Software

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.

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.