Sequels have gotten a bad name lately, thanks to lousy movies like
”Rocky V” and to overly hyped books like the still-in-the-making follow-up to ”Gone With the Wind.” It`s hard to find a movie or book sequel that surpasses its original. Those few that do-like ”The Godfather, Part II” or
”Huckleberry Finn”-are the exceptions.
In the software world, however, it`s the rare program that does not outperform its predecessor. With the notable exception of the dBase IV, a bug- ridden and sloppily constructed ”improvement” to dBase III Plus, most new releases of software are quantum leaps forward.
The reason is obvious: As technology improves, and as more powerful personal computers become available, software changes to take advantage of the new advances. If you want the most bang for your buck, you should buy the latest version of your favorite program.
Nowadays, most major software manufacturers are releasing new versions of popular programs about once a year. Unlike the new-model releases from carmakers, where there often seems to be little change and even less improvement from year to year, new software releases are almost always significant upgrades well worth investing in.
Following is an in-depth look at three of the most popular updates currently available. The prices listed are suggested retail; you should be able to get significant discounts at software stores. In addition, if you already own a previous version of the software, special upgrades are available direct from the manufacturer at special low prices.
Andrew Tobias` Managing Your Money (Meca Ventures; IBM, Macintosh, Apple II; $219.95; updates, $49.95).
Release 7.0 is the latest incarnation of a popular program that promises to fulfill almost all your personal financial needs. As in previous years, the current version offers easy-to-use ways to keep track of your budget; to handle multiple bank accounts; to chart the performance of your stocks and bonds; and to determine your net worth. It`s the Swiss Army knife of money programs.
But the program is more than just useful; it`s also fun-a word that usually isn`t associated with the drudgery of record-keeping. Managing Your Money makes routine tasks palatable by interspersing program screens with cogent and often witty advice from Andrew Tobias, a nationally known writer of books like ”Money Angles.”
Moreover, this year`s edition offers numerous enhancements to already existing features. For example, paying bills electronically, using a service called CheckFree, has been made smoother. Bringing in current stock price information from Dow Jones, using an add-on product called Managing the Market, is much easier. And the program now takes advantage of VGA graphics to make more attractive graphs of your financial situation.
Even slicker are new features that offer financial advice on an array of topics. For example, the program can determine whether now is the right time for you to refinance a mortgage. It even can predict your life expectancy and thus offer advice about how much insurance your should be carrying.
The program does this by using some nifty artificial-intelligence techniques. Here`s how it works in one example: To determine your life expectancy, the program asks you a series of questions about your age, health and lifestyle. Then it asks about the future financial needs of your spouse and children, such as whether you still have kids to put through college.
Based upon your answers, the program offers suggestions about the minimum amount of life insurance you need. It even will show you a chart that lists what your monthly premium payments should be. All this can be done in less than five minutes.
Sure to be one of the most controversial new predictors in the program is what is called the Bullishness Index, which is meant to offer suggestions about the right time to buy stocks. This module asks a number of questions about the current state of the stock market and then rates on a scale of 0 to 10 whether it`s a good time to buy.
Be warned, though: This feature is loaded with disclaimers, and Andrew Tobias accepts no responsibility if you end up buying high and selling low. Nonetheless, the new artificial-intelligence segments of the program are fascinating and can add a high degree of fun to the all-too-mundane activity of keeping track of your financial records.
The Writer`s Pack with Grammatik IV (Reference Software; IBM; $149).
When grammar checkers first came out, they were ridiculed in much of the press for their technical lapses. A common ploy of reviewers was to run, say, the Gettysburg Address through a grammar checker and then poke fun at the
”errors” the program located.
And indeed, the first generation of editing software left much to be desired, often flagging as mistakes prose that was perfectly good, while too often ignoring egregious errors.
But grammar checkers, like good writers, have learned from their mistakes. The latest generation of such software, though it will never replace a wise and experienced human editor, does offer enough sound advice to punch up the writing of most of us.
Grammatik IV is the leading grammar checker on the market today, and it provides the centerpiece of The Writer`s Pack, a collection of five software programs whose goal is to help you write better. Besides Grammatik IV, the package includes the Associated Press Stylebook, Definitions Plus!, Keynotes Writer`s Handbook and the American Handbook of Business Letters.
Out of this quintet, the average user probably will be using Grammatik IV the most. The program is a snap to install and is very easy to operate, even for novices. Here`s how it works: You create a document, using the text editor of your choice (the program supports every major word processor on the market), and then load Grammatik to check your usage and style.
The program readily captures common errors, such as confusing ”its” and ”it`s.” If you start to use the passive voice too often, Grammatik advises you switch to the active. It even catches redundant phrasings such as ”revert back” and ”future intention.”
A nice option of the program is that it allows you to customize the sort of errors you want it to watch for. So if you are worried about sexist prose, you can have Grammatik flag words like ”fireman” and ”policeman.”
Moreover, if you want to have your writing rated, Grammatik has a variety of readability statistics to measure your work by. The Flesch Reading Index rates the approximate grade level of your writing (a level of 6th to 10th grade is most effective). Grammatik even will offer such stats as how long your average sentence is, how many syllables your average word contains and how often you end a sentence with a question mark.
Grammatik IV is a program that actually puts some fun into correcting your grammar. Its editing advice is simple and direct, avoiding unnecessary jargon. And the 200-page manual is-would you believe it?-grammatically sound and thoroughly readable.
The other programs that come in the Writer`s Pack will probably be used much less often than Grammatik. The Associated Press Stylebook is of use to professional and aspiring journalists, but perhaps of less interest to most others. The Keynote`s Writer`s Handbook duplicates much of the material in Grammatik IV, though it does often a nice selection of indexed quotations.
Perhaps more useful is Definitions Plus!, an online version of the American Heritage Dictionary that lets you look up a word from within your favorite word processor. The American Handbook of Business Letters is a collection of templates for the most common types of business letters. If you find a letter you want to use as a model, you can easily import it into your word processor.
Bought separately, the five programs list for a total of $437, so the Writer`s Pack offers a significant savings. Nonetheless, users who simply need a full-featured grammar checker should consider buying Grammatik IV by itself; it currently lists for $99.
New Math Blaster Plus! (Davidson; most systems; $29.95-$59.95, depending on system).
For many children, there are few things more dreaded than math drills. Some kids become so turned off by the tedium of rote learning that they fail to master the basics of mathematics. For those children, here`s some good news: New Math Blaster Plus! puts fun into learning math.
Some educational software programs have a cumbersome user interface;
others have flashy screens but dubious educational value. Math Blaster Plus offers the best of both worlds. The program was lovingly designed by Dr. Jan Davidson and a Davidson Software team composed of software developers and former teachers. The finished program is a winning blend of good programming techniques and sound educational values.
The program makes a game out of learning, so children can enjoy as they are educated. The premise of the game is that a ”Blasternaut” and his robot friend Spot need help as they are journeying through space trying to make this a better universe to live in. The child helps out the space crew at the keyboard by solving various math problems.
The program offers four distinct activities called Rocket Launcher, Trash Zapper, Number Recycler and Math Blaster. Each activity focuses on a different aspect of math and reinforces skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals and percents-just the kind of skills taught in Grades 1 through 6.
Each module offers a good mix of arcade fun and math drills. For example, in the Math Blaster activity, an equation appears at the top of the screen and possible answers appear in each of four separate spaceships below. Children attempt to guide their Blasternaut to the right ship, avoiding various flying objects along the way. Each equation solved gains points, whereas each flying object touched loses time and power.
Besides the games and drills, Math Blaster Plus! offers a number of features that should keep children interested. A Super Stars List keeps track of the high scores in each game, and children who get a perfect score on a module earn the right to print out a nice certificate commemorating the achievement.
The games are also designed to be easy-to-use for as many children as b possible. The program uses something called the Davidson Student Desktop Interface, which is an environment with readily understandable pull-down menus that can be reached by a mouse click. And even though players will be typing in a great many numbers in playing the games, few words need to be typed. That makes the game enjoyable for students who may not have learned all their ABCs. In the unlikely event that a student gets stuck while using the program, online help is just an F1 key-press away.
The game also offers six levels of difficulty, so that if students start getting bored with the questions being asked they can increase the challenge. A nice improvement from earlier versions of the program is that it now offers much better graphics than before and it now supports sound boards. If the sights and sounds of these games don`t capture your child`s attention, nothing will.
Besides being appealing to students, New Math Blaster Plus! also has a variety of features that makes it attractive to parents and teachers as well. For example, it has a record-keeping facility that lets adults keep track of their children`s progress. There is a Test Maker facility that lets you devise and print out math tests. Finally, a built-in editor allows you to create new problems if your child exhausts the ones the program offers.
