5 comments about Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Commercial Version.

1. As a standalone, Fireworks will do what you need. It will create excellent web graphics. Menus, sites, animated gifs, rollovers, etc...

   However, I would strongly suggest to you that you at least add Dreamweaver MX 2004 to the mix, preferably Studio MX 2004. The programs work so seemlessly together that it's almost like working in a single program.




2. I have been using Fireworks MX for three months now and I must admit that it provides web designers with tools to makes awesome looking pages. However, it still needs some work.

   Fireworks MX 2004 makes improvements and boasts some new features. From my experience thus far, there are basic shapes included to the rectangle, circle, etc. You can now do 'L' shapes, donuts, etc. The basic shapes appears to have doubled. There are also a few more filters. The interface looks more or less the same, and selecting textures is now presented with a colored picture, but still the same textures. I'm sure there are more upgrades, but I haven't had enough time with it.

   I first wrote this review with a complaint about the picture quality for renders. However, I realized that setting the picture quality to 100% instead of the default 80% changed everything. While the file size increases, it is a better trade off for quality.

   It would be great if there were much more features for Fireworks MX 2004. If you currently own Fireworks MX, there really is no reason for the upgrade. If you don't have any previous version of Fireworks, I suggest looking at the competition. Yes there is competition.

   Ask any web designer which photo editing program they use and chances are the answer will be Photoshop and Image Ready. These two programs work hand in hand to deliver some of the best, if not the best tools on the market. Plus there are a lot more features than that of Fireworks MX 2004. I've only begun playing around with Photoshop 7.0 and Image Ready 7.0 (a step back from the CS edition) for two weeks and I'm getting the feeling that once I get use to it I won't turn back.




3. ...this review is more for you than the professional or even the newbie. I'm not a graphics pro, though I have a decent amount of experience on everything from Paint Shop Pro to programs no longer in use. I started using Fireworks as part of the Studio suite of programs included with Dreamweaver and the other Macromedia products. When I started using Dreamweaver, I wasn't aware of what Fireworks could do and held off using it. But when I needed professional looking graphic logos, and Corel Draw wasn't doing what I needed, I went to Fireworks and haven't looked back.

   Fireworks does image manipulation similar to Photoshop. Whether it is as capable in that area is debatable. I haven't used Photoshop, but have ordered a copy to see the differences. I'm also not as skilled in image work as I am in things like creating graphics for web sites or business cards, so I'm not the best source of comparison. However, I have taken some original images I shot with my digicam and worked with them to get the results I liked. There are many features in Fireworks for this kind of work, and for the most part, unless you are doing something spectacular, you should be able to use FW for this task. Unfortunately, if you want a thorough discussion on vector and raster graphics and software, this isn't it.

   As far as original graphics, I like the way FW works. You can set up a "canvas" the size you want, have the graphic sized by pixels, and change both easily. Also, perhaps like other programs, there is a great deal of use of X/Y coordinates, so items can be placed very precisely. Unlike PSP (or at least the version I last used), once an item is placed, you can still select that item (text, box, image, etc.) and put it somewhere else. The native PNG format that FW produces uploads to web pages directly without conversion to JPG or GIF, and I found that very worthwhile. For some reason, my logos in Corel Draw were coming out with fuzzy text, even at high resolutions. I drew the same or similar logos in FW and had no distortion problems. It may have been a graphic format conversion issue. Either way, its not a problem working with FW, DW, and the web.

   FW is reasonably easy to learn to use. It will take you a while to get good at it, however. And you probably won't become a graphics pro just by buying this software. However, it is nice to have this program in my toolkit for general, advanced amateur use. Maybe you add Photoshop if you really need it, but for the most part, this just might get the job done.




4. Don't get me wrong...its stands tall even when used seperately but what makes it better is its seamless integration with Dreamweaver. There aren't many studio apps. that provide this kind of flexibility.



5. I was never particularly interested in graphic design. I'm still not. Even so, I realize the importance of graphics in presentation. A background as an engineer convinced me of this and my work (limited) in publishing and teaching just makes the point stronger. I have some limited experience with the Adobe line including PHOTOSHOPE and ILLUSTRATOR. Those are powerful tools but way beyond what I was willing to learn. For me, FIREWORKS fit the bill.
   
   Since it is a Macromedia product, FIREWORKS is well integrated with DREAMWEAVER. Using the two products in conjunction with each other has proved much easier than I thought it would be. As an added plus, FIREWORKS uses the PNG file format for its native work. This format can be comprised of a mixture of both vector and raster graphics. This means that PHOTOSHOP and ILLUSTRATOR files are understood and can be combined. The output can be in a variety of formats chosen by the artist. I am most pleased.
   
   I am still not overly interested in the graphic end of things but my production does look much nicer now. I know that FIREWORKS has many more capabilities that I have not yet tapped. I actually expect to enjoy learning about these.

No comments about Frontlook Page Effects.

5 comments about Sunbelt iHateSpam 4.

1. iHateSpam not only blocks the lion's share of spam I receive, it also allows me to send a (convincing but fake) bounce message and/or report spam abuse to various authorities. iHateSpam also allows the user to easily tag a sender/domain as a friend or enemy and black/whitelist them accordingly. The program is easy to install and configure out of the box, and allows for extensive tweaking to make it work the way you want it to. As a network sysadmin who is very conservative about introducing new software in a corporate environment, I consider iHateSpam to be the most stable, user-accessible and empowering anti-spam software currently available, and have recommended it for corporate use without hesitation.



2. Since I started using this product I have no more spam and it never ever catches my good email. I get 300+ spam messages a day and it catches all of them. Awesome product, and it's dirt cheap!



3. This program is easy to install, works very well, and rapidly cleans out "in-box" junk. I receive 60-70 pieces of spam per day, and it processes them in approximately 20 seconds. The filtering accuracy rate is around 95%. Integrates very nicely with XP-Outlook-Norton, and is much more effective than Outlook 2003 as a stand alone.
   
   The only issue I have encountered is the program is not designed to support multiple users signed on simultaneously. In XP this results in a blinking cursor. The cure is to log off when switching users. Support figuring out this "undocumented feature" was great.
   
   Have recommended and this to family of friends, and is a welcome tool in the anti-spam crusade.



4. I bought this software and wish I hadn't. None of the tabs work and my friends, colleagues go to delete. I can't move them back using "not spam" or "add friend" buttons. Have written four emails to the company for help and received no replies.
   
   Avoid this one



5. I have been using this product for 3 years. To obtain full functionality I also purchased the full edition of Outlook to use along with I Hate Spam.
   
   At first I Hate Spam was moderately effective at filtering spam. It did catch 90% of the spam and almost never incorrectly classified a legitimate email as spam.
   
   However it was also very slow. It took 5 minutes to process 75 incoming emails each morning, and dealing with the 10% of spam missed was extremely inefficient - manually designating a single email as spam would cause Outlook to lock up an agonizing 20 seconds. Designating multiple emails as spam was even more inefficient, and there were anoying limits on how many emails I could designate as spam in a single click.
   
   Customer support was unresponsive to complaints about this product.
   
   After the one year support period for this product elapsed, the performance recognizing spam dropped from adequate (90%) to pathetic (2%). When I purchased renewed support for the product the performance restored to adequate, and then again became pathetic after the expiration of the support window. I strongly suspect that there is a built-in expiration feature that causes this degredation in performance exactly after a year of use.
   
   While I would have been happy to pay for this product as a subscription service, (particularly if it were better supported and not quite so slow), I think it is unethical for the publisher to market it as they do without disclosing the essentially MANDATORY support fees.

3 comments about Dreamweaver MX 2004 Upgrade from Dreamweaver 4, MX, UltraDev 4, ColdFusion Studio 5.0, JRun Studio 3.x.

1. I've been designing with DW for a while now. The 2004 upgrade remains essentially the same, except for a few changes:

   [1] The default is now CSS. If you want a tables based layout, you can still work with it but a change needs to be made in the preferences.

   [2] The previous Dreamweaver MX supported CSS-P to a degree but editing it wasn't always easy. MM were obviously aware of Dreamweaver's rendering problems and for the new version, have borrowed upon Opera's rendering engine to do some of the hard work and it's now several magnitudes better.

   [3] Secure FTP built in

   [4] Microsoft Word and Excel copy and paste. Earlier version would lose the formatting when text was pasted inside DW. In this sense, DW now equals Frontpage

   [5] On-the-fly cross-browser compatibility checking

   [6] Some simple image editing like cropping and tonal adjustments without leaving the program

   All this is fine and dandy, some of these features are also a god-send, but the CSS handling is a bit quirky yet. Surely, there must be a simpler and more intuitive way to do all this? There's far too much jumping around the interface required. Instead of providing one really inspired WYSIWYG way to do things, it seems to offer a multiplicity of mediocre alternatives, almost as if the programmers couldn't make their minds up and say, 'Hell, we'll put it all in'. That is a recipe for camels, not thoroughbred racehorses.

   If you know your way around Dreamweaver already, you might welcome the new CSS editing facilities but 50% of the full price for an upgrade seems grossly excessive. I'm a bit disappointed that after all this time, Macromedia have produced something that is okay, but not great.

   Besides, in the rush for an upgrade (now that GoLive is getting its own feet too) MM seems to have settled for some degree of bloat. My DW updated to 2004 MX is even more of a RAM hog than before.

   Net net: I'd wait for the next version upgrade, by when hopefully MM would have tied in all these loose ends.




2. Clearly Dreamweaver is the best application available for developing a professional website. If you're in the business this is your platform and that's all there is to it. Oh okay. The REAL professionals code by hand. (Yawn.)

   As for me, I've been coding with Dreamweaver MX. What a great program. It comes to work everyday, fires right up and launches the client's pages smoothly along the 'ole information superhighway. No breakdowns (well, almost no breakdowns), no arresting offenses and no intramural collisions. Dreamweaver has all the efficiency and power of an 18-wheeler blowing past a gaggle of overloaded rental trucks dragging along unstable trailers and add-ons that threaten to careen out-of-control at any moment.

   DW MX 2004 takes slightly longer to fire up, but its customizable insert bar, CSS support and code editing options keep this new version upgrade zooming right along. I wish the right-click slide out menu for files didn't require another slide out for editing such as page renaming, duplicating or deleting files. The simple workaround is leaning the keystrokes.

   If you're using Dreamweaver 4, the 2004 upgrade is a must. For MX users, the new version 7.0 is a powerful improvement.




3. Upgrade? What upgrade? The older versions were much better than this one. This new version runs very slowly, adds redundant and unneeded tags and crashes more often than Windows 98!
   Please just don't buy this product, don't waste your money.

2 comments about McAfee Internet Security Suite 6.

1. After installing this peace of software It quickly forgets its own password. Which is not a problem You just need to uninstall it which of course you need the password for. The number the tech manual gives you is a recording that directs you back to McAfee's web site which of course you need the password to access the internet. I had one lady over the phone offer to e-mail me my solution which of course you need your password to get your e-mail. I spent (I kidd you not TWO AND HALF HOURS! [count them TWO AND HALF HOURS!] on the phone with EIGHT different phone numbers!) Which are not toll free six of those numbers where recordings directing you back to the web site or other numbers you already have. I had one lady who was more then kind to direct me to any one of those numbers I already had and had called. The other was willing to send the e-mail Please Please avoid this nightmare
   Do Not Buy
   Do Not Purchase
   Do Not Use
   And Definitely
   Do Not Install To Any computer!



2. McAfee bundled all the necessary software you need for secure Internet surfing in just one CD, saving you a lot of time in installation. The software itself is very stable (never encountered any hang-up in memory), and doesn't hog your PC's resources. It loads quickly on startup which is the fastest that I've seen so far. The updater has also been integrated efficiently that it doesn't cause any disruptions in your activities. Once you got it installed, it's the sweetest low-maintenance software you'll ever have. It's a total far cry from the Norton Suite that I had not long ago.
   My Norton Suite of a year constantly hanged up, consumed a lot of my PC resources that made my PC slow, and broke down a lot of times whenever a virus get through my system (and it said my PC was protected at all times with the Auto-Protect feature!). And just because of that I needed to re-install the program all over again (which takes by itself a lot of time and sweat) and continually screwed my system with every re-installation. And their customer support takes 2 weeks per reply for free service, and charges you with a fee (in american dollars) if you want immediate service. My PC and myself is now scarred by the ruthless nightmares this suite has given me.
   So as a review, I could say that McAfee is the best I had after Norton. This suite itself contains both necessary firewall and antivirus protection your PC needs, and includes much more features like privacy service (which is like a net nanny software) and anti-spam. Just by switching to McAfee Internet Suite has saved me time and money (since I don't have to buy individual softwares that this bundle has). If you're skeptical like I was in the beginning, I recommend that you try the trial software which is offered in their website for 30 days. And I assure you that after you had trial, you'll go for the whole year subscription. That's how good this software bundle is.
   I've just read the previous comment of this software about the password thing and I just don't get what the reviewer was saying, because I haven't experience it myself. So out of five stars, i might even give it a six!

2 comments about Pop Up Washer.

1. I purchased and installed Popup Washer 17 days ago, in this period I had 290 popups, and the number of blocked popups in the log was 63. So, the success rate was 63/(290+63), less than 18%, a dismal rate by any standard.



2. To be honest with you, everyone would be better off without this product. I have downloaded FREE software on the internet that blocked more pop-ups than this program did. Save your money and get a better program.

No comments about IdeaSoft Spam Eliminator (Jewel Case).

3 comments about IdeaSoft iClean Internet Privacy Protector (Jewel Case).

1. Most of these functions come already inInternet Explorer,
   Netscape, etc, so why does one need it? Can someone specify
   what extra features does this software has?



2. This was horrible, I installed this and within a 24 hour period, I was slammed with pop-ups and SPAM....And good luck trying to remove it. Very dissatisfied customer.



3. I currently have version 1.0 on my pc. It does everything it claims to and does it flawlessly. It cleans internet cache, history, cookies and more! I've tried another internet privacy program, but it failed to clean up the tracks that this program successfully cleaned. I especially like the fact that it cleans the autocomplete entries in my internet search and internet browser. Others can use my pc, and won't be able to see what documents I've recently opened, which programs I've recently run, or what I've searched for and what sites I've visited online. And that's the way it should be! This program can be set to clean up this information securely (can be set to wipe not just delete the info). Another plus, it can clean usage tracks for all users on a pc. The program I tried on my other pc only worked with administrator accounts (and not very well may I ad).

No comments about Fireball CyberProtection Suite.

5 comments about WebEasy Professional 5.0.

1. This is a simple and effective program for a first-timer (and I am definitely one of those) to use to create a website. Once you have your pages made, you can 'build' your site and then use any text editor to edit the pages as needs be. [...].



2. When I first started writing, I wanted to create a website. Now many people said I should go with a professional but I just wanted to do it myself. After comparing price and what it could do(at the time I didn't know what I wanted) I bought it.
   
   Now keep in mind that I had absolutely no experience in working with webpages and no programming background at all except a small amount of basic on my old commodore 64.
   
   I had pages up and running in a few hours. But there were a few things that annoyed me.
   
   First of all, every page had to be the same size. Don't know if that's the way it is with all programs, but it's just annoying.
   
   Secondly, I wanted to add programs for download but am unable to.
   
   Also, everytime I changed the graphics even small, then the page is all screwed up on Aol. Don't know why, but after awhile it straightens itself out. Received limited help from Aol about it.
   
   All in all, I do like it but if you want more versatility, look for another one.



3. Be ready to get advice via email and google. You wont be able to talk to a live person EVER!! V-Com (owners) will not let you talk to anyone over the phone regarding any of their software.



4. These people should not be allowed to advertise their product using the word "easy". Yes, their web site design is fairly easy once you catch on to it, but don't expect the manual to be of much help. It assumes you are an expert to begin with and doesn't define terms very well, so plan on doing a lot of guessing and experimenting. The really hard part is getting your site published. After several unsuccessful tries (WebEasy congratulates me and says my site has been published successfully, but when I go to look at it, it says the site has not been uploaded properly) and after an e-mail from their "help desk" that started out by saying "What you should try is...", I gave up. I needed help from them. I can try things myself. I don't need their experts guessing at what might work.
   
   I finally decided the frustration wasn't worth it and got another program. In good conscience, I could never recommend WebEasy to anyone.



5. I am a professional software and web developer with more than 15 years working in the field. I recently helped a friend with a site built with Web Easy Professional 5.0, which is a WYSIWYG HTML-generating software that saves your site in a proprietary data file. I was truly horrified by the quality of the HTML and other code generated by this software; its broken code does not validate and is not browser compatible. [For the web savvy: it places every element in an absolutely positioned div with invalid inline CSS values.] The user interface is one of the worse I've ever seen. For example, the link colors can only be set when you "build" your site in the Build dialog box. What the?? There is an "Advanced" button in that dialog box that hides the option of setting the Author, Keywords and "Internet Search Engine Description" from the user. And they have these fields populated with VCOM marketing keywords!!! What user that responds to software with "Easy" in the title is going to click on a button labeled "Advanced"? Every site built with this terrible program is helping VCOM gain better search engine rankings while its own search ranking suffers. My poor friend had been abused and lied to by VCOM tech support on many occasions. They do everything to lock you into their system, which uses strange terminology which literally mis-educates you about many things. From even a cursory look, I found blatantly incorrect claims in the software's text and help. And yes, the software "recommends" all users "publish" using their iEasySite hosting service (that's where they really make their money, of course). I found the username and FTP information wass essentially hidden from the user. I suspect this company could be fairly sued; they clearly designed their system to exploit technically unaware people. I sincerely hope you have not been conned by the manipulative company who produces this excuse for software. I can't go on, but it's really that bad...