Needs fast PC

Using this on a 1.8GHz Windows XP machine with 1GB RAM, it is just not enough to run this without causing annoying slowdowns. I'd imagine you would need 2GB of RAM and a faster processor for it to run satisfactorily, even more so if you are using Windows Vista. If you have a fast machine, this package probably has the best anti-virus, but the firewall is not quite as user friendly as Zone Alarm.

This is wonderful.........

As I have started to seriously use the Internet to buy goods I downloaded Norton 360 2.0 trial from Symantec. I was so delighted with it that I have upgraded from Norton Anti Virus to the full Norton 360 2.0 program. I can't recommend it higher it works in the back ground with out my input after set up and I am especially delighted that the phishing protection is on FireFox not just IE. I know by earlier reviews of the original 360 (not 2.0) that there were problems with it. I have found none mind you I am using XP not Vista? My recommendation is buy it.

Will never completely defragment your hard disk...

I just bought a new laptop with OneCare 2.0 preinstalled. My system is much faster than when I used Norton and (so far - 1 month!) I have been mostly happy with it. However, I noticed that the weekly tune-up kept coming back with a message saying"C:/ Defragmentation partially completed*. Because of high levels of disk fragmentation, starred volumes could not be completed in this Tune-Up and are marked for defragmentation in later Tune-Ups". I presumed this was because my computer was new and I had recently installed lots of new programs so I ran the defragmenter included in the Vista operating system which took a few hours but did the job. I then immediately ran a tune-up through OneCare and the defragmentation came back as being successful. However, 2 days later (during which time I only used the computer to check my email), the automatic tune-up returned the same message of"Partially completed... High levels of disk fragmentation...". After connecting with a OneCare representative via chat, I was told that the defragmenter would never complete the defragmentation process. To quote directly from the chat:"...as for the tune-up process on OneCare, it really doesn't complete the tune-ups." and"In order for you to complete it, you have to manually do that defragmentation on your local disk." In answer to my question of what's the point of including defragmentation in the OneCare program then, I was told:"As part of the tune-up process, and since OneCare is only sharing some services of your Vista, it doesn't complete it.", which makes absolutely no sense to me! Obviously, the defragmenter is included for free in your OS but if OneCare says it will automatically defragment your computer during programmed tune-ups, it should do this 100% every time, especially if you just did a complete defragmentation two days ago. As I say, apart from that, I have not (so far!) had any other problems but I now understand the paranoia in relation to Microsoft.

Yes, definetely a no-brainer!

I have not yet got my mits on Elements 6 but if it improves just one thing over Elements 4 then I shall be in the queue on the 14th.
If you have a digital camera I can only ask one thing... if you have not bought this program, why on earth not?
OK, it does lack the higher end funtionality of Photoshop CS such as layer masks but unless you have a contract with a fashion mag or make a living selling photos you won't even notice and what is there is utterly brilliant.
If I have a complaint it's that, since getting Elements 4, all I seem to have done is buy magazines to try out all the special effects and techniques it allows me to twiddle with so be warned - seriously addictive.
Whether you just 'point and click' or have a D-SLR and want to get a bit more creative you NEED this and like the previous reviewer, my advise is get it before someone realises what they could charge for it!

My Safety Net!

I'm truly amazed at all the poor reviews and problems! I've used several versions of True Image over the years, though admittedly only on XP, after migrating from a problem-ridden Norton Ghost setup.

I currently run True Image Workstation, performing monthly backup images onto a spare hard-drive (rather pointless putting it on the main drive and there's added safety in case of total drive failures). Reckless and daring behaviour has necessitated recovering my active partion on several occassions.

I've never had the slightest glitch with any of the versions I've used so maybe this is a current problem related to adapting it to run on Vista. A problem there certainly appears to be - I can't believe this number of people are all 'mis-understanding' it in some way (it's always been fairly intuitive). I sincerely hope Acronis sort it out because I regularly recommend it and continue to rate it as a first-class product.

Simple no fuss anti-virus protection

One thing about Symantec products is they work, if you just want a good anti-virus scanner that is simple to use and that is simple to keep up to date then this is the answer. The user interface if minimal, allowing you to scan your drives individually or all at once as well as manually running the update program. Other than installing it and letting it run a full system scan every now and then there is nothing to do, the software runs in the background; along with the auto updater.

Arghhh!

This has to be the most infuriating software I've ever used. I have to warn you that this program is filled with bugs, if you want to do anything other than simple blogging or like me, are indecisive and will want to change the background regularily, be warned! Sometimes fonts dont work, currently some of my text refuses to change size for no reason at all and if you EVER edit ANY of the text on a gallery page that is not part of the gallery, say the introduction explaining what the gallery is of, then it forgets all your pictures have titles and they disappear. You have the option of showing pictures in three types of ways, one is plain ugly and of the other two one won't allow any text to be under your images. There also isn't a spellcheck, which seems like an obvious thing to have to me?

These I promise are just a few of the most annoying problems with what is a really good idea. I have emailed their own program bug catcher but have recieved nothing but the crudest of responses..."have you tried changing the size of the font?".. Of course I have. I have built websites before from scratch in much more complex programs than this, these aren't my stupid mistakes and I'm not alone in finding them.

Arghhhh!

Not vista compatible!

I have just got off the phone to technical support and have been informed that the error message I get when launching the application is because I'm running on windows vista with a sony cdrom drive. DSA are aware of the issue, the and it will be resolved with the latest version of the CD. Unfortunately it's expected release date is the end of March 2008!
I was assured it only affects 1% of all Vista users.

So for now I'll have to stick to the paperback highway code

Top Revision Guide

The listing price is quite expensive, but this is literally the test you will take at the DSA. It's identical with the only difference being you will get to use a touch screen on the real thing (unless of course you have a touch screen monitor at home :D).

There isn't really anything better for revising for your theory test, it includes the mock theory test programme, which pinpoints your weaknesses, your strengths and let's you create custom tests from your results. As well as this you can simply take a proper mock examination, which will get you familiar with exactly what the test will be like.

The Hazard Perception slightly lets it down, while the video once again is very useful for getting to grips with what your test will be like, you only get 10 clips to practice with, which is good, but once you've done them once you know the hazards.

Other than that, a great package, and to be honest in comparison to buying seperate packages, a decent price.

Speedy typer thanks to Mavis Beacon

I have really learned form Mavis Beacon!!
I had a query if it was compatible with my computer so I contacted GSP customer suppert online and they got back to me really quickly and sufficiently. The product is Americanised but its not teaching you HOW to spell but HOW to type.(You should be able to figure the spelling bit out for yourself.) I would recommend this product to anyone wanting to learn how to type accurately and with speed.

A useless resource hog

Well I've been using the trial version before going for the upgrade and I am so glad I did because I would have wasted my money.

It refuses to read other CDs / DVDs written with other software and stubbornly insists that discs that Nero burnt as multi-session are closed for good.

After 2 hours of trying to improve things by reinstalling it, watching is crash, and the main burning utility and the quick CD 'drop and drag' utility run the CPU usage up to 100% and then stop responding, crash again etc etc I can honestly say that this is the most useless piece of junk to be created for some years.

Forget it. You'll be happier. Trust me.

On top of the moon

Installed and activated without any problems what so ever (clean install). Having started my computer career with Windows 95 and upgraded with each new release I can easily say that Vista is by far the most stable, user friendly OS to date. Just installed SP1 so the whole experience has just got better. For those with a negative view, take a bit of time to explore the new features and you to shall be converted.
Once again an online purchase pleasure through Amazon.

Delicious alternative to that other office suite

What do you like?

If you want to have exactly the same applications that everyone else has, and don't mind how clunky or slow they are, then you get Microsoft Office.

If you want complete compatibility, but are somehow morally opposed to paying money for software, then you go with Open Office.

If you want very high -- but not necessarily complete -- compatibility, and you want a delightful, smooth and efficient set of applications, and you want to do presentations that leave the other applications stranded, then you choose iWork '08.

Actually, I already owned Microsoft Office, and I use it for compatibility. And I've installed OpenOffice for people: it's good software. But the other week I saw a presentation done on iWork's Keynote, and I was absolutely smitten. For the price of a reasonable Photoshop plugin, this application is amazing, with full cinematic effects that cannot be reproduced in PowerPoint.

Having bought iWork, I'm astonished at the sleek, beautiful interface, the speed of operation, the intuitive design, and the superb feature set. I haven't enjoyed using a word-processor or a spread-sheet like this for years.

That's it really. It imports the vast majority of things that Microsoft Office opens, and exports back seamlessly. It lets you know when there are unsupported features, and even informs you when fonts are missing -- something that Word signally fails to do.

Of course, there are lots of features that Office supports that iWork doesn't. Mailmerge, for example, and creating organigrams. On the other hand, for the price of Microsoft Office, you could buy FileMaker Pro and iWork, which, alongside the Mac's installed tools such as OmniGraffle, would give you vastly more functionality. Microsoft gives you Entourage as well, of course, but, since Entourage doesn't really work very well with Exchange Servers (less well than iCal and Mail, for example), this is hardly a disadvantage.

Pound for pound, iWork is vastly better value than Microsoft Office. I'll go out on a limb here and say it is better designed software, with a much clearer understanding of what most users want.

Of course, I'm not deleting MS Office. If you want compatibility, then only MS Office can really guarantee it. But for most Mac users, this is software at a price you can afford, delivered in a style that you desire.

Apple has done something I really wouldn't have believed: they have made office applications sexy again.

Frustrating and slow

I have been using this software has some months now and have yet to find that it is in fact quicker than typing. Most of the time, having spent some time adjusting the microphone to the optimum position, it will type out words as you talk quite happily. However, the accuracy rate is rather poor - that 99% accuracy claimed by the makers is somewhat optimistic; but even 90% accuracy can result in complete gobbledygook.

The spoken words are recognized and appear in a small bar on the screen before being put into the body of the text. Occasionally, the words are recognized completely accurately and appear in the bar and yet fail to make it into the body of the text. This is incredibly irritating and time-consuming and results in the dictation becoming very stilted. Comparing what I've written when I have been purely typing and when I've been using Naturally Speaking, I find that I'm much more fluent and my words flow better when typing.

Once the text is on the paper, or rather the screen, it is necessary to proof read and correct all the errors. This is harder to do with Naturally Speaking as there are no spelling or typographical mistakes, just sections (and sometimes large swathes) of nonsensical text and it is not always easy to see what it was you intended to say in the first place.

Voice recognition software may be making great strides forward, but it is not there yet. (I started writing this review using the software, but the accuracy was so poor I gave up and resorting to typing!)

Not really useful as an upgrade

This was a Christmas present as I'd recently passed my driving and was borrowing a car over the festive season. Someone thought that it may be of use to aid in my planning and navigation for the long haul journies which I'd planned. The interface is very similar to recent previous versions making it easy to use and there are some nice touches to some features like printing out different styles of routes or directions. You can also use a GPS connected to a laptop for mobile users although it could only find COM ports on my laptop and not my USB GPS device so I never got to play with that feature. I got the impression though that you can use Autoroute 2007 in the same way as TomTom as it gives you the option to install some speech software. There are some other minor points and it is not as up to date as the version 2007 would have you believe.
For a start, some pubs in my home town which have since changed hands over two years ago are listed by their previous names where as others which have been established for years are not even shown. So if you were planning on using pubs as an established form of land mark then forget it. Also, not all service stations are listed for the motorways which made planning stops on routes a little awkward. In reality, I found that practically all junctions of the M1 have services other than the 4 shown in Autoroute 2007. Directions refer to slips roads of motorways as ramps and one particular route gave me the wrong exit off a roundabout at a junction. When exporting the maps to Pocket Streets, I found that they were incompatible with Pocket Streets on my PDA and I could not export them as a previous version.
This all said, the product is quite good as an overview tool and to be fair there is a lot of information to cram in so you would expect some anomalies. However, there is no update feature and no updates on Microsoft's web :(

Given that this was a gift, I'm not really complaining or being ungrateful for recieving it. Having used it though, I couldn't justify the expense of buying it myself.

A very useful aid - but some of the video clips are grainy in places!

I've been driving for 15 years, so I gained my car licence before the theory and hazard perception tests were introduced. Now, I am working towards obtaining my motorbike licence, so I purchased this as an aid for the hazard perception part of the theory test.

The software is well laid out and includes lots of bonus material explaining how the test works and includes driving with commentary from serving Police drivers.

My only gripe is that some of the video clips are extremely grainy in places - you're unsure if what you see in the distance is a hazard, or an artifact introduced as a result of the video compression (Cwmpencraig 2 is a particular example).

I do hope that the video clips used in the real DSA test are of higher resolution than the clips in this DVD.

Out with the old....

I must say that I DID (read underlined and bold) agree with the comments about it being a terrible system, until that is, I really practiced with it. At first it is very difficult to switch from a previous version of Office to this one, but, with a little practice and a lot of, initial, patience, I feel that the rewards of this system far outweigh the hassles!

I LOVE the new flexibility that has been added to the various parts of the system, and the way the 'Ribbon' (after initially being a bit frustrating due to my using 2003) puts all the tasks you are used to, and more, in easy access tabs. I know that there are those out there who want it to look like the 2003 system as that is the system they are used to (go do a search on the net and you'll find lots of free add-in downloads to do exactly that for you!!). And if you are one of those who likes to move all the icons around, or add your own, then you'll either need to learn how to write in XML, or just add them to the quicktask menu (no different than adding them to a toolbar in 2003!!).
And there is the fact that you can make template packages (Themes) that you can use across the board (Excel, PP, Word, Publisher, et al), the 'Live Preview' function to see what the formatting will look like in your document (it changes the formatting in the document as you hover over the options, not changing it until you click it), et. al.

And don't even get me started on the amazing capabilities of One-Note!! I have a PDA and can now chat away, draw diagrams and scribble notes while away from my computer, then have them import automatically when I cradle it. I have to say that this is one of the most amazing tools I have used for my project work and personal study that I have ever found - It alone makes the price of this worth it to me!

In conclusion, just take your time - leave 2003 installed until you get used to this version (all the programs in the suite will run side-by-side without conflict, bar Outlook) - and get to know the new system! You'll be amazed at the power that has been added ....

.... if you let yourself! ;-)

CJ

BitDefender Internet

In a nutshell, my laptop was contantly choking before I had this software but now it breathes and lives like a G. It's outstanding.

Absolutely appalling

I've used Norton Antivirus, Utilities and Firewall for years and other than being unable to turn off the outgoing mailchecker in antivirus I've never had any complaints - until now that is. After running 360 for a couple of weeks a few programs stopped working and everything became rather slow. I used Norton Utilities from disk and it found 39 windows problems.-Plainly 360 wasn't working. When I attempted to Safeguard my files to dvd, norton 360 lost the plot after 5 dvd's telling me that each new dvd I put in the drive was damaged - I gave up after trying 6 new dvd's all of which I used successfully later. As I had terminated the backup the 5 dvd's I'd used were useless.
I tried again a week later - this time I got as far as 13 dvd's before the same thing happened. So it cost me 18 dvd's - what a waste. I've given up on Norton, I'll never trust them again.