Digital Art Zone

esther - 07 October 2012 06:56 AM

well sometimes it is more than a year or even longer before I notice I have something twice.  If it is something one has bought a long time ago then I am sure many would never notice they have bought it twice.

If you know someone with a PC you could throw the History Manager on a MemoryStick and download your history from their PC. It’s saved in CSV format which can be opened in different programs where you can do a search. Just copy the product name from the product page, and use this for searching. That’s how the search function inside the program works.

funnily enough I do know someone with a PC so that is something I should try.
Thanks.
Love esther

Note that it’s not 100% reliable as some product names have changed over time, but I believe it will work for about 98% of the products.

yes and bundles have always been problematic as well.

I *Do* check my order history before buying nowadays, but sady, sometimes the order history isn’t that accurate. I bought ancient trees, and looked to see if I had it before buying, and my history didn’t have it listed, so I bought it, (it was 99 cents and not a huge expense), but after I tried to install it, the installer says zoinks, do you want to remove the previous version.

I’ll write them and ask for a refund, but, that takes days.

I feel sorry for their billing department. that must be tedious.

maybe not so bad for them if more than half the people don’t worry about the 99 cents or never notice what you noticed.

You can always check your Itemized Order History.

Coldrake

actually coldrake, we can’t.  Have you tried it since the website change?  You can’t put in alphabetical or by date or search it anymore.

It’s in alphabetical order.  It’s a bit more of a hassle than having it all on a single page, but I can find anything in my 1668 items in less than 20 seconds using the arrows and numbers at the top of the page.

Coldrake

you probably have very much less stuff than me.  i have tried this and it takes me longer.  It is much harder work to buy something than it used to be because of this.

I created two files when I first started purchasing items way back when.  The first is a table where I list the following information:

1. Item name
2. Vendor(s)
3. Purchase price
4. Purchase date
5. Disk Number - I burn them to DVDs and save a backup on an external drive under the same disk numbers and store names
6. File names
7. File sizes

and is categorized by store (i.e., DAZ, Renderosity, RDNA, etc.)

The second file is simply an alphabetical list of each item (and if purchased as part of a bundle, the bundle name in parentheses beside the items comprising the bundle) and the name of the store where it was purchased.

Both files are easily searchable, so I rarely make duplicate purchases.  It generally only happens when I am sure I don’t have an item and don’t check to confirm whether or not I have it before making the purchase.

Unfortunately, this method would be impractical to implement for someone with a large purchase history simply due to the time involved to set up and organize it.

Well, I built a Master spreadsheet - Order #, Date, Site Product, Price & Product ID.

I made separate workbooks for each site, & then broke it down by vendor.

Very useful when you have a bunch of stuff.

I would never get around to that without a poser secretary. I have so much uninstalled content as well as installed.

esther - 08 October 2012 03:43 PM

I would never get around to that without a poser secretary. I have so much uninstalled content as well as installed.

Absolutely agree.  I have tens of thousands of models just from DAZ that aren’t installed.  And with DAZ changing filing conventions and other system alterations over the last decade, that warning really came in handy.  The Account History is pretty useless for me as well.  Without a sturdy search or category feature it can take forever to find an item.  I’ve tried and always end up giving up.

So I don’t spend a lot of time looking at older items that aren’t already on my Wish List, and most of those don’t really appeal to me anymore these days.  I think when DAZ reveals whatever they have planned for Genesis and Poser (that’s been hinted at in another thread) that my overall enthusiasm for DAZ may return to where it was pre-Gen.  Not that I have any issues with post-Gen.  Considering my typical yearly spending, I’ve likely saved thousands of dollars since Genesis premiered.  I can only imagine the lengths I’d go to catch up if Genesis were suddenly a viable option for Poser. 

I am in the same boat.  I see all the sales of old stuff and am tempted to browse, but the difficulty in checking to see whether I already have it or not, combined with the fact that as far as old stuff goes I probably have all of the stuff I want anyway, makes buying old stuff not really useful.
New stuff such as big sets like the carnival are a lot of work to check I haven’t bought parts of it already.  Dreamhome if they made more add-ons would pose similar difficulties for me.
Anyway I suspect if genesis ever works in poser there will be some big sales.  If there is one thing DAZ does well it is sales.
Love esther