Complex Contact Management
ACT! by Sage 2009 is the newest version of the widely used contact management software. This applet lets you bring together any different kinds of information about individual contacts, groups of contacts, and whole companies, so it's great for keeping tract of your calls, e-mails, and letters to business prospects and customers. ACT! excels at gathering dozens of different kinds of contact information on a single screen, but this also means that the interface can be intimidating, especially for new users.
ACT! not only tracks your communications, build mass mailings on paper or e-mail, and alerts you with to-do lists, it also shares your calendar and other data across your company or, in more advanced version, across a whole enterprise. You can live almost your whole professional life in ACT!, using it to launch e-mails from Oulook or to fire up Microsoft Word to send mass mailings-and you can even use its built-in low-frills word processor if you don't want to be overwhelmed by Word.
The basic ACT! interface is similar to that of earlier versions, and reasonable well organized for the amount of data it supports. It includes sidebar iconds for many features and a dashboard that displays a set of brightly colored charts showing the number of activities you've performed, the opportunities you've followed up on, sales you've closed, and other items that you can manually add to the display.
Over the years, the product has built up staggeringly extensive feature set, but it's still weighed down by a few clumsy interface flaws. For example, too much of the programs uses ACT!'s special-purpose vocabulary instead of plain English. There is, however, improved Outlook integration in which ACT! automatically records your e-mail activity and uses your Outlook message-sorting rules. You can also back up your data automatically at almost any interval you choose.
Thanks to its new lookup features and expanded Outlook integration, ACT! 2009 is an essential upgrade for existing users. Potential new users should prepare for a rough initiation preiod before thay can manage this app'z dazzingly wide and powerful range of functions. -Edward Mendelson.
PC Magazine November 2008.
ACT by SAGE 2009
APPLE iTUNES 8
iTunes 8 Gets with the Times
Whenever Apple upgrades iTunes, people take notice. The new version, iTunes 8, brings some noteworthy additions-some of which are cosmetic and others that bring it more in line with how people are using digital music these days. The new window dressing in iTunes 8 consists of a tiled album-cover view and Visualizer update.
The big news, however, is Genius, a feature that in one click creates playlists from songs in your library that go together. It's somewhat similar to Pandora's seeded, automated playlist building, but it works locally, with pre-existing music as opposed to streaming Internet radio. Although Genius brings iTunes closer to Rhapsody, Pandora, and Slacker, two shortcomings still exist. First, Genius pulls from your existing library instead of exposing you to some new and perhaps undiscovered music. also, if you get new recommendations from the iTunes Store, you have to pay to download them, instead of checking them out for free the way you can with Pandora and Slacker.
Other upgrades in iTunes are harder to fault, such as its reconciliation with NBC, offering Battlestar Galactica, 20 Rock, Monk, and The Office in HD. Finally, new accessibility features are a nice inclusion, such as VoiceOver (for Leopard users) and Window-Eyes (for XP and Vista users), and a screen reader for downloading content.-Jamie Lendino
PC Magazine November 2008
DRAGON NATURALLYSPEAKING 10 PROFESSIONAL
Talk to Your PC
Say the words "speech recognition software" and most people think of Dragon Naturally Speaking. Dragon has ruled the roost for years, partly because it's a perenially great piece of sotware, and partly from lack of competition. Event though Dragon now has rival products to contend with, it has secured its positions as the leading voide-recognition software with this new version. Here you get new automation tools, improved hands-free navigation, updates to the interface, and increased accuracy and speed.
Most general-purpose versions of the product include an Andrea NC-19 monaural headset, but the $349 Preferred Wireless Edition subtitutes a slock little Calisto Bluetooth headset from Plantronics. Dragon requires considerable PC muscle: a 1-GHz CPU and 1GB of free hard drive space at minimum, as well as 512MB of RAM. DUring setup, you create a user account, which involves choosing a language (U.K., U.S., Australian, Indian, or SE Asian English), a regional accent, and a microphone connection type. A vocabulary option lets you specify General, Command Only, or Teen. The Setup routine also requests that you read some of your e-mail and word-processing documents. All told, the installation process took me about 45 minutes.
I was very impressed at how accurately and quickly the program transcribed my test script, showing only occasional blips even when I spoke without pauses between words. You can actually decide on how much speed to trade for accuracy using a slider-a handy feature. But is Dragon better than the free translation feature in Vista? With straight forward text both were identical, but on more difficult materal Dragon made fewer mistakes than Vista. The more significant difference is that Vista shows a delay before producing text; Dragon was more prompt. Both programs let you launch other apps from the Start menu by speaking the command "Start Menu." For subsequent commands, Vista was more intuitive, but with Dragon, you also get time-saving Voice Shortcut.
Despite some problems-for example, typing while Dragon is running sometimes slows your system down- and an interface that's not polished as Vista's, Dragon is a serious dictation tool that beats Vista in accuracy, speed, and customization options, thus earning our Editors'Choice.-Michael Muchmore
PC Magazine November 2008
NORTON INTERNET SECURITY 2009
Norton's Powerful Protection Won't Slow You Down
Most users love the protection security software gives them but hate the way it drags down their daily activities. Good News: Norton Internet Security 209 affects performance less than any suite I've tested. Most security tasks happen in the background during idle time. My performance tests confirm that Norton slows systems less than the rest.
The big independent antivirus testing labs all certify the efectiveness of Symantec's antivirus technology; those who have tested the 2009 edition find it improved. It scans files on demand, on access, and during idle time. A full scan took 50 minutes on my standard test system, but the Norton Insight feature reduced that to 5 minutes on later scans.
Norton scored better than other suites in the malware removal test, and it was unusually thorough. In th emalware blocking test it elimidated all but one of the malware samples before they launched. Overall it did better than all of the other suites and standalone antispyware products that I've tested with my current collection of malware. Norton's phishing protection works the same as of the 2009 edition and continues to be extremely accurate.
The firewall is hardened against malware, and it easily passed my barrage of Web-based assaults. and when I attacked a stest system using the Core Impact penetration tool, it blocked all the sample exploits.
The Network Security maps shows all the devices connected to your network and reports whether your wireless network is secure. From th emap you can remotely monitor other computers on the network that are also running Norton. And you can lock out specific devices by setting their trust level to restricted.
Spam protection, however, is useless. In testing, it tossed more than a third of my valid personal mail into the spam folder and missed nearly 30 percent of undeniable smap. Don't rely on this feature.
Norton's Itentify Safe is a password-protected way to store credentials and log in automatically. It also fills web forms with your predefined personal data, all protected by a strong master password.
This is definitely the slimmest, most unobstrusive Norton ever, yet its protection is top-notch where it counts. Despite a few weaknesses, it is the best all-around security suite I've ever seen: I'll be installing it on my own system.-Neil J.Rubenking
PC Magazine November 2008
