Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
148 of 148 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Expecting Improvements and Future Expansion, October 19, 2009
This is a beloved complete collection of 120 years of knowledge and history, and a very valuable reference for your library. Every National Geographic loyalist should own a copy of this treasure without hesitation. There are a few points that ought to be noted:
*The Complete National Geographic: 120 Years is a different product from what was released between 1997 and 2003. This new version of The Complete National Geographic is run on an entirely different, more sophisticated platform, Adobe AIR, which utilizes higher resolution pictures and text, and advanced search functions.
*You need to turn on the digital magnifier that comes with the software or to use maximum zoom to read the texts on your monitor. Don't expect a .pdf ASCII text resolution of the scanned pages.
*Some functions are not quite ready when some earlier builds are shipped. One example is the Copy CNG Content to Local Drive button isn't working, which means you can't copy the DVDs to your hard drive in order to access the contents faster. [Follow-up edit on 02/01/2010: The patch (revision 1.26) to address the "Copy CNG Content to Local Drive" issue was released for Windows on January 31, 2010.]
*National Geographic announced in their press release dated 10/13/2009 that "The Complete National Geographic" users will be able to add to their archive after purchasing the DVD-ROM or hard drive product by downloading annual updates on a subscription basis from [...]. This is a must-have, but not yet available, if you want to expand your assets in the future by adding recent NGM issues to the package.
*The Complete National Geographic contains all National Geographic Magazine issues published through December 2008. Content updates for The Complete National Geographic will be available after the print editions of the previous year have been published. An update for the 2009 issues of National Geographic Magazine for The Complete National Geographic will be available for purchase and download via the Internet in the spring of 2010.
*Updates need to be installed to add missing pages of Apr 1913, Dec 1930, Mar 1950, Sep 1960, Aug 1970, and Jul 1979 issues to the collection. However, updates have to be downloaded through Auto Updates or "Check For Updates Now"; there isn't an independent update installer for archive and repeat installation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
62 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can load to your hard drive - Here's how, October 22, 2009
I loaded mine to my hard drive and love not having to take the DVDs in and out. It took over two hours per DVD to load, but was worth it. You just have to copy them from the DVD to a very specific folder on your hard drive. The directions are in the last of these FAQs in this link to the CNG FAQ page:
[...]
(If Amazon doesn't allow this link here, check one of my responses below this review -- I'll include it there too and maybe it can stay there.)
One of the biggest negatives with this set is that the sideways pictures can't rotate, making them hard to read and enjoy. And there are many such pictures. Hopefully they will come up with an upgrade soon to fix this, as they have received many queries about this.
Although there are some negatives, overall, I am very happy with this set.
The huge plus is you get every issue of National Geographic in a relatively easily readable format when you use the easy-to-use magnifying and dragging features. If you have a 24" monitor, it's pretty readable as is. With magnified reading, when you go to the next page, it resets back to zero magnification, and you have to re-magnify it. But it's fairly easy -- all you have to do is double click on the page, and it magnifies, and you can drag the text and pictures around as needed.
They even include all of the advertisements, which they could have easily decided to omit. (It's fun to look at the ads from long ago. For example, in the April 1916 issue, focusing on the national parks, there's an ad for newly established Cascade National Park, placed by Great Northern Railroad, reminiscent of the days when railroads affiliated themselves with different parks, to boost travel.)
It prints out beautifully, and there is no readability problem with printouts.
There is a handy readlist feature, where you can create your own readlists (very easily done) or look at readlists that the editors have prepared. There are approximately 33 of these already created readlists, covering such things as various editors' favorites, National Parks, The Universe, The Untamed, etc. Just scanning through these articles, it looks like these lists are pretty good and I see a lot of things I want to read.
One problem with these readlists is that they don't give the date of the article. You see something focusing on, say India, and you have no idea if it is from 1915 or 2005. That makes a big difference to me insofar as my interest. They should include the date of the issue in these readlists. When I create my own lists I plan on always including the date.
All in all, I am happy with this set, and would buy again, since it seems to be the best way to get all of national Geographic, short of buying all of the actual magazines for thousands of dollars.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
84 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding content, flawed interface, November 4, 2009
I've been playing around with this latest version of the "Complete National Geographic" and have a few thoughts to share.
I own one of the previous sets on CD-ROM. That set had a couple significant problems: You couldn't read the text of the articles, and all the magazines were scanned badly.
This set has solved the readability and resolution problems, but has introduced a few of its own.
The earlier issues of the magazine have their photographs printed vertically so that the whole height of the page was used to display landscape photographs. With the magazine, and the earlier set on CD-ROM, you could rotate the pictures on their side and enjoy the whole photo blown up to full, (although limited), resolution. This set has no such feature, so you have to tip your head to view the photo and read the caption, and worse still, the photo can be displayed no wider than your monitor is tall. You can zoom in on the picture for a better look, but it would have been nice to be able to rotate the pages so you could get a full screen view.
Also, the search function is a sorry joke on this set. It uses these funky dials to select your date range, (what is wrong with pull downs I ask?), so it is more difficult to select an exact date range. Also, when you get your results they are displayed in this "carousel" format with the newest results first and the oldest rotating off into the distance. What is wrong with a simple list view and a scroll bar???
As was mentioned in an earlier review, these search results are truncated, so you know nothing about the date, or the key words, or anything about the details of the results. A good search function is kinda important for a collection spanning 120 years, and this one is close to worthless.
Ah, just remembered something else about the search function. When you search for a particular brand name in the advertisements, clicking on the result takes you to the cover of the issue the ad is in rather than the exact page. Very annoying!
So, all in all, better than the old set in one very important way, the scans seem much improved, but the interface needs some serious work.
I did notice that when I checked for updates it had already gone from version 1.12 to 1.15 in the short time since release. Maybe they will see the light and invest some effort into improving the interface. They have already got my money though, so I won't be holding my breath.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
![H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + State + eFile [Formerly TaxCut]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aHkeWLTaL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
