If you need professional 2D drafting capabilities you’ve found the perfect product in AutoCAD LT 2011. For those who haven’t used previous installments of AutoCAD, as long as you’re willing to put in the time to learn it, the interface is very user friendly and you’ll soon find that everything you could possibly need is right at your fingertips. For those who are considering an upgrade, LT 2011 is worth every penny.

This being my first time using any SketchBook program, I went into it with an open mind eager to test it out. Installation couldn’t have been much easier, and I was up and running in no time. Through some trial and error, I was able to start seeing the genius of this program. It really is extremely simple to use and the results are stellar. I will say that you’d need a graphics tablet and pen to truly appreciate SketchBook, and I’ll be picking one up for myself as well.

I gave BitDefender an honest try, hoping that it would provide better protection than the horrible McAfee I was dealing with before. Unfortunately, it did not. BitDefender Total Security 2009 is a complete mess. It locked up my computer when it was trying to scan, to the point where web pages would freeze and then 10 minutes later they’d herky-jerk back to life for a minute, then freeze up again. After a frustrating encounter with a lack of quality customer service, I had to uninstall it and get rid of it for good because I just could not take it anymore.

I will give it to Microsoft when it comes to MapPoint. It has always been a breeze to setup, relatively simple to use, and very effective at what it does. That being said, there’s not enough new content in MapPoint 2010 to justify an upgrade if you have any earlier version of the software, unless you absolutely need the new features. The improvements on MapPoint 2010 as opposed to 2009 are relatively minor.

Omnipage 18 seems to me like an OCR solution that could have been perfect, but instead decided to bog itself down with advertising and unneeded crud. It never ceases to amaze me when companies decide to do this - they figure ‘people who need it will still use it either way, so we can put all this extra unnecessary stuff on here and people won’t care.’ Only through consumers taking a stand on this will any of it change - there are other solutions for OCR like ABBYY, but they seem to have the same issues.

Having not worked with previous versions of AutoCAD, I cannot compare this to those. I can, however, say that AutoCAD LT 2010 is easy to set up, relatively simple to learn, and provides all the features that I could ever see myself needing or using, and then some. As long as you don’t need 3D drawing capabilities, I would highly recommend this product.

I have to hand it to Microsoft for Office 2008’s ease of installation. Usually, when I purchase any sort of Microsoft product, I’m stuck dealing with all sorts of ridiculous issues and errors before I even get to try it out. With Office 2008, everything installed without a hitch and I was able to start using it in no time. As far as functionality and features go, this one is hit or miss.

PowerDirector 12 Ultimate really brings you everything you need as an amateur videographer. I’ve been working with PowerDirector for several years but even if you’re new to it, it doesn’t have a huge learning curve like some other programs have. Setup is quick and painless, effects are easy to implement and I haven’t seen any major bugs or come across any potential headaches while using it. What more is there to say?

I was excited to see AutoCAD finally developed and (almost) perfected for Mac. I have a few years of experience working with AutoCAD so this was relatively easy for me to dive into and experiment with, but if you’re a new user, be forewarned you will need to educate yourself on it. AutoCAD is not a program you can just jump into and learn with some trial and error. Consider watching some online help videos and perhaps doing a little reading on it as well.

This was my first time setting up and using McAfee Site Advisor, and first impressions were very good. Setup was a breeze and Site Advisor has worked as advertised, giving me a heads up on any potential issues with websites and links. The greatest thing about Site Advisor is it’s perfect for inexperienced internet users who may otherwise easily end up allowing spyware/viruses or other unwanted content onto their computers. Site Advisor prevents problems from happening, which is a lot better than trying to deal with the problems after they’ve happened.