5 comments about eMedia Piano and Keyboard Method Volume 1.

1. Excellent service, and the product worked extremely well.
   The only criticism I would have is the cost of Postage. it was ridiculous, the product came in a big parcel, and inside was a dvd.



2. From all the reviews and the product descriptions posted, I was disappointed with the product. I bought this to motivate my 7yr old and to suppliment his formal lessons. The multimedia/video button crashes the program every time - the web site lists getting the latest edition of quicktime - not effective. Unlike Music Ace Deluxe the keyboard input is delayed by 1/2 a second - support recommends buying a new sound card with low latency.
   Don't recommend this for youngsters, adults can get still get use out of this program by ignoring the lagging keyboard input and not touching the multimedia/video button. I have the guitar version and was very happy with it; the same can't be said for this Emedia product.



3. I ordered this software, but when it arrived, the box contained the CD for eMedia's Guitar Method. I went through the replacement process, but the second box also contained the same wrong CD. Finally just went to Guitar Center and bought it -- software works well on the Mac.



4. The program crashed everytime I tried to play the videos. I upgraded QuickTime per their web site's suggestion and that didn't help either. The program is made for low resolution monitors and while you can switch to full screen mode, it just changes your Windows resolution to a very low setting so it fills up the screen.
   
   I didn't even get to the second screen in the introduction. Maybe you'll have more luck on a Mac, but I wouldn't suggest this program for anyone running on a new Windows based PC.



5. This is so shameful that it makes me think there should a federal agency whose mission it is to keep things like this off the market.
   
   First off, it is a "Director" movie, which means /really/ old software technology, which means adding a high degree of boring and uninteresting user interface.
   
   The features in this software are awful. There are none, essentially.
   
   I was really hoping to find something along the lines of Mavis Beacon Typing, with games and such to help me work on chord progression and key scales. There's nothing like this.
   
   And the woman who is featured in the video clips is truly frightening.
   
   Its like this product was explicitly designed to invoke all the ugly memories we have of being forced to take all those boring piano lessons with that grouchy old person when we were kids.
   
   If you want to start making music, don't buy this. Buy the "Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory". MUCH better.

No comments about Marvel Heroes Comic Book Creator.

5 comments about Art Explosion Seasons, Events & Holidays.

1. While I realize our experiences with a company's customer service varies, I just want to echo another user's complaints with Nova. I have Their Seasons, Events, etc. software in addition to their Greeting Card and Business Card packages and found their suport to be quite terrible. It took multiple emails and numerous excuses (operating system corrupted, OS not designed well, etc.) before admitting their software was at fault. But, the price is right at $0.00 - a penny more is a penny too much, IMHO



2. This product was much nicer than I ever thought it would be. It has great images and unlike most low priced clip art I buy, it actually comes with a book showing you all the images printed out! I did nto expect it but it's great! I did have a question about how to use a particular image but the call was answered quickly by Nova and they even showed me how to edit the image to make it work for me even better! Very very pleased, especially with the price!



3. Last year my mother let me borrow this software to create holiday greeting cards to mail to friends, family, and business contacts. This holiday season I bought myself a copy. I did not know how to install the disc so I called tech support. They kindly held my hand while I downloaded it to my computer. They explained that these images can be used in almost every type of software imaginable (greeting card, label, scrapbook, and word processing was a few examples I was given). No holiday has been forgotten in this image library. It does not matter what faith you follow, you will find professional quality images in this software



4. This will be the second year using this clipart for my seasonal cards and projects. I have even given members of my sewing club copies of this. This really gives you the ability to make great looking holiday cards.
   There is a large number of categories included in this image library, including some unlikely ones. There are images for: Super Bowl Sunday, Kwanzaa, St. Patrick's Day, Graduations, BBQ's & Picnics, Back-to-school, and many, many more!



5. The clip art you get with this package is very good. I bought it for clip art that I could use for my engagement/wedding announcements, "Save the date" Magnets, Invitations, ect. For these purposes, the clip art was exceptional. The Catalogue sent with the program is a wonderful addition and is a definate plus. However, the pictures are where I felt the program makers let the customer down. There are only 5 categories of pictures. Three of those categories are religious. The other two categories are seasons and holidays, both of which are well stocked with great photos. If you are looking for A LOT of religious photos as well as,again, an excellent collection of clip art, this is your product. If you just want the clip art, again, this is your product. However, if you are buying it for the pictures and expect any sort of variety, do not buy this product.

3 comments about Turbo Cad 9.1 Standard.

1. If you want to get started in CAD, but aren't sure it's for you, then this is a great investment. For $10 you can design just about anything your little heart desires. The learning curve is not that bad, but the documentation is not that good. (That's why four stars)
   
   This product is not too complicated, and using it will let you know if you need to invest in a more feature filled version.
   
   I use it to design projects for my home workshop. It has made a noticeable improvement in my milling and lathe work.
   
   Next, I'm going to try furniture.



2. I work with AutoCAD at work but I needed something to plan my re-modelling at home and this product is perfect for that.
   WHile it might not have all the features ACAD does (remember you are buying it for lest then 1% of the cost of ACAD), it has all you need for a small type of project and is very easy to use.
   The package actually combines House Design software (separate) and the CAD soft.
   Highly recommend!!!



3. I trained on and used two much more expensive CAD programs before I retired as a facility director. This program is a terrific value and is much more sophisticated than I had expected.

5 comments about WinDVD 9 Plus.

1. I've used windvd for a lot of years, mainly because it is well-behaved and seems to play the wide variety of media that I want to play without complaint. This version is no different. I'm using this both on win xp and vista and have had no problems on either platform.
   
   One thing that I really dislike about this version however are the controls. Everyone is familiar with vcr-style controls. Play, pause, stop, fast forward, fast reverse, and skip to next/prev chapter. So why dork with that? *boggle* But no, Coral decided that it would somehow improve the interface to remove the fast forward/fast reverse buttons and combine that functionality with the chapter forward and back. The net result is that it is a lot harder to use, and much less intuitive.



2. Crashes immediately when All2HD (upsampling) is enabled. Unable to play DVDs until WinDVD is reinstalled.



3. The two commercial survivors WinDvd and PowerDvd have parlayed all the free distributions into a large market share and their costs have become astronomical and their software so complex it locks up... Might I suggest a freeware HIGH DEFINITION alternative, the VLC DVDPlayer as well as another no cost player the AVS DVD player... The VLC DVDPlayer can play MKV extensions and a ton of other formats. To test it, I watched a Spiderman I HD disc rip (.mkv) on my computer and it was beautiful....You don't always have to pay for hyped inferior software



4. Upconverting to HD type quality is a great feature, however, there is one main reason to buy WinDVD, and it's a good one:
   
   Time Stretch
   
   For several editions now, WinDVD has had a feature called Time Stretch. Essentially, this allows you to watch a movie faster than its original time. For example, a 2 hour movie in only 1.5 hours. You could even watch a movie TWICE as FAST as it normally would be (2 hours becomes only 1) but then everyone sounds like chipmunks, and the action is very fast. This allows you to watch more movies in less amount of time. When time is short, this can be very helpful.
   
   That being said, this version of WinDVD doesn't seem to have keyboard shortcuts to speed up the time, forcing you to use your mouse to speed it up. Previous version(s), 4 in particular, allowed you to press a key on the keyboard to speed things up or down.
   
   Great program that would be made better if this keyboard shortcut was re-implemented.
   
   Walt D in LV
   
   P.S. If I have somehow missed this keyboard shortcut, please let me know my error. I really love the TimeStretch feature.



5. IT appears that Corel has messed up the WinDVD product.
   
   My problems:
   
   1) Trial version will not work on Windows XP x64, PowerDVD trial does.
   
   2) Tech support responses are the standard dribble you can query online.
   Even if youmention you tried the online help, you still get the same
   response from tech support.
   
   3) No Blu-Ray trial available from Corel WinDVD. I need it for seeing how
   well blu0ray plays. I would have to assume the blu-ray plays correctly.
   Not much of a problem since the trial will not work.
   
   PowerDVD does have a Blu-Ray trial available
   
   4) Unable to download a new trial. Repeatedly tells me my trial period
   has ended. Removed everything per their help/tech support and still
   unable to trya new trial. So I am unable to see if they have a newer
   version that works under windows XP x64
   
   Personally I should not have to be looking at getting a newer version, but the powerDVD one that came with the blu-ray player only does 2 channell audio. This is done on purpose and extremely annoying as they want nearly $70.00 for an upgrade and all I am getting is 5.1 surround which has been around for MANY years. This should come as a default part of version that comes with your Blu-Ray Drive.
   
   Another user said it, they are overcharging for the Blu-Ray option and high def oriented software. With only 2 vendors in PowerDVD and WinDVD your choices are too few. PowerDVD's sound options are limited even under the full version, not impressed with either product.

2 comments about Macware Logo Design Studio Pro.

1. In all the years of using my Mac and using some useful, pleasing-to-work-with Macintosh programs (about 10 years), I have NEVER used a product that has such low standards. The company seems not to know what customer service, software quality is. I am surprized that this company markets Mac software at all!
   
   First of all there is no demo at the company website. I was told that they would put a demo link "next week" - that was about more than a month ago. The program looked promising... (I have to give them credit for their press release skills and marketing skills though - precisely the reason I fell for it!). I bought the software. That's when the trouble started! At first, I thought it was my iMac (iMac/G5/2GB/Leopard) but then I tried on my MacBook Pro/IC2Duo/2GB/Leopard, same story there. I don't know how the company actually puts out this software as commercial software! Some menu commands don't work at all, once I placed the vector object on the canvas I could not move it, neither could I resize it, holy mackerel! In the prev. version if I resized the raster object placed on the canvas, it would turn into a jagged mess! It keeps quitting/crashing!- like I said I have never seen a software product that is of such poor quality. I talked to the company and was about to get a refund, they convinced me that the bugs are being worked on and there's a new version coming out. So I get that version, now the vector objects don't show up on the media palette at all! So the company publishes an SVG importer. Now this is three updates later, the program quits on my G5, I can't select the object I just put on the canvas, can't move it (mouse or arrow keys). I mean the list goes on! I am beginning to wonder if these people are actually using a Mac to produce/test their software!!
   
   Finally I had to do my stuff in Apple Pages - Eventhoughh it can't handle SVG/Vector graphics, atleast it works! Finally I got a refund.
   
   Stay as far away from this product as you possibly can. This product should not even be sold anywhere. I also noticed that it no longer shows up on Apple Store shelves, just before that I was wondering how Apple ever kept such poor quality stuff on their shelves...



2. Earlier versions did have some crash issues and did not fully support SVG (scalable vector graphics), except with exporting as an SVG, but the new 1.8.000 version really sets the mark.
   
   I have been unable to reproduce any crashes from earlier versions, and now the application fully supports SVG which means I can bring in any SVG created with Illustrator and edit each layer of the imported graphic fully; I can also now export as an SVG or PDF and it keeps the vector information in case I want to open and edit the exported graphic in another vector editor like Illustrator. There are also new vector based artistic strokes that have been added so you can jazz up the outline of any shape or text.
   
   The new version also now includes over 1300 pre-designed graphic objects in SVG format so you can open and edit each object fully to make entirely new and unique object designs. And, the 500 pre-designed logo templates also give you a great place to start in your designs...simply change the text to your own and tweak the graphic if needed...then export it for any web or print based project. Nothing can ever replace Illustrator, but for the price, this software packs a creative punch.

3 comments about Adobe Photoshop CS2 Plus CS3 14hr Video Training Course By Hometutorials.

1. I would recommend Home Tutorial's Photoshop CS2 to anyone starting out in Photoshop. It is a keeper-type of tutorial that you will refer to when doing something for the first time in Photoshop. ("Let's see - how'd he do that?")
   
   However, several of the lessons were, at times, disjointed and appeared to have not been rehearsed before the lesson was actually produced. And some of the example photos used in various lessons left a lot to be desired. Also the volume certainly needs to be increased as the tiny speakers in my monitor couldn't be tweaked loud enough to hear every word.
   
   I had the opportunity to look at a good portion of Magic Media's "Mastering Photoshop" tutorial that is used by a local on-line college in their Photoshop course. Even with the above-mentioned faults of the Home Tutorials Photoshop CS2 tutorial, I thought it was significantly better than the "Mastering Photoshop" tutorial. On the other hand, if you want to buy the absolute best CS2 tutorial, buy Total Training's CS2 tutorial. It is about 20 times more expensive than Home Tutorial's Photoshop CS2, but it is the best.
   
   Bottom line: Home Tutorials Photoshop CS2 is worth buying.



2. This dvd is geared toward the beginner to intermediate level. It covers the fundamentals but you need to supplement it with reading and possibly taking a class. It is about the same as taking a class in a community college for a fraction of the cost.



3. This is a very good tutorial for Photoshop CS3. It covers the subjects in a clear and understandable program.

2 comments about PICTURE PUBLISHER 7.

1. I own many photo editing packages. Recently I bought Picture Publisher 7 in a retail and i'm very happy with the filters
   and the resources of this software. Cheap and very profesional, similar to other expensive programs. A great deal!



2. For those still using the obsolete program: Micrografx Draw 6 this is the 'image editor' a few things have been added but not enough to want me to keep it in my computer so I uninstalled it.
   If they hadn't changed the name I wouldn't have wasted my money.
   I rated it 4 because I love Draw 6 and the image editor was part of the program and I use it everyday (with my Draw 6) but I don't need another one.

No comments about Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 6.

No comments about Cakewalk SONAR 7 Producer Edition - Windows.