Software

While Adobe PhotoShop is the market leading product, not everybody can afford its premium price. There is an alternative.

Taking on the big boys is a task always relished by Serif. We check out the company’s photo editing offering.

This package from Focus come on no less than five CD’s and contains four different but connected products. The connection is knowledge, two from Britannica and one each from Oxford and Penguin Hutchinson.

This is not just something to find you a route or show you a map. It’s a very long way from the early Next Base product on a floppy disc, and it now comes on a DVD.

Photoshop has long been the image manipulation software of choice for professional and keen amateur photographers. However for those who are ‘hobbyists’ the cost is a problem.

It is puzzle solving time again as we check out an ancient tower that hides secrets of the Zodiac.

Imitating the style of a popular artist is the sole function of a software product from Serif.

Jewels, gold coins and ancient Egyptian symbols are just some of the elements found in a new offering from URSE Games.

It’s been a while since I have reviewed an educational product. This one is from Focus, it has some great maps with views from space and satellites but the info is the king.

I have used Paint Shop Pro since it’s very early days of being a shareware product. It has come a long way since then, it is now owned by Corel and also has a slight name change.

It is time for some play as we take a look at a new entry in the Breakout/Arkanoid genre.

While route planning software is ideal for vehicles, walkers and ramblers require a different category of software.

As a leading UK developer of graphics software, Xara continues to impress with its latest graphics package.

No matter how careful you are problems can occur and a back-up program can come to your rescue.

These two groups of products have had millions of words written about them, yesterday in London they were finally launched as retail products and Bill Gates and I were among those there.

Along with taking over a couple of software developers, Corel has recently released a new title.

I must admit that my mouse and hand/eye coordination has been put under considerable pressure recently. The cause of all this activity is a new game.

One reason for an underperforming system could be the result of file fragmentation. The solution is to “defrag”.

I doubt whether they will feature as a “buy one, get one free” offer but software titles are being stocked by Tesco and include a personal finance manager.

When using your computer to watch DVD movies, the experience can benefit from specialised software.

As yet I do not think Tesco do funerals – except perhaps for their competitors – this is an ‘Office’ suite of software that originally appeared on the Ability label.

Sometimes software code gets a packaging make-over and reappears under a different branding as has happened with burning software available from Tesco.

Apples much maligned music management system...worth a look?

A time consuming installation produced a comprehensive set of tools for burning media with the latest offering from Roxio.

A graphics package costing under £10 sounds like an ideal stocking filler.

While Microsoft Office is the Markey leader, there are more budget priced offerings for the discerning supermarket shopper.

Fed up with terrestrial landscapes then venture further afield with Distant Landscape

Described as the “easy way to create video and slideshow disks” sounds just like DVD MovieFactory 5 Plus is the type of software we need to check out.

Most people think that PDF is the sole property of Adobe, however other companies make packages that can create and convert PDF files, here I am looking at packages from Abbyy and Nuance (ScanSoft), both cost a fraction of the Adobe product.

Once again the yearly round of new product updates has started and the first of the 2007 crop to come my way is Microsoft Encarta 2007 Reference Suite and Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite.