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Desktop PoetDiscount

Desktop Poet

Transform Your Desktop Into a Canvas for Poetry

100% Off
$19.95
Mac & PC  Download Trial
Platforms: Windows Vista (32 bit), 7 (32 bit)
Deal Expired...but might be back soon!
Check it out folks, you can also get

Persona for Windows
Persona for Mac

In order to get your discount for Persona for Windows or Mac you must use the following discount code: BDJPS

Desktop Poet ScreenshotGames Software ScreenshotDesktop Poet, Games Software ScreenshotDesktop Poet, Hobby, Educational & Fun Software Screenshot

Remember those magnetic poetry kits for your fridge? Yeah, they were fun for a while, but who has the time to stand in front of their refrigerator all day? Today’s discount software promotion for Windows takes this same concept and makes it infinitely better by transforming it into PC-based fun! It’s Desktop Poet!

Desktop Poet transforms your desktop into a virtual canvas for poetry, letting you assemble hundreds of words into silly, serious, thoughtful, and profound combinations. With Desktop Poet, kids and adults can learn improved word structure, gaining proficiency and learning without even realizing it. Before you know it, you’re experiencing improved grammar, increased creativity, and more!

Designed to be visually appealing and flexible, you can easily increase the vocabulary in Desktop Poet just by highlighting any word tile, clicking a button, and seeing variants of the word. You can even create your own word tiles, set backgrounds, choose different colors, and more! All of your custom tiles can be exported as JPG, TIFF, or HTML images for easy sharing with friends and family!

This promotion includes the following:
Desktop Poet for Windows ($0)
Desktop Poet for Mac ($0)
Persona for Windows ($24.97)
Persona for Mac ($24.97)

Review Written by Derek Lee
The Conversation
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Expand All Email Updates Load 16 Older Comments
Read MoreQuill Pen My hubby is a logophile (walking dictionary/thesaurus) and he really wants this. Apparently he came across a demo crippleware version of something similar long ago, never purchased it and now can't remember the name. (walking dictionary, hah) According to him, that one had a pop up screen that resembled a small sheet of legal pad paper. You typed in or imported a word list and then could rearrange the individual words however you wished. Great time-suck for people who create haiku or limericks. giggles
My big concern - I can't tell if Desktop Poet works within its own adjustable and minimizable window or inside a browser window (would have to be Firefox) or (shudder) literally turns the PC desktop into a large drag and drop space by destroying the positions of all the shortcuts we have carefully positioned all over it so our desktops resemble a mosaic. No way will I sacrifice that critical layout, nor does he want something that can't be reduced or minimized so more important things like the 10 to 20 applications and browser windows he usually has running simultaneously aren't still visible and active.
If anyone knows, please advise else I don't dare download and install this. tyvm! If anyone knows the name of the software I described, that would be a great help, too.
Dec 13 2013 at 2:17am Copy Link
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Read MoreJutta Wimmer I don't know if I can help you but have you or your hubby (can I say this?) tested a bar like on a Mac? The Rocketdock bar is such a software. It creates a bar where you can put the shortcuts of all your programs. You can create your own shortcuts to files, programs or folders. Your desktop is free of shortcuts. Or Objectdock, it's not free but you can create more docks than one.

I don't know if Desktop Poet destroy the arrangement of your shortcuts and my big fault, I can't tested it because I have all my shortcuts put in such docks. I'm really sorry about that but I think such docks are a good solution for shortcuts, because sometimes windows destroys my arrangement.

Have a nice day ;)
Dec 14 2013 at 12:40am Copy Link
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Ron It looks to me from the screenshot that it is in it's own window. It has a menu bar at the top so I don't believe it would affect your desktop at all. I don't work or have anything to do with the company, that is just my own opinion, I hope it helps.
Dec 14 2013 at 1:14am Copy Link
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JMJ Squared @Quill Pen - Desktop Poet opens in its own fully resizable window and does not interfere with the desktop in any way.

To keep Hubby's, and other family members', desktops individually organized and safe from accidental reshuffling, may I suggest Stardock Fences @ $10.00. In addition to JUTTA WIMMER's suggestion, you can find free desktop-organizer alternatives here: http://alternativeto.net/...re/fences/

ASIDE: Husbands NEVER forget anything. Your Hubby simply replaced that not-forgotten-software's name with the engram for your anniversary's date.
Dec 14 2013 at 8:57am Copy Link
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Read MoreQuill Pen @Jutta-Ronald-JMJ Thanks so much. We're incurable clutterholics, but we are familiar with docks. There was one that looked intriguing, a 3D spinnable rolodex, but for some reason it wasn't compatible with our system at the time. JMJ, we looked at Fences a couple years back and we examine others from time to time but neither of us found docks or even bookmarks worth the effort of changing 20-year habits of just dropping things on the desktop, or in desktop folders (grouped by type in various parts of the monitor - yay for wide screen monitors!) and by using desktop shortcuts to get to any partition, folder or file on our drives. We manage to keep things pretty orderly with regular sweeps of less important stuff. Only problem is when a program or Windows decides to just resort or totally jumble everything. For that, we still rely on a nifty freebie he found long ago called Desktop Restore by Jamie O’Connell at http://www.midiox.com . There are several such tools out now to recover desktop layouts, incl. Desksave and IconRestore. I'll download and install DesktopPoet now. Thanks again!
Dec 14 2013 at 2:46pm Copy Link
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gail f Thanks for this nice offer...I am buying PERSONA at the discounted rate for my daughter who is a writer. Looks like a great character development tool she will really enjoy! Thanks BITS!
Dec 14 2013 at 6:26pm Copy Link
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Jutta Wimmer Aah well, thx JMJ Squared for Stardock Fences. I don't know this.

And I've learned a new "nick"name for husband: hubby. Am I right with this? I ask because English is not my "mother" language. And the dictionarys, well they don't name such nicks ;) And I'm very happy if I can learn new words or descriptions.

A nice day/night to you all. (Because of the different time zones)
Dec 14 2013 at 7:54pm Copy Link
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vb whitehead Help, I can't download today's software because when I click on Download this Software, all I get is a circle of dots that spins and never gets anywhere. Would appreciate it if you could fix this or provide an alternate download location. Tx.
Dec 14 2013 at 9:41pm Copy Link
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Read MoreQuill Pen Doing the happy dance. Wootie woot woot!
Downloaded, installed, registered in hubby's name (sorta) and then showed him. He sends his thanks cause it WORKS!
Hub advises there was one GUI scare. (he groans something awful when that happens so I had to come see)
The words were MICROSCOPIC on a wide screen monitor. Yes, you can change any individual word you choose to move, but how to change them all so they're legible?? It's an awkward but not impossible task......
Answer - choose EDIT TAB > SELECT ALL, then FORMAT TAB > FONT

Jutta, yes, hubby refers to husband. 17 years and counting. :))

vb_whitehead - maybe check your cookies or clear cache. Parts of this site tend to show up as blank screens for some of us, or you can't always get the download thingie to work. Happened to me several times in the past (missed a couple nice offers) though not this time. You have a whole 'nuther day cause it's being rerun again today (Sunday) so try try again.
Dec 15 2013 at 12:05am Copy Link
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Nico Westerdale Great News! Mariner Software, Inc. has agreed to extend this deal for another day - Enjoy!
BitsDuJour Admin - Dec 15 2013 at 12:11am Copy Link
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Constantin Florea @vb whitehead - Could you please clear your browser cache and then try the following browsers to participate in the promotion: IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera (in this order).
BitsDuJour Admin - Dec 15 2013 at 2:06am Copy Link
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Read MoreQuill Pen Don't let the price fool you, this is a surprisingly powerful little free association creativity tool. What we've learned so far:
If you resize and find the words overlap, automatically resort the entire list or just selected words into neat rows by clicking RESNAP.
You can add words easily BUT it also has a nice dictionary with alt tenses and spellings, so if you want to change to the plural or another tense, they pop up if you right click on the word.
You can copy your composition by selecting, copying and pasting to Notepad or Word as plain text but it'll lose the formatting color/size.
I was unsuccessful at pasting it into Photoshop as text.
You can also add images! They're treated as tiles so if you want to delete an image, just click on it and delete. FWIW, we only use Firefox.
Update on the GUI text sizes process. Turns out there's a Preferences tab with a ton of options including creating a screensaver.

One caveat. There's no "SAVE" option on the FILE menu. So, what if you've just spent 10 minutes rearranging words and accidentally hit CLOSE or the X expecting a safety pop up asking if you want to save your work? Don't panic. It auto saves your work and will reopen where you left off. Hubby says he'd rather have a SAVE button so he can work on another idea.
The EXPORT to HTML was a FAIL on our PC or maybe there's a difference between my definition of HTML and theirs. Is there such a thing as HTML-LITE? Sure, it exported what I selected but only as a fairly useless, plain list of text (neither font size/color nor relative position layout was retained) so what good is it? Certainly not as something you can upload via FTP for publishing. The image "tiles" I selected weren't exported, either. c'est la vie Can't have everything. So do your word doodling here, then copy/paste and exercise your design creativity elsewhere.
It's very light on CPU demand and I can confirm that it runs inside its own browser window, can be resized or minimized to the tray without upsetting desktop shortcuts.
Read 2 More Posts By Quill Pen
Dec 15 2013 at 2:09am Copy Link
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Read MoreLouis H Overall, I doubt I will use the Desktop Poet program that much. The UI is not, for me at least, user friendly. I had to reduce the number of words to a more manageable amount as even with maximizing the window on a 23" monitor, the words were far more distracting than stimulating of creative thought. After I did some rearranging, however, the program was a bit more fun. I would not have paid $20 for this app, however. I would not have paid $10.

My main recommendations would be to have the program open with about one third of the current words. when you use "FIND" to select certain words, and then click on "Resnap Selected Tiles", it would be nice to have the unselected tiles with the option to have them removed from view. each time I made a selection of certain words and then "resnapped" them, all the remaining unselected words were still where they had originally been placed when i opened the program. VERY Distracting, and time consuming to have to remove them to even make space for working with the words I had selected. This is the main reason why I will likely not use this program very much.

Where I am happier, however, is in picking up Persona today at a price I am willing to pay.

Be aware that this program may not be to your liking. I find some of the built in bias in describing stereotypical characters through Archetypes a bit distracting and, well, silly.

(Use of gender bias especially. Hey, this is 2013 - the majority of characters created today no longer require automatic classification as "Hero" or "Heroine." Or "Villain" or "Villainess." And "distracted mother" CAN apply to fathers as well. That said, however, there are still many folks out there who DO want their characters to fit the stereotypes they grew up with. So it could be helpful. I guess.)

With the archetype feature, along with its list of Examples, one may question the references from which the author of this app developed the list from. I happen to find the list helpful and certainly workable. It calls out for expansion, however. I appreciate the examples when they actually take time to expand as to why that particular example has been included. What I would like to see added is the ability to have more than two "styles" for each of the Archetypes, as well as the ability to add others. I would do away with the automatic identification of these as Male or Female. It is a distracting identifier for me. Perhaps changing the descriptor to one that identifies gender in terms of "traditionally seen as 'male' or 'female' by (fill in type of) culture."

The Names Database leaves a lot to be desired. It comes across as someone feeling that the program needed a names database and they proceeded to throw one together with a minimum amount of effort. I would like far more than "Hurricane Name" as a description. Take the very first name in the database - "Arthur." What you are told is that its origin is "Atlantic" and for a description that it is a "Hurricane Name." If you select the "Lookup Name Meaning" icon, you are given a Google search listing for the name. It would be worth closer to $50 if it included or took you to a site like the following...

http://www.behindthename.com/name/arthur

The positive here is that you can add and edit the listings. Over time you can build up a much more useable list for your own specific needs. But for $50 I would like to start out with more.

Where I find I will perhaps get the most benefit, other than having a nice little database to keep all of my characters organized - it's MAIN selling point by the way - for me at least - is the "Interact" section where you are given ideas about how the various Archetypes might interact with each other.

Some may find this more limiting and restrictive to their own creativity. I am finding it helpful and worth the $25 today.

I recently paid $100 for a two day seminar on Character Development. In the first hour I played around with the free trial software I felt I had gained more useful ideas and creative stimulation than in that entire two day seminar.

I do not always play well with others and often feel inhibited when put on the spot, in a more public forum, to discuss ideas i might be working on. I tend to discount my ideas and prefer working through them in private, or with the feedback of folks I trust to be both honest and constructive in their critique. So it is worth $25 for me. (I'll not go into a discussion of the right of a vendor to set whatever price they feel is fair. It all comes down to what is a customer willing to pay. I would buy this for $25 without a discount. I would not buy it for $30 or more.)

I have no intention of limiting myself to it's ideas, options, and suggestions, but I do look forward to it serving as a springboard for me to pursue character development.

Thank you, BDJ, and Mariner Software for this current discount offer.
Dec 15 2013 at 5:54am Copy Link
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Kevin Lintner What is zipexe_r.exe? It was residing in my apps\local\temp folder of my user profile. It tried to load as soon as I logged into Windows before the desktop appeared. A web search shows that the file is from Mariner Software. I'm not sure what this is, but files that hide in a temp folder and try to launch before the desktop loads are rarely ever anything good.
Dec 15 2013 at 6:59am Copy Link
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Read MoreJMJ Squared @Jutta Wimmer - You're welcome; of geen dank; oder bitte.

@Quill Pen - I'm surprised you have not found useful any of the elegant solutions available to the desktop-icon-roulette problem you mentioned.

@kevin linter - The programs installer package, "DesktopPoetSFX.exe, like many/most installers, unpacks its "actual" installer, "zipexe_r.exe", to the Windows Temp Folder, where it also creates two other folders: "DesktopPoetSFX" and "Desktop Poet for Windows". It also creates a "runonce" Registry entry that is *supposed* to cleanup those temp files/folders at the next reboot. What you noticed was that cleanup command's execution and NOT an attempt to launch "zipexe_r.exe", which, to be fair to the Publisher, is clearly identified by its icon as part of DesktopPoet.

It is not the most elegant coding for post-install cleanup but it is not unusual or malicious. BTW, on my Windows 7 setup, it did NOT complete its task after reboot. The files/folders were still there BUT the Registry entry WAS NOT called at subsequent reboots as it ran once, as it was supposed to.
Dec 15 2013 at 10:27am Copy Link
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Read MoreQuill Pen @LouisH -- hubby said that standard file hodgepodge was way too big, too. Too many redundancies, the resnap didn't work right and one line ran right off the screen to the right regardless how many resnaps he tried. To me it seemed more like a demo than any sort of useful and stimulating word collection. I suspect DesktopPoet won't get much use, either. Maybe when he's stumped for a headline or for Powerpoint presentations where he can play with different combinations from a select list of buzzwords or synonyms - to see what flows best. Poets or songwriters might launch it side by side with something like Zenwriter and a browser window open to a "rhymes with" site. They can write undistracted and when stumped, paste a stanza in DTP and search for rhyming words, copy/paste those and then play with combinations.

@JMJ - didn't say none were elegant. We're just content in our Grand Canyon rut, exhausted by the endless parade of software upgrades and new programs we have to learn. For the next couple years, Bryce and Daz Studio and other programs for virtual world game dev plus Win7's idiosyncrasies is enough. Only so many hours in a day. Our old car isn't elegant either, but it still gets us from point A to point B. Who needs seatbelts and headlights, anyway?
Read 1 More Post By Quill Pen
Dec 15 2013 at 6:27pm Copy Link
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Please note that all comments for this promotion will be screened before posting. It's nothing personal, just a step we have to take because of a few bad apples last time around.

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