Software

I have a long memory - it’s just yesterday that’s a problem sometimes – and I remember a shareware product that easily fitted on a floppy disc. That was long before JASC was purchased by Corel the current version fills a CD-ROM.

Storing your documents, images and music in digital format on your computer is now the de facto choice of many. But how would you manage if this data became corrupted especially if you did not have a backup?

Starting life as a basic compression tool available as Shareware, WinZip has developed over the years to encompass a wider range of functionality as can be seen with version 17.

When CD’s first came out the need to copy or backup started and there were two major players in the market. Nero was one of those but now it is so much more than CD backup software, one of the few things it refuses to do is make the tea.

While most new PCs come with Anti Virus software it is normally only a trial lasting for 90 or 60 days. Most of these are from Norton or McAfee and while they work and these days do not slow the PC down that much there are options.

When you have multiple products covering different aspects of media editing and creation, it make sense to combine some of them together in a bundle. This is the approach taken by Cyberlink with its Director Suite offering.

A bit like an insurance policy, your computer protection needs regular updates as circumstanced change. Offering to help provide protection against a range of issues is the latest version of Kaspersky’s flagship product.

It is that time of year when the latest edition of Bitdefender Total Security software makes an appearance just as emails start to arrive advising you that your current subscription is about to expire. Following the general pattern established over the years, this latest version of the product is identified by the appendage of next year’s date. So we have Bitdefender Total Security 2013.

With the amount of malware and types of scams trying to take control of your computer, it makes sense to install protection software such as Norton Internet Security.

With an indication that it is an all round product, the latest version of Norton 360 is now available and comes with the claim of providing “ultimate protection for you and your PC”.

Many more years ago than I care to remember, I installed a Shareware product on my Windows 3.1 system - I told you it was many years ago. This product was the JASC developed Paint Shop Pro. Designed to convert images between different file formats and capture screen grabs, the software could easily fit on a floppy disk of the 360K variety. There was still room left over for other files of that period. I was reminded of this compact piece of coding wh

It was Peter Norton who first revealed that deleted files were not actually deleted. Instead their disk presence in the FAT (File Allocation File) was marked as being available for use by other data. This meant it was possible, with the appropriate tools, to resurrect a file if it had not been over-written by subsequent data.

While you might feel that Adobe’s market-leading professional graphics product, Photoshop, is priced well beyond your current budget restrictions, there is a possible alternative that has also been developed by Adobe. This is Photoshop Elements which is now up to version 11. This product costs approximately one tenth the price of its much bigger sibling.

While you may not fancy holding a conversation with your computer, it can handle your dictation with the help of appropriate software.

Are dedicated Satnav devices are on the decline. Smartphones and other mobile devices seem to be encroaching on their territory with mapping and directional offerings.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 12 is the latest incarnation of a long established speech recognition program. In step with increases in PC power, its speed and accuracy has been steadily improving. In fact, it can be argued that the performance is now such that even touch typists could find it worthwhile.

There are numerous products offering to protect your computer from malware. One such offering is ESET Smart Security.

I can remember when photos used to end up stored in boxes or the occasional album if they were particularly precious. This was the time when photos were predominately black and white and were printed on photographic paper rather than the digital variety we have today.

While a new version of an OS (Operating System), such as Windows, might take a number of years to make a commercial appearance, utilities designed to keep the OS running smoothly operate on a short gestation period.

For nearly all this programs twenty year life I have used it, right from its first incarnation as a flat file offering, this soon changed to relational and now many businesses are run almost totally from end to end on FileMaker Pro.

With a different company name and a newly designed interface, there is a new look to an old favourite with DIskeeper 2012.

A product’s installation routine not only sets up the software for your use but also provides you with your initial introduction to the particular title. Generally installation routines fall into the category of “joy-to-use” or bring the user face-to-face with various problems. Sad to say the installation for this next product under review was more inclined towards the latter type. The product in question is PDF Converter Professional 8 from Nuance.

Serif’s PagePlus has been around for a number of years and has established itself as a useful and versatile DTP package that is relatively easy to use. This latest version, PagePlus X6 adds a number of additional features which increases its scope so that, if anything, it has become more versatile and easier to use.

Although a fully paid up member of the MAGIX family, Xara continues to release its graphics products under its own brand name. The latest title is Designer Pro X.

Whether the subject is an Album, Draw, Movie, Page, Photo or Web with a Plus attachment then you can be pretty certain that it is a Serif product that is under discussion. In this case the product is Serif’s latest WebPlus title which is now up to version X6. This title comes with the tag line of “Professional Quality Websites made Easy”.

Hands up those of a certain age such as me who used WordPerfect as a Dos product and then as an early Windows offering before Microsoft Word seemed to rule the world, but still in the legal and medical world WordPerfect rules.

Looking good is often a prime consideration especially when distributing images to others. Airbrushing out imperfections is possible with this next product.

This next product is described as “the world’s fastest drawing program” and I am not going to argue with this statement.

While databases are not everybody’s cup of tea or coffee for that matter, they can fulfil a useful task in keeping your data organised.

When I think of Sony, my thoughts gravitate towards hardware such as BRAVIA televisions, PlayStation consoles, VAIO laptops and a range of mobile phones. However, as the subject of this review goes to prove, Sony does have a software department that is responsible for the Windows-based Imagination Studio. Now up to version 3, this package brings together tools for video, photo and audio tasks plus DVD authoring.