5 comments about Gamefest: Pinball Classics.

1. After trying out Big Race U.S.A. at a friends house, I set out to find the complete Pro-Pinball series. I found it with this collection. When I recieved the package, I immediately went to my computer and installed them. I am totally satisfied with this collection. It is the ultimate pinball simulation for true pinball fans! You will spend hours trying to master each table!



2. I paid ~$15 for TimeShock a few years ago. I was absolutely FLOORED by the realistic gameplay. I already owned several pinball games from Sierra, etc. and I can tell you that TimeShock was so far ahead of those, I have never played a single one of them even once since. Graphics, gameplay, adjustable settings (in system menus that mimic a real table) -- incredible! In fact, that's your one risk in buying these -- that you'll become so spoiled you'll never be able to play another computer pinball game. That's why I'm thrilled to discover today that a four-pack from Pro*Pinball is available, so I will have more than one pinball game to play again. I can't wait to get it.



3. This game works fine if you use Windows 98. If you are using Windows XP or 2000, the game does not run at all. Very unhappy with game. No installation instructions or game instruction. Don't waste your money.



4. 4 games for around $4.00. not bad. All the pro pinball games are great with very good physiscs. The tables are so close to the real thing that it includes an operators mode where you can change options, ect...
   
   There's been talk about gamefest not including the music for timeshock and the web. That's a bunch of BS. Apparantly, it's a bug that's causing no music to be heard, which apears when you run the game the first time, after that, you should hear music.
   One way you can confirm this is by puting this disc in your cd player and skip to track 2.
   
   It lost one star because Big race usa and Fantasic J. runs slow when more than 2 balls are in play. Even though I'm using a powerful system. And even when I patched it. Very dissapointing.
   
   But in timeshock you can have up to 20 balls and no lag even at 1600 * 1200 * 32 or 16
   
   Even with those minor problems, this package is a must have.



5. This 4-disc set installs each game on your PC, but then requires the proper game disc to be inserted for each game to be played... useless on a MAME arcade setup like I have because one cannot easily access the computer's CD-ROM drive each time one wants to play.
   
   Software companies that $sell$ me their software and then treat me like a thief by restricting my use of the programs don't set well with me.

5 comments about The Big Box of Art 215,000 Images.

1. Works with AppleWorks and Adobe Illustrator

   Big Box of Art works well with Adobe Systems' Illustrator and PhotoShop. Also, you can use it with QuarkXpress, Word 98 and Corel Draw 8. Not mentioned in the Big Box of Art User Guide is Big Box of Art working with AppleWorks that comes free and works well with most Mac computers.

   Vector It. You will love Big Box of Art's vector art. Using Adobe Illustrator you can now make your posters and illustrations assignments standout from other graphic illustrators. Big Box of Art vector art allows you to save vector graphics in EPS format for use in your Adobe Illustrator work.

   Your Choices using Export Wizard

   After you select the image you want, double-click on the image to start the Export Wizard. Now you can choose how the image will be used. The wizard chooses the suitable format and image size based on your choice of the program you want to place it in for final editing. Advanced users will probably want to just select "Export." With the Wizard you have a Resize/Crop dialog. The resolution can be adjusted. If you need to crop the image, simply drag the handles.
   
   The Big Box of Art has 25 CDs for your use. When you search for the images you use Keywords, Type and Category.

   Big Box of Art's Image Catalog

   The Image Catalog gives you a thumbnail overview of several image types included in The Big Box of Art. Use it to supplement your searches when looking for the perfect image.

   Image Catalog

   Photo-Objects

   Agriculture & industry
   Architecture
   Business, commerce & trade
   Food & beverage
   Holidays & special occasions
   House & home
   Lifestyles & cultures
   Nature
   People
   Religion, myth & fantasy
   Science & technology
   Signs & symbols
   Social issues & government
   Sports & leisure

   Pro Comments

   You receive both a Big Box of Art User Guide and Image Catalog in paper form (hardcopy). No missing manual here.

   You receive both a Big Box of Art's Photo-Objects and Big Box of Art's PhotoFonts both worth the price of any single program.

   The Big Box of Art's Export Assistant gives you several choices for exporting and saving to various formats. You can choice TIFF with Transparency, GIF with Transparency, JPEG, JPEG Progressive, Mac Pic and Windows Bitmap.

   Con Comments

   Missing are programs that come with the Windows versions: Greeting Card Creator and CD Design Creator.

   Final Notes

   The Big Box of Art for Macintosh collection includes 10,000 Photo-Objects, 110,000 vector clip art images and 10,000 raster illustrations. Plus you receive 20,000 color photos, 10,000 black and white photos and 2,000 textured photos. In the graphics portion of the program you receive 26,000 Web graphics, 25,000 web images, 1,500 animations and 500 PhotoFont textures. Also, The Big Box of Art for Macintosh includes a 750 page image catalog.

   Added Bonus. One of best programs you can use is Big Box of Art's PhotoFont Maker. With this amazing program you can fill in fonts with photo realistic textures. Do as the professional designers do. Now, you can make your headlines come alive with graphics, texture and scenic sunsets with Big Box of Art's PhotoFonts.

   My experience using Hemera Big Box of Art. I use Big Box of Art's PhotoFonts for my ...website. The stars and stripes of the American Flag for the ARIE Foundation letters sets the tone for donations of stamps and sports cards for veterans in VA hospitals though out the United States.




2. I made the mistake of buying both this and the photo clip art images. The searching is terrible, but that's no surprise. The vector images aren't really vector, as they can only be downloaded as EPS files (for Mac). The quality of the images themselves are awful, and look like shady scan jobs. Definitely not for professional use, but barely good enough for fun use. Spend your money elsewhere, like the Art Explosion series. I love these and it comes with a huge catalog book to look up your clip art.



3. Crashed constantly when I first used it on my iMac running 10.3. After a while, it refused to load at all. The update only made the problem worse, so I've had virtually no use of it and can't recommend it to anyone. Whatever is wrong with it, the Hemera people should have fixed it, but they haven't and show no interest in doing anything.



4. I am running OSX3.8, and I have yet to get this application to even open. I have emailed Hemera customer support several times, with no response. Big Box of junk.



5. The problem with this library is that if you want to see any of the vector images, you need to load each DVD to see them in preview. And the preview is so small, you often have to download the image to see what it really looks like. It takes too much time to do this. I recommend Art Explosion. It comes with a book of all the images and the files are easier to download from the discs.

No comments about Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium Mac.

5 comments about Pyro 2003.

1. After having a bad time with Roxio EZ Creator 5, I went to the Pyro 2003 and had a pleasant surprise. It works! It might not be as fast or in some cases as easy as the Roxio was, but at least the damn thing works.



2. As a support person for over 200 PC's, I got sick and tired of the enduser's complaining about Roxio EZCD 5.
   The only thing EZ about it was how "easy" it was to cause me
   more grief.
   Upgrading to EZCD "Platinum edition" fixed most of the enduser's complaints.
   But the EZCD that came with the CDRW drives was supposed to "save us money". [Meaning that we bought a certain cdrw drive which provided a copy of EZCD, supposedly saving us the price of buying a cdrw software burner package.Instead we had to buy upgrades, meaning the Platinum edition, which isn't cheap].

   Having seen the problems with EZ, I bought Pyro for my own use.
   I have used Pyro 1 and now Pyro 2003.

   The only thing I did not like about Pyro (which is an issue with the maker of pyro, Cakewalk) was their upgrade polcy.
   A lot of companies will let you upgrade to the latest version, at a reduced price.
   The price for previous owners was basically the retail price.
   No decent pricebreaks for previous owners.




3. I won't lie to you it took me about an hour to get it.Im the typical male who wont read the instructions to anything. But even so I got it down in about an hour or so.Im use to the Roxio burner, and Pyro is day to night to that burner. But once I got eveything down it was smooth sailing from there. Of the recordings I have made I have had no problems at all. Pyro lets you fade, volume control etc. The only drawback is that it is a little slow burning compared to Roxio. Great for those new to burning also.



4. All the reviews indicated that this software was easy to use. I found the opposite. Maybe I'll get used to Pyro but I doubt it.
   I should have bought something else.



5. Wasted money,too complicated,dont use it anymore

No comments about Microsoft FrontPage 97.

5 comments about Nova PhotoImpact Pro 8.5.

1. I bought a Canon PowerShot and wasn't thrilled with the software I got free. Very limiting. So I got Photo Impact Pro, and it's just head and shoulders above what I had. I could spend months and still not uncover all the cool features in there ... it's just overwhelming the number of things you can do. But at the same time it's very easy to use. I'm a retired machinist with only 18 months experience even using computers, and it's a cinch for me ... so that says a lot. :-) A friend of mine turned me on to Photo Impact - a guy in our users' group - and he says it's more sophisticated than Photoshop Elements (the other program I was considering). From what I can see, he's right. I use Photo Impact to edit and print the photos I take. And I've added captions and some effects. Haven't made a CD slideshow yet, but I expect to. I hope this review is helpful to you. I don't think you can go wrong with this program.



2. After reading what other reviewers said about this product, I couldn't wait to get it. Well, it didn't take long after installation for me to realize what a total idiot I am. There's a whole lot of great effects that are fun to work with, but the basic editing tools seem unbelievably complex to me. It comes with a nice thick manual which is also as clear as mud to me. A good basic glossary would be helpful. I have been humbled, and will return to my simple Picture It and Adobe Photo Deluxe where I can crop a picture and adjust the tint without feeling helpless. I am sure this is a wonderful program, and will probably use it more when I have several free weeks to devote to clicking and dragging.

   Several weeks after writing this review, I feel compelled to edit it to note that in response to my initial review, I was personally called by a Nova Development representative to offer technical assistance. I still haven't mastered the program, but am very impressed with this kind of customer service, enough to upgrade by rating by a star.




3. After working with PhotoImpact Pro 8.5 for over 6 months I have decided that it is much smarter than this education specialist. I have been a photographer for over thirty years, am computer literate and considered a better than average math teacher of over 18 years, but this program is more difficult to master than any secondary school child could ever be :) I purchased PhotoImpact thinking that it would replace my Adobe Photo Deluxe edition, Picture it, and two other simple digital photo programs. I am somewhat disappointed but do not plan on giving up. I am going back to "school" after having this program sit on the shelf from frustration and hope to become a "master" graphics and photo developer by sheer determination.



4. First off, let me tell you that I'm not a pro at computers, or softwares. I'm just a regular person who likes to take pictures of my family and friends. I have been using Microsoft Digital Image Pro, and felt the need to move on to bigger and better things that allowed my creativity to grow. On various scrapbooking websites and magazines, I'd been hearing about Photo Impact. I took a chance and paid $70 bucks for it. After loading it on my PC, I was mortified. It's nothing like Micrsoft Digital Image Pro. It's way complicated! I couldn't even crop a photo in it. I know this is a great program, but it's too hard for regular people who found Adobe difficult to use. I've searched all of my scrapbooking sites for tutorials, and they're hard to find. Micrsoft Digital Image Pro, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, and Adobe have a lot more help for newbies. Right now, I'm using the Video Tutorial that comes with it, and I'm also reading the manual. Give me about 2 years. I'll get the hang of it eventually.



5. This software is fabulous! It takes a little research of the accompanying manual, however well worth it! I have used this software to make web graphics, edit photographs, make flyers, just about everything you can think of...The effects, layering and also the compression of a large picture is an excellent little extra for putting large pics on the web for quick loading! Unfortunately, now using Windows Vista it is not compatible...and I have to upgrade! Thanks Amazon for keeping this software affordable!

No comments about X-Rite M50103 ColorChecker Grayscale Card.

3 comments about Printmaster 10 (Jewel Case).

1. This is fairly good for simple projects. It is very user friendly. In fact, Printmaster will even walk you through some projects. What I don't like is the limited graphics. Some of the graphics really don't print well.



2. This program is good if you're just starting because it's easy to use. As you get more advanced it feels like it kind of grows with you. I have done a wealth of projects using this simeple program. I plan on purchasing the update version soon.



3. This purchase was to replace a broken disc. Although this is an old version, I still use it and love it; it's quick and easy; very user-friendly.

No comments about iPlayMusic Guitar Lessons 3 DVD Value Pack with Play Music Together and Levels 1 & 2.

4 comments about DVD Copy.

1. This software makes it easy to make copies of DVD movies. It can convert and copy a DVD-9 disc onto a single DVD+/-R disc with just two or three clicks. The only drawback is that you have to use a ripper/descrytor to get rid of the copy protected encrytion and put the image onto the disk first. The ripper/descrytor that I used is "DVD Descrytor" which is a freeware. The picutre quality is great.



2. I was intrested in this program for the Divx copy features. The more I read about it, the better it kept sounding. I download the trail version and it worked ok. DvD copy was on sale at the local software store so I bought it. After installing it, it did not work and froze my system up.

   1. If no DVD is in, the program will start up and after putting a DVD in it will freeze my system except for the mouse.

   2. If a DVD is in on the startup, program will freeze.

   I went to the website for patches and there was none. There are 4 other programs on the web site that they say the software needs to run. It is beyond me how a trail piece of software will work and the full version will not.

   I would have taken this back, because I never had software behave so badly before, but like a idiot I wrote the serial # on the cd with a marker.

   My advice is make sure you shop around other companys software and try a trail version first. Although this did me no good. And make sure you like the interface before you buy.

   To be fair, I have not called (Toll call) the support line or emailed support about this problem. So I cant comment on the companys responce on fixing it.




3. I have been playing around with my new DVD burner (as probably a lot of people have been) and have created a number of DVD's from home movies. I bought this product because it claimed you could just pull off the chapters you wanted from a given DVD. I thought it would be a nice way to create some "greatest hits" DVD's for the grandparents instead of re-creating and recoding the raw AVI files.
   The product installed fine. I grabbed a DVD off my shelf and it said that it was copyrighted, so I couldn't do anything with it. Well, that was fine. That wasn't why I bought it. Then, I put in one of my homemade DVD's. The product continually crashed whenever any homemade DVD was in the drive. Now, my six year old DVD player doesn't have any issues with the DVD+R's I've burned. Every time I pop one into my DVD drive on my PC, the DVD player software kicks in. And I'm pretty sure I didn't put Macrovision on our Christmas footage. So what gives?
   The product came with a short booklet (I loved the quick paragraph on how to defeat the copy protection part of the software) and I did read it and look at the website quickly. That's not to say I didn't read everything that has to do with the product I bought, there just wasn't much to read and no patches, no potential fixes, etc.
   So, I have a $50 program that doesn't work on copy protected material, but doesn't work on non-copy protected material either. Kind of defeats the purpose of owning it.



4. I don't know why people are griping so much about Intervideo's DVD Copy. This is a great, user friendly program for burning DVD's. It's sole purpose is to copy DVD's to DVD, VCD, SVCD formats. But, and there's always a but, you need to decrypt most DVD's first before ripping them.
   
   If you own an extensive DVD library like me, you want to use copies of your very best DVD's that you watch most often instead of the originals. These are often copy protected. Most people understand that you need to decrypt a copyrighted DVD first before burning/ripping it.
   
   The best tools for decrypting are DVD Decrypter for straight across decrypting of 4.5GB DVD's or less in size or DVD Shrink for DVD's that use Dual Layer technology to get up to 8.5GB's out of the commercial DVD. Most commerical DVD's now come in around the 7.2 GB to 7.9 GB size and are rarely larger than this and usually smaller in most cases.
   
   If you want something to author your own DVD's, DVD Copy isn't for you. This is really just a compression copy or straight copy DVD program to put your movie on a DVD, or onto CD's using VCD or SVCD format or DivX if you really feel the need to use that format.
   
   When I purchased the program I knew what I was getting and I got exactly what I needed. I did my research first. Regardless of what others have written here, take my word for it, it's easy to use and won't disappoint but you need to have an understanding of the DVD ripping technologies first before embarking in the DVD backup of your DVD libary.