Customer Reviews

The Complete National Geographic 110 Years [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a great piece of work. All articles, pictures, maps of 110 years.

However, don't get the CD-ROM version. 31 CDs is too much to handle. If you do a search for a particular topic, it comes up with articles in 10 different CDs. Then you have to flip CDs in and out. I bought this for my father and it is a huge pain; brings back the days of flipping floppies.

Instead, get the DVD-ROM version. Doesn't look like Amazon sells it (at least right now), It's a lot more useful. There's only 3 DVDs to flip.

The big problem with this software is this:

You CANNOT copy and paste from the articles--they are stored at image files, NOT as text files.

Worse, if you try to print out the pages, the text is illegible. NG released a patch that would darken the text, but it didn't work--it darkens everything, so you just end up with a darker page.

I am a teacher and I was hoping to be able to use the articles in class, but I have not been able to.

I have had these CDs for more than two years and I have NEVER been able to use it in the way that I had hoped.

In short, this product has been nothing but a waste of money for me.

We purchased this product to do some research for a trip which we are planning. While we found the search facility to be acceptable, the technology used to display the articles is generally deplorable.

Our plan was to look at the information using a laptop which has a screen resolution of 800x600. At this resolution, articles from the present back until 1970, can be read, but with some eye strain. From 1969 back until 1940, it is almost impossible to read the articles and from 1939 back until 1888, forget it.

We did find that on a desktop machine with a better resolution, readibility did improve somewhat, but the pre-1970 articles are still tough and the pre-1940 are still really bad.

The manufacturer of this product should be ashamed by the lack of quality. They apparently simply scanned in every page of every article without ever looking at the result. The company must have no quality control. I cannot understand how a reputable organization like the National Geographic Society could allow their name to be associated with this amateurish product.

I would love to meet the person who designed this awful piece of software. As mentioned before the text prints out so badly you cannot even read it, there is no central database for all data, each new cd has to be registered and every time you seem to do something it asks you to enter a cd you just put back in the awkward packaging. Why National Geographic didn't use something like Adobe Acrobat to put this package together I will probably never know. Bad show Mindscape for rendering a potentially fantastic product practically unusable.

I was born just after World War II, and I cannot remember a month that my parents did not receive a National Geographic. Since my father was born in 1898, one can imagine the enormous number of magazines we had accumulated even by the mid 1950's. Now this marvelous magazine, all issues, is available on CDs complete with pictures, stories, and even the old advertisements. Any topic can be searched. All pictures are fully spread out before the viewer so the entire picture is visible (I'm recalling fond memories of pulling apart the magazine binding to see the full picture). This magazine series chronicles our history, the world's history, in science, culture, geography, space exploration, and much more. It is a marvelous addition to anyone's library. The only caution is that very early issues (1888 to 1919 primarily) were printed in light text and are sometimes difficult to read. The program comes with a text enhancer that helps.

I bought this set immediately after it was released and was apalled at what I had bought. While the concept of having every issue on disc was a great idea, the use of JPEG images for the data instead of PDF was completely botched.

Tech support, back in 1996, said they could have used less compression on the images of the pages, but they would have had to use even more than the 30+ CDs they had in the set and they decided that merely HAVING every issue would make up for any shortcomings in presentation.

The end result: a [very costly] set of 30 CDs I hardly ever use and it's a shame as I really wanted to sit back and enjoy as many issues as I could but the text, while mostly legible, is a chore to read.

Spend your money elsewhere or go to the library!

I have to watch a damn Kodak commercial? Nat. Geo. shows NO CLASS with this piece of garbage. Horrible, low res scanned pages - even the text prints out poorly. This was designed for cheap computers of 5 years ago.

Shockingly bad.

Like other reviewers, I found this set of CD ROM hard to use. Its quality of text and photo are poorly made. Worse, it may have some bugs in its program that I can only zoom to the point of full pages, no zoom in further. The print out is very bad too. So it is hard to read both on screen or on pages. I tried some later years, the quaility doesn't improve much.
The program like to ask for registration but failed to log on to its server through my cable connection.
By buying this set of CDR, I was hoping I can get something useful, but now, I have to find out a way that 'unlock' it photos like NG claimed to be one benefit of registration but I never was able to.

I can hardly begin to say how nice it is to have all these wonderful articles at my fingertips. Unfortunately, the print is practically illegible. It looks like the print from a typewriter ribbon that has been used much too long. The pictures are very grainy. Don't but this until you borrow a friend's set and see how it looks on your computer. I'm amazed that National Geographic is willing to sell it.

This is a decent program although I wouldn't have gotten it had I known the troubles I was going to have. The software is very outdated and does not have a nice presentation for the photos or articles. The big problem I've had, and still have, is that I'm unable to register by modem or mail. The software is designed to only search for dial-out connections and it doesn't recognize broadband. I have e-mailed and snail mailed out 2 copies of my registration form to the Mindscape software company and have gotten no reply. My best guess is that the product is no longer being made and no one will accept responsiblity for the copies still out in the stores. The best part about this program is I can store the CDs in the nice wooden box it came with.