Favor please

Cool, we can borrow it from Chuck!

 

Okay, I'll try to write a little about it once I get it.
Karen, you can borrow it, but you will probably have to pry it from my hands. lol

 

Get it anyway. I'm sure you'll be spending too much in Florida...

 

It just came today...
but it turns out I need to run it on Windows XP or Vista. I'm on a mac.
I'll report back as soon as I take care of this glitch.
It's kind of funny that it comes with a 3D viewer. . I checked out the stereo images online and the viewer works like it should! Pretty neat.

 

Thanks for the warning Marni. I guess if you register the cd with the publishers, they will offer you assistance. After hearing your of experiences, I'm hoping to avoid that all together.
I just found a laptop to use that was running Vista and it worked well. I think I will just continue doing that or maybe I'll go down to the public library. The bulbophyllum cd is packed with a lot of very interesting info. It will take some time to go through all of it.

 

As promised...

I'm glad that I held off on writing a short review of this cd. I've still only looked at it 3 times or roughly 6 hours, and feel I have only scratched the surface. The amount of information and the layout is very useful to the researcher or the bulbophyllum addict. It becomes clear that this is it's main intent. Everything is cross-referenced, making your search for particular information very easy. For the hobbyist it is a great tool to find all the bulbophyllums within your favorite section, even if you aren't familiar with the various sections. For the person that doesn't want to be bothered with all the details and information, and just wants to see the photos, this is an easy task as well. Is this a cd for everyone? I don't think so. Should the bulbophyllum addict buy it? Definitely! The hobbyist looking for cultural information will be disappointed as it is a bit scant. Even when you dig down deep there is not a lot of information. Also, many of the species don't have photographs, what you get instead are some of the original drawings. If you are into this sort of thing, it is nice to have the drawings of Schlecter, VanRoyen, Vermuelen, and others. While many of these are not too difficult to find, it is nice to have them all in one place. I personally was really excited to see the drawings of J.J. Smith included. The library at our university does have copies of his works, but these are kept in the rare book section. Which meant I could look at them, but I couldn't photocopy them. The only way was to get the staff photographer to take images of the plates. The bill would have been $1200. Getting them included in the $100. cd is so much better!

That being said, there really are a lot of wonderful photos too. Quite a few of species I haven't seen before. This includes a couple of species that after reading the description and looking at the line-drawings I waited for years to see. There is also a species that I had seen a photo of over a decade ago and immediately fell in love. Now it has a name and is included in this work. Let me just say Bulbophyllum sannio...wow! Which leads me to Peter Jongejan's 3D images, as this is how I saw B. sannio. ( back then he just called it Bulbophyllum red butterfly) I think they had to scan his 3D images at just a decent resolution. They certainly don't have the details of the originals, but they are still very good images of rarely seen species and really add a lot to this cd. And to make things even better...they include a paper viewer! I tried looking at the 3D samples online, but without the viewer I only succeeded with a few. My biggest accomplishment was a headache from crossing my eyes for so long.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. As you can tell, I have never reviewed anything before! All, I can really say is, If you have an interest in New Guinean Bulbophyllums , then this cd is easily worth the cost. If you think you may be interested in New Guinean Bulbophyllums, then this cd is certainly worth the cost. Secretly, I know the true cost won't be evident until you factor in the addiction that is sure to follow!

 

Did you happen to buy me a copy for my graduation present?

 

"Secretly, I know the true cost won't be evident until you factor in the addiction that is sure to follow!"

I'm sure that part is true!