Reviews (13)

Not too bad (if bought used)
I purchased a "used" copy for about $9 since v20 is out and is almost $90.I'm not disappointed with it since it does just what I want it to do:Labels, Newsletter, envelopes.Things that were a challenge in Microsoft products like Word, etc.I was very pleased with it, but then I didn't spend a whole lot.I'll get v20 when I can get it for $9 but then maybe the current version at that time will have been improved enough to be worth it.

Access is "iffy"
I've owned previous versions of this product, and I enjoyed using them.I found switching CDs a little annoying though, and welcomed the idea of one disk, with most of the art stored online, without taking up space on my computer.

The art is wonderful; my real complaint with the program is the website access.All too often, I find myself in the middle of designing something when suddenly an object cannot download.There appears a blurb from the manufacturer telling you to try again later.Sometimes "later" is just a few moments later, other times it can be quite a while.Also, I find that the thumbnails are a little slow appearing, making scrolling through the art time consuming.I would give this product a much higher rating if it wasn't for this unreliability.I like the PrintShop, but I just bought Version 20 Deluxe, to be installed when I install my larger hard drive.I haven't installed it yet; I'm reading reviews here to see if anything else sounds more promising.

Experienced Print Shop user
I bought the print shop deluxe version 15 because I had been very pleased with its previous editions.Well not with this one. It installed only part of the program, I uninstalled the whole program and started installation again, but the program insists it is already installed. So here I sit with a new program that is useless.Have contacted Broderbund but have not had a reply.Have had the computer checked out and it is the program not the computer causing the problem.

Terrible Software - Does edit photos
This is terrible software.I gave it two stars because it does edit photos and I needed that feature, but, overall I am very sorry that I spent my money before looking at these reviews.

The interface is AWFUL!For example, if you want to add a rectangle you would think you would just click on a rectangle tool and draw it.Nope!Instead you click on "Insert Shape", then you get a dialog box of possible shapes.You have to select the shape you want and the color in this dialog box. Then you click OK.Now you have a rectangle that you can reshape.

The Wizards are OK, but the designs are very lame and unprofessional.The system creates some integrated letterhead and business cards, but you wouldn't want to use them.

I bought this ... figuring, ...how much worse can it be than Microsoft Publisher 2000?Afterall, this isn't rocket science.The answer was MUCH worse!

Is there an award for Worst Software Imaginable?
This is great if you want to send a note to your Aunt Helen. Anything more substantial and it is full of quirks and bugs. Huge Waste of Money----the programmers should be lined up and shown the door or preferably worse. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac Upgrade .Improvements for PowerPoint in Office 2004 for Mac can help manage your time, your slides and your reputation. And with a thumbnail view of your entire presentation, you can make changes and adjustments on the fly, so youâll always appear perfectly prepared and in total control.Features:New Presenter tools ensure a well-orchestrated presentation. You, and only you, will see which slide is up and which ones are on deck, while an on-screen clock maintains the perfect tempo.New, smoother transitions and hundreds of bold, striking animations will keep your audience on the edge of their seats.Slick new templates and fresh, updd Clip Art punch up your presentations.Enhanced Unicode Support more accurately displays your emoticons, while displaying and printing foreign characters with ease. ... Read more

Product Description

This low-cost, easy-to-use magnification program allows you to fine tune the screen for more comfortable viewing. With 20 levels of magnification from 100 to 200 percent, BigShot allows you to focus on your work without straining to see the screen. BigShot is ideal for home and professional use and works great on laptops and desktops. It's the easy-to-use solution to everyday computer eyestrain. EnableMart is an authorized Ai Squared partner. ... Read more

Features

• 20 levels of magnification from 105% to 200%
• Unique zooming modes allow you to magnify the full screen or just the active application
• Change magnification levels using the mouse
• Intelligent tracking of all program activity keeps important information in view
• Always-on-top toolbar gives you quick access to BigShot settings

Features

• Modify professional templates with special effects -- or add your own artwork to create unique letterhead, business cards and envelopes
• Built-in slogan and tagline generator to help you come up with the perfect tagline
• Export your logo as a GIF, JPEG, bitmap, PNG or TIFF file
• Include your new logo in your email, newsletters and Website promotions

Product Description

When it comes to making business cards that express your professional image, no one knows your business better than you do. So why trust your business cards to expensive designers and printers? With Art Explosion® Business Card Factory® Deluxe 2.0, you can create professional business cards you’d swear were commercially printed in just minutes. Guaranteed.

Business Card Factory is incredibly easy to use. Simply choose from over 4000 easy-to-customize designs for virtually every type of business. Or, if you prefer, create your own designs with more than 35,000 clip art images including 750 logo elements. And with this new version you can even create matching letterhead and envelopes for a consistent and professional company look. We've included more than 1,500 ready-made designs to get you started!

Once you have your design in place, print professional-quality business cards on a variety of papers. Choose one of many micro-perforated card stock options available from Avery and other manufacturers for sensational business cards with razor-sharp edges. You can even use pre-printed papers from Idea Art, Paper Direct and more. Or if you want to order in volume you can send them for professional printing right from inside Business Card Factory!

... Read more

Reviews (1)

It does the job
I got tired of having tons of unused business cards with outdated info and I've decided to try making my own cards when it's needed. I bought this program and some Avery CleanEdge paper and installed it on my laptop. What was my impression? Well, it was easy as promised. Of course, many of their 4000+ design samples were not very impressive, but I found something very close to what I was looking for and customization took just a few minutes. When I entered my Avery paper code, it picked picked it up and printed just perfectly, the cards came out looking really good. So it does it's job and I've got what I've been promised in a very quick time. I can't say anything bad about this software, so I gave 5 stars.

But I want to give you a little warning. if you're technically savvy and not going to use really advanced features like matching envelopes, blanks etc, then you can probably get the same thing done in regular Microsoft Word. It will take a little bit longer, but it's pretty much the same standard document editor with some clip art collection. So before you buy make sure you understand clearly what you want to get and it's really beyond what you can do with your favorite text editor. ... Read more

Features

• Easily produce professional-style DVDs
• Capture video directly from camcorder to DVD or CD
• Archive and share movies, photos, business presentations, and more
• Edit +RW and -RW DVDs again and again
• Create CD labels and case covers

Reviews (13)

Stay Away
Take my word, stay away. This program has bugs.

It can create VCD on a CD-R with a CD-R drive.
You don't need a DVD burner to create movies you can view on your DVD player; A VCD is burned on a CD, you can only burn about an hower of video but you don't need a DVD burner. If you burn several short videos it is easy to create a custom interactive menu. This program doesn't do anything but burn videos, it doesn't burn music CD, it doesn't burn a data CD, it does what it does well and I'm glad I have it.

Nice, but could be Much Nicer
First of all, this program is worth its price. It's straightforward, stable, and creates very nice DVDs -- once you get used to it.

Major gripe: It cannot accurately calculate file sizes. It may show that a certain DVD program will fit on a DVD after file conversion when it actually won't: it ends up creating files which are too big, ultimately giving you a notice saying "will not fit onto disk" after hours of transcoding.

Minor gripe: It will not let you set the default font type, size, and color for project menus, meaning that if you have 6 clips (titles) with 6 chapters each, you have to manually set the font and its properties individually 36 times, not including the top menu.

Don't let Movie Factory do your video encoding. What I do, and recommend, is using another program to edit and prepare each clip, including the encoding to DVD-ready MPEG. (I use Ulead Video Studio 7, and it does a great job.) Then import the MPEG files into Movie Factory and have it make the DVD. That's what works great for me.

It's a combination that's inexpensive and gives impressive results.

Don't waste your money
I wish there was an rating option of less than zero.After spending hours trying to make this piece of crap work and upgrading my DVD-RW to a SECOND ULEAD compatable device, I've given up trying to copy VHS tapes to DVD using this.If its not telling me my input device isn't compatable then its telling me it can't calculate the space.I went back to Sonic MYDVD and in about 30 seconds I'm copying VHS tapes.Its obvious the world of computer video software is in its infancy and there's bound to be problems but when you have vendors like ULEAD claiming that their products are all things simple, then the industry will have problems converting more people.

Good author/burning, basic menu/editing, pitiful transcoding
Ulead's Moviefactory 2.0 (MF2) is among the cheapest DVD authoring tools available.The same price group also includes Cyperlink's PowerProducer and Sonic's MyDVD.But MF2 has the best features and is the most reliable among the three.I've been using it to record TV programs and burn them onto DVDs, and the results looked very close to the original broadcast with no audio sync problems.It has worked perfectly with my DVD rewritable drive (Sony DRU500AX) and has not created a single unreadable disc.I've used several brands of discs: Memorex +R 1x and 4x, -RW 1x, and +RW 2.4x, Verbatim -R 4x, Ritek -R 4x, and also generic brands like Meritline -R 2x, Princo -RW 1x, and Leda -R 4x, and they have all been burned successfully.The readability of the burned discs is also what I would expect.The more compatible -R discs were playable on all my DVD players and drives, while the +R, -RW, and +RW discs were playable on only some of them.(The compatibility of recordable DVDs is a known issue in the industry.)

To use MF2's built-in capture tool, you need a video capture card. (Mine is an ancient Pinnacle Studio PCTV tuner/capture card with BT878 chipset, with generic WDM drivers for Windows ME).MF2 is able to capture MPEG files with DVD-, VCD- or SVCD-compliance.For DVD-compliant MPEG capturing, you can only choose among the preset bitrates: CBR or VBR, 4000, 6000, or 8000 Mbps.You can choose between MPEG Layer II or LPCM audio, but you can't set the audio bitrate.You can choose between interlaced or non-interlaced capturing.Since most TV broadcasts are interlaced, capturing at interlaced mode is preferred; but be sure to choose the correct field order, or jerky motion will result.You cannot adjust advanced settings such as GOP count, number of I-Frames and P-frames, etc. to improve your capture.There is, however, a "quality" setting to improve picture quality.Set it as high as you can, but without burdening the CPU so much that it would cause dropped frames.On my Intel P4 2.4MHz, while capturing at VBR 8000 Mbps with MPEG Layer II audio 384 Kbs (my preferred settings for high-quality captures), I could set quality up to 12 (max is 15) without dropping frames, with CPU utilization at about 85% during capture.It is a good idea to monitor CPU utilization (with a tool such as CPUIdle) during capture.If it is near or at 100%, dropped frames would be very likely.Also, any activity that would increase CPU utilization, even as minor as moving your mouse, should be avoided in order to achieve no dropped frames.Video capturing is the first and most important step in DVD creation.Without a video source with good quality and DVD compliance, it would be necessary to re-encode, or transcode, the MPEG source, which is a laborious and time-consuming process.

MF2's own transcoding ability, however, is horrendous (and PowerProducer and MyDVD are even worse).Transcoding is done automatically whenever a non-compliant source is detected, or you can force MF2 to transcode.The resulted video is often filled with skipped frames and audio sync problems, indicating MF2's inability to alter video resolution and resample audio bitrate reliably.When I need to transcode, I use an external tool like TMPGEnc, and pass the resulted MPEG file back to MF2 before authoring the DVD.The best way is, of course, to avoid having to transcode altogether by obtaining a high-quality, compliant source material.

Thankfully, MF2 can author and burn DVDs reliably.You can author and burn to disc directly, or you can author to hard disk first and burn it to disc later.You can also create an ISO image of the authored files, and later burn the DVD from the image file.MF2 can also reliably detect the burning speed of a disc.

MF2 lets you add chapter stops and design menus for your DVD, but they are for the most basic purposes only.Menu design is template-based, and there is no "free-form" design.Chapter stops are added after video capture, either manually or automatically at an adjustable time interval (some software can create chapter stops during capture, but not MF2).You are only limited to adding a main menu and a chapter menu on your DVD.You cannot create additional screens for your own special purposes.You can, however, create "slide shows" -- a series of static images.There are a lot of menu templates to choose from, with a variety of background graphics and button placements.You can also import your own background graphics and add background music for your menu screen.You can also omit the menus altogether (which I often do, because the menus created with MF2 surely aren't going to impress anybody).

There are certain advanced functions that MF2 and other products in its price range cannot do, such as adding multiple audio tracks, subtitle tracks, multi-angles, 5.1 audio tracks, AC-3 audio processing, and more sophisticated menu designs.Software with these features usually cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.Software with advanced video editing tools cost even more.

And MF2 is also very basic in video editing.It doesn't let you combine two video clips into one, insert transition effects, nor manipulate the audio.About the only useful thing it lets you do is extract portions of a clip.

A trial version of MF2 is available at Ulead's web site.It is fully functional for 30 days, with a limit of 20 pictures per slide show.The full version has no such limit.

Ulead also released a patch for MF2 on 8/22/03, notably adding PAL capture ability and fixing a few bugs. ... Read more

Product Description

Adding music to your PowerPoint presentations is easier than ever, thanks to PowerPlugs: Music for PowerPoint. Add looping high-energy background music to your entire PowerPoint presentations with just two mouse clicks. PowerPlugs: Music adds looping music clips to PowerPoint slides, without annoying pauses or icons that must be clicked on to start the music during the presentations. There are two volumes available. Each volume has 30 professional soundtracks made up of 180 unique music clips. PowerPlugs: Music supports WAV files. PowerPlugs: Music For PowerPoint Volume I Includes: Style 1: Action Current Events, Extreme Sports, Heavy Thread, Information, International Spy, Road Rage, Rock Runner, Secret Agent, Wave Rush, World News Style 2: Club Groove Aero Disco, Eighties Pop, Euro Pop, Party Groove, Progressive Trance, Pumping, Soma Lounge, Swinge, Techno Dance, Wellness Style 3: Corporate Bridge, Bright Guitar, Innovation, Morning High, Pacific Paradise, Place in the Sun, Progress, Sand Storm, Staccato Rain, Steady Drive ... Read more

Features

• Includes a variety of music styles that suit the needs of virtually any production!
• 30 professional soundtracks including 180 unique music clips!
• Proven to boost your audiences' enthusiasm levels to the max!
• Incredibly easy to use -- plugs right into PowerPoint 97, 2000, 2002 (Office XP) and 2003!
• Extremely affordable!

Reviews (1)

(Zero Stars if I could) The worst font software ever!
As a graphic designer, I bought this software for use with my freelance work.This software boasts 750 fonts.Nowhere on the box does it happen to mention that the fonts can ONLY be used for personal use.I had to open the box first, after I had purchased the program.Now, all 750 fonts in the software are completely useless to me.Heck, they could offer 10 million fonts in their software packages if they want, but what good is it if I can't use them for my freelance work?Aside from being deceived about the fonts, the FontManager software they boast about requires the CD be inserted into your computer for it to work.That means that if you're designing something (as you would presumably be doing with this font software) you couldn't insert other CDs, like for instance, stock art CDs -- all because this inferior piece of junk software must use that CD drive in order to work.I wasted $30 on this useless piece of junk.Please don't make the same mistake. ... Read more

Features

• iPod synchronization, so you can take your notes with you.
• FlashNote menu bar tool to search and view notes while in other applications.
• QuickNote lets you compose notes on-the-fly from any application.
• Tabbed note viewing so you can keep multiple notes open in a single window.
• Drag photos to notes from the built-in iPhoto and clip art browser.

Features

• Modify professional templates with special effects -- or add your own artwork to create unique letterhead, business cards and envelopes
• Built-in slogan and tagline generator to help you come up with the perfect tagline
• Export your logo as a GIF, JPEG, bitmap, PNG or TIFF file
• Include your new logo in your email, newsletters and Website promotions

Amazon.com Product Description

FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 is a sweet bundle that combines FlipAlbum 4.0, FlipAlbum Design Libraries, and CD Maker 2.0. You've got everything you need to create entertaining digital photo albums with colorful, custom pages that flip with the click of a mouse. Not to be overlooked is the fact that this album won't crease with use or deteriorate with age.

A range of full-page layout capabilities lets you design pages with multiple photos, images, and annotations. Add a table of contents, index, or even a thumbnail preview. The included Design Libraries delivers more than 3,000 graphics to your FlipAlbum. Choose from unique book spines, colorful backgrounds, and fun clip art. Retouch red eye and add special effects using the built-in image-editing tools. You can even import sound clips from the library or add your own.

CD Maker 2.0 lets you burn your digital album on CDs--a great gift for family and friends. A step-by-step wizard walks you through the process. Or, upload your album to your Web site or e-mail it. FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 software supports standard image, music, and video file formats. And, if you must, you can print these albums, too. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Order 4.1 from website
If you order this suite 4.0 you will have to download a 15 mg upgrade to 4.1 and also download two design CD's. In the end you spend more money when you order this outdated new product.

FlipAlbum
This program is the best one I've found for viewing photos. I've scanned all of my old photo albums and created CDs to give to family members, and it's been really easy cataloging new photos as I take them (digital). The mp3 feature in the new version has been great. Some people have complained that the program doesn't have a photo-editing feature, but I already have Photoshop (and I think most scanners and digital cameras come with some sort of software).

No Frills - Meets the Goal though
I use this for distributing photos on CD to others without having to spend time/effort explaining how to get at the photos.FlipAlbum is a nice solution for taking your .JPG's of any size/resolution and getting them quickly into a FlipAlbum which works like a simulated photo album where anyone can easily figure out how to click between pages, view thumbnails and hav a slide show.

FlipAlbums work well enough for posting on the web where others use the same simple method for viewing as FlipAlbums distributed on a CD.

4.0 Suite includes the CD utility which works easily enough to create files for a self-launching CD(when the destination PC has autorun enabled for the CD drive).This utility relies on your existing CD burning software and simply creates the files and give simple instructions what files to put on the CD.

The flipalbum itself is aimed at viewing your photos and includes no photo editing/adjustments like brightness/contrast, redeye features.You are expected to have decent files before copying them into FlipAlbum.You can however, change orientation of the pictures. I would hope future versions add some rudimentary picture enhancement features.

Also the look and feel customization in FlipAlbum is rudimentary (i.e. change the text on the cover, change colors/backgrounds of the pages and add .MP3 or .WAV music to different sections of the album.I found all of these features, cute enough but not very robust or extensive.But that's not the purpose of this software.

If you want a simple, fool proof way to get your photos on the web or especially to send a CD to grandma so she can pop it in and then painlessly flip through all of your recent photos, then I recommend FlipAlbum 4.0 or FlipAlbum 4.0 Suite (w/ CD creation). ... Read more

Product Description

PowerPlugs: Video Backgrounds Player and selected Content Add television-quality full-screen moving backgrounds to PowerPoint presentations with just 3 clicks! PowerPlugs: Video Backgrounds Player plugs right into PowerPoint and is incredibly easy to use. SuperSaver Combo also includes a selection of nine eye-catching royalty-free video clips from PowerPlugs: Video Backgrounds Content collection! PowerPlugs: Transitions I, II, III, IV & V Over 280 ways to keep your audience riveted between slides, with stunning 3D transition effects and synchronized sounds. This includes our entire set of award-winning 3D animated transition effects for PowerPoint. "Ridiculously cool!" says CNET. PowerPlugs: FlashReady Easily import Flash animations into your PowerPoint presentations in just a few clicks! Includes over 90 Flash animationsall ready to use and royalty free! PowerPlugs: Presentations to Go Complete library of 23 topic-specific presentation "shells". Each presentation shell includes custom graphics and expert tips on how to organize and present your presentation. PowerPlugs: Templates Favorites II & III The simplest way to give your presentation a unique and professional look. Choose from 200 business-style PowerPoint templates and 100 embedded flash templates. PowerPlugs: Charts Over 100 2D & 3D customizable chart templates, including Area, Bar, Bubble, Column, Histograms, Lines, Pies, Scatter, and Surface. Robust chart editing tools work right from the chart view. PowerPlugs: 3D Titles I and II Start your presentations off with a bang. Add impressive, animated 3D title slides to your PowerPoint presentations in just seconds. Includes 120 different 3D title template animations inspired by TV and film. PowerPlugs: PicturesPick your 25 favorite photos! Add stunning photos to all your presentations! PowerPlugs SuperSaver Combo 8 includes an e-coupon that allows you to download your choice of presentation-quality photos. ... Read more

Features

• SuperSaver Combo 8 includes Crystal Graphics most popular volumes of PowerPlugs for PowerPoint titles!
• And, get an e-coupon for your choice of any 25 presentation/Web-quality photos absolutely free!
• PowerPlugs products will help you make a great impression on your audience!
• Affordable and incredibly easy to use! For more memorable presentations, they're essential!

Product Description

Microsoft Visio Professional 2000 Upgrade .Bring the power of clear, visual communication to your everyday work. Whether you manage people, projects, or networks, theres an edition of Microsoft Visio 2000 that will meet your business needs. And all four editions share a set of intelligent diagramming tools and a common graphics engine that help you convey your ideas successfully no matter what they are. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great new feature, same old warts, but worth it
There are some compelling reasons to upgrade to Visio 2000 if you're using an earlier version of Professional.Here are some of my favorite features that I did not have in version 5.5 include the ability to quickly lay out deployment diagrams and create more precise drawings with the dynamic grid feature.It lets you distribute and align shapes on pre-defined grid templates (or ones of your own making). It also has automatic shape numbering, which I find very useful when I am creating a complex flow or process chart.I include a legend in the drawing that corresponds with the numbered shapes to further clarify that is happening.

Another feature that is plain wonderful is the page tabs, like in Excel and other applications. This is a vast improvement over the hard-to-find pages in earlier versions. The best feature, though, is the ability to use your arrow keys to "nudge" shapes in small increments. If you are doing web-enabled diagrams you can now embed URLs (links) in your shapes that can point to web pages, other documents, drawings or even another shape on your drawing.This is an incredibly handy feature even if you are not publishing your diagram to a web page because it allows you to create drawings that can be "drilled down" into, or point to entire documents for additional information.The possibilities here are endless.

Although I don't use it, a friend raves about the feature that allows you to model directory schemas, such as Active Directory, Novell's Directory Services (NDS; now called "eDirectory"), and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).Since directory-enabled enterprises are based on one of these products or standards this feature alone might be reason enough to upgrade.Note that NDS modeling has long been a feature with a wizard that Visio provided for free before Microsoft acquired the product.This has now been integrated into the core product and the other directory types added.

This version can also be extensively customized without resorting to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).ALthough the documentation that ships with Visio 2000 is lame Ralph Grabowski's excellent book, Learn Visio 2000 for the Advanced User, will show you how to fully customize Visio to meet your unique needs.This book is especially valuable if you use Visio all of the time because it will show you how to use a lot of features that you might not otherwise discover (or discover by trial and error), and how to configure Visio into a fine tool fitted to your needs instead of the generic implement it is out of the box.

Yes, Visio 2000 Professional is bloated, and yes, it still does strange things when you're editing a diagram within Microsoft Word.However, it is also incredibly powerful and easy to use.The learning curve for creating diagrams is shallow.I estimate that most people become 80% more productive even if they only use 20% of its capabilities. And the diagrams certainly add clarity to documentation.Despite the warts this version has some innovative features that make it an improvement over earlier versions.If you need the new features I cited above then the upgrade is worth it. ... Read more