Review Chairmans Industry Comments (7/05) The Computer Buffet

Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (7/05)

The Computer Buffet

by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor

E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org

AGENT RANSACK V1.7.3 is my choice for freeware software of the year. I use it continuously and find it one of the most useful apps on my computer. It is far and away the easiest and most incredibly fast way to find a file on your computer. It integrates into your Windows Explorer right-click menu. In very few seconds it can scan any drive or folder to find any reference to the file you are seeking. It's not always easy to remember the exact filename of your document, and opening each file to look inside wastes a lot of time. Agent Ransack displays the text found inside each file, so you don't have to separately open each search result.

You can also search for text inside of documents using this application. Agent Ransack integrates into the Windows Find menu, so it can easily replace the File Search function included with Windows. This amazing free program belongs on every computer. Don't hesitate. Get it today! www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

HOSPITAL INFO. The federal Department of Health and Human Services' site provides information on how your hospitals rate in terms of care provided. Find out how they treat major conditions such as heart attack. You'll also learn why particular procedures are important. There are other tools to help you choose the right hospital. There are questions you should ask your physician and insurance company. Plus, there's a list of things to look for when you visit the hospital. If you have questions on Medicare, link to organizations that can help. Best of all, you'll find links to information on disease prevention. www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov

XP POWERTOYS are additional programs that Microsoft developers work on after a product has been released to manufacturing. They add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. http://www.microsoft .com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys. mspx STATBAR V2.406 Just like a car, Windows has many little maintenance items to mind--but Windows lacks a helpful dashboard. Statbar stuffs the skinny on several crucial functions into one svelte status bar. With free Statbar, you can keep an eye on your hard disk space, your CPU usage, and the amount of data transferring to and from your PC. Statbar also offers controls such as program launch buttons, a master volume slider, and WinAmp audio controls. http://www.statbar.nl/

EMAIL THE POPE. Got a message or prayer for the new pope? Why not send him an e-mail. His address is benedictxvi@vatican.va. The new pope apparently will follow his predecessor's lead in using technology

IF YOU HAVE A COMPLAINT with a company, you can do something about it. Tell the Federal Trade commission! The FTC has created an online form that handles a variety of complaints. Complaints can be about media violence, multi-level marketing, privacy issues, and more. You can even report spam! You fill out your contact information and then provide information on the complaint.

The FTC doesn't settle individual disputes. However, your complaint can lead to legal action if the company was fraudulent. This means you can help others from falling victim to unscrupulous organizations.

There are also links to forms for reporting identity theft. Or, if you're on the National Do Not Call Registry, forms for reporting violations. https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

FRAUDELIMINATOR FOR IE AND FIREFOX is an advanced free tool to fight the growing tide of fraudulent websites on the Internet. FraudEliminator marks the first advanced anti-fraud tool for Mozilla's popular FireFox browser. FraudEliminator Pro defends against all kinds of online fraud, including phishing, pharming, and DNS exploits. It shows information about each site you visit, including where it is hosted and when the domain name was registered. www. fraudeliminator.com/

ZABASEARCH.COM will let you look up anyone free and get their current address, date of birth and phone number even if it's unlisted. It will give you loads more than that for 20 bucks. Frightening, isn't it? The internet can leave you standing naked in the middle of Times Square!

CITY DATA. If you're thinking of moving, check out City-Data. It's a clearinghouse of information on cities across America. Select a city to view vital statistics. Population, crime data, and median income and property values are available. You can also see which cities make the top 100 in a variety of categories. The lists include safest cities and cities with the highest median income. The statistics can become a little overwhelming - this is a lot of data. So, if there are too many numbers, browse the photos. There are pictures of many of the cities. Plus, you can access weather forecasts and climate summaries. If you're not planning on moving, check the information listed on your city. You can contribute to the site by uploading pictures and adding information. www.city-data.com

BULK RENAME UTILITY V2.1.0.10 As the project you're working starts to balloon, it gets hard to remember which files pertain to what. You may want to rename some files to help you keep everything organized. With this free utility, you can rename groups of files or folders in one fell swoop. You can perform string substitutions, add date-stamps, add or remove specified digits or characters, and make other useful changes. A preview shows you what the new names will be, so you can change your work before committing to renaming. www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

PROCESS EXPLORER V9.0. Windows Task Manager tells you what applications and processes are running, but some process names aren't very clear to the casual reader. Process Explorer (free) helps you get to the bottom of things by digging down to see which application started a process and which resources that app is currently using. This excavation can be a big help when you're trying to figure out which background processes you dare shut down. It can even help sniff out spyware, too. www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

MOTHERBOARD MONITOR V5.3.7. An overheated computer is an unhappy computer. This handy program reads temperature and fan RPM data collected by your system's BIOS, displays it in the Windows system tray, and alerts you when there's trouble. You can use this application to manage your resources and alarms by doing things like setting an alarm to go off, or having an email sent to another computer, when your motherboard starts to overheat. You could even have programs start and stop when your CPU reaches predetermined temperatures. http://mbm.livewiredev .com/

DOUBLEKILLER V1.5.2.65 If you have a partitioned hard drive, you may be wasting precious disk space harboring the same files in different areas. DoubleKiller hunts across single or multiple partitions and folders for identical files. It skips over files with important extensions like .dll, but it scans other files for duplicates. It checks the files' names, sizes, dates, and CRC32-checksums to see if any of them mirror one another. Once DoubleKiller locates the duplicates, it shows you a list of all of them so you can decide which ones to keep and which ones to delete or move. www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/

FONTFRENZYT tames the frenzy of fonts that can clutter and slow down Windows. The DeFrenzy function removes and stores all fonts except those that were present when Windows was first installed. In short, it cleans up your font folder so that Windows boots quicker and runs smoother. FontFrenzyT helps solve the problem of Windows font overload. The special FrenzySnap function enables you to establish "restore points" and re-install the fonts that were in your system on a specific date. FontFrenzyT is also a great general font manager. It has the ability to preview, print, add and delete fonts. FontFrenzyT is fully-functional freeware - with the nag screen easily removed after a painless registration www.fontfrenzy.org/

GIF WORKS. This online image editor allows applying special effects, resizing, colorizing, optimizing, and even animating GIF images. There is nothing to download or install and it's free. http://www.gifworks .com/

SCREAMER RADIO locates, plays, and records streaming radio stations on the Internet. It's a free download www.screamer-radio.com/features.php

SENDTOANY extends the Windows Explorer Send To context menu with all known links. This is accomplished by synchronizing the Send To menu with the Start menu, Desktop, and Quick Launch menu, thus allowing any file to be sent to any application, regardless of the file type's association. www.optionalreaction .com/software/sendtoany/

MYUNINSTALLER is a free alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet, provided by Windows. It offers more information for each installed program, including product name, company, version, uninstall string, installation folder and more. You can uninstall selected items or remove the entry from the list and also export the list to text or HTML format. www.nirsoft.net/

MEDIAMAN let you create and organize your own media catalog for free. MediaMan is capable of managing all kinds of media in your collection, including books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, software and game titles. Manually enter data or scan barcodes with a Webcam. Get data from major Amazon.com locations. All items can be divided into nested categories. The collection can be exported for printing or synchronizing with your PDAs www.imediaman.com/.

AN INVALUABLE MEDICAL RESOURCE. The Merck manual is one of the most respected sources of medical information. It's also one of the best-selling medical texts around. Now you can access the Merck Manual online for free. (The only thing better than trustworthy health information is free trustworthy health information!)

You can search by disease or condition in a number of categories. Then pull up the information you need to understand the condition and treatment. There are also multimedia presentations. Access videos of medical procedures, audio files and photographs.

Additionally, animations will help you understand specific concepts. But that's not all. You can view anatomical drawings and read about medical tests. Then, once you're done, learn how to pronounce all the difficult medical terms! www.merck.com/mmhe FREE SYSTEM INFORMATION UTILITY with Built-in Toolkit There are a lot of system information utilities available but this one is impressive. First, it's a stand-alone product that doesn't require installation. This means that it can be run from a USB flash drive or CD to analyze any PC. Second, it reports in detail on just about every aspect of a PC including specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU, devices, memory, video, disk drivers, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs, processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network, network shares, as well as real- time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage and network traffic, currently active network connections, installed codecs, and more. Finally, it includes a really useful set of tools including Windows password crackers and passwords revealers. All up, a product that should be in everyone's toolkit. Freeware (donations welcome), all Windows versions, 1.3MB. www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala/about_siw.html

XLOGAN - WEB SITE LOG READER [1.98M] [Win98/ME/2k/XP] [FREE] If you have a Web site, chances are you keep track of your Web site stats. Now there are a million and one different ways you can do so. Many folks depend on trackers that are put into the Web sites code. Others just use the tools provided to them inside the control panel. Some of the stats programs out there depend on reading your Web sites log files to see who has been doing what on your Web site. Wouldnt it be cool if you could find a program that could read all of that information and make sense of it all? Xlogan is a free Web site log reader. All you need to do is download your log file from your Web hosting account, plug it into this program, and then sit back and watch the pretty graphics. Xlogan tells you the number of visitors you have had, where your referrals are coming from, and information about search engines, browsers, file access, and visiting countries. There are some programs out there that would charge an arm and a leg for this sort of information. With Xlogan you can get it for free! Xlogan features support for GZip compressed log files, plus an integrated FTP browser to let you download log files straight from your server. So what are you waiting for? Try it out! http://www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=106712

SWEEPI V5.1.0 [3993K] [Win98/ME/2k/XP] [FREE] Sweepi allows you to clean common computer junk files and Internet tracks that can build up over time. The program comes with an interface that allows you to select the areas to be cleaned, as well as a wizard that can guide you through the cleaning process, and also offers a quick-clean feature. In addition to the cleaning features, Sweepi also includes a startup manager (called BootManager) that enables you to view and optionally remove or disable programs that start automatically whenever you boot your computer. Furthermore, the program includes secure file deletion and a tool to find broken shortcuts. www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=109181

ICE ECC v1.0 [1119k] [Win98/ME/NT/2k/XP] [FREE] ICE ECC is a file verification and repair tool that enables you to protect your important files against digital corruption using Reed-Solomon codes. The program is not intended as a main backup solution, but rather as a backup for your backup - it can be included on CDs or DVDs before you store your data, allowing you to recover data that has become corrupt due to age of the media or scratches. You can protect selected files or entire folders by simply selecting them and having the program generate an ECC file. If you ever need to verify whether the data has been modified or corrupted, just select the appropriate .ECC file and load it into ICE ECC, which will then analyze the files and can recover any corrupted data. www.snapfilespro.com/gnomeapp.php?id=109160

CLEARTYPE TUNER is a utility that lets you modify the configuration of the ClearType text display. (ClearType is a feature that improves the readability of text on LCD and high-quality flat panel displays, such as those on laptops.) It's included with Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP, which you can download at http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=A8C0:2B998 .

Run the downloaded setup.exe image to install ClearType Tuner. You can then access the tool via its shortcut, ClearType Tuning, which is created in the Control Panel. The utility has two modes. Select the Introduction tab to open a wizard that walks you through the tool's configuration. Select the Advanced tab to manually configure the tool, as the figure at http://list.windowsitpro .com/t?ctl=A8C3:2B998 shows

WINGUARD. With WindowsGuard 2005 (formerly WinGuard Pro 2005) you can password protect your programs, windows and web pages in one easy to use program! What's more, there is also encryption for your personal files and folders. It offers an all-in-one security solution for your computer. With extra features to lock the desktop, boot keys, task keys, blocking software installations and internet access. WindowsGuard 2005 comes in a Free and Premium edition. www.windowsguard.com/

THE VIRTUAL HOSPITAL is a service of the University of Iowa. It contains a wealth of health-related information. Search for information by topic, symptom, body location or medical specialty. Then, link to articles to learn more about health conditions. Most of the information is aimed at adults. But you'll also find articles that specifically address pediatric health. So parents will find this helpful. Most importantly, articles on prevention will help keep you and your loved ones healthy. Doctors' understanding of medical conditions changes regularly. Fortunately, the Virtual Hospital features a news section. The monthly updates will keep you abreast of advances in the medical field. www.vh.org

XP SYSPAD provides easy free access to all of the prime Windows system info and utilites, such as the individual control panel applets. XP SysPad is a launcher which makes access to Windows system utilities its specialty.

Plus, access a host of other valuable functions, such as retrieving Windows 2000/XP Product Key, get your IP adress, exectute web queries, identify and kill any running proccess, launch any program, search files, and more. www.xtort.net/xtort/xpsyspad.php

WINKEYFINDER. It's easy enough to lose the keys to your front door-losing your seldom-used Microsoft product keys is almost a given. Luckily, WinKeyFinder can help you locate and identify your Windows or Office keys. Not only does WinKeyFinder find your keys in the Registry, but it also lets you generate unique passwords to keep it safe. www.winkeyfinder.tk/

OUTLOOK EXPRESS TWEAKER. Outlook Express makes it hard to find some of its own best features. Outlook Express Tweaker helps you customize Outlook Express with some of OE's hidden features and a few of its own.

With this plug-in, you can unhide invisible accounts, hidden dialog boxes, and undocumented settings. You can also send unwanted items packing: Outlook Express Tweaker can hide Windows Messenger and enhance the Blocked Senders list interface. www.qwhale.com/products/outlook_express_tweaker/

MOTHERBOARD MONITOR reads temperature data from your system's BIOS. This free utility will alert you of overheating by sounding an alarm or sending an email. It will start or stop designated programs at predesignated temperature levels. Download free at www.majorgeeks.com/download. php?det=311

FIRETUNE FOR MOZILLA FIREFOX was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here - it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you. Get it free at www.totalidea.com/freestuff4.htm

VIRUSTOTAL is a free service that will scan suspicious files using several antivirus engines. You can either send the file, not to exceed 5 mb, via their Web service or email it to them, following instructions at their site.

You then receive an email with a report of the file analysis. www.virustotal.com/flash/index_en.html

DLL INFORMANT. A DLL, short for Dynamic Link Library, is a tiny bit of data that tells computer programs how to act. DLL Informant tells you what DLL you have in your system, what your computer is using them for, and it identifies what duplicate DLL are hanging around just wasting space. Download free at http://www.jps.at/dllinfo.html

ADDRESS BOOK CONVERTER. Dawn will convert your address book from one program's format to another. If you have ever wanted to switch E-Mail programs or even simply use that WordPerfect address book in Outlook Express you have no doubt been put off by being forced to retype every single address by hand. Well, retype no more. A complete conversion is just a few clicks away. Power users will like the ability to see edit and delete parts of the data before saving it as well as support for common file formats. www.joshie.com/projects/dawn/

ERROR MESSAGES FOR WINDOWS is a small utility that will allow you to look up MS Windows error code numbers and display a descriptive message explaining what the numeric code actually means. If you have software programs that produce numeric error codes now you can find out what they really mean. Error Messages for Windows also provides a facility to display and print all of the error codes and messages defined for your version of MS Windows. Error Messages for Windows will run on MS Windows XP, Millennium Edition and 98 as well as MS Windows 2000 and 95/NT systems. www.gregorybraun.com/MSWinErr.html

HARRY'S FILTERS. Harry's Filters (formerly known as VideoRave) is a free plug-in that works with Photoshop and a number of other image editors. You can use the filters for up to 69 different image effects, including lightning, tornado, and polar lights.

This easy-to-use plug-in works on RGB and grayscale images. Thanks to an Instant Preview check box and options for saving and opening effect presets, using the effects can be a very quick process. www.thepluginsite.com/products/harrysfilters/index.htm

UNSTOPPABLE COPIER. This free program is great for recovering files from scratched CD's or defective floppy/hard disks. Normally when your computer is unable to copy a file from a damaged disk it will abort and delete the portition of the file it has copied. This program however will continue to copy the file right to the end. Any data that is not recoverable after many retries is replaced with blanks. This will allow you to truely recover every byte of information that is available for recovery. The program allows you to specify a single file, a group using wildcards (* and ?) or if you wish, select a starting folder and the program will copy all data from it and any sub folders it may contain. This program doesn't just need to be used for copying files from defective disks, it can be used to transfer any files! http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2623.html

GET XP BONUS PACK. As a special "thanks" for fans of the Windows XP digital media experience, we offer the Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP! Jam-packed with utilities, PowerToys, visualizations, skins, sound effects, and much more, the free Windows Media Bonus Pack installs on your Windows XP-based PC and lets your personality and creativity shine. www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bonuspack.aspx

ZEROTRACE. Free Internet surfing security. Scans all Cookies. Delete all or select cookies. History Chooser Deletes Index.dat history. Deletes IE URL History. Deletes IE Cache. History Deletes Windows Media Player History. Clears Start / Run Menu Clears Start / Recent Documents. Empties recycle bin. www.dancemammal.com/zerotrace.htm

BCWIPE V3.057. Before you give your old computer away, you will probably want to be certain that everything on your hard drive has been eliminated beyond recovery. That's where free BCWipe becomes a must-have. When you delete a file ordinarily, it isn't actually removed. Contents of the deleted file continue to be stored on the disk and can be easily recovered using any unerasing utility. BCWipe overwrites the file with random data, making recovery impossible. It integrates into Windows Explorer, so you can easily select and wipe any number of files, using the normal one-pass wiping or the more secure seven-pass method. This version of BCWipe introduces predefined DoD 5200.28-STD and Peter Gutmann wiping schemes. The program can also be run from a command-line prompt. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even create your own wiping scheme to shred sensitive information on your computer. www.jetico.com/

ALMOST FREE: The FreeHeadset site is run by an organization that's giving out "free" headsets for you to use with your cell phone while driving. The group is doing this to promote safety and claims to ship thousands of headsets each month (the total number so far is 39,000); the number goes up as more states pass laws mandating the use of headsets. You pay only $3.94 for shipping. www.freeheadset.org/home.php?

SENDING LARGE FILES. Trying to transfer large files is a frustrating experience. Most e-mail accounts have limits on the size of attachments. However, YouSendIt provides a free and simple solution. You can upload files up to 1 gigabyte in size. Wow! Then you send a notification to the recipient. Recipients will only see the files they're invited to view. They also can download the files. Just keep in mind that files are destroyed after one week. Further, the company says safeguards are in place to maintain the security of your files. www.yousendit.com

WordPerfect Office 12 Home Edition- The Triumphant Return Of An Old Friend

Quite a few years ago before the computer craze was even a mild neurosis, lots of things were different. There was no such thing as the Internet, email, Microsoft or Windows. Home computers were used mainly for word processing along with a smattering of spreadsheet items. Computers were jokingly referred to as "television typewriters." The big name in computer hardware was IBM along with a new kid on the block called Apple Macintosh. In software, the quintessential word processor was WordPerfect. It was ( and still is) the heavy-duty, world class word processor capable of handling any task from a short memo, to a page-collated book, a legal pleading, a lengthy PhD manuscript, or just about any other text-intensive task. Lots of things have certainly changed since then but one thing still remains- WordPerfect!

Yes, WordPerfect was a corporation and a name that everyone knew. It would be a number of years and corporate changes before WordPerfect fell under the aegis of Corel. In that interim period of time, Microsoft came along to revolutionize the industry with its new operating system, Windows, along with Microsoft Word, a serious competitor for WordPerfect.

The rest is a matter of history. Gradually, as Microsoft ascended to the throne of the software industry via its new operating system, Windows, WordPerfect's domination of word processing gradually yielded to the innovations of Microsoft Word. WordPerfect gradually lost its leadership position to the newcomer.

As word became predominant, a compatibility issue arose with WordPerfect. Documents composed in WordPerfect frequently became everything from a chore to an impossibility for Word users to read. Along with corporate changes, the mantle decidedly passed to Microsoft. Sad in a way, because WordPerfect has always been a dynamite product with it's own innovations and strengths that persist to this very day.

Under the leadership of the Corel Corporation, things have gradually but steadily improved. The latest version, 12, of WordPerfect appears to have finally laid the compatibility issue to rest. Finally, they now seamlessly co-exist without a problem. That's good news for many users!

For everyone, a first class word processing suite is available that is very considerably less expensive than Microsoft Office. For WordPerfect users, compatibility that formerly created numerous vexing problems no longer exists. For everyone, WordPerfect provides a top-notch word processor with many unique innovations that make it easier and more effective to use than any other product. For users driven crazy by many of the little quirks of Word, you have an alternative that will increase your productivity while decreasing your gray hair.

WordPerfect offers every word processing innovation to be found in any other such softwarealong with many unique features of its own. It's "Reveal Codes" feature alone is more than worth the cost of the software. Any problem at all can be easily seen and fixed by pressing alt-F3 to reveal all the instructions that exist unseen behind every word processor. You can delete or modify any instruction as easily as text in your document. It's a crutch and a life-saver that gives you complete control of your work. No other word processor offers this extremely useful feature.

There are numerous other Word quirks you will not have to tolerate in WordPerfect. Take your default document for example. You can go crazy trying to find, no less modify, Word's default template "normal.dot." In WordPerfect you need only to open a blank page, modify it to suite your desires and go into the File Menu and select "save as default." It couldn't be easier.

There is a plethora of other modifications to customize your work that is readily available and child's play to achieve in the Tools-Settings menu. Once you make your selections and although you can change that easily any time you wish, you will not have to repeatedly go back time and again. As many times as I repeatedly changed my auto-formatting choices in Word to NOT create a hyperlink out of a web address in my text, it either insisted on doing it anyway or changing it back after I had temporarily succeeded in undoing it.

Then there's the indent crazy thing in Word that insists on indenting a whole paragraph or more when I tab in only one line. With reveal-codes in WordPerfect I could have solved that problem in one second. Or effectively changing a style in Word that takes a Phi Beta Kappa and a rabbit's foot. And on and on goes the list- all things that are a piece of cake to either prevent or change in WordPerfect can drive you nuts in Word!

WordPerfect has a plethora of aids and innovations all its own. Its Perfect Expert provides step-by step guidance to formatting and layout of documents of all degrees of complexity. You can translate WordPerfect documents into a new and very wide range of formats including PDF, HTML, XML and many others. You can even import a WordPerfect document into such fussy apps as PageMaker, a heretofore frustrating task.

If you are used to MS Word's layout and format, WordPerfect provides a Word lookalike mode that provides all of the WordPerfect innovations in a document with the look and feel of Word. If you are an Outlook user, WordPerfect can access the contents of your Outlook address book.

As the title "WordPerfect Office" implies, other applications are included in the suite. Most prominent of these is a superbly easy to use spreadsheet and old friend, Quattro Pro. The first and most obvious thing that hits your eye is its excellent uniformity with WordPerfect. All the text items on its toolbar look and work exactly as they do in WordPerfect. Quattro Pro is a more complete and considerably easier to work spreadsheet than Excel. You probably will never need it, but Quattro can provide a spreadsheet of over a million rows. No telling when you might ascend to the CFO of General Motors.

Like WordPerfect with MS Word, you can elect to run Quattro in Excel mode. Additionally, spreadsheets are fully interchangeable between the two. I suggest using Quattro as it stands since it is easier and more complete than the competition. You can also output a Quattro spreadsheet in PDF, XML and the other formats now manageable in WordPerfect.

In both WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, a new and greatly expanded series of templates are provided for a large and comprehensive variety of documents and spreadsheets. They are highly functional and versatile in creating new projects and can save you considerable time and effort while providing attractive, professional-looking work.

The new look in software applications today is to provide a lot of icing on the basic component cake, usually in the multimedia category. This suite is no exception. In addition to its cornerstone word processor and spreadsheet you will find such goodies as:

Corel Photobook- Let's not forget that Corel is a name often considered synonymous with graphics. The suite provides a versatile, excellent photo and graphics editing component. Of course, you can insert the results into the documents your create.

Corel PhotoAlbum- Organize your photos into albums and slide shows that you can share via e-mail or use to create screen savers or wall paper.

Pinnacle- A CD and DVD creation component is included to add audio and video to your projects.

OfficeReady- A mini version of MS Money or Quicken. Templates are provided for personal finance management.

Encyclopedia Britanica and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus.

Norton Internet Security- Here's the whole program in all its resource-intensive glory with Norton Antivirus and Norton's anti most everything else included. You only get a 90 day subscription and like any of the other goodies in the suite it's your choice to install it or not. By my own experience, I suggest you pass from anything out of Symantec.

So what's missing? Taking a page from Microsoft's book, Corel has not included its top-notch database, Paradox, in its basic home edition. You will have to go to the more expensive professional edition for that. Frankly, if the suite included nothing but WordPerfect and Quattro, it would be well worth its cost

And speaking of cost, You can find WordPerfect Office Suite 12 Home Edition on the Net for about $70. That's half the cost of its competitor, Microsoft Office Suite. There's no question as to what's the better bargain! Welcome back, old friend! At full tilt on Corel's website the home edition goes for $89. You can get a rundown at corel.com on the components of the several editions of WordPerfect Office that are available. You may well find as I did that the home edition is entirely more than adequate. The word processor alone is well worth the toll and it is the same on each edition.

Take my advice and do as I did. You can download a full copy of the WordPerfect Suite from corel.com and try it free for two weeks. That's more than enough time for you to draw your own conclusions as me in offering you the above roundup. Try it! You'll like it! :

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Copyright 2005. This article is from the July 2005 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.