I’m not a video expert, and certainly not a pro. I am a grandmother, and I do have multiple digital video cameras though. This program lets me do basic editing, accomplishing what I want to with videos. I’ll admit–it’s pretty simple stuff, since we’re simply using candid video footage for assembling family videos. I’m sure the software can accomplish a lot more than I’ll ever use it for, but it does what I want it to, without a lot of problems figuring out how to make it perform the way I want it to.

I’m not a movie pro. I can barely manage to crop a photo. This program isn’t going to turn me into a movie editor but it does let me edit videos and assemble them in a coherent format. I still have some things to learn to spruce them up more.

I’ve used Family Tree Maker before, and it was interesting,easy, and entertaining to explore my family tree. Like a lot of other users,I found this version to be less-than-wonderful. there was no reason to update, and I preferred the older version. Sometimes,software developers feel a need to re-invent the wheel, and that seems to be the case here. i’m not sure why there is a new version other than to possibly address the release of Windows 8 (I stuck with 7 there too.

I’ve used Photoshop for a long time, mostly for enhancing photos and adding graphics, lettering etc. for websites. Adobe’s pricing has put it out of reach for me personally, but this Corel product goes a long way to giving me the features I use most often. The interface is distinctly different but it’s fairly easy to learn and I’ve grown to like it. I still prefer to organize with Elements, but use PSP as a side processor for effects and I’m really pleased with it.

Avast makes a great free product! In December I needed antivirus protection for a Win XP machine when my Norton Security subscription ended. I used another product for my Windows 7 machines, but spotted this free version and it’s perfect for this use. As a matter of fact, I am so impressed with it I will definitely evaluate the paid versions when my other service subscription expires. It seems to function well, doesn’t take up a lot of resources and the offers to upgrade or add features are entirely reasonable and don’t interfere with the operation or get in your way.

I have previous versions of PaintShop and the first thing I noticed is that it’s speedier than in the past. This is a welcome improvement. There’s lots to like about the product - many tools, controls and effects. You can apply a change via the batch mode to many files. There are lens corrections and correction for chromatic aberrations. There are lots of layer controls. Read the product description for all about the many changes.

I primarily use Photoshop Elements to manage my photo collection and often use it to process photos. What I wanted from Paintshop Pro is a more Photoshop editing application to easily overlay text, do layer editing,and otherwise be more creative. I have an earlier version of this application. There’s nothing easy about this, plan to spend some time with it. Tools like Picasa provide some basic editing and magic adjustments, but really tweaking photos takes up your time when you want to get good results.

I had version 7– and wrote a pretty scathing review on Amazon, if you care to look. But I still had a need for voice recognition software to transcribe interviews for my job, and frankly, Dragon seems to be the main game in town. So I decided to give them one more shot. I wasn’t expecting much. I was blown away. On the same computer with the same sound card and other equipment, I went from about 60% accuracy to at least 90% accuracy out of the box.

I’ll just add another voice to the chorus here saying that this product is a disappointment. It’s confusing to use, particularly if you want to actually use it for its intended purpose… what good is backing up if you can’t figure out how to restore from a backup?nnI hoped Acronis would see all these reviews and make improvements, but I see that the new version has poor feedback as well. There are many products out there to choose from, and there’s no need to use one that’s as unstable and unintuitive as this one.

When I tried installing the program from the CD-ROM, it told me the version was outdated and I should try downloading it from the AVG website instead. But I could find no option on the website to download an already-purchased program. After a valiant search, I gave up and installed the CD-ROM (a 2009 release). I first uninstalled the free AVG from my computer; there were no other anti-virus programs on there.