1 comments about The Print Shop 22 Deluxe.

1. It Struck me as a good product; I just had to send it back because I found out it wouldn't work on my Apple computer. The product info said NO OPERATING SYSTEM, so I thought I could use it, but the owner's manual said Windows, and nothing about Apple.

1 comments about Line 6 Variax Workbench 1.5.

1. If you own a Variax guitar, which is a pretty nice product in itself, Workbench is a must-have. I found it easy to install (and update), and even easier to use. More importantly, it multiplied exponentially the things I can do with my Variax.

5 comments about Serious Magic Ovation.

1. First, I should have listened to my instincts and downloaded the trial version BEFORE purchasing. Had I done this I would HAVE NEVER purchased this product. As it is, having bought the product from a box store and NOT online, I made a $99.00 mistake, plus tax.
   
   The product has too many limitations to be considered as a viable add-on to your powerpoint presentations. As a presenter, using PPT every week, in training presentations, I can tell you that this product does more to limit PPT's slide producing capabilities than it does to add to them. As a matter of fact, I found the product to "take away" from PPT's slide building procedures, NOT "add" to them.
   
   Save your money and wait for the next PPT add-on to come along. This product is worth neither your investigative time, nor your monetary investment.



2. This program can really spice up the right presentation; however, it has some significant limitations when it comes to imbedding and linking objects, among other Powerpoint functions that I considrer essential.



3. Ever since Adobe bought out this small operation, customer service has been severely lacking. Software will NOT work on Excel 2007. The promise for additional POWERLOOKS has become dead. Granted that the program makes presentation more interesting, the Powerlooks that was in production are no longer on the website. This is highly disappointing as I purchased this program in anticipation for further development on the Powerlook templates.



4. I got the trial and bought the software shortly thereafter. For those who are PPT maniacs, it's pretty limited. For the other 99.99999% of us, it's great because you don't have to spend a ton of time on animations, tweaking it, or worrying about everyone having seen it before (at least the first few times :D ).
   
   However, Adobe bought Serious Magic last year. Microsoft released Office 2007. And having Office 2007 installed on a computer is sufficient to cause Ovation to work in creative and unique ways that are not especially helpful. In my case, I have a 1300-slide deck I use for training. No, I don't use 1300 slides - more than half are hidden and exposed only as required. But when I open Ovation on my Office 2007-enabled laptop, I see 1300 title slides.
   
   Called Adobe Ovation support, and eventually got the right answer: Yes it's broken, no it won't be fixed any time soon. My only saving grace was that I never anted up for a support plan.
   
   Bottom line: If you're on Office 2003 or earlier AND have no plans to upgrade to Office 2007, I strongly recommend it. But if you've gone to 2007, it's too late - run screaming in the other direction from this dismal excuse for a revenue scheme.



5. I bought the OVATION product because I use PowerPoint every day for presentations to people in our college. OVATION is so good when you work through the kinks in it that most people after my shows ask how I did such a cool PowerPoint presentation instead of how good the information was!
   The product has pretty much been ignored by Adobe for any upgrades or patches and it is not compatible with PowerPoint 2007, and your video card had better be strong or the powerlook will dump out on you.
   With that said, there are more than enough powerlooks to work your magic with any PowerPoint show you want to use. It is a good buy and you will not be sorry you got it, just plan to work around some things.

4 comments about Soho Labels & Envelopes - Chronos L.C..

1. SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) Labels and Envelopes by Chronos is a great way to design and print professional looking labels, envelopes, and letterhead with your Mac OS X.
   
   It comes on 2 CDs and requires a G3 or higher, running 10.2 or later (10.3 or later to use vector clip art), 30 MB of available disk space (1.2 GB for full clip art collection), and prints very well on ink jet or laser printers.
   
   I installed this software on an iMac G4 running 10.3 Panther. The installation process was very simple - just click on the installation icon. Although some of the features are easy to figure out, I discovered I needed to print the user's guide from the help menu. Even though it consists of 79 pages, I found it to be most helpful.
   
   This software comes with over 13,000 photographs and clip art graphics, 50 Bitstream fonts in Post Script format, and many professional ready-made designs for labels, envelopes, or letterhead. It is compatible with most label and envelope stocks from Avery and others. You can make address labels, file folder labels, multi-use labels, disk labels, audio labels, video labels, name badges, and more - all with ease.
   
   The thing I like most about this software is that it integrates with Mac OS X Address Book and iPhoto. This feature makes it simple to address your long list of Christmas cards. I have used other software for making labels but none had the vast amount of features that SOHO provides. With iPhoto and over 13,000 graphics available, you can design and customize labels and envelopes unique to you. For example, with iPhoto I found it easy to make Christmas gift tags that have a picture of the recipient on the tag.
   
   With so many features available, this software should be ideal for the small business owner. Need to make inventory barcode labels, warning labels, product labels, raffle tickets, business labels, etc? With SOHO Labels & Envelopes you can do all this plus much more. With the features included, you can design and customize labels, envelopes, and letterhead like the professionals and pocket the savings. Although I am not a business owner, I plan to get a lot of use from this piece of software.



2. Having just opened the program with the intension of doing my Christmas mailing list as a test for the AAUG review, I have to say that I failed miserably. For one thing the program was much more complicated than I had assumed. I wanted to get a quick and dirty mailing list created with little time investment. First I was not able to transfer my Excel list into Labels although the program interacts with Mac's Address Book flawlessly. In order to transfer my tab delineated files I will need to "fix them up" a bit. I didn't find this information in the Users Guide until page 55. Bah, so much for easy. It is going to take me a fair amount of upfront time to be able to use this program in the way that I would like. In fact I'll probably have to print out the entire 67 page User Guide to get me where I would like to go.
   
   Viewing this program from a more creative viewpoint rather than a strictly utilitarian perspective, it can be fairly straightforward to create letterheads, envelopes, mailing labels and all sorts of other tags and labels. The program comes with many pre-assembled designs and clip art options. In a little bit of time and some instructions from the help manual, great things can be done. Once the user gets the confidence to roam around a bit in the program pictures and artwork can be imported to really customize the project. I do like having the taps for graphics, text, etc on the side of the design page. It makes the design process easier. The output can be a truly professional looking creation.
   
   The program is versatile and incorporates all label and envelope stocks from the major producers. If that doesn't suit the need the user can create a label of whatever dimensions are necessary. I was impressed and inspired with the web site listing of products that can be made from this program: envelopes including barcodes for the zip code, raffle tickets, file folder labels, and the list goes on limited only by the users imagination. The barcode element of the program was fascinating (although at this point I do not use them) since barcodes are becoming not only commonplace, but also necessary in the business world today.
   
   The Chronos website is easy to navigate and the program download is very easy. All in all this is a very good program and well worth the monetary investment for a small business that would like to create a unique image or that is in the labels/mailing/filing business. For a person that just wants to do their Christmas mailing list, well, it might be a little overkill.



3. One would think that designing and printing an envelope should be straight forward. One would think that what you see on screen is what you would get when printing and that, since the software supports full bleed, you would not get a white border on two or three sides of an envelope. When printing a #10 envelope, the design prints on only 3/4 of the length. I have printed out the full manual which isn't much better than the software, in my opinion. My request for help from Support was ignored.



4. Once I figured out how to use it, I found this product fairly powerful in its ability to generate labels. I especially liked the ability to edit individual labels once generated. The program is pretty flexible although I was dismayed at the number of features that it lacked such as allowing access to every single Address Book field (it only lets you use Spouse Name but not Friend or Assistant, for example). There are other features that are found in Microsoft Word's label applet that are more powerful, such as using Boolean logic to be able to generate more complete labels. Of course, if Pages, AppleWorks or even (God forbid) Address Book had a real label making feature, there would be no need to shell out the extra bucks for this program!
   Now, my real complaint, which is about the company. They put out two products- Labels & Envelopes and Business Cards. Clearly they are both the same product with only subtle differences, such as the templates that they come with. Business Cards does not even allow access to the Address Book, other than one's own personal entry (even though they imply that they do). They should combine both products into one and maybe charge a little more than the cost of one for it.
   A good product that does do this is Print Explosion but unfortunately it does not access Address Book.

No comments about Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4 Deluxe.

5 comments about VideoWave 7 Professional.

1. I bought this software because it was cheap and the "box" showed all these features that i needed! Plus, it said that if help is needed, you will get it. HOWEVER, once i started using the software, i noticed it had lotts of bugs and it took for ever to make a DVD. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM I HAD WAS THAT THE SOUND AND VIDEO DID'NT GO. For example, i videotaped my brothers football game and the sound of the play STARTED BEFORE THE PLAY ITSELF. I went to support for roxio and there help sucked! I would not buy this....AT ALL. Spend your money on something better even if you have to pay $40 more dollars!
   
   I suggest: Power Director 4 =$80 or Adobe Premeire Elements = $100



2. I thought this was a dream program, and it woked well for about a year. But for the last two videos I have shot, the audio has been anywhere between 2 and 4 seconds out of sync with the video. Extremely frustrating, and I have not made any progree fixing it. I'd buy something else.



3. I had earlier versions of this program. This version has many more features than the earlier version and is extrememly easy to use. I was even able to make one full video and burn it to DVD. However, on my second attempt to make a video I ran into the audio sync problem. This is when you play video but the audio is either ahead or behind the video. When I play the video clips that I have captured in the preview screen and on my computer they are fine. The audio and the video are in perfect sync. However, when they are added to the storyline the audio is off. I have been on the help website and there are thousands of people that have had this same problem. The solutions that people are posting are extreme. I am not willing to rework my computer so that this program will work on it, especially since the program worked fine last week and now it is now working. My system is great, the problem is the software, not my computer. I am going to try Adode's Premiere video editing software. I have heard good things about it from the other people having trouble on the Videowave forums.
   
   Trust me, don't waste your money and time learing to use a program only to have it stop working!



4. I purchased videowave 7 pro and the cd will not even install (out of the retail box) ... get a 'isl7.tmp error' on multiple drives / different PC's, after rebooting, etc.. trying to get ahold of their customer-no-service is a real joke! Even the required 'ask Roxanne' doesn't offer this product in the REQUIRED product selection which you MUST CHOOSE ONE. I only wish I'd read these reviews before purchasing.



5. This is a great editing system, it's tough to get the hang of at first but once you get the routine down it works great. PC Magazine gave this an above average rating...I agree completely.

No comments about Hallmark Scrapbook Studio (XP Compatible).

5 comments about Burn and Go Gold.

1. Disappointing software and even more disappointing customer service.
   "Burn and Go" would not recognize my CD Burner. I emailed Iomega customer service and they said I should wait until they updated the drivers on their web site, then download them. They could not give me ETA when they would get around to updating my driver. They also could not authorize a refund, but they gave me an 800 phone number. When I phoned Iomega they said they would not authorize a refund because I didn't buy directly from Iomega.
   Thank God the retailer where I purchased "Burn and Go" gave me a store credit after I showed them the e-mail and explained the circumstances.
   Not the 1st time with problems with products from Iomega. No more Iomega products for me.



2. Ok...so I am somewhat of a rookie at burning CD's, however this software stinks. I have a brand spankin' new Dell with all the memory that any Grandma would cherish. Of course, my CD-RW drive is not supported by this software and I too rec'd the cold shoulder from customer service. They gave me absolutely no time line on updated drivers and also had the nerve to tell me that I had to go back and check their list periodically to see if my drive had been added. Wow! Now THAT made me feel like I was a priority...I will try to return to Best Buy today, if not I will throw it on the ground and stomp on it until I am breathless.....



3. I to got burnt by this lousy software. The program crashes alot. I to feel like I just threw away good money. I wish instead of trying to save some money I would have went with the original software program I wanted, Sure Thing by Microvision.



4. I recently broght the software from target. when i upgraded to xp pro my Roxio no longer worked. not wanting to pay $50 for roxio i decided to go cheaper. I have now wasted more money on CD-R that the program has messed up. I will now have to go and buy a more expencive but much more reliable piece of software. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND DON'T BUY THIS!!! IT SHOULD HAVE -50 STARS!



5. I used this product with XP.. and it worked like a charm. I got amazing quality CD's without any problems whatsoever. I am so impressed by the quality and how user friendly it is. For $8.99- it was more than worth it.

5 comments about Hallmark Card Studio 2006.

1. When printing cards it leaves a large border around front of card graphics. The cards do not print anything like they are shown on box display with front of card display taking up the whole card. When I contacted tech support I was advised that in order to correct this problem my printer must have a borderless printing option. My printer does not & I have been using another major greeting card software for about a year and half and never had this problem with that program. There is nothing on the outside of box under the system requirements that states this.
   On the outside of the box it says you can return for refund if not satified within 30 days and that the details are in the box. There are not any details in the box and when I contacted the company I got run around in circles stating there were two companies involved with the software and was never given information on how it could be returned. I am stuck with it.



2. Works great. Like printing options. Would like to be able to change graphics beyond clip art.



3. I was really impressed with this version of Hallmark Card Studio. It is really easy to use, and they have alot of cards to choose from. It is one of the best programs I have used. I would recommend it to anyone.



4. My main problem with it is that all the pictures and imported photos don't get big enough, and are very small on a quarter fold card. I resize them and they look like they're filling the page, but at printing it won't do it. The captions are in small print also. It's a shame. there is so much space around the edges still. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it's all straight forward directions, so I wish my old software from 1997, Microsoft Greetings workshop, worked with windows XP but it doesn't seem to.



5. I ran across an internet review of HCS 2007. The reviewer said that the rights had been sold in 2006 and that the new owners had pretty much trashed the user interface. I don't KNOW that for sure, but what I DO know is that the 2006 version is great, like that reviewer said it was. The interface is well organized, intuitive, clear, and just plain designed with common sense. I was printing a nice card in less than 3 minutes - no lie.... AND it runs ENTIRELY on your hard drive - no CD required. That alone easily recommends it.

No comments about Adobe Creative Suite v.2.0 Premium Edition.