The last version of Poser I worked with was Poser 4 back in 2000. Wow, have the graphics improved since then! I’m amazed at how realistic these graphics are. It is great to see that Poser has kept the layout, menu system and buttons relatively the same over the years. I had very little difficulty jumping straight from Poser 4 to Poser 9. The controls are intuitive and the menus do not clutter the screen.

VMWare works flawlessly. It lets me run Windows 7 programs on my Mac, just like I would run any other Mac program. No more need to reboot my computer to switch operating systems like I would have to do previously. And no need to jump back and forth between computers during my workday. This saves me time and increased my productivity. This is a truly spectacular programs. Anyone who uses both Windows and Mac would benefit from VMWare.

If you are considering buying this - don’t! Version 12 is a nightmare. The DocuCom watermark appears on your scans. To remove the watermark they charge another $99!nnMy advice is to use the scanning software that came with your PC, download OpenOffice and covert to PDF this way, download a free PDF converter from download dot-com, spend the money and get Adobe Acrobat Pro. Any option is far better than PaperPort!

I’ve been using McAfee security software for 3 years now. They are one of the most trusted brands and work good enough for my needs. Good basic protection at a decent price.

For a basic dictation software, this works well enough. It types what is said with great accuracy. Dragon’s voice recognition is truly the best available. The problems arise with formatting and editing. Often capital letters are missed. Paragraph formatting has errors. Inserting edits or new sentence fragments will create false capitalization. This can be very frustrating and time consuming. As a regular user of Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows (versions 10 and 12), I was disappointed with these problems.

IMPORTANT: This new version of Microsoft Office switched everything to the cloud. So your files are stored and edited on Microsoft’s internet servers. Because cloud is so new and every week we hear about major software companies (recently Adobe) getting hacked into and because of the NSA spying problems (with Google, Facebook and others giving the gov’t private information), I am very cautious about which files I open with any Microsoft products.

Sony hits a home run with this software. For around $100 I get a video editing program, DVD authoring program, audio recording program and audio creation program. 4 programs worth over $300 for $100. No other software company does this type of package yet… and definitely not at this price. After 4 weeks of playing with these programs (I use Sony’s higher end professional software for my business) I can easily give it 5 stars and a recommendation.

Cyberlink PowerDirector 12 is a solid video editing platform. I feel that the target audience is advanced beginner (those who want to do a little bit of editing) to amateur (those who string together multiple video clips to build YouTube videos or DVDs). But for those who run studios, use green screens, overlay audio tracks, create special effects, etc., Cyberlink falls short. But I don’t expect Cyberlink to compete with Sony Vegas Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro - the two leading professional level video software programs for PC.

Complete computer and internet protection for 3 users for under $25 - I’m sold! I got tired of all the pop-up ads on free anti-virus programs. The hassle wasn’t worth the few dollars I was saving. Not only is this internet anti-virus, it has so much more. I use the 10 GB of online file backup to store my irreplaceables (family photos, insurance documents, contracts, etc). I have the full system scan to keep my computer running faster and to keep my junk files to the minimum.

Compared to Adobe Premiere Elements - which costs the same, this software blows it away in terms of features and capability. I was using Premiere Elements for years but often got frustrated by the limited number of adjustments that I could me. Sure Premiere Elements let me run automatic adjustments with lighting, color corrections, and scene transitions. But when I wanted to get fancy, this software became limiting. With Pinnacle Studio I am able to perform many more automatic adjustments than Abode, more scene transitions, and I’m able to tweak my videos in ways I never could before.