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From Cheryl in Michigan
I love this program. It is easy to enter the recipes and simple to use. The only thing I did not like is that you could not spell check your added recipes. It also comes with many good recipes.

I love this software
Cook'n for Vegetarians comes with tons of Vegetarian recipes that are delicious, and such a variety. The software is perfect for entering your own recipes. And for those of us who are watching our weight too, you can enter your own nutritional information for any lite ingredient and the software will automatically compute the recipe's nutritional value for you. Also, I host parties for my family often and it's so easy to change the number of people you'd like to serve and the program automatically changes the ingredient amounts for you! I've added more recipe cookbook titles to my collection since and loved them all. You can download the cookbooks once you have the software from [local website]. I give it 5 stars!

Great variety--Excellent!
It's not easy finding good vegetarian recipes. That's why I was excited to find that someone had compiled a CD full of them. The variety on this CD is AMAZING! I was surprised to see that I could organize not only my own recipes but even the ones that came pre-programmed in the software. Whenever I find a really good recipe on the CD, I put it in my own category so I can use it again later.I'm not very computer literate but this CD was a snap to use. I just popped it in my CD drive and away I went. I highly recommend it.

Silver Efex Pro
This is an excellent product. It makes B&W post-processing fast and efficient. It is a very good companion to PSCS3.

Awesome black and white plug-in for PS and Aperture
Even though this product is quite pricey, if you love black and white, it is definitely worth it. Gives you amazing control over converting color images to b&w, using predefined templates, additional templates from their website, and also custom setting you can make, and save. Absolutely fantastic. I am running it on an intel Mac Pro w/ 8 Gig of Ram. It is very fast when launched from w/in photoshop. I only gave it 4 stars out of 5 because it is incredibly slow working w/ large 12 and 14 bit raw files when launched from Apple Aperture (but fine from w/in photoshop). A number of people on the web have complained about this and Nik has yet to acknowledge this as a problem. I even offered to help them trouble shoot it to find out where the memory/performance issue was coming from and they didn't respond to my offer. One solution seems to be to launch the plug-in in 8 bit photoshop mode instead of 16 bit but that is just a work around, not a real solution as other Nik software works fine w/ photoshop in 16 bit mode. Overall a great product, I highly recommend you download the 14 day demo and give it a try, and then buy it if you like it as much as I did. The Aperture slow performance was almost a deal-breaker for me but I purchased it anyway knowing that Nik would eventually have to fix that one problem area.

UPDATE: 5 stars. Nik has released version 1.001 which addresses the Aperture slowness problem. Nice and fast now. Highly recommended.

MAC Discrimination
I bought this product when I was running a laptop PC. Fortunately, I did not have any of the technical problems that have been experienced by some other reviewers. I found the programs quite comprehensive, not so elementary as to be insulting and visually well done. The music was a good touch.

Having said all that, why in the world is it not MAC-compatible? Now that I have switched to MAC, this software is useless. Any software that claims to be of interest not only to interested adults but to school-age learners should not have this shocking shortcoming. In all the time since I first bought this product, CounterTop Software has done nothing for the non-PC user. The three stars were for the PC content I used to be able to enjoy, after considering the fact that all I can do now is stare at the disks. Great.

Steven M. Wolf
Villanova, PA

Value and Scope
This is amazing for the money. For those of us who long, and I mean long, for a trip abroad, this is well worth many times the cost. I run a 633MHZ, Intel Celeron and it runs like a dream. Very authentic in atmosphere and effect. The scope is wonderful - a taste of the architecture, the art, and the history.You must understand that I am of the older generation - we were stuck with expensive books or saving for these trips. Maybe that is why this tour seems so valuable to me. What can I say? Hey, I'm happy...

Money well spent!
This is a fine bunch of CDs. There's not a whole lot of art from the last century--they might have included a bit more modern stuff--but overall it offers a fine, sizable collection of art. Beyond that, I would recommend this because it is the perfect match of form and format; the art looks better on a computer screen than in does in a text, and you can click in for close-ups and details that enlarge with astounding clarity. If these guys come out with CD's focusing on modern art--or architecture--I will be in line to scoop them up.

Carole Berkoff
The general format of this software using flashcards to facilitate learning is very helpful to me. I like being able to listen to the words as many times as I need to and to be able to slow them down. I do find that some of the lists are too small in the number of words offered. If you want to add a word you can but it is not easy to add sound. Some of the "native speakers" pronounciation such as buongiorno sounds as if she is not too happy & I prefer not to emulate. When I did find a way to record, then when I went to record my voice, the feedback system failed. I find this software in general more helpful than just listening to language CDs. I do think that the software developers could do a lot more with this system.

Great vocabulary builder.
I have the multi-language version of this software, which includes Spanish, Italian, French and German. So I'm reviewing each single-language version as well so those shopping for language-learning software will know exactly what to expect from this.

Before You Know It uses the flashcard method of teaching vocabulary four ways. Words and phrases are divided into lists by category. User selects a list then goes to the activity of choice to learn the contents of that list. There are a few more activities available in the Deluxe version that the free trial version doesn't have, but both versions use virtual flashcards the following way:

Step 1 - Look at the foreign word and take a guess (out loud or in your head - it doesn't matter because the software trusts you to tell it if you answered correctly). The program will also say the word so you know the proper pronunciation.

Step 2 - Look at the foreign word and type in it in English in the space provided. Here you don't get to cheat, because it can tell if your correct or not. The ones you need work on will repeat more often.

Step 3 - Look at the English word and guess the foreign one. Again, it will trust you to be honest.

Step 4 - Look at the English word and type in the foreign one. This has been the most helpful of all the steps for me, because not only do I have to know the word by now, I have to know how to spell it correctly and include any necessary accent marks.

All of the above you can get with the basic version of Before You Know It that is available to download for free via the internet. Why not try it out before you purchase the deluxe version?

With the deluxe version, you get more four more activities which include multiple choice, pronunciation practice where you can record your voice and compare your pronunciation with a native speaker (warning: software does NOT include a microphone), and dictation (which is just a repeat of step 4 of the flashcard portion).

My favorite thing about this software, though, and what made me go ahead and spend the money for the deluxe version, is the user's ability to customize the program in several different ways:
- User can add a word to any list. You just look up more words you want to know online or in a dictionary and add it to the appropriate category.
- User can delete any word from any list.
- User can copy any word from one list to another.
- User can edit any word in any list. This is handy when studying Spanish because you might want to change the translation from European to Latin American.
- User can create entire lists and categories of their own, add their own pictures and record their own voices to demonstrate the pronunciation of each word. You can create lists for anything you want to learn - not just languages.
- User can download additional, free lists from the Before You Know It website, including state capitals, periodic table of elements (chemistry), multiplication tables, and more. And you can sign up for the free "list of the week." Each week, a new list will be sent to you via email.

This software will help you master your foreign vocabulary and learn helpful phrases, but it does not teach the rules of grammar for these languages. You won't learn conjugation unless you look up the form of each word yourself and add it to their lists or create your own lists.

In other words, the customizing possibilities for this are almost endless if you're willing and able to invest the time to do it. But what it comes with already installed is meant to simply increase your foreign vocabulary and, used alone, will not make anyone a fluent speaker.

Silver Efex Pro
This is an excellent product. It makes B&W post-processing fast and efficient. It is a very good companion to PSCS3.

Awesome black and white plug-in for PS and Aperture
Even though this product is quite pricey, if you love black and white, it is definitely worth it. Gives you amazing control over converting color images to b&w, using predefined templates, additional templates from their website, and also custom setting you can make, and save. Absolutely fantastic. I am running it on an intel Mac Pro w/ 8 Gig of Ram. It is very fast when launched from w/in photoshop. I only gave it 4 stars out of 5 because it is incredibly slow working w/ large 12 and 14 bit raw files when launched from Apple Aperture (but fine from w/in photoshop). A number of people on the web have complained about this and Nik has yet to acknowledge this as a problem. I even offered to help them trouble shoot it to find out where the memory/performance issue was coming from and they didn't respond to my offer. One solution seems to be to launch the plug-in in 8 bit photoshop mode instead of 16 bit but that is just a work around, not a real solution as other Nik software works fine w/ photoshop in 16 bit mode. Overall a great product, I highly recommend you download the 14 day demo and give it a try, and then buy it if you like it as much as I did. The Aperture slow performance was almost a deal-breaker for me but I purchased it anyway knowing that Nik would eventually have to fix that one problem area.

UPDATE: 5 stars. Nik has released version 1.001 which addresses the Aperture slowness problem. Nice and fast now. Highly recommended.

Best Quick Review of Western Art
If you're looking for software that will help you decide where to further invest your time and engery in discovering an era of Western Art, this two-volume set is perfect for that. It will give you a taste to want to know more. It allows you to quickly see a painting, a town, a year, or a period to discover if it is something you want to know more about, and if your about to travel its great to get a sense of the art of particular European town. The images are clear, and working in this software is very easy. You truly get your money's worth!