Articles about the Featured Categories

I've never previously bothered paying for DVD software. I've already got 4 free software DVD players from different companies and they all have their strengths and weaknesses but at the end of the day they play DVDs that look and sound great on my PC so who cares about anything else.

Until last week when I bought a 2nd-hand CRT widescreen TV with Dolby Digital and Pixel Plus and started to become obsessed by virtual surround sound. My studio and living room are too small for a decent affordable wireless surround sound set-up; my wife refuses to have the wires trailing everywhere and I refuse to fork out a penny for a sub-standard system so I started to research virtual surround which led me to decide on two purchases: a set of surround sound headphones for the living room and a software DVD player for the studio with the latest Dolby Virtual Speaker function and the new Dolby Headphone function, which is supposed to re-create a convincing 5.1 surround sound field in a set of headphones or on a pair of stereo speakers by the clever use of some nifty psycho-acoustic processing.

I installed the software this afternoon and loaded up a Dolby Surround speaker test video to see if it actually worked. It does, in a muted fashion. It wasn't as dramatic an effect as I was hoping for but for both Dolby Speaker and Dolby Headphone the front speakers sounded as though they were coming from in front of me and the rear surrounds did feel as though they were coming from somewhere behind my back (or behind my head for the Dolby Headphone tests). When it came to playing a film with Dolby Speaker the effect was more subtle in terms of hearing things coming from specific locations in front or behind but when I switched it from "reference" to "wide 1" and "wide 2" modes it created the most magnificent and dynamic sonic field which sounded much wider and more enveloping than the actual speaker placement. It was quite dramatic, the audio equivilent of putting on 3D glasses. Very clever. In Dolby Headphone mode (with my closed-backed studio Sennheisers) it was more subtle and it was necessary to switch between "stereo" mode and "surround" mode, and switch to "theater" mode (which gives you the full cinematic dynamic range) to hear what a dramatic difference the processing was making. I tried the same thing again with open-backed headphones and it seemed to work better. I am suitably impressed.

To move on to the video side of things, the user settings are versatile and (contrary to another review I have read) the upscaling is actually available on this version, as are the various other "enhancements". But as the second reviewer pointed out: if you've got a half-decent computer with a modern graphics card many of these functions are either going to detract from the picture quality in some way or else introduce artifacts (unnatural side-effects). Your own PC will almost certainly do a much better job of scaling the picture up to fit the screen than this software, but I suppose it's a matter of taste. I suspect that these functions are intended more for poor quality video footage, blocky, compressed downloaded videos or grainy 16mm film footage. I'm glad that the options are there, even though I think they're unnecessary at the moment.

For the low price I am very happy with this purchase. It is far and away the best DVD software player I have ever used and I am (however subtly) blown away by the Dolby Virtual Speaker technology, so now I'm not totally missing out on those lovely 5.1 soundtracks on my DVD collection.

You really have to consider two distinct groups or users when rating ACT!.

As a single user/small business on one PC...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This product has a lot to offer when the database is not shared. It is easy and extremely intuitive to use and has all the typical features that one would expect from CRM software.

Recording and tracking client interactions is easy and the interface between ACT and your mail software (especially outlook) is relatively simple.

The phone settings can be a pain always defaulting to a standard format... but you can disable/change this is preferences.

As multiple-user enterprise CRM software...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is where the product is really difficult to use. Invariably after only a few weeks of use you arrive at the common question... "Do we do things in Act! or Outlook?".

All the regular features like new contacts, grouping, searching writing single letters are fine, but the problem comes when you want to share a Act database which may have 5 users with a company of 15 people. Exporting the database so that you can import it into Outlook is tricky and laborious at the best of times even when you work in the IT profession.

The enterprise options within Act! are where it really falls over.

We also use Act! with the rather expensive third party web interface in order to make the product mobile and versatile. this certainly adds a degree of usability, but does not sufficiently address the lack of transferrability of the information.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The ultimate verdict... great for single user, disappointing as an enterprise solution.

Well what can I say? I had no problems installing this at all - no probs with registering it and no probs with having to give any account details.

I have it running on two machines at present - a laptop and a desktop - using the same key.

On my desktop it found over 800 problems - admittedly most of them low-priority - just lost threads etc but it cleared up all of these problems and all those on the laptop and both machines are working much better now.

So, unlike the other reviewers I'd have to say a thumbs up so far!

This is one of THE scariest ND games ever!
Why? Because if you stay in one place too long objects come to life!
Like if you stay in the lounge too long you get a phone call with a creepy voice breathing into the phone!!! Also, if you stand in the hallway and look into a mirror a women walks by inside it, of course this only happens after a creepy séance in the basement.
The games were doable and working around the mansion was fun!
Technically, the game was easy to install so that even I could do it (we have windows XP).
This is my third "Nancy" game and till now I am glued to the computer.
All in all, this is a fun game for young and old (my mom likes it too) and I would recommend it to anyone who can take a few chills!

My four year old daughter who is coming along really well with her reading and has mastered some two to four letter words, loved this Reader Rabbit CD Rom. She understood and enjoyed every step of the way. It was easy enough for her to navigate, fun enough so that she didn't get bored and most importantly easy enough for her not to get discouraged yet difficult enough to present some challenge and for her to learn and practice her words through it. It saved her progress and allowed her to go back to where she left off. She did the whole CD Rom in no more than 5 seatings (couldn't get enough of it) and enjoyed it lots. The only bad thing I would say about the whole thing is that the 'record and play back feature' didn't work as 'we did not have enough memory available in our computer' (which we did). Another message appeared to say that it would not be able to play the CD Rom in colours as our system did not meet the minimum specifications (which it did), but despite this warning message, everything was displayed in colours. Now my daughter has completed it, I will try to get her to go over it again as now she does not need to go over it in order and can jump between letters. Would recommend it to anyone who wants to stimulate their children in their learning to read process.

Now I'm no musician in fact I can't play a note and I have a singing voice like a cat being strangled. Despite these obvious shortcomings, back in the 80's some mates and I formed a band. None of us could sing, one could play guitar and one the keyboard with 1 finger. We recorded 2 albums of songs to amuse ourselves and our mates.

Now 20 odd years later we're all pushing 40 and 2 of us reformed the band, the two of us that couldn't play a note. So I bought this program and the Sound Essentials 6 pack and the 2 of us sat down to write some songs. And its a piece of cake. Thousands of different backing tracks are possible in all sorts of styles. We've already done a Reggae number, Hip Hop and a Bluesy Rock type one.

You could even treat as a game if you like and hours of fun are possible. Try out by downloading the free Music Maker Basic package. If you love music and fancy a laugh then its well worth it.

Oh yeah i suppose if you really wanted you could do some serius music as well. There are loads of options to mess about with and settings to tweak. I haven't got a clue what most of them mean but then again like I said earlier I'm no musician.

After initial enthusiasm, my daughter found the game play and the way you move around the 4 different arenas quite uninteresting. The maths items themselves were as you would expect, and there are a lot of different items with various degrees of difficulty, but the all center around just 3 basic arenas. Also, there are no short cut's to the items, so you have to repeatedly listen to the same preamble every time.

My 3 year old son is a huge fan of Bob the Builder and he absolutely loves this CD. The games are of varying difficulty and he does need help with some of them but his mouse skills are improving by the day. The games are fun and not too obviously educational. The only problem I have with this CD is getting him off the computer!