Logitech Extreme PC Gaming Headset 980233 0403

Gain the edge you need in online gaming with the Logitech Extreme PC Gaming Headset. Its behind the head design stays comfortable even after hours of intense action. The 30mm stereo drivers produce high quality audio, and the noise-canceling microphone blocks unwanted background noise. Best of all, the ratchet boom lets you precisely adjust the microphone for optimal positioning… so that it stays put even in the heat of battle.PRODUCT FEATURES:Great for Internet gaming, voice chat, online conferencing, or voice command;Sleek behind-the-head design is perfect for hours of comfortable wear;Ratchet boom keeps the microphone in its optimal position;Dynamic stereo sound lets you immerse yourself in your games and music;Inline volume and mute control allow convenient operation;Noise-canceling microphone filters out unwanted background noise.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Great Headset with some Minor Irritation
This is an excellent headset for the price you pay. The sound quality is adequate, and the microphone picks up your voice, but the bit that goes over your ears takes a bit of getting used to. This headset is not designed for long-term use on a single day without some conditioning, as the ear supports start feeling a bit sharp after a few hours, and can cause blisters if you ignore it (this is from personal experience =P). If you only plan to use it for an hour or two at a time, this is a great headset, but if you’re a hardcore gamer with lots of time on your hands, go for something with a different design or more padding.

5 Stars Great product.
Overall great product. The sides can and sometimes do bother your ears and the sound could be improved, but otherwise excellent. Glad i bought it.

5 Stars Gaming headphones that are affordable and work
I’ve tried several expensive versions from Turtle Beach, Sennheiser, and others, and all have disappointed for various reasons. Spending $150 on something and not being blown away, having driver issues, dealing with power cords, etc… sucks. I bought these head phones, plugged them in, and was chatting away, fragging people in TF2 without any set up whatsoever. I recommended these to several of my friends and they have been using them without issue as well.

If you want a simple, stereo headset that works, try these. If you don’t like them, you’re out $15 - not $150.

4 Stars Bang for the buck headset.
The price can’t be beat. The quality of the design is great and it simply works. There are more comfortable headsets available, but at this price the Logitech Extreme PC Gaming Headset can’t be beat.

5 Stars Great Headset
I ordered this headset about a month ago and I’m very pleased with it. I’ve traveled across the country twice with it fairly precariously packed and it is holding up great. Due to it’s shape it’s a bit odd to pack. The mic doesn’t exactly fold away as it might with other headsets but it works well enough. The sound quality from the headset is great and from what I can tell the mic quality on the other side of the line comes out crisp as well. It is nice to have volume control on the cord (as well as a mute switch.) Fits comfortably for the most part (as comfortable as any headphones are.)

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Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 7

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements Bundle v7.0 MINI BOX

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars The photoshop
I received this item but did not need the premiere elements part of it. Came wrapped well and in good conditon

5 Stars Using Premiere Elements 7 (pre)
Each program, Pre and Pse are far beyond the prepackaged programs that came with our Sony camera and Canon HD Camcorder (HF-100). The interface with each program is pretty intuitive and I was glad to see many options for photo and video editing. Pre won’t get me into Sundance but it is a great place to start. However, review the system requirements as Pre will make a hefty demand of your CPU (3.0 GHz or greater for HD) and available RAM. It’s no wonder though these HD files are huge.

2 Stars 7.0 Upgrade flawed
Let me say at the outset that I use Adobe Photoshop Elements as my main photo editor. It is the best low cost tool available for cleaning up photos, stitching together multiple scans of a large original, repairing damaged shots and so on. I am doing family history, with over 9,000 shots and scans so far. Some of the scans are of negatives from the 1800’s and need a lot of work, which is easy and fast in Photoshop. So don’t take this mostly negative review as a reason not to buy Photoshop at all - I know of no other product that does the job as well.

That said, my recent experience in upgrading to version 7.0 is all the more appalling. The tool I rely on is drifting more and more towards uselessness and commercialism. If I could afford Creative Studio 4 it would not be a concern. As an advanced amateur user it is hard to even justify the yearly pound of flesh for updates, let alone the $1000s for a pro tool. But the update would have been OK if it were truly an update, not an attempt to gouge even more $ out of me for online services.

Specifics -

Organizer. The Organizer is a bloated, slow, klunky way to organize your photos. It is well that Google makes a much better free one. However, I did try to use it in 6.0 and tagged 100s of photos. 7.0 cannot read the catalogs I made in 6.0 so all that work is lost. That is not the worst “feature” of the new Organizer however - it constantly blares ads at you to sign up for the useless online features. You can turn off the popup messages (Why should I PAY for software that gives me popups?????) but there is still a signup offer in the main page. The startup splash screen is also stuffed with ads.

Photoshop. No real new features. The new “features” are just old add-ins and shortcuts for things you could already do. Frankly I don’t need a lot of new features, I am still learning how to use the very extensive existing set. But for the high upgrade price you expect SOMETHING.

Premiere. The only reason I upgraded at all was because I could not produce a quality DVD in 6.0. There are no quality settings. You are supposed to be able to use a Quality slider but in fact it does not exist. The DVDs I burned with 6.0 had low bit rate problems in the extreme. I downloaded 7.0 trial and what do you know- there WAS a quality slider and it worked! So I know the problem is not my system. There was a bug. Was it fixed by a free update, as even Microsoft will do? No, I had to “Upgrade” for $90. I could have accepted that, especially if it had useful new features, but no. All I have is a broken Organizer and splashes full of ads and popups. And a demand for more $ for online services that I get free from Google.

My suggestion - if you have 4.0, 5.0 or 6.0 skip the upgrade. Next year they’ll do it again. Maybe this time they will listen to users and make it a real upgrade, or issue a bug fix instead.

3 Stars Adobe Photoshop Elements 7
I was rather disappointed in that there seems to be very little change from Version 5 and 7, other than the amount of advertising on the home page. All the tools were there with no change. For the first time user there would be little in the way of instruction. One would have to purchase a “How to Text” in order to use. I have versions 3 and 5 and feel as though I misspent nearly $100 to purchase something that I already have. This is not what I expected from Adobe!

5 Stars excellent product!
I used to use the full version of Photoshop at work, but couldn’t afford the full version for home, so I bought this one. This is an excellent product for those just getting started with photo & graphics editing and also great for those that just want the basic to mid-level features of the full version of Photoshop! Highly recommended product!

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

A streamlined user interface, hundreds of new themes and templates, and better compatibility with your Windows-based colleagues–with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, you’ll simplify your work and achieve more with less effort.

Simplify Your Work
Your presentation will make an impact. Your documents will be professional. Your analysis will be insightful. And Office 2008 will be there.
The latest version of the industry standard for productivity software on the Macintosh platform, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is more powerful and easier to use. Office 2008 combines Microsoft Word for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, Microsoft Excel for Mac, Microsoft Entourage for Mac, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac and lets you easily create high-impact documents and seamlessly share your ideas with others, whether they are on the Mac or Windows platform.

What’s New in Office for Mac?

• Universal versions of the most popular productivity applications on the Macintosh platform (Universal applications run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.)
• Microsoft Office for Mac natively supports the Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products.
• A redesigned user interface and powerful new tools for simplifying work, creating great looking documents, and exchanging ideas and information with others.

Highlights of Office 2008 for Mac

• Office 2008 is a Universal Binary, was built by Mac users for Mac users, and includes many features which take advantage of underlying technologies of the Macintosh platform.
• Office 2008 uses Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products. XML file formats help reduce the risk of lost information due to damaged or corrupted files and also result in smaller file sizes–up to 75 percent smaller than comparable binary documents. Office 2008 for Mac is backward-compatible with earlier file formats and users can continue to use the older .doc, .xls, and .ppt binary formats.
• Elements Gallery is the foundation of the new user interface, and gives easy access to the most commonly used tools and templates. With the new UI, you’ll harness the capabilities of Office for Mac more easily than ever before.
• Office 2008 includes OfficeArt, the powerful graphics engine also used in the Windows-based Office 2007 products. You get great cross-platform file fidelity and easy access to stunning visual and graphic effects.
• Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt graphics, which makes transforming text and bulleted lists into professional diagrams and graphics one-click easy.
• A new Themes capability simplifies the process of applying a consistent look and feel across documents. Easily apply a complete set of colors, fonts, and effects to your Office 2008 documents, and change them as easily as changing your mind.
• Automator Actions for Workflows in Microsoft Office enables you to automate Office 2008 with more than 70 pre-defined actions built to simplify your work and extend your productivity. (Available in Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.)

Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.

Enjoy powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008.

Entourage 2008
Your e-mails will spark ideas, you’ll schedule meetings where creativity abounds. Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.

• My Day keeps you connected to the action. Schedules, tasks, and priorities in one easy, standalone interface. Time will have no choice but to be well-managed.
• Use color-coded categories, status indicators, and flexible To-Do list management humble even the most hectic schedules.
• Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 Special Media Edition enable users to access their Microsoft Exchange server accounts with Entourage.
• Improved Junk E-Mail filtering capabilities and phishing protection tools help shield your inbox from the scourge of junk. Your inbox will breathe a sigh of relief.
• Projects submit to your superior management skills when you unleash the power of Project Center, With project details like e-mail messages, documents, schedules, and contacts in one convenient place, Project Center helps keep your information–and your stress–under control.

Word 2008
Powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008 will help you to make your ideas look as good as they are.

• When you turn blah into brilliant, Publishing Layout View will elevate the way you think about Word 2008. This new specialized and customizable workspace lets users create incredibly rich documents such as newletters, flyers and brochures without a degree in design.
• Great looking document construction won’t require a hard hat. New Templates, Themes, and Document Elements like cover pages and bibliographies make creating professional-looking output a snap.
• Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt, which makes transforming text into high-quality graphics and diagrams as easy as one click.
• Dynamic Guides will help you keep all of your words and graphics in line and on point.
• Mass mailings will have a personal touch and Word 2008 Mail Merge Manager will guide you step by easy step.

Inspire your audience’s imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout in PowerPoint 2008.

Analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results with Excel 2008.

PowerPoint 2008
Your presentation is a story. PowerPoint 2008 will illustrate it. Inspire your audience’s imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout.

• Great ideas will get their graphic due with SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2008. Start with a blank slide or a bulleted list, and, with a click of a button, you’ll have a stunning chart, table, map, or diagram.
• Designer Themes help you give your presentation a creative look, simply and quickly.
• The new Object Palette allows quick access to all your shapes, art, symbols, and pictures–including iPhoto files–in one easy-to-access space.
• Dynamic Guides will help you place and resize your graphic element to create professional-looking presentations in a snap.
• You’ll lay out custom designs to showcase your unique content with custom layout capabilities in PowerPoint 2008.
• PowerPoint 2008 integration with Apple Remote Control lets you concentrate on your words, not your keyboard. Now control your presentation and engage your audience unleashed from the podium.

  Excel 2008
  It’s a numbers game. With Excel 2008, analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results.

  • Ledger Sheets in Excel 2008 make tracking finances, inventories, even invoices and portfolios easy with preformulated spreadsheets and automatic calculations.
  • Charting improvements artfully convey the message your data is telling. You’ll see your numbers in a whole new way.
  • The new prebuilt functions tackle the most common tasks and make creating error-free complex conditional formulas easier.
  • Quick access to formulas makes functions more functional with Formula Builder in Excel 2008.
  • Your data will know virtually no limits. Excel 2008 now supports over 16,000 columns and over 1 million rows.
  • Whether you’re an Excel expert or a complete novice, Excel 2008 Formula AutoComplete simplifies your calculations by providing a dynamic pop-up menu so you can select and complete your formula.

  Messenger for Mac
  Convenience is the name of the game for Mac users who want to communicate instantly with family, friends and colleagues from one convenient place. Messenger for Mac is now a Universal application, and gives you more ways to share what’s on your mind or on your plate.

  Use Messenger for Mac to instantly check the status of project team members, streamline workflow by sending documents directly from Word, or offer questions or comments on document changes instantly.

  • Yahoo! Interoperability will allow personal users to connect and message with Yahoo! Messenger for Mac users.
  • Your intentions will never again be in doubt when you create your own custom emoticons in Messenger for Mac.
  • Spelling Checker is now included in Messenger for Mac.
  • Let the world know your tastes when you display your iTunes selection with the new “What I’m listening to now” feature.

  User Ratings and Reviews

  3 Stars Buggy
  I wanted to like this, I really did. The only reason that I use Microsoft is to be compatible with the files that other users are sending me who are already on this version. But I have to say, this is not an improvement as it introduces more bugs and problems that its worth. When I work with people I suggest that the try to use an older version on their Windows computer and I still use the older version myself. If you are looking to buy a package for the first time and you don’t need Excel’s advanced features, iWork is the way to go. If you do need advanced Excel, then getting VMware Fusion, a copy of Windows operating system, and the Windows version of Excel is the way to go (pricey as it is).

  5 Stars A Better Office Suite
  As I unpacked my new Macbook Pro, the enclosed iLife was a killer does-all addition to a stellar Apple laptop. I loaded the new MS Office with glee. Microsoft runs fast, and flawlessly on the laptop, unlike the chuggy versions (aside from Word) of the Apple past. The funky docX save feature is a bugger: save a doc in docX and it’ll be tough for most earlier Macs to open, but just upgrade: word is now a strong contender for very good layouts that, until now, I’d thought was beyond Microsoft. for a Quark/InDesigner like me, here is the MS version for newsletters and business use that really looks terrific and is easy to use. Plus, I’m a returning student, so using the school’s recommended Word is the correct approach.

  Entourage and the rest included and a recommended alternative to, ahem, the other options for email and online communicating. Faster, no baloney: SWEET.

  Excel is the standard for spreadsheets: Much as I adore other apps that come close, stick with Excel and it’ll always work best.

  Well done, MS! I’m happy and working without fear of problems!

  4 Stars Probably not perfect, but the bottom line is it works…
  I have installed MS Office 2008 on my iMac and the installation went smoothly and effortlessly. The programs I use most are Word, Powerpoint and Excel. I use these programs on my iMac when I don’t want to use the Dell laptop my employer has given me. I use only the fairly basic functionality with Excel and Word and Powerpoint, although as Bill Gates would say, “Do you open spreadsheets from more advanced users? (Yes) Then you are using advanced functionality!” and have had no problems reading anything or creating anything. Many of the below reviewers have complained about more advanced functionality that may be missing or things they may be able to do, which I am sure are all valid, but if you are using it mostly to open things others have created and use the basics of Word, Powerpoint and Excel than you will have no problem.

  1 Star Possibly the worst product ever released by Microsoft
  Blind untrained chimps could write a better software application for the Mac. Having used Microsoft Office on both PCs and Macs for as long as it has existed, I am amazed that this product could actually be released by any software development organization. It is unbelievably slow, even on an Intel CoreDuo Mac with 2GB of RAM. As an example: copying 25 cells from Excel and pasting (as unformatted text!) into MS-Word takes 45 seconds to a minute. During that time the Mac “beach ball of death” comes up and the entire system becomes unresponsive. Music stops playing, your skype call is dropped, etc… Formatting a line in Word can reformat the entire document. Word crashes quite frequently, often with the beach ball of death and a system so hung that I can’t even get to the “Force Quit” menu for minutes. (In fact I usually keep a terminal window open just for the purpose of doing “kill -9″ on the MS-Word process. Excel is not as bad but like many other reviewers have noted, it’s missing many features of the Windows version. Powerpoint is mediocre. It crashes frequently and formatting is often broken when transferring files to the Windows version. Entourage? Completely useless compared to Apple’s built-in mail client and a pale shadow of Outlook on Windows.

  I use MS-Office because my company is 95% Windows but on the Mac it’s a misery-inducing experience. Give me Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a Mac, and a copy of MS-Office and I will find out where Osama Bin Laden is stat!

  5 Stars Office the mac way….
  Installation on a macbook 2.4 was seamless. It was quick and easy. No more using bootcamp to use microsoft office. Since it is a microsoft product the programs take a while to load up compared to any program in iwork from apple. I prefer iwork but the rest of the world is still catching up and they prefer microsoft office. Great product if you need to use it instead of iwork.

  Buy/More Info

Logitech Dual Action Game Pad USB

The Logitech Dual Action Gamepad… it’s the ultimate precision instrument, whether you’re going for the tackle, the kill, the gold, or the finish line. The comfortable grip keeps you at the top of your game for hours of play, and the familiar design and layout of the action buttons and triggers will have you dominating in no time.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars wears out too easy
I have to agree with other reviewers that the D-pad and analog sticks seem to wear out too soon. I guess that’s what you get for a $20 product…

5 Stars Don’t know what the problem is..
Yet again, my controller looks slightly different than the one pictured on Amazon. It’s great to play ROMS on, as well as other games, as it has a Playstation feel that is suitable for any game. It’s especially good for a laptop.

But I see that many do not like this. I got mine at Best Buy, so like I said with that DVD player many years ago, make sure you get it from a good vendor and you’ll be on your way to freedom for the keyboard.

2 Stars Doesn’t work with CoD Modern Warfare
I bought it for Modern Warfare and it’s not even recognized! So, I guess it’s off to try another. At least Amazon has an easy return policy. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 b/c it probably works with something.

4 Stars Great plug and play control for any PC.
I used this controller without issue on both a Windows and Linux machine and it works great in both environments. Does not feel cheap in the hands and seems pretty sturdy. My only complaint is with the D-pad; the buttons are set higher making it a little funny to work with and the buttons are loud.

2 Stars Great Quality… For a While
I bought this controller a while ago when I bought Halo 2 for the PC. It worked great.

After that game was over and done with it sat unused until I decided to buy Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts for the PC. It worked great until a few weeks ago. The left analog stick began to “stick” in certain positions. Now, it just refuses to work.

This is great for your occasional PC gamer, but if you intend to use it for long periods of time then I’d suggest buying something else.

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Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard Black Silver

The Logitech G11 gaming keyboard features blue-backlit characters, 18 programmable G keys, and convenient media control buttons so you can play all night long. Create custom macros for your games and access them with a single keystroke. Reduce clutter by routing cables through the convenient under-keyboard channels. Swap gaming controls easily by plugging into the two full-speed USB ports. And never worry about getting dropped out of the action if you press the Windows key; the built-in Gaming Mode switch disables it with one touch.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great keyboard
altough wide, my keyboard drawer has enough room on it + for my mouse pad too. my only gripe is that it doesnt have email/document/SLEEP buttons. eh, ol well. love the way the keys feel when typing too.

5 Stars Logitech’s keyboard a WOW delight
In spite of being geeky enough to covet every piece of electronics known to mankind, I am still simple enough to actually want my installs to be easy. Installing this keyboard was a no-brainer. Its glowy blue keys are beautiful in the dark; which improves my game’s graphics experience. And it has 18 programmable keys on its left side, which can be pre-set up for macros and keystrokes on up to 3 different games. The keys all have a nice “feel” to them. I really LOVE this product.

5 Stars Best in class
I bought this keyboard as a gift for my son, who is a gamer, and extremely picky about his keyboard and mouse. He had already purchased a different lighted keyboard, but decided he preferred this one (by far) after using one at a friend’s house. His favorite feature was the additional keys for macros and his only complaint was the lack of color options for the backlight.

5 Stars It’s all about the “G” keys.
I play a lot of Warcraft and got tired of some of the repetitive key/button sequences. Like mounting and unmounting. Sure, I could attach a macro to a numeric key, but there’s only one row of them and all six sets of bindings are used. Now I have more. More is better.

I don’t really care about the lighted keys, but I absolutely love the 18 G keys. Oh yeah, I had to get a CyberPower High-Speed 7-Port USB Hub to power the thing. My computer sits a fair distance away so the noise doesn’t bother me and the G11 has too short of a USB cord.

2 Stars Nice until it broke
The good points of this product have been touched on in other reviews. I will not rehash them here.

I owned this keyboard for approximately 3 months. It operated well, although I did have problems with the amount of desk real estate it required - it is a large keyboard. This is a minor issue, however. The main problem I had is that one day the number keys refused to work. It isn’t a software issue, as I’ve tried it on other computers with no success. I’ve owned other Logitech products and they are nice until they break after a few months. I’ve bought 2 headsets, this keyboard, and a mouse that periodically glitches on me from Logitech. With the shoddy performance I have experienced I can’t recommend their products to anyone.

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Logitech G9 Laser Mouse

Customize your mouse to meet your performance and comfort needs.

Performance

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate features new additions and enhancements including: New PHOTORECOVERY for Digital Media - When users think their digital content might have been lost forever, PHOTORECOVERY can recover images, movies and sound files from accidentally reformatted memory cards. It is compatible with virtually all media card formats, including SD, miniSD, microSD, CompactFlash I and II, Memory Stick, MMC, xD, SmartMedia and Microdrive New Flash Drive - A 2 GB USB Flash Drive makes it easier for users to backup and transfer photos, videos and other files from a PC. Includes plug-and-play compatibility

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Purchase.
The purchase of Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate could not have been easier. The full package arrived on-time in excellent condition, and surprise Corel even threw in a 2Gb flash drive.

Thanks Amazon!

5 Stars paint shop pro photo x2
i love this product. the things you can do on it are amazing.

shipping was quick, it got here within a few days. i recommend this for anyone looking to get a photo editing program. this is amazing.

5 Stars GREAT PROGAM
i love my new program and am enjoying using it.

I received my shipment in a very timely manner.

4 Stars Eat Your Heart Out Photoshop
I’m a somewhat experienced Photoshop user, but sick of paying all the money to upgrade and buy all of Adobe’s overpriced product. Adobe offers an amazing product line, don’t get me wrong, but Paint Shop Pro offers so many of the same tools, that I’ve now set Adobe aside and converted. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone out there seeking an alternative to expensive software. Also, if you want an awesome free product for photo editing, try Gimp, I love that program too.

1 Star Buggy software no support
I have not been able to get this software to work properly on my computer. It has a bug that prevents it from installing properly on Windows Vista. Corel says it is not an installation problem and so I have to pay for support. I used to love this program but since Corel has taken over it has gon steadly downhill. I am now looking for a different product. Corel is not a good company to buy from. They do not support thier products!

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iLife 09

iLife ‘09 makes it easier than ever to get the most out of the photos, movies, and music on your Mac. In iPhoto ‘09, you can organize and find your photos in two new ways: Faces, based on who is in your photos, and Places, based on where they were taken. iMovie ‘09 lets you make the movie you want in the time you have. With new themes, you can give your movie a professional look in seconds. Or use the new Precision Editor to fine-tune your masterpiece. With Basic Lessons in GarageBand ‘09, you can learn to play piano and guitar. And you can compose and record your own songs with new guitar amps and stompbox effects. Illustrate your journey with photo books including new travel maps iMovie ‘09 Make movies with ease using advanced drag-and-drop editing Fine-tune your movies with the new Precision Editor Enhance your movie with dynamic themes and animated travel maps Smooth shaky clips with automatic video stabilization Add finishing touches with new titles, transitions, and effects Browse all your video in the full-screen Library Browser GarageBand ‘09 Learn to play piano and guitar at your own pace with Basic Lessons Learn to play a hit song from the artist who made it famous with Artist Lessons Re-create the sound of legendary guitar rigs with new amps and stompbox effects Jam using virtual instruments with Magic GarageBand Jam in full screen iWeb ‘09 Easily add dynamic content like RSS feeds and iSight videos using the iWeb Widget Browser Let your friends know when you update your site with Facebook notification Publish to virtually any hosting service using built-in FTP support Easily manage multiple websites and selectively publish one at a time notice iDVD ‘09 Get started quickly with Apple-designed themes featuring animated menus. Author customized DVDs with a range of options for customizing menu screens. Combine video and photos for stunning, high-quality slides

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars iLife 09 Be careful
I have iLife 05 on my 1.5 GHz Powerbook G4. I knew that some parts of iLife 09 would not work on my machine when I purchased it. However, I had read elsewhere that one could download previous versions that would upgrade my 05 version to the latest version that would run on my ‘antique’ machine.

Well, you can’t.

iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes work. iMovie will not install and I am not interested in Garageband.

So it is rather expensive for a limited upgrade. Apple Support suggest I could purchase iLife 08 or upgrade my machine (one cannot upgrade Powerbooks)

Looks like Apple is taking a page out of Microsoft’s book.

Sign of the times I guess.

1 Star No Excuse!
I’m a positive person, so here’s the good news first:

GarageBand has a cool new interface.

iWeb has cool new widgets.

THE BAD

iMovie is still a travesty. Audio editing is impossible. Audio importing and placement is impossible. Clip editing is impossible. I realize I am overusing the word impossible in this review, but iMovie ‘09 is simply impossible. Totally non-intuitive and frustrating. My wrist was aching after only 15 minutes of trying to manipulate the editing controls. Also, it keeps crashing on my MacPro. In my book, there is no reason an Apple native app should crash so often on any Mac. Playback is stuttery and any editing I have tried to do just brings up the spinning beach ball of death. Avoid iMovie ‘09 like the plague and just go download ‘06 again. Whoever designed the new iMovie needs a spanking.

Also, when I fired up iPhoto ‘09 the first time after installing, it said my library needed to be upgraded. Then it proceeded to tell me that my photos had been upgraded with a newer version of iPhoto, and that I needed to install the latest version of iPhoto in order to access my library, then it shut down…um…I just installed the latest version of iPhoto. To fix this, I had to re-import all my photos from scratch. None of my albums were preserved, so now I’ve once again got 15,000 random, uncatalogued photos that I was accessing just fine before I installed iPhoto ‘09.

Avoid iLife ‘09 unless you like pain, misery, confusion and frustration.

2 Stars Not worth the $79. Problems applenty…
I’ve been a mac user for two years now and couldn’t be happier with my macbook pro, mac mini, ipod touch, and shuffle.

iLife was a huge letdown.

First the good:

I like the iWeb and Garage band apps. They work as advertised (so far).

iWeb seems to be more intuitive and easier to work with. I just gave Garage band a cursory look (I’m not a big GB user) and it seems to work fine. Nice addition of the lessons, I might actually use this piece.

Now the bad:

iPhoto face recognition does not work. Period. I had to go through ALL of my photos to correct or add names to every single face. Zero recognition.

iMovie was a disaster. Completely corrupted my current video of my wife’s baby shower. It caused the video to play in gray scale and static. Not sure what that’s about. I will have to start all over with the video capture to see if it fixes it.

All in all, a waste of money and complete disappointment.

Updates had better be on the way because this is horrible!

4 Stars The value of iLife varies depending on your needs
I’m happy with the new iLife. The improvements to iPhoto and iMovie are both very welcome. The lessons feature of Garage Band might be something I might use. The additions to iWeb are good but the program still is only useful for a personal site. It just doesn’t offer the search engine optimization capabilities or speed of loading that a business site needs in today’s web environment. iDVD has some expanded features and new themes but isn’t a have-to-have update.

I’ll cover iPhoto first. The new face recognition ability is awesome and amazingly good. I never bothered to make smart albums of individuals before. I went through several thousand photos in a few hours and did that with ease. That one feature makes almost the purchase price worth it all by itself. Geotagging is great. I gave my recent vacation photos location tags and will continue to do so. I’m researching a handheld GPS to sync with my camera so I automate the process. As the number of geotagged photos grows, especially my bird and travel shots. This could turn into a terrific feature. And the tags translate to Flickr maps.

The new built in sharing features in iPhoto are also nice. I can upload to Flickr without exporting and using Flickr’s flaky software, or without having to buy a third party plugin. iPhoto also works with Facebook. There are existing free upload plugins for other services like Picasa and Shutterbug that should work.

iMovie has gotten back some of the functionality it lost in the 08 “upgrade”, not all of it and you still can’t use the old third party plugins I bought prior to that, but it is better. The anti-shake function actually does a pretty good job of smoothing out hand held clips. And being able to edit audio directly in the program is very nice. It’s a good but not spectacular move up from the last version.

I use Garage Band, too. The new features are limited here. There are some nice interface tweaks. Those don’t add much in the way of functionality, but it looks nice. For guitar players, Garage Band has some added effects.

The ability to buy lessons might prove to be a good feature. That will depend on what lessons become available. Right now Apple seems more interested in getting big names for the lessons than great teachers. Whether or not the lesson library becomes worthwhile will be something I’ll watch. I certainly wouldn’t buy iLife for the GB upgrade.

4 Stars Nice upgrade, but face recognition is quite weak
I bought the iLife ‘09 upgrade with great expectations for the

face recognition feature in Iphoto. Such feature can really help

to bring some structure in a huge pile of pictures that I was too

lazy to organize manually.

So, does face recognition work? Well, only about 60% of the time. Its quite a bit

weaker than Google’s Picasa face recognition.

Like a psychic running amok, Iphoto sees faces in trees and in other

mysterious spots. More irritating is that it completely misses some

30% of obvious faces in typical photos. Its hard to understand why.

Once faces are detected, the process of tying them to people is

generally OK. It makes suggestions of snapshots that might

match the given person. The more faces it knows of a person,

the better IPhoto gets, but it runs out of steam soon. This process

leaves a good portion of the faces undetermined. To get those

remaining faces properly named you have to manually flip

through thousands of pictures.

In summary, faces in Iphoto works, but is not up to the

general apple standard. Its quite a bit weaker than

the similar feature in Google’s Picasa.

Another missed opportunity is its non-existent interface

to Apple’s address book.

Instead, you are making a totally separate people database with just

the name, full name and email of a person.

For a company that made all tools work so seamlessly together,

this is an unexplicable miss. A few smaller bugs in the naming in

the pop-up menus show that the new features were added

quite sloppily.

On the positive side, the ‘places’ tool is quite nice. Any picture

that I took with the iphone magically showed up on the correct

spot in the map. Adding locations to non-geotagged pictures is

quite easy and flexible. An hour of work results in a nice virtual

map with pins all over the world you’ve traveled.

Overall, this is a useful upgrade with some disappointing

misses.

Buy/More Info

Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 UPGRADE

Upgrade only; previous version of Office required

Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 is the complete suite of productivity and contact management tools for accomplishing your business tasks. Manage customer and contact information in one place, while producing professional-quality communications and manage marketing campaigns in-house with a full suite of powerful tools. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 integrates contact management directly with Outlook, for better control over your customer & prospect information, e-mail messages, phone calls, appointments and more. With Office Small Business 2007 you can save time, stay organized and spend more time with customers. Business Contact Manager in Outlook 2007 helps you manage and track your marketing activities Use Powerpoint 2007 to create more dynamic business presentations - It features an extensive library of slide layouts; new tools for charts, diagrams and tables; quick preview changes and more Distribute marketing materials in PDF format — convert easily from Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher and Access files

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Horrible User Interface Changes
I’m sure there are some new features that make this version worthwhile. It may even be faster at some things (though I haven’t found them yet.) But Microsoft wrapped it in an inscrutable user interface that often flies in the face of logic. The “ribbon” interface is supposed to make it easier for new users to begin working, and, for all I know, it may. But for the millions of current users, it’s a nightmare.

A user interface is meant to help you be more productive but Office 2007’s interface does the exact opposite of that. Things that took two clicks before now take four. Or, even worse, some previously available tools or functions seem to be completely unavailable. This is considered progress?

I would have expected Microsoft to conduct large-scale interface usability testing before making a change this radical, or to at least offer the previous interface as a selectable option. Unfortunately, it appears that they did neither.

My suggestion? Unless you’re forced, stick with Office 2003. It’s interface is at times clunky but it’s far, far better than this.

3 Stars Microsoft Office for Small Business
I bought this because I had to for work purposes - but it also had upgraded, new and improved, versions of some other programs I use for both personal and work so I was able to eliminate some things off my hard drive and utilize just this one program. Only complaint is that I wish the price was more affordable.

5 Stars Worth Doing The Upgrade
I am glad I did the upgrade. There has been a little bit of a learning curve, but worth the time for the new features in Office 2007.

5 Stars Great Product
Great program, just have to get use to the layout. At first very awkward. If I would have waited three weeks I could have saved 80 dollars and picked it up at staples or on this site.

3 Stars Typical overblown Microsoft product

This is a typical Microsoft product loaded with stuff that 98% of people don’t want, need, or use. I prefer Word 2000 but you can’t buy it any more. I had to buy this to put on a new computer which is the only reason I bought it. Also, the Amazon price was the cheapest I found.

Buy/More Info

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick Silver Black

Take complete control with the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick. Its 12 fully programmable buttons give you an incredible amount of flexibility and performance for the gaming-edge you’ve been looking for. The precise twist handle (for rudder control) includes an 8-way rubber hat switch that is similar to ones found in real combat aircrafts. Throttle controls rotate smoothly for extraordinary control. And the stable, extra heavy weighted base keeps you firmly grounded. The sleek design looks hot, too!

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars improved my game dramatically
Very easy to use. I had no idea of what joystick to buy. I’m very happy I bought this one.

5 Stars It is well worthy! Nice to play with!
I have already had a experance about this joystick before! I am a student pilot,I found it wooks well.With flight 2004,I can take it as a simple simulator.It has force feed back and the rudder control !

4 Stars Logitech Extreme 3D Pro
Great Joystick for the price. This is my second one. First one after several years lost the handle twist action functionality, but otherwise worked great. And at this price I don’t mind buying another occasionally.

4 Stars great for my uses
i dont like how thin the base is cause i use it on my lap, but everything else works great, calibrated perfect, works with all my gta series great!

5 Stars a excellent joystick
The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro is a large, sturdy and precise joystick. You cant find a better flight controller in this price range. It has 10 programmabe buttons, a trigger, a button for rockets or missiles, a 8 way hat switch and a dedicated throttle. The handle also has one more function and that is to twist left or right for which I use for rudder control. Overall it is fun to use, easy to learn, assign functions and excellent in normal flight or aerial combat.

Buy/More Info