Pro Tools Demo

College Pro Science Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this set with my upcoming chemistry exam in mind. I am so glad I didn't pay full price for it. What a dissapointment. It cheaply uses an internet browser interface as its own (Netscape), and barely brushes the surface of topics that are in desperate need of in -depth explanations. The "glossary" takes a long time to load, if it ever does at all. Topics which most beginning/general chemistry students find daunting, such as nomenclature and chemical formulas, are barely addressed in a simple half page of text.
I was so excited that this product existed for college level classes, but it's really a big bore. College Pro Math is a much better product, with animations and voice instruction. This Science package is practically useless.
After trying my hardest to study with this horrible, slow and boring software, I am going to sit on the sofa with my chemistry textbook and my chemistry flash cards, and study the old-fashioned way. Don't buy this software.

Click Here to see more reviews about: College Pro Science

Click here for more information about College Pro Science

Propellerhead ReCycle 2.1 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)After using Reason 5 and basking in it's splendor, I had wanted to check out Recycle and work with some samples within Reason and saw the Propellerhead intro video on the product and wanted to check it out. I'm happy I took advantage of the trial version first because I found the product difficult to work with and in the end, turned back to my other tools for dealing with sampled material.
While the interface of Recycle looked promising, most of the .WAV files I imported into Recycle were not editable and in all cases, most of the controls were greyed-out which frustrated me to no end and help in the forum on that issue didn't produce results. More annoying however was Recycle's inability to properly detect BPM information from the imported tracks. Your only option in Recycle to assist this process is to enter the amount of bars in the sampled item but unfortunately even with that info, Recycle still couldn't calculate BPM. With such an expensive product, the user should have the ability to instead enter whatever BPM is desired and Reason should be able to then adjust that track on the fly to match the desired BPM. It's also baffling why Recycle only accepts bars as it's measurement and should allow you enter other criteria to accomplish this. I use another product called VirtualDJ that does this easily by clicking the sync button, no need to enter BPM, bars or anything. Other products like Traktor also do this so I don't see why Recycle can't make this process even easier when Recycle's only use is to deal with sampled material!
In the end, I uninstalled Recycle and instead work with Reason independently and dump my Reason portion into FL Studio or Abelton and then add my vocals and samples there. There may be more potential to this product and maybe the learning curve for Recycle is greater than Reason ironically, but in the end my frustration with Recycle made it's possible strengths not worth learning about as the product was not as intuitive as you would be led to believe.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Propellerhead ReCycle 2.1

Click here for more information about Propellerhead ReCycle 2.1

VIAVOICE PRO REGULAR (WIN 98,ME,XP,VISTA) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The real-time speech recognition of IBM ViaVoice 10 is extremely good. It is possible to get 99% accuracy. Possible is the key word here. In order to do that, you need a good microphone (better than what is included) and you will have to teach it words that it doesn't know (i.e. Plantronics, uncommon names). And you'll need to be in a supported product like Microsoft Word. If all these conditions are met, you're in like Flint.
I, unfortunately, was trying to use Internet Explorer, and the support was less than stellar. The voice command "surf the web" did launch it and the "home", "back", and "forward" commands worked well to do the obvious. But the undocumented commands became key to navigation. To tab from one field or link to the next, you say "next field". "Previous field" is like a shift-tab to go backwards. "next line" and "previous line" seem to be equivalent to the down and up arrows.
The microphone included with this package is the Andrea NC-61 along with the Andrea USB pod, which is a half of a sound card (microphone side only) that connects through your USB port. I found the quality of the pod to be excellent. Andrea advertises the NC-61 headset as using noise cancelling technology, but I found this microphone to not even be directional, and pretty much useless in any environment in which anyone else was speaking, however softly, in the same room. I did purchase separately an Andrea ANC-750 microphone and the noise cancelling on that microphone was quite good. (note: there is some white noise in the background that is audible if you use the ANC-750 to make a recording, but this should be ignored, as it is part of the noise cancelling system.)
The best performance was when I used a high quality studio microphone in a quiet environment to create my voice profile by reading their text. The recognition accuracy was amazing. I used an AKG C-3000 (needs phantom power), but I've heard that a Sennheiser MD431 II is another excellent microphone, and has noise canceling properties as well. The best performance I got from my ANC-750 headset was when I used the voice profile created with the C-3000.
I give the voice recognition part of the software a 5, the navigational ability a 2, and the included microphone a 2, hence my rating of 3 overall.

Click Here to see more reviews about: VIAVOICE PRO REGULAR (WIN 98,ME,XP,VISTA)

IBM ViaVoice Pro USB Edition is the flagship offering of the ViaVoice for Windows. It represents the merger of high-productivity software with advanced microphone technology. ViaVoice Pro USB Edition offers great dictation versatility so you can dictate edit and correct text in SpeakPad the resident speech-enabled word processor or in Word Excel and other applications within the Microsoft Office product suites (including Office XP) or directly into a variety of other PC applications. ViaVoice Pro USB Edition supports Windows XP Professional and Home Windows 98SE Me 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 6) operating systems.ViaVoice Pro USB Edition expands the usefulness of the powerful Navigation Macro Center found in earlier generations of IBM ViaVoice for Windows. With ViaVoice Pro USB Edition you can create macros that will run across multiple applications. In addition you can now control the speed at which your macros run. ViaVoice Pro USB Edition supports the use of select digital handheld recorders.ViaVoice Pro USB Edition is the IBM desktop voice-recognition product that features IBM ViaVoice Documents: customized Microsoft Word-based templates for letters reports faxes and e-mails. It also features VoiceMarks which can read you the name of a customized navigation macro as an audio confirmation that the macro is being run correctly.Included in the box are: IBM ViaVoice for Windows Pro USB Edition (release 10) on CD-ROM (U.S. English vocabulary) noise-canceling USB headset microphone a user's Guide and a command reference card.Format: WIN 98MEXPVISTA Genre:PRODUCTIVITY UPC:780420105317 Manufacturer No:G909A-G00-10.0

Click here for more information about VIAVOICE PRO REGULAR (WIN 98,ME,XP,VISTA)

Zone Alarm Pro 4 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)If you are using Zone Alarm's latest release you WILL not be able to use this boxed version to extend your update access; nor will you be able to bring your version up to the current one after installing this boxed version--both of which happened to me.
(The current version is 4.5.594.000; which fixed a bug discovered by certain nitwits trying to use a Consumer product to protect commercial email servers; DO NOT USE ZA TO PROTECT YOUR SERVERS; GET A NAT OR PROXY SERVER)
The version number of the boxed release is 4.0 something and if you try to install it--even AFTER you uninstalled the NEWER version, wait, it gets sillier--you won't be able to access ZoneAlarm's update servers. Not only that, after I tried to update it with my previous version, it refused to install (and this was tried on multiple computers with the same result). So not only does this boxed version deny you access to ZA's updates but also is unable to be updated--and this was after I used WinDelete to make sure all of the NEWER version had been removed from registry and the myriad Windows subfolders XP likes to put files in. (Unlike some reviewers, I didn't even get to the mess with the activation code!)
So, in sum, if you have a version newer than 4.1, you'll not be able to use the prog in this box. Perhaps it would work on a clean machine but I don't know.
This leaves you without current protection making you vulnerable to hacks designed to work around ZoneAlarm. Which defeats the whole purpose of shelling out the cash in the first place.
Bottom line: ZoneAlarm software: FIVE STARS
Broderbund boxed version: MINUS FIVE STARS, since that's not an option: ONE STAR.
After a little trouble with Amazon's customer service I convinced them that they had sold me a useless product (something akin to selling me a carbeurator for my '04 Mercedes). I was able to get a full refund without the credit card company rigamarole. So, another gold star for Amazon's reasonableness.
But forget this product. Got to ZoneAlarm.com and buy the download/subscription version. You'll receive the latest version in a small executable (less than five MB so even Dial-Up people can download it in a reasonable amount of time; as always use a good download manager with your dialup connection) and/or a CD if you wish.
Fifty bucks may seem a little pricey, but ZoneAlarm has repelled literally hundreds of hacker probes (up to ten a day)in the years I've used it. It's also stopped dozens of programs from trying to send unknown information for unknown purposes. Certain companies are worse than others about this; you'll see it once you've got a current version running.
No prog can access the net without your permission.
Even if you've never used ZoneAlarm, avoid this box. Broderbund's Customer Service (since ZA itself only does tech support, CSR on downloadable subscriptions) is almost universally detested as even a casual reading of most of these reviews will show.
I saw a "4.5" version of the Broderbund box at BestBuy this weekend, but I still would go directly to this source. Why go around the mountain to go next door?
Finally, Zone Labs/Intermute is a great company that makes great software which I've been using (starting with Ad-Subtract, most of whose functions have been incorporated in ZoneAlarm Pro) for nearly seven years know.
And, in that time, I've found their email tech support to be fairly quick and helpful. Having done tech support I can tell you that selecting the proper number of support staff is essentially impossible. Therefore, a spike in need for Support's services can cause delays. Just be patient; they've always gotten around to my issues.
And please, be polite. The poor schlub making $10 bucks an hour on the phone or who's routed your email has no control over anything. Tech Support reps are the serfs of the IT industry and they never cease reminding you of your lowly condition. So keep that in mind the next you feel like going off on the poor 19 year old in Arkansas who's undertrained, underpaid, over-bossed with supervisors' constant reminders of dispensibility ringing in the ear. Sorry, that was off topic. Call it my pro-Tech Support Rep rant and my respect for those still doing this thankless, worthless job!!!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Zone Alarm Pro 4

Click here for more information about Zone Alarm Pro 4

CD Stomper Pro, The Ultimate CD Labeling System Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)A great improvement over earlier versions, but still easy to use. I have always liked the ability to make titles that curve with the round edge of a CD, but I was especially impressed with the new 3-D effects which really make the labels stand out.

Click Here to see more reviews about: CD Stomper Pro, The Ultimate CD Labeling System

Click here for more information about CD Stomper Pro, The Ultimate CD Labeling System

Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)What? I'm the first one to write a review on this? This computer game is one of the greatest office-space games of all time. Don't know what an office space game is? Those are the games that occupy a spot on your work cubicle, and provide an excellent diversion from the humdrum of your work life.
On this level, the game is topnotch. However, what can't be ignored is the overall poor spin control. While the ball and pin reaction is superb, the spin control option is poor, and at the higher difficulty levels gives you almost no control over where your spin goes.
Still, there are few better games to fritter away your long office hours. Play away, and stay away from Milton.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling

A realistic new bowling simulation, Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling features Brunswick personalities, tournaments, state-of the-art equipment, and family fun. Choose from among 13 of your favorite Brunswick Pro Staff bowlers and hit the lanes in a true 3-D simulation, utilizing advanced physics engines for some exciting pin action.

Click here for more information about Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling

Palo Alto Marketing Plan Pro 3.0 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Marketing Plan Pro gives you a guided, helpful, step-by-step tool for developing a marketing plan. It customizes the outline and tables and charts to match your needs, then offers very helpful instructions and examples for every topic and every table in the plan.
The instructions lead you through a solid marketing plan, including market analysis, customer needs, market forecast, market research, strategy, tactics, specific activities, budgets, forecasts, everything that you'd expect in a complete marketing plan. It also gives you all the flexibility you need to add or delete topics, expenses, sales rows, and in many other ways make sure that the resulting plan is your plan, with your words, and your thinking.
It is a tool, with a lot of guidance, but it doesn't do the research for you, or write the text, or develop the strategy. What it does do is help you make sure you've covered all the basis, thought about what should be included, and laid it all out in a logical, organized fashion.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Palo Alto Marketing Plan Pro 3.0

You don't need a degree in Marketing or an MBA to develop an organized, logical, professional marketing plan. Like a consultant in a box, Palo Alto Software's Marketing Plan Pro leads you through the process, using a professional framework that makes your plan look good in the end.
Marketing Plan Pro's organized framework takes you step by step through the process of creating a marketing plan. After answering a few of the Plan Wizard's questions, Marketing Plan Pro creates an outline, tables, and charts tailored to your needs. As you go through your plan, a task manager guides you through the steps. You start with looking at present situations, evaluating the state of your company with a SWOT analysis, looking at your target markets, user needs, and the benefits you offer. Then you follow the task manager to focus on your priority market segments, product positioning, competitive advantages, and other components of marketing strategy.
When you finish your plan, use the print command and Marketing Plan Pro prints out a beautifully formatted document that automatically merges text, tables, and charts. It doesn't write your words for you or do your numbers, but it does lay out every page and make your document look polished and professional. If you have a color printer, it will print your charts in color. It even prints your table of contents, cover page, and detailed appendices.

Click here for more information about Palo Alto Marketing Plan Pro 3.0

Blog Archive