Norton Internet Security 2002 is one of the best solutions for Internet protection available. Besides getting a top-notch virus checker, you also get a firewall, privacy setting and a parental control to block out sites from children.nThe firewall is quite powerful. After installing, I went out to a web site which tests your firewall by trying to hack (without intention to damage) your PC. It passed with flying colors and none of the hacking methods made it through.

I’ve used Pinnacle Studio for many years, even way back when I had to have the breakout box to feed in video. Except for some old VHS and 8MM I still feed in via firewire, I’m pretty much digital video now. Pinnacle Studio has had some bug issues in the last few releases but I am happy to say, that 18 is quite stable and easy to use. Installation is easy but takes a while because it provides a lot of content for you to use.

I use many video editing suites and I do have a favorite that has year in and year out proven its worth. It has the power with the ease of use. Sony Movie Studio has always offered some power but at a cost…learning curve. The new version is no exception but this is the most stable and powerful release yet. I like how you can full customize your workspace compared to the mostly static view of competing programs.

I am a long time Office user. I am also a SOLO IT Director for a small, multi-million dollar business. We need Office. There is no way around it. VBA and Excel is a small business’ best friend. For the casual users these days, that is hard to say, especially if a lot of people are happy with JUST a Smart Phone. But that is another discussion for another time. Is Office still a great choice?

I’ve been using Video Studio off and on for years and while it has nice features, I’ve always been disappointed over the speed and overall function of the suite. This suite they finally got things right. Not only is the program snappier and smoother than ever but we finally have some really good features as well. As a long time Adobe Premiere Elements fan, I have to say this may become my video suite of choice.

Ever since Apple gave up on the DVD authoring market, there’s been a need for good authoring software. Toast is adequate, and the interface is enough like iDVD to make the transition easy (assuming, of course, that you haven’t changed over by now). Buuuut… that’s about the only thing I’d buy it for. The core function of CD/DVD burning is of course long obsolete. Roxio keeps it in there for historical reasons, I’m sure, but it’s a little unlikely you’ll ever need it for that.

It’s fair to say that if you install MS Office, you probably know what you’re getting. That said, unless you’re doing something that absolutely requires MS Office support, it’s hardly worth it (except maybe for the fonts, and those only if you know how to dig them out of the .app bundles). At least OOXML is a more-or-less open file format, so importing and exporting is easy, and at least you can still buy a non-subscription version of Office.

I’m just going to go right ahead and say it… I don’t really understand how the interface is supposed to work. Apparently you can only switch between workspaces if you’ve saved your document first, or whatever you’ve got loaded goes away? Or is it the workspace itself you’re supposed to save? Needless to say, this is a bit of a problem for this review. That said, this is still a pretty good program once you figure out exactly what’s going on.

Installation was fast and simple and the program seems to run smoothly in the background and doesn’t seem to take up too much processing power. My only problem is that it doesn’t always load at startup! What’s the point of an anti-virus that won’t load when you turn the computer on? I had to manually put a link in the startup folder to force it to load on its own. Even at that it doesn’t always load and, almost every time, it doesn’t show an icon in the system tray so I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del and go to Task Manager to make sure that it is running.

Both products are great products. I use the Video Pro all the time to edit clips out of my movies and/or to change the format that they are in. The bundle is way more cost effective than in buying each individually. If you have a need for photo and video editing software, this easy to use combo is a good start to learning the basics and improving/changing your various digital media.