Software

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.

Having used CorelDRAW since the very early days of Windows it has become an old friend. It was one of the first applications to move to a CD and now the huge content of extras – always a Corel thing – demands a DVD.

To integrate or not to integrate is the option. Cyberlink has gone for the latter with its collection of graphics applications.

As a long time user of WinZip, I am always keen to see what the latest version of this compression and archiving software has to offer

Taking liberties with the first two lines of Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson’s classic folk song “Where have all the documentation gone, Gone to PDF every one”.

The majority of us are not natural designers who know HTML and can produce an attractive and effective Web design at the drop of a hat. We need all the help that we can get. Xara Web Designer MX -- which is available in two versions -- is a WYSIWYG template based program that brings the design and publishing of effective web sites within range of most people.

A quick check of my work system revealed 3762 MP3 tracks. Further investigation brought to light that these tracks occupied just over 12GB of storage space and, if played continuously, would take 9 days and 13 hours in order to work through the full list. This information came courtesy of MAGIX’s latest MP3 deluxe software.

It is a fact of Windows life that your computer’s performance will decrease directly proportional to the use to which it is put – much to the delight of those who develop software to remedy this situation

This is my first look at ArtRage now on version 3.5. Before delving into the manuals I always try to see what it can do with just the icons on the screen, the results are of course strange, sometimes great sometimes not what you thought.

Serif has always targeted those who operate on a limited budget while looking for ease-of-use with their software. The latest Serif product to take this path is MoviePlus X6.

A quick check of my laptop revealed that it was about time a new Norton security package was due – and so it was as the latest version of Norton 360 made an appearance.

Taking photographs is fun especially when you are collecting visual representations of memories of important personal events. You can then store these images locally or in the Cloud knowing you can recall them when necessary. However why stop there.

Music, photos and video clips make up a sizeable portion of the storage devices attached to our home computers unless, of course, you are in the minority. Managing and making use of the vast store of multimedia data can be quite challenging especially if you attempt this task without the appropriate tools.

As the movement from analogue to digital gathers apace, it makes sense to further enhance the audio quality with tools such as MAGIX’s Audio Cleaning Lab.

On a very cold day at the start of February Microsoft launched a ‘free’ app for Android. Those with long memories will know they recently purchased Skype a ‘free’ online telecommunications product and also offered everyone a ‘free’ 5GB Sky Drive.

Nero started life as a method of burning CD’s. Now it is far more than that as not only does it work with CD’s and DVD’s but also Blu-ray’s. In fact it is a one stop shop for all your music, photos and videos in one box.

Now up to version 16, Serif has released the latest edition of its PagePlus software for those wanting to create different types of documents containing images and text.

Media content can arrive in different formats which are not always compatible with all your devices. Helping cope with this problem is the stated aim of a product released by Binary Distribution.

Another product that is certainly mature once they got beyond 12 they started using roman numerals, most people thought that was to avoid 13 but a year so later X4 comes so what does a mature product have to offer that is new?

As one of the major anti-virus companies, Kaspersky has created a product that enables the user to protect different devices.