Rating: 
Summary: Trust. But Verify!
Review: I updated from an earlier version and am satisfied with new graphics and a few additional features. Like the earlier version, however, 2004 Streets & Trips has sent me in the wrong direction, on occasion. Most recently, S&T would have sent me about three miles north of a local restaurant. Fortunately, I ran Mapquest, too, and got the correct location of the restaurant. S&T decided that the street address was one community north of its actual location. The earlier version once directed me to a location at the southeast quadrant of a major highway intersection, when the correct location was in the southwest quadrant. Oh, and the restaurant to which we were headed wasn't listed in S&T. I went to Mapquest to get the street address, so I could look the place up, off-line. I find the best use of S&T to be planning long road trips. Also, the directions are so overly complex that it's sometimes hard to figure out where you're headed. Mapquest directions are easier to follow--especially with the turn arrows and highway markers that precede each line of direction. This said, I do find the program useful; but I'll only upgrade again if and when S&T offers the capability too plan a route by entering highway numbers. (Route me to I-94; I-90; I-39, etc. Now, you can only approximate highway routing by entering interim destinations or blocking certain areas with the "avoid" feature.)
Rating: 
Summary: Call me unreliable, call me unpredictable, call me...
Review: I use map programs mainly to estimate distance and trip times. I tried out this program by asking for a route from the Temple, TX area (an hour south of Waco on I35) to Houston. Houston is practically in the Gulf of Mexico so it is south (and east)! This wacko program told me to go north to Waco, then loop around to get on I45 way east of Waco and then on to Houston for a 4+ hour trip time, 2 hours longer than it normally should take. If you select the shortest route, it will send you over every dirt road there is. I was SO impressed. I next had it find my home street address. Secondary roads only appeared when you zoomed way in, at which point, you lost your perspective. With difficulty, I managed to follow the roads to my house. While it listed address numbers on my street, they were all way off. While I plan to try using this product a few more times, I think I'll keep my old Delorme 8.0 road atlas program. That, plus a recent Rand McNally road atlas from Walmart, should keep me on the right path.
Rating: 
Summary: Great program!
Review: I used DeLorme Street Atlas USA for years before switching to S&T a few years ago. I find it to be much better than DeLorme, which had a really cumbersome interface and didn't show nearly as much point-of-interest detail, e.g., restaurants, schools, parks, hospitals, etc. That's one of the things I like most about S&T. I've yet to enter an address it couldn't find, and the route planner is excellent. The 2004 version is the best yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't Work
Review: I was disappointed by not being able to even try the software out. Every time I would try to find an address, the software would crash. I found this to be a common problem for all gererations of the software according to Microsoft's knowledge base. There is no patch to fix the problem that I could find, only a "workaround" which didn't work for me. Therefore, my ability to offer an informed rating is inhibited by my inability to even use the software.
Rating:
Summary: 2004 version is a disappointment
Review: I was disappointed to find that the 2004 version of S&T has a significant functional regression from the 2001 version. In S&T 2001 you could paste a USPS conforming address into the Find box, and S&T would convert it to its internal format. For example, an address such as 13350 US Highway 19 N, Clearwater, Florida would be converted to 13350 US-19 N, Clearwater, FL. S&T 2004 no longer does this conversion and therefore you can no longer just copy and paste (or import) a 'standard' address. It is really hard to believe no one noticed this during pre-release testing. The end result is that when you copy / paste or simply type a perfectly legitimate address into the Find box, the software won't find it! Among the online sites Rand McNally, MapQuest, Yahoo! Map, InfoSpace and Multimap all handle the conforming addresses just fine, but MapBlast and Maps On Us choke on it just as S&T 2004 does. Maybe the software that doesn't work is using the same mapping data base? Anyway, this is a fatal functionally regression and makes the software unusable for my purposes. I'd return this new version but it was given to me as a Christmas gift, so I guess I'll just add the two CDs to my existing stack of AOL coasters.
Rating:
Summary: 2004 version is a disappointment
Review: I was disappointed to find that the 2004 version of S&T has a significant functional regression from the 2001 version. In S&T 2001 you could paste a USPS conforming address into the Find box, and S&T would convert it to its internal format. For example, an address such as 13350 US Highway 19 N, Clearwater, Florida would be converted to 13350 US-19 N, Clearwater, FL. S&T 2004 no longer does this conversion and therefore you can no longer just copy and paste (or import) a 'standard' address. It is really hard to believe no one noticed this during pre-release testing. The end result is that when you copy / paste or simply type a perfectly legitimate address into the Find box, the software won't find it! Among the online sites Rand McNally, MapQuest, Yahoo! Map, InfoSpace and Multimap all handle the conforming addresses just fine, but MapBlast and Maps On Us choke on it just as S&T 2004 does. Maybe the software that doesn't work is using the same mapping data base? Anyway, this is a fatal functionally regression and makes the software unusable for my purposes. I'd return this new version but it was given to me as a Christmas gift, so I guess I'll just add the two CDs to my existing stack of AOL coasters.
Rating:
Summary: underwhelmed
Review: I was very disappointed in this product. There are two speciific functional omssions that make this product unacceptable to me: - When listing all areas of interest along a route, you can sort either aphabetically or by distance from the centerline of your route, neither of which is of any value to me. Instead, I'd like to sort by distance from an end-point, but such an obvious feature appears to be missing. - While you can create a "drive-zone", you can't really do anything with the "drive-zone" once you've created it. I'd really like to be able to do something like "show me all of the campgrounds within a 3 hour drive from this point", but such obvious functionality appears to be missing. Searches are also limited to a 50 mile radius.
Rating:
Summary: Don't spend your money for this program.
Review: I'm not sure why Microsoft decided to distribute this version. It may be easy to use, but among other things, many addresses are not recognized, what you see on your computer screen is not what comes out on your printer, the location icons are misplaced on the printed version, street names are often not included on the screen - and often when the street names ARE on the screen, they are NOT on the printed version. There are a lot of problems with this program. I used to use Rand/McNally's Street Finder, but they don't currently have a PC version or one compatable with XP. My advise - Keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother with an upgrade...
Review: I've been using the streets & trips package for a while, and was excited to see that 2004 had finally come out. I decided to go ahead and try it out and see what was wonderfully new and improved. So I went though the install process, and launched it for the first time with anticipation... My thoughts chronologically: "Hmm, new spash screen.. Yay, I'm in. Ok.. whats new? Um.. (click click click) where's the new stuff? I wonder if there is a versions.txt...nope. Maybe they fixed that one route bug.... (crash) nope. ARGH! Wait, is this 2004? Maybe something happened, and it left 2003 on my system... Lets see.. (Help->about) No "2004" there... Well, it did have that new spash screen. WHAT DID THEY CHANGE?!" I was so depressed to see so little changes. They didnt incorporate any kind of new support for waypoint files like GPX like I was hoping they would, they didn't fix the bugs i was hoping for... In fact, I'm still not positive they made ANY changes except for the spash screen. Bottom line is this: If you have 2003, keep it. Don't waste your money. If you don't have anything this is a great piece of mapping software that you should definately check out.
Rating:
Summary: Good Stuff Here
Review: Lost? Need a little direction in your life? Then this softy is for you. UI is easy, prints beautifully, creates html, emails pics, and works great with my laptop and USB GPS! Fantastic software. Highly recommended.
[Much better than DeLorme]
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