Software reviews
This section contains reviews of the latest software that I have had a chance to look at.
The following applications are currently reviewed:
EMedia Guitar Method 1
Sax tutor
PagePlus 7
DrawPlus 5
PhotoPlus 7
CorelDRAW 10
Dreamweaver and Fireworks Version 3
Jodie Kidd Makeover
Mind of Knowledge World War I
Microsoft Pinball Arcade
PhotoMontage
PhotoFantasy
Space Invaders
Micro Logic Fun (Music)
More reviews are being
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This is the one! If you're an aspiring guitar player or someone who can play, but wants to know more and play better, this is a brilliant piece of software. It is like having your own guitar teacher on the computer.
Starting from the very simplest, it quickly gives the beginner a tune that they can play. It tells you how to play it, you can hear how it should be played, it shows you the tablature notation, and it shows you a video of the notes to be played and the strings to be plucked. Short of having someone put your fingers on the frets for you, it does everything. It moves on from the easy stuff to harder (although not too hard) music. By the end of the CD, you should certainly be able to play competently in front of your friends (and not just your mum!).
There's a chord directory if you need help remembering a chord (like every other beginner ever). There's a simple guitar tuner - it plays the note that your guitar string should be tuned to. You can select from the menu any of the available songs, techniques, or lessons, to go over again. You can even record your version of a song and listen to it - comparing it with "correct version".
As well as introducing the guitar to beginners, it teaches chords, strumming techniques, rock and blues rhythms, tablature notation and melodies, and bass note strums and fingerpicking. There's also an online guitar archive of songs you can download and play.
So what doesn't it do well? Three of the songs that it spent some time looking at, I was totally unfamiliar with. The songs are Uncle John's Band by Grateful Dead, Rock n' Me by Steve Miller Band, and Dreamboat Annie by Ann and Nancy Wilson.Overall, I would give it a staggering nine out of ten for both content and presentation. If you've got a guitar and you're not Eric Clapton, get this software!
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTTT
I had hours of fun playing my guitar with this software and the intermediate course.
Sax tutor is a brilliant but simple piece of software for people who want to learn to play the saxophone. Written by Martin Carter in 1996, it's available for download from the Web. It's like Guitar Teacher 3.2, but for budding saxophonists. It shows you the fingering for each note and alternative fingering (where applicable). It's very handy if you suddenly forget the fingering for Bflat, etc.
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTT
I found it very straightforward and very useful (which gives you a clue about my saxophone playing skills).
PagePlus has always been a cheap alternative to larger DTP packages such as Adobe’s PageMaker. In it’s long history - this is now Version 7 - it has gradually evolved away from the PageMaker model. It certainly has a wide range of features, and this version makes publishing to the Web fairly straightforward.
Unfortunately, this new version makes entering text harder! - which in a DTP tool seems to be a strange decision. Admittedly, there are a number of ways of adding text to a page, but the simple I-bar has gone. Now instead of the whole page being effectively a frame, the user has to draw the frame first (and there are lots of shapes to choose from) and can then add the text. In my opinion, this just makes the product more inconvenient to use, and the manual is not absolutely crystal clear on this either. It looks like prescriptive products, such as Microsoft’s Publisher, have been used somewhere along the line as the model for this version. The result is that quite good pages can be created, but the user is almost fighting the product’s desire to help them, in order to achieve the hoped-for results. For an absolute beginner, it’s a very useful application. For more experienced DTP software users, I would say it’s probably not the best choice.
My overall rating for this product is:
TT
It's QUITE good-ish!
DrawPlus, in addition to creating pictures, also allows the user to make animated GIFs
I particularly liked the images that could be used to make up a line (see above). The product also came with an interesting library of images that could be used for posters and cards, etc.
DrawPlus has most of the facilities one would expect from a drawing program, such as curves, shapes, curved text (yes, this product does have a text tool on the toolbar - hooray), and transparency effects. Unfortunately, I already have Macromedia’s Fireworks, Corel Draw 10, and Jasc Software’s Animation shop, so (apart from those line images) DrawPlus adds little to what I have already. For people who do not already have a drawing package this is a good place to start. But again, the product seems aimed more at the "fun" end of the market rather than the more serious user.
My overall rating for this product is:
TTT
It's fun!
PhotoPlus is a useful photo editing tool. It comes with a text tool(!), making it easy to add captions to images. The interface is less user-friendly than MGI’s PhotoSuite III, although what’s available seems much the same. It has more in common with Corel’s Photo-Paint 10 in terms of the user interface. It is a genuinely workman-like piece of software. It allows the creation of image maps and image slicing. And, like Fireworks and Corel Draw 10, it allows the content to be removed from pictures to make them smaller when downloading from the Web.
For fun users I’d recommend PhotoSuite and for more serious users Corel 10 - sorry Serif.
My overall rating for this product is:
TT
It's OK.
Wow!
Even wow doesn't cover
how brilliant this package really is. It has to be used to be believed. The
company has sometimes been accused of making their software too hard for
new users, while adding all those extra features that more experienced
users wanted. To an extent this is still true. However, users with experience
of using other packages will find all the standard facilities more or less
where they'd expect, and the extensive help explains how to do everything
else. I tried a couple of things that I needed done in half an hour and
achieved both of them in less time - using the software to produce very
professional looking results.
It does all the usual drawing things, providing some nice shapes to use. Photo-Paint also allows you to work with photographs - I had some I'd scanned and some I'd downloaded from the camera.
I found the whole package almost intuitive (although that's probably a sad reflection on how much I use the computer) to use. I found I could produce quality results very quickly. I liked the CDs with clipart and backgrounds.
I had one real problem on installation because I accepted all the defaults. I found that I had exceeded 1000 fonts. The result was that many of my default and standard fonts just weren't available. I had to move about 300 fonts to a different location. I still have far too many fonts, but everything works (it just takes a while for Windows to start).
The Corel RAVE product allows you to do the same as Macromedia's Flash - which can be quite convenient.
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTTT
the highest rating possible. Don't worry about the price, just go out and get it!
Dreamweaver and Fireworks Version 3
These are the latest versions of the software from Macromedia that I have reveiwed.
Dreamweaver is marketed as a visual editor for creating and managing Web sites and pages. It produces cross-platform and cross-browser pages fairly simply.
It allows users to import Word HTML documents, and it will optimize them. In fact one of the best things about Dreamweaver is its ability to optimize HTML. It lets users create rollover images, links, image maps, layers, templates, jump menus, and lets users check their sites. The downside is that each action seems to create huge amounts of code. I created a rollover button and the edited out two-thirds of the code and GIF images created. It still takes an age to load. For people who know a bit about what they are doing it is ideal for doing much more using a quite friendly user interface.
By using line numbers, it is easy to identify where your code is going wrong and to start to correct it. Certainly cleaning up Word 97 HTML is a definite bonus facility (Word 2000 exports XML).
Fireworks is a drawing program that integrates with Dreamweaver. It contains bitmap and vector editing tools. It even contains automation facilities for repetitive tasks. Users can import drawings and edit them, they can edit and paint pixels, and choose from a huge range of colours. Backgrounds can be made transparent, effects such as drop shadow can be applied to objects, and hotspots and image maps can be created with ease. It's also possible to slice images, create buttons and animations, and create advanced rollovers.
Together the products are an excellent addition to the Web developer's armoury. They allow you to do more than perhaps you previously thought possible.
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTT
Not immediately intuitive, but does the business.
One of series of make-up and makeover packages on the market at the moment targetted at teenage girls. My teenage daughters had many a happy hour playing with this. You can use the face provided and change the hair and put on different colour make-up around the eyes, cheeks, etc. (Girls will know what I mean by etc, I don't!) Once you have created a gorgeous or grotesque look, you can print it to show your friends.
It also allows you take a picture of yourself or a friend and try the make-up/hairstyles on that. And it doesn't leave a mess in bathroom!
My overall rating for this product is:
TT
Good fun if you're 13-17.
Look out for a review of MGI Digital Makeover Magic soon.
A slightly disappointing CD. It covers a number of specific areas of the first world war with pictures, text, and film, but it doesn't have an index and doesn't let you cut and paste any of the information.
Interesting as a 'coffee table' CD, but not much use for homework or projects.
My overall rating for this product is:
T
I have wasted so many hours with this excellent package. There are seven pin tables from the incredibly primitive 30s right up to a 90s table.
I've always liked playing pinball. If I'd been wealthier I could have had a mis-spent youth. The more recent of the available tables have given me a chance to make up for that missed opportunity.
I must admit that my favourite table is still Mad Scientist from Maxis, but the Cue Ball Wizard table from Microsoft is a very close second. It's certainly much better than Space Cadet (available with Themes) and Roll'm Up (downloadable from Microsoft's Web site).
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTT
If I didn't have it I'd go and buy it now.
A piece of software that will divide a picture into small squares - a bit like the man whose face can't be shown on a documentary. Why should anyone want to do this with a picture? But strangely, it's actually quite fun to look at the results.
My overall rating for this product is:
T
It's Ok for a while, but then you get tired of the same thing.
A great piece of fun software. Basically, there are a lot of photos with the face missing and you put your face (or someone else's) into the space. You can pretend to be on holiday or a sporting superstar, etc. It can be quite a laugh.
My overall rating for this product is:
TT
Saves actually visiting the pyramids or Hawaii.
A really great update on the second oldest computer graphic game from Activision. (I suppose the oldest is pong!) This has some absolutely wonderful graphics. Each alien spaceship is brilliantly designed on screen. The only downside I find is that each level takes about ten minutes to play - which means a complete game now takes over half an hour (hopefully longer soon!!).
My overall rating for this product is:
TTTT
A great time-filling game.
There are some music software programs that let you write music in the traditional way (using quavers and minims etc), like Encore (which is excellent). This let's you pick an instrument and then add a few notes. You then cut and paste to repeat that before starting on the rhythm section or another instrument. This is a really nice little piece of cut-down sequencer software. You'll be able create music quickly and easily (it won't sound very good) but it'll be all yours!
My overall rating for this product is:
TTT
The PC really could be the instrument of choice for future musicians.
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