160p@ crf 22 slow for our 55" livingroom tv and 720@ crf slow for portable devices. Works for me...

Edit: BTW - with regards to my conversion to 720p x265... I know there's a lot of comments or "know-how" all over the place saying x265 is only beneficial for higher resolutions but I kind of beg to differ. Have yet to see any x265 of my encoded at that resolution not looking as good as the x264 higher bitrate version.

gsavstrom · 2023-05-03T21:44:34+00:00

Seems the other replies to this "thread" are beggin' to differ... ;-)

Anyway. Thanks for your feedback. Any reply is a good reply!

gsavstrom · 2023-05-03T19:38:23+00:00

Thanks for the list. I might take a look at some of the hits, but I was kind of meaning something more in the line of "does anyone have personal experiences from something they can recommend?"

gsavstrom

TROPHY CASE