Rating: Summary: This thing is great Review: I found it ingredibly useful especially for reports and general information. I had no problems with my machine and this is the second Britannica ive bough in 3 years and each year it gets better.
Rating: Summary: Not worth the trouble Review: Read the other reviews. All the problems they've had, I've had as well-plus some. Install doesn't work without a lot of help, and tech support is nonexistent. On one problem, still not solved, I've e-mailed for help to Britannica three times, with no reply. This lack of replies is consistent, at least. It goes well with the first set of several e-mails sent to them on problems I was eventually able to solve by other means, sometimes after several hours, even, in one case, a few days. It's sort of a challenge, but that's not exactly why I purchased this thing in the first place.When it works, it's not bad. It appears to be more complete that the other three I've tried (Grolier, Encarta, and Compton's), although I agree with time_velocity that it's far from what it could have been. It's a little short on visual media. Its search engine works pretty well. The articles are not deep, but are deeper than the competition. If I had it to do again, I'd wait another year-or more.
Rating: Summary: Extremely irritating interface Review: The user interface for the Brittanica has gotten worse in every year since the first CD-ROM version was isssued. Too many bells and whistles, all of them amiguously named and idiosyncratic in operation. The current version has irritated me so much that I unistalled it and went back to using the 1997 version, which has a very simple interface using Netscape 2.0. The material the encyclopedia provides is still excellect, but it is very difficult to find what you need.
Rating: Summary: Extremely irritating interface Review: The user interface for the Brittanica has gotten worse in every year since the first CD-ROM version was isssued. Too many bells and whistles, all of them amiguously named and idiosyncratic in operation. The current version has irritated me so much that I unistalled it and went back to using the 1997 version, which has a very simple interface using Netscape 2.0. The material the encyclopedia provides is still excellect, but it is very difficult to find what you need.
Rating: Summary: Britannica Deluxe 2000 Review: This product is not ready for prime time though the content is great. The installation is proned to errors. The product does not follow the standard Windows interface and can not be re-sized which means you get very small text on a large screen (I assume it was ported from a Mac without regard to how it functions under Windows and it shows in many places as you try to navigate).
Rating: Summary: Buy this product or flush your $$$ = same Review: What a disappointment. What a waste of money. I can find data faster using the 'analog' method, i.e. visiting the public library. I'll NEVER buy software from Britannica again.
Rating: Summary: Ackward implementation and poor ease of use Review: What is EB afraid of? That we will print our the 40,000 pages and bind our own set for the bookshelf? They could really have a great product, but they don't seem to have their heart into the computer version. EB seems to treat this as a teaser for the print version. I hope they get this right in the future. I hope they avoid the flavor of the other CD references, and stake out a high ground of scholorship, relevance, and authoritative fact checking. They could fill a large void in education, business, and home markets with such a tool.
Rating: Summary: Ackward implementation and poor ease of use Review: What is EB afraid of? That we will print our the 40,000 pages and bind our own set for the bookshelf? They could really have a great product, but they don't seem to have their heart into the computer version. EB seems to treat this as a teaser for the print version. I hope they get this right in the future. I hope they avoid the flavor of the other CD references, and stake out a high ground of scholorship, relevance, and authoritative fact checking. They could fill a large void in education, business, and home markets with such a tool.
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