Looking at Life
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Life has been referred to as beginning at 40 or as a bowl of cherries. It is also the subject of a CD entitled Life Themes. Describing itself as Software for Life, this product pulls together features that would normally require any number of different applications. With Life Themes you gain the tools to record events, personal data and family trivia; organise digital media into multi-media; allow individual family members to keep their own password protected data; and, when appropriate, cross-reference items to produce a total record of your family group.
Often initial impressions created by a product can colour any subsequent involvement you might have in its use. I have to admit my first dealings with this product were not all that positive. The programs installation wasnt too bad although I do find it annoying when the result is that a second copy of an already installed application (Windows Media Player for XP) in placed on my hard disk. Fortunately this was just the single set-up executable file which was easily removed.
Following the installation process you will need to enter a 16-character serial number. However this is not the end of the programs basic set up procedure. You will need to register the product, either via the Internet or by telephone, within a 14-day time period otherwise the program will stop working. A reminder about the number of days left in which to register is shown on the programs opening screen.
When first run, Life Themes will instigate a set-up procedure whereby details of any family members using the program will need to be entered. Although not indicated, this set-up procedure does limit both the user-name and password to just a maximum of eight characters in length. Each user can have their own start up function (more of these later) whenever they enter the program and login icon chosen from a collection of twenty that are supplied with the product.
Life Themes divides its functionality into 13 different areas or categories which are listed in a navigational pane running down the left of the screen. This list includes areas such as Diary, People, Pets, Places, Stories and Pictures. As each category is chosen so the rest of the screen will change to reflect the available options. For example, by default users will start with the Diary function unless defined otherwise. You can quickly switch between views of an hourly, daily, weekly or annual calendar and made use of a search facility that allows for different criteria to be used.
Overall I was impressed with the layout of the various interfaces that make up Life Themes. Movement between the various sections is straightforward and good use is made of standard Windows conventions for the entry and manipulation of data. Useful introductory screens are available for each of the various sections and there is also a demo mode to ease you into Life Themes mode of operation.
While Life Themes uses a compartment approach to entering data, it does allow the user to set up links between its various items of data. It is these links that provide the program with its main selling points. However for the links to provide full benefit, it does require all users to keep their data up-to-date with at least one of the users checking to see that the necessary links are in place.
This program requires Windows XP with a minimum of 750MHz processor. You will need at least 128MB of RAM and 500MB of free disk space. Prospective life recorders will need to pay £49.99 for this product.
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