As soon as the iPad Office 365 apps got released and I saw them in action, I knew I wanted to upgrade my Office to Office 365. I was able to save quite a bit of money over buying the subscription through the App Store or directly through Microsoft by buying this subscription key card. The apps run beautifully on my two windows pcs and my ipads. By keeping all of my documents in sync across devices by saving them on Microsoft OneDrive (20GB included for free), I have seen a great increase in my productivity.

UPDATE: The subscription suddenly expired about a year and a half prematurely, and technical support has proven to be unhelpful. I withdraw any recommendation for this product on that basis. I will have to uninstall and purchase and install a new antivirus software.n________nOld review: I have run only Norton antivirus products for the past 14 years, so I was hesitant but excited to compare Bitdefender when given the opportunity. My grandparents’ computer was the perfect test subject.

I have used PowerDirector for some time now and found that the transition to Power Director 10 was seamless. Version 10 is noticeably quicker and I am not seeing the crashes that I saw with the previous versions. PowerDirector 9 was buggy on my 64 Bit Windows 7 i7 system with 16 GB of RAM (PowerDirector 9 ran perfectly when I first installed it and overtime started crashing. Reinstall didn’t help.

I’ve recently been reading a ton of complaints around the web about the Symantec Norton Antivirus and Internet Security Suite of software. The following little review has been written in response to those complaints:nnOne of the biggest complaints that I read about Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security is the cost. For me, however, the annual upgrade on Norton Products always ends up free–at least it has since the turn of the millenium.

This is a highly functional accounting software designed to do both cash based and accrual accounting. It is more than sufficient for small businesses and probably ideal for businesses with less than 100 employees. But please note, this particular version is only for a single computer (non Client-Server). If you want a scalable solution that can handle multiple connections in a client-server environement, this product is not the answer. Its main drawback is its speed.

This is a highly functional accounting software designed to do both cash based and accrual accounting. It is more than sufficient for small businesses and probably ideal for businesses with less than 100 employees. But please note, this particular version is only for a single computer (non Client-Server). If you want a scalable solution that can handle multiple connections in a client-server environement, this product is not the answer. Its main drawback is its speed.

The Entourage that comes with the Home & Student edition does NOT work with Exchange email (cannot be used as a Exchange client). That is somewhat strange since there are very few reasons to use Entourage other than to use it as an Exchange client. The Exchange compatibility has become important because most corporations use Exchange email. Moreover, most smartphones, including the iPhone, allows Exchange compatibility in which a user can synchronize contacts, calendar, and email with Exchange email accounts at no extra charge (Exchange email account is required).

With the advent of various tax softwares, it no longer makes sense to do taxes on paper. Even if you plan to file taxes by mail (not electronically), using a tax software such as Turbo Tax will minimize data entry and hassel of tax research. The only exception might be if you are a 1040EZ filer. What separates Turbo Tax from its competitors is their attention to detail. They have made the user interface little more intuitive and went to great lengths to provide a user friendly GUI and pictures.

Edit: I would like to downgrade this product to two stars. Please read my addendum in the last paragraph below. I run VMWARE Fusion 2.0 on my latest MacBook Pro (2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, 512MB Graphics RAM, 7200RPM drive). I run the Mac OS Leopard and the Vista Business edition (SP2) on a BootCamp partition. This is an excellent virtual machine software that has been expertly programmed. But to run it properly, you need a robust hardware (preferably the latest iMac or Mac Pro) and a LOT of RAM (I would NOT run VMWARE on a machine with fewer than 4GB of RAM).

With the advent of various tax softwares, it no longer makes sense to do taxes on paper. Even if you plan to file taxes by mail (not electronically), using a tax software such as Turbo Tax will minimize data entry and hassel of tax research. The only exception might be if you are a 1040EZ filer. What separates Turbo Tax from its competitors is their attention to detail. They have made the user interface little more intuitive and went to great lengths to provide a user friendly GUI and pictures.