3 comments about McAfee Internet Guard Dog Pro.

1. Stay away from this product. It took my Microsoft Internet Browser 5.5 hostage. I had to format my Hard Drive. I also tried the Office 2000 version and the same. MaAfee has no patch available to solve this issue. They are claiming that upgrading to version 3.12 will work- I wouldn't take the chance for the third time....



2. I did a fair amount of research on products of this type before making a purchase. I also tried several of the "try-before-you-buy" downloadable products that were recommended by the more popular trade rags. Internet Guard Dog recieved good reviews from these sources so I was surprized to read the Amazon customer reviews. Being concerned about Internet security exposures, I went ahead and bought Internet Guard Dog Pro. The installation went flawlessly. I was surprized to see how many files had been left by web sites on my PC, especially since I regulary "clean" my hard drive and am careful about which sites I receive cookies from. I'm impressed with this product and would recommend it to anyone. Just as a side note, being an experienced user, I have the bad habit of thinking that product documentation is for wimps. I was careful to follow the installation instructions, given the bad experiences that others had mentioned here, and I have not experienced any problems.



3. I use McAfee Guard Dog. Unfortunately, it is no longer available from McAfee. It was actually a Cybermedia product that did and does things others fail at...like find stealth cookies that DO NOT show up on Norton or in Zone Alarm. I really don't feel protected on the net without Guard Dog. It gets loaded FIRST!

5 comments about Music Center Pro.

1. Now the guys from DATA BECKER have come out with Music Center Pro and have made some decent adjustments in style and technology. The terrible red interface is gone - now it's all silver and metal, the program is full 32-bit (now the filenames can be longer than 8 digits - thank you) and there are a lot of features that you normally have to pay much, much more for:

   Included Direct-X Effects support

   Graphic Effects interface

   The number of tracks (audio and midi) are doubled Video support

   3D Spatiauliser (looks good - but I'm not yet sure what's this for)

   and a full GM/XG midi support - to be honest, something I've not seen in ANY other package so far.

   I was very enthusiastic about MC and MC Pro certainly is a step upwards from there. The price for that kind of software is ridiculously low - but who am I to complain.

   It would be great if the other DATA BECKER software would be up to that standard, which it sadly is not.

   One more: Beginners beware: Buy the original MC first, MC Pro has too many features to make you happy when you're not already into HD-Recording and PC-Music Production.




2. I am an experienced musician but a beginner as far as MIDI and electronic music goes (although i am much more than a PC literate). This CD has been a waste of my money and time. The user guide is useless, it just describes one by one all the menus (Like "New File": click here to open a new file...). Zero added value. I haven't been able to make it work. It is like a nice Ferrari without a motor. I wonder if the unique 5 star review has been written by the guy who wrote the software.

   Anyway i'm returning this software today...

   PS: i wanted to put 0 star but amazon did not allow me...




3. Other than creating a new sequence file, the program was easyto use. More functions could be listed in the drop downmenus. However, problems started right after installation. The programcrashed when importing an audio file. Re-installed the program and itworked fine. It would crash when closed after importing a midi fileinto the default screen. No big deal. Selecting a new file whenstarting the program fixed this issue. First time I saved a song, thenext time I opened up the file all the tracks were missing. Found afix for this. However, 1 hour down the drain. Copied all the waves inthe default save folder. The program uses shortcuts to the wave files,which is moronic. Everything seemed good. I had twelve tracks ofaudio pieced together. Then I tried opening up my song(which had beenopening fine,) the program crashed. Restarted the computer. Stillcrashed. 4 hours of work down the drain. Finally after hours of tryingdifferent preferences. I figured out a fix for this. Move the wavefiles to another folder, and open the sequence. Finally the... program opened up my song. You can bet that I am not going to usethis program for future recordings. The stability of a program whichis used to create ... better than this. It's definitly not worth themoney I paid for it. You'd be better off with ... As a matter of factI will not buy software that has Data Becker on it. All they do isdistribute the program. If they would have tested it, they would haveknown it was a piece of garbage. As a matter of fact, I was surprisedwhen I went to their website and there wasn't a patch. After all theproblems I was having and not one mention of these issues. There FAQwas a joke... END



4. I have Techno EJay, and I wanted to get a few more options (cut and paste, fading, etc...) With Techno two hours after I had opened the box I had written a song that sounded rather professional, I was very pleased. With Data Becker's Music Center Pro they've made things that should be Easy and Simple so Complex it's just frustrating. Instead of the 1 inch thick book it comes with how about including a College course? It may be the best music software on earth but if I can't use it what good is it to me? You finally get a little music going and then the software crashes... stupid, stupid, stupid...



5. It did have it's little glitches, but when it worked it work very well, I had to move up to Music Center Live when I changed my operating system to Windows 2000Pro, and it had problems with the effects not working when I would finish a mix.
   My biggest complaint would be the lack of support from Data Becker, I wrote them twice asking simple little questions , and never got an answer, I think I'll try Cakewalk next.

1 comments about Office Ready Family Essentials.

1. Don't buy this product. It won't work with office 2000 without a patch-I got patch and still didn't work. Canon does not support software. If you call the number given by canon, the number is disconnected. This product never worked properly from what I can tell and Canon never cared. If you are running xp, forget it, it won't even install. Bottom line, don't buy this product, and I would never buy anything from canon again.

No comments about Reflection for X MS 32 BIT 8.0 Upgrade.

No comments about McAfee Uninstaller 6.0.

No comments about Business Resource Collection (7 CD-ROM Collection).

No comments about Webcatalog Builder 3.0.

No comments about PhotoDV 1394 Firewire.

4 comments about MP3 Wizard 2.0.

1. Works very nicely. Much better than v.1 No problems.



2. This is a very clunky, very limited piece of software. It converts files to mp3's from pretty much any other format. But that's it. You can't edit your sound files. You can't turn mp3's into other file formats (except .wav - but you can get freeware programs that do that). The CD writing options are limited. The only good point is that the interface is spiffy-looking.

   But the thing that makes me mad enough to get online and write a review is this: it won't let me completely fill my CDs. I can only use, say, 70 minutes out of an 80-minute CD or it will give me an error message. Or it will only allow me to write maybe 18 files to the disk, even if I have space left. I am very disappointed in this program and am kicking myself for buying it.




3. I had used the earlier version of Mp3 Wizard which was riddled with problems (some were corrected with patches). However, 2.0 claimed to be such an upgrade from the last with the bugs all worked out. I am having the same problem as another customer, that is it will not let me fill up an 80 minute CD (as was advertised)and will continually give me error messages when I attempt to burn more than 16 or 17 songs. I have contacted the Mp3 Wizard tech support about this a few times and they have not yet offered any solutions to this problem nor have been the best at customer service. I am dissapointed in this product, especially since it was supposed to be a great improvement over the earlier version, which it is not!



4. Not worth the CD-ROM it is printed on. Tried to edit MP3s with this program (cut portions from the end of files), and it made the entire file just one long, whiny sound. My advice: if you see this in a store - Run away. Buy something (anything) else.

No comments about Street Wizard Pro 7.0 & Navigator Bundle.