| |
| Quark
Mudra |
| Layout
without any quirks |
| Get
the best of Indian language software and desktop publishing
with Quark Mudra. The software designed for Indian language
publishing comes with five inbuilt language fonts and you can
add more fonts later on. Quark Mudra supports four Indian languages
and you can choose from seven keyboard layouts. Installation,
however, is a bit of a hassle and you might have to tweak the
system date and time. Along with all the basic features that
Quark has, it also allows you to add a hyphen, which you might
not have been able to do earlier. There's also the spell-check
and Find and Replace features. |
 |
|
| Features
: : |
|
Language
support: Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit
Fonts: Five inbuilt fonts
+ Good
language support
- price is a bit high
|
| |
| Contact:
Quark India |
Phone:
011-3357650
Fax: 011-3352996
Price: Rs 38,800 + taxes |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
|
Ease
of use: 3
Feature: 4
Performance: 3
Value for money: 3.5
Overall: 3
Verdict: B+
|
| |
| |
| Read
Plus |
| Reading
with a smile |
This
software is one with a difference. It reads out a text file
for you using the Microsoft engine. So, once you have text typed
in the text editor of Read Plus, you can make it read back the
text for you. The reading wasn't totally comprehensible, and
you had a kind of hissing sound when the words ended with letters
's' or 'ce'. The engine also couldn't pronounce words such as
Thiruvananthapuram and other names of Indian origin. You can,
if you desire, change the font and background colour of the
text editor. You have seven assistants to choose from to read
the text, and there's even one assistant who's called bhai.
You can keep the assistant active at all times, and it prompts
you at certain junctures such as when you restart or shutdown
your machine. The software also comes with an inbuilt Net browser.
Read Plus can read text back to you from other software such
as Outlook Express or Microsoft Word also. But the assistant
does have a problem reading e-mails, especially long ones, and
it identifies the underscore figure as underline.
Overall, it's quite a useful software though some work needs
to be done on reading long words and local names. |
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
|
12
MB file size
Around 1 minute for installation
Minimum system requirements: 486, 16 MB RAM, Win 9x/2000
+ Easy
to understand
+ Browser included
- Average performance
|
| |
| Contact:
Khandbhale Automations |
Phone:
0253-360054
Fax: 0253-341127
E-mail: kauto@bom6.vsnl.net.in
Web site: www.khandbahale.com
Price: Rs 999 |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
Ease
of use: 3
Features: 3.5
Performance: 3.5
Value for money: 3
Overall: 3
Verdict: B |
| |
| |
| Webgyor |
| Colouring
your surfing |
| This
is basically an add-on to Internet Explorer. The software installs
itself as a ticker, which can be activated from the View menu
of IE. This adds six buttons to the browser skin and a small
window where you can read the news of the company registered
with Webgyor. The software displays the news in a fashion similar
to what you see on television. There are other featured links
such as women, education, etc, but clicking on them took us
nowhere. Even the search function, where you can search by sector
or name of the company, didn't seem to be working. The software
is freeware but you have to register first after installation,
wherein you get a login name and password. This has to be used
every time you start the software. At the time of testing, there
weren't many companies listed but as the list grows it might
be useful as a one-stop site for all news. |
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
|
File
size: 987 KB
Less than a minute for installation
Software requirements: Windows 9x/NT, IE 5.0 and upwards
+ Easy
to understand
- Features are not working
|
| |
| Contact:
Webgyor |
Web
site: www.webgyor.com
Price: Freeware |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
Ease
of use: 4
Features: 3
Performance: 3.5
Value for money: 4
Overall: 3.5
Verdict: B+ |
| |
| Norton
Personal Firewall for Mac |
| Mac
Protection |
| Not
many firewall applications exist for the Mac. One of the most
popular ones were DoorStop's personal firewall, which was later
licensed by Norton. Even though this firewall is based on the
DoorStop code, the interface has been revamped to help the user
get up and running quickly. You can edit the rule set and choose
to give access to a certain pool of IPs using the very same
interface. Application-based or service based restrictions can
also be configured easily. Alerts and logging features are also
simple; a simple self-test app-simulator is also included to
check whether a particular firewall rule set is working fine
or not. You can simulate a connection from any remote IP to
a specific service or port and check the access status. Overall,
this is an exceptionally easy to use product, with thin but
sufficient documentation. |
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
|
Detailed
manual, simple to use alerts and logging, a self-test app-simulator
System
requirements: Power PC-based system, Mac OS 8.1 and upwards, 24
MB RAM,
3 MB hard disk space
+ Easy
to configure
- No built in AppleTalk protection
|
| |
| Contact:
Tech Pacific |
Phone:
022-5960227
Fax: 022-5960101
E-mail: adil@techpacindia.com
Web site: www.techpacindia.com
Price: Rs 2,200 |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
Ease
Of Use: 4.5
Features: 4
Performance: 3
Value For Money: 3
Overall: 3.5
VERDICT: B+
|
| |
| Norton
SystemWorks 1.0 for Mac |
| Works
with any system |
SystemWorks
1.0 includes the very basic of system management tools for your
Apple system. Although viruses aren't so much more prominent
in the Mac world, disk-related problems and defragmentation
still exist, and maybe that's why SystemWorks lets you scan
your disk for errors even without installing the program. All
you need to do is pop the CD in and run the SystemWorks panel.
You get to do everything except a virus scan, which is available
only after a full install.
The full install (17 MB) is quite small as compared to the monstrous
120 MB+ install on a PC, even though it includes almost all
the goodies of the PC version. There are other tools such as
a volume recovery tool, a disk or file wiper and an undelete
tool. Live Update is a standard feature, and just like the PC
version, lets you update your software and anti-virus definitions
automatically off the Web. Overall, a good suite of utilities
at a slightly high price. |
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
|
Does
not needs installation. Can be run directly from CD
Very small install size
Detailed manual
System requirements: Power PC-based system, Mac OS 8.1 and upwards,
24 MB RAM, 20 MB HDD
+ Light
on system resource
+ Disk recovery tool
- High price
|
| |
| Contact:
Tech Pacific |
Phone:
022-5960227
Fax: 022-5960101
E-mail: adil@techpacindia.com
Web site: www.techpacindia.com
Price: Rs 3,800 |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
Ease
Of Use: 4
Features: 4
Performance: 3.5
Value For Money: 3
Overall: 3.5
Rating: B+ |
| |
| PLANET
SPLIT |
| Split
personality |
| This
freeware utility allows you to split a big file into multiple
segments. These individual segments can then be copied on to
any media-whether floppy, Zip drive or CD. The interface is
quite simple and easy to use. The program is quite small (just
1.22 MB) and not at all resource hungry. It basically does nothing
else but split the file, make an image of it and rebuild it.
The image of the file is made according to the media selected
for splitting the file and you have options of 1.44 MB, 1.2
MB and 720 KB. |
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
|
Size
1.22 MB
Less than a minute for installation
Support for ZIP and Jaz drives
Update facility on sites such as www.zdnet.com and www.windows95.com
+ Handy
tool
- Features are not working
|
| |
| Contact:
GMA Soft-tech |
E-mail:
support@innovators.com
Web site: www.innovators.com
Price: Freeware |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
Ease
of use: 4.5
Features: 3
Performance: 3.5
Value for money: 3.5
Overall: 3.5
Verdict: B+
|
| |
| |
| ImageSiteGrabber |
| Grab
it fast |
| This
software is a cool tool for downloading images from the Web.
Just give the URL and click on Get image. ImageGrabber then
picks up the image from the specified site. You can specify
the number of images that you want to be downloaded. It also
acts as a browser and is just 1.97 MB in size. When you use
the software as a browser, it also adds a Get icon, which does
the job of saving the images on the page. It does its job pretty
fast, and if you are the kind of person who likes to download
lots of cool images from the Net, you will definitely like it.
|
 |
|
| |
| Features: |
Full-screen
slide show
Scheduling possible
File size 1.97 MB
Less than a minute for installation
+ Easy to understand
+ Image grabbing is fast
+ Inbuilt browser
- No print option available in File menu |
| |
| Contact:
Capoeira Software |
E-mail:
support@flashcardsonline.com
Web site: www.flashcardsonline.com
Price: Shareware ($19.95) |
| |
| Verdict
Box |
|
Ease
of use: 4
Features: 3.5
Performance: 4
Value for money: 4
Overall: 3.5
Verdict: A-
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