Cyber News and Reviews is a monthly column published since 1995 for parents, teachers and small business and home business owners offering articles on some of the best computer products available. I cover business software, education, entertainment with freeware and shareware, and some hardware too. Over the years, I've reviewed computer programs from Microsoft, Knowledge Adventure (Davidson) and others. When my kids were young, they couldn't wait for the software to arrive and have fun testing the games and lessons with me. And, in the past few years they've contributed some of their own reviews with opinions. The best advice on software is from the children who use it. Also, many of the business programs reviewed are useful for home business and small business owners.
My writing began in 1979 when I entered the world of personal computers. One of the very first computers was in kit form made by Motorola, with a tiny amount of memory. It used a teletype for typing and it printed the text. I belonged to the local computer group where we exchanged software, helped each other expand our computers and bought the new computers when they came out. I had them all: from the Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64, Radio Shack TRS-80 to the IBM PC desktops. Radio Shack and Sharp made the first portable and pocket computers. Eventually, all the computers came with a form of Microsoft Basic language that let you write your own programs. I started writing articles on beginning Basic programming for Byte Magazine, Kilobaud, Personal Computing and others. My articles evolved into two books on beginning Basic programs, first for the TRS-80 and Apple II, then later for the Atari, Commodore and IBM PC. To my delight, the books were used to help teach the Basic Language in elementary and high school computer classes from 1980 to 1986.--Howard Berenbon
Rosetta Stone Personal Edition Hebrew Level 1, 2 & 3 CD-ROM Set
By Becky Berenbon
Rosetta Stone, a language learning software, is definitely one of a kind. The software calls its system Dynamic Immersion™, which models the way you learned your first language as a young child. Through images, intuition, interactivity, instruction, and immersion, you can learn a new language. There is absolutely no memorizing involved. Hard to believe? I wanted to see this for myself, so I tried out the program. The installation process took about 10 minutes, including actual installation and set-up. Before getting started, the software builds your course based on what you want to learn. For example, I had already learned the Hebrew alphabet, so I chose not to focus on learning this.
Each language program is divided into levels, sold separately or in bundles. And levels expand on what was previously learned. Rosetta Stone has just recently updated some of their language programs, including Hebrew, adding a third level to the series.
Each level has units, focusing on topics like “Greetings and Introductions” or “Work and School.” The units contain four lessons. New vocabulary is introduced at the beginning of each lesson, and then worked with during each activity. Once you have finished a unit, you’ll do the milestone, testing out your new language skills in an everyday situation, like on a camping trip or a bus ride.
What’s New for Acrobat 9
Combine documents, drawings, email, and spreadsheets into a single, compressed PDF Portfolio..
New optical character recognition (OCR) technology to convert paper to PDF files with support for many more scanners..
Improved Website capture allowing you to convert complete Web pages or just the portions you want, including or excluding interactive media. PDF versions are easy to print, archive, mark up, and share.
Compare PDF documents. Automatically highlights the differences between the two PDF documents so you can easily identify the changes.
Search across multiple PDFs to help you quickly find the information you need.
Use Acrobat.com for shared reviews. Participants download the file from Acrobat.com, and add comments or data using Acrobat or Adobe Reader. When finished, participants publish comments or submit responses to Acrobat.com. When using Acrobat.com for shared reviews, you can also allow reviewers to open and share the PDF in a live chat session.
Use Adobe ConnectNow, a personal web-conference tool, to conduct real-time meetings on your desktop. Attendees join the meeting by logging into a web-based meeting space from their own computers. In a ConnectNow online meeting, you can share your desktop, use live chat, share online whiteboards, and use many other collaboration features.
Use Acrobat.com to upload and share large documents. From Acrobat or Reader, you can create your own user account on Acrobat.com and then upload and share most document types, and PDF files in online meetings.
Synchronize document views. Ensure colleagues, clients, and partners are on the same page at the same time with the ability to co-navigate documents. Use Collaborate Live to provide clarity, enhance discussion, and walk recipients through a document in real time.
Easily create and edit electronic forms. (Windows) Use the new Forms Wizard to convert Microsoft® Word and Excel documents or scanned paper into PDF forms. Form fields are automatically recognized and converted to fillable fields. Quickly add, edit, and name form fields. Use the Tracker to see when forms have been completed and who has completed them.
Collect and export form data. Easily collect user data and export the data to a spreadsheet for analysis and reporting.
Track forms. Use the Tracker to see when forms have been completed and who has completed them.
Use QuickBooks data in forms. (Windows English only) Import and export Intuit QuickBooks data using custom templates.
Include Flash content in PDFs. Add Flash® videos and animations to your PDF documents. Native support for Flash enables reliable cross-platform playback. No additional media player is necessary.
Add comments to a video as you are watching it. Each comment is attached to a specific frame, so that when you view the comments, they appear in the context in which they were made. You can also enable Acrobat Standard and Adobe Reader users to add comments to videos.
View and interact with PDF maps. Search, measure, and mark up geospatially enabled PDF maps. Discover the longitude and latitude by placing your cursor over a location. Measure PDF maps in kilometers or miles.
Search and redact a list of words or phrases or a specific text pattern (for example, phone numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, or dates).
Bates numbering for PDF portfolios. When designating documents for Bates numbering, you can add PDFs, PDF portfolios, and any non-PDF files that can be converted to PDF. The process converts non-PDF file types to PDF, and then adds Bates numbers to the resulting PDF
Output preview enhancements. Use the Object Inspector to quickly inspect content in a document. The information displayed is for all content that is directly underneath where the cursor is clicked.
Preflight enhancements. Validate PDF/E compliance and save documents as PDF/E. Run checks and fixups on selected objects. View improved reports.
Color conversion enhancements. Set the transparency blending space. Remap spot colors using the Pantone library. Easily convert colors using the new design.
Software Companies Mentioned
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Ave
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
URL http://www.adobe.com
800-833-6687
Click for Page 1 Click for Comparison Table
May 2008--Rosetta Stone Personal Edition Hebrew Level 1, 2 & 3 CD-ROM Set
April 2008--QuickBooks Pro 2008 from Intuit Inc.
March 2008--TurboTax Deluxe for Tax Year 2007 from Intuit Inc.
February 2008--Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and My Guitar from eMedia
January 2007--English-Hebrew Language Learning Software from LingvoSoft
December 2007--CounterSpy Anti-Spyware and Edventure Maze
November 2007--Anti Spyware Software: You've Got to Have It
October 2007--The Incredible Wii Game Machine from Nintendo
September 2007--KoolMoves Update to a Cool Tool for Flash Development from Lucky Monkey Designs LLC
August 2007--A Neat Free Network Monitor from Snapfiles.com and NirSoft
July 2007--Freeware Utilities for Your Flash Drive from SnapFiles.com®.
June 2007--QuickBooks Pro 2007 from Intuit Inc.
May 2007--Flash Drives: You Got to Get One!
