This must be one of the few software markets where Microsoft is not a well known name. Although Digital Image Suite 2006 is the latest in a line of editing products stretching back to Picture It!, it has suffered from its early life as a bundle with Works. This is a shame, as the new application is certainly worthy of consideration.

As the name implies, this is a suite of programs, comprising the Editor, Library and a separate application called Photo Story. Photo Story is aimed at people who like to do creative things with their images and it acts like a rostrum camera, so you can pan around them and add backing music and narrations for a slide show.
Many of the same features are highlighted in the helpful, English-accent videos supplied with the product, though the program doesn’t have all the easy-to-use, purpose-made tools of Microsoft’s competitors. You need to use Gaussian blur, for example, rather than the blemish tool of Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro, and adjust colour saturation to whiten teeth. You can achieve most of the same effects as with the best editors here, but paradoxically for a product obviously aimed at the less experienced photo buff, you need to be a bit more technically savvy.

Buy Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 11.0 – 49$

Includes Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Calender, Email & Internet Tools and My Projects Organiser
The quick-start Task Launcher home page shows you your schedule and to-do-list at a glance and most frequently used Works components.

Take your calendar and address book with you on PocketPC and Palm devices.
The My Projects Organiser helps you take care of all the details of projects like plan an event or party, plan a holiday, do a school project and many others.
300 contemporary templates that are easily customisable with hundreds of new clipart.
Share and edit word processing and spreadsheet files with Microsoft Word and Excel users.

Buy Microsoft Works 9 – 19$

A little over three years have passed since Windows 2000 in all its various guises exploded upon the oft single-minded world of Network Operating Systems (NOS). To date, Microsoft has made several notable advances in the evolution of their server software. When the company first ventured into this area, and released Windows NT 3.51 it was considered to be a marginal NOS at best. Novell, the market leader at the time, even went so far as to offer it much lauded Directory Services for NT because Microsoft failed to offer it in Windows NT. Windows 2000 was Microsoft’s first foray into the world of directory services based NOS’s.

When Microsoft Windows 2000 Server debuted, it created a frenzy of training and recertification by IT personnel—including myself—vying to the be one of the first on the street with the new credentials. Those corporations devoted to the Microsoft way at long last were able to take advantage of a NOS that offered Directory Service (Active Directory) similar to that of Novell Netware’s forest design. Windows 2000 represented a revolution in Microsoft heretofore NOS offerings, and was different from Windows NT 3.51/4.0 as Windows 98 is from Windows XP. And Active Directory was much more than a Directory Service. But as in any revolution there were missteps and flaws in the design…
Windows 2000 had one fatal flaw that was hard to ignore: the native security implementation was—and is—awful. Not that it isn’t relatively easy to lock down a Windows 2000 Server. But the administrator has to actually manually tighten several different settings, leaving amble room for confusion and human error. Sure Microsoft issued patches to correct the security holes as they were found and exploited by those bent on wanton destruction, but applying new patches every other day is tiresome, not to mention disruptive if the server has the be rebooted to properly apply them.
Enter the new NOS in town, Windows 2003 Server. For those skeptics among you, who think Windows 2003 is only a minor upgrade, let me reassure you it is not. Microsoft, not surprisingly, has been attentive to the desires of System (Network) Administrators and Developers alike and offers each with solutions that each community can be proud of, resulting in a product has been massaged and tweaked scrupulously over the past three years. Gone are the apparent security holes that plagued Windows 2000. Gone too is the interface of old and in is the universal interface of Windows XP.
A feature of note Microsoft has added in Windows 2003 is the Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS). The VSS is a new service in 2003 similar in functionality to the Salvage Bin in Netware. When enabled, this service will periodically take snapshots of the server’s hard drive, storing data files that end users can recover if they have been deleted, or even retrieve a previous version of a file if it is needed. This data archiving feature can help alleviate the oft time-consuming need to restore a file(s) from tape saving time and productivity.
New Windows 2003 Features:
• VSS
• Manage Your Server
• Web Based Administration
• Enhanced Group Policy
• Active Directory in Application Mode (ADAM)
• Internet Information Service 6.0 (IIS 6)
• Microsoft Terminal Server/ Terminal Services (MTS)
Window 2003 comes in four different versions: Standard Edition(the focus of this review), Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition. Listed below are the server requires for each product.
Windows 2003 Server System Requirements:
(Standard Edition):
• Minimum CPU Speed: 133 MHz
• Recommended CPU Speed: 550 MHz
• Minimum RAM: 128 MB
• Recommended Minimum RAM: 256 MB
• Maximum RAM: 4GB
• Multiprocessor Support: 1 or 2
• Disk Space for setup: 1.5GB
(Enterprise Edition):
• Minimum CPU Speed: 133 MHz for x86 based computers/ 733 MHz for Intel Itanium based computers.
• Recommended CPU Speed:733 MHz
• Minimum RAM: 128 MB
• Recommended Minimum RAM: 256 MB
• Maximum RAM: 32 GB for x86 based computers/ 64 GB for Intel Itanium based computers.
• Multiprocessor Support: Up to 8
• Disk Space for setup: 1.5 GB for x86 based computers/ 2.0 GB for Intel Itanium based computers.
(Data Center Edition):
• Minimum CPU Speed: 400 MHz for x86 based computers/ 733 MHz for Intel Itanium based computers.
• Recommended CPU Speed: 733 MHz
• Minimum RAM: 512 MB
• Recommended Minimum RAM: 1 GB
• Maximum RAM: 64 GB for x86 based computers/ 128 GB for Intel Itanium based computers.
• Multiprocessor Support: Minimum 8 required / Maximum: 32
• Disk Space for setup: 1.5 GB for x86 based computers/ 2.0 GB for Intel Itanium based computers.
(Web Edition):
• Minimum CPU Speed: 133 MHz
• Recommended CPU Speed: 550 MHz
• Minimum RAM: 128 MB
• Recommended Minimum RAM: 256 MB
• Maximum RAM: 2GB
• Multiprocessor Support: 1 or 2
• Disk Space for setup: 1.5GB

Buy Windows 2003 Server Standart Edition – Full – 99$

There’s no question about it: 64-bit computing is the future, because it promises better performance and room to grow for memory-hungry applications and operating systems. In fact, millions of people already use desktops and laptops with 64-bit processors that have been available from AMD since 2003 and Intel since February 2005. With the release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition, Microsoft takes a big first step toward a 64-bit world. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Microsoft’s transition to 64-bit will be a gradual one. Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is not available in boxed editions via resellers; it will be sold only through OEM vendors and licensing agreements. The new OS is priced the same as the 32-bit Windows XP Professional, and for a limited time, current XP Professional customers running 64-bit systems can upgrade for free.

Microsoft can afford to take a measured approach to 64-bit computing because few software applications are available in 64-bit editions and many hardware devices don’t yet have compatible drivers. In fact, many of the native applications in Microsoft’s new OS, such as Outlook Express and Windows Media Player, still run in 32-bit mode.
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is a big deal for software developers because it gives them a solid Windows platform to write apps that can harness the potential of 64-bit. The release also represents a major milestone toward Microsoft’s next-generation Longhorn operating system. Windows XP Professional x64 Edition promises substantial speed improvements with CAD/CAM, 3D modeling, and other high-end tools that will justify the move to the new OS. For the average user, though, 64-bit Windows is, for now, little more than a curiosity. Compatibility issues far outweigh any potential speed boosts, making it an inadvisable upgrade for all but the most die-hard hobbyists.

Buy Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 – 69$

The launch of any new operating system from Microsoft is bound to generate hype, but it’s fair to say that Windows 98 hasn’t been quite as eagerly anticipated as was Windows 95. And with good reason – this is really the development of an existing operating system rather than the launch of a completely new one. More like the transition from Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups than from 3.11 to 95, in fact.

It is still an important release, though. It includes improved support for peripheral devices – notably USB equipment – and expansion cards through updated and (allegedly) more efficiently coded drivers. It incorporates Internet Explorer as a core component, which is yet another nail in the coffin of Netscape Navigator. And, according to Microsoft, Windows 98 is faster than Windows 95, at booting up, shutting down and, more importantly, launching applications. There are other, less obvious changes too, many of which are available as patches to Windows 95 from Microsoft’s Web site. Having them all on a single CDROM is certainly convenient.
We installed the upgrade version of Windows 98 onto three PCs, each time over an existing copy of Windows 95. The first time, we boldly attempted the upgrade from within Windows 95, by double-clicking on the SETUP.EXE icon. This appeared to go well, but when the time came to reboot the system, Windows 98 couldn’t find its COMMAND.COM file, which was a little disconcerting, although none of our existing data was lost. So we tried again, using a DOS boot disk containing CDROM drivers. This time there were no problems at all. The third attempt progressed without incident, too, and each attempt took just over an hour to complete. Our three installations do not exactly represent a statistically relevant sample, but judging from newsgroup postings and other reports, Windows 98 is less painful to install than Windows 95, which is good news.
Windows 98 supports drive compression through DriveSpace 3 (previously part of the Microsoft Plus Pack), and also FAT32, a more efficient method of hard drive file allocation that allows for large partitions but can sometimes cause problems with legacy applications. You can’t use FAT32 and DriveSpace 3 at the same time, but with the size of today’s hard drives that probably won’t be a problem.
This latest operating system is supposed to boot up faster than Windows 95, as well as loading applications faster. We haven’t noticed any reduction in the boot time, but certainly native 32-bit Windows applications do seem to load faster than before. We were also pleased to see a performance increase in some games, particularly those with DirectX support. The difference was probably only around 5-10 percent, but was still welcome. Compatibility seems to be good, with the twenty or so applications installed on our test systems all functioning well. 16-bit applications will generate a ‘This application might not work properly’ message the first time they are run, but that was the same under Windows 95, and we noticed no related problems. Our only real gripe, after disabling Active Desktop and most of the other Web-related interface options, was that folder windows can take longer to open than before, due mainly to the increased amount of graphics and information contained within them. Other than that we were impressed and, barring any unforeseen glitches, we will be upgrading all our systems to Windows 98 over the next few weeks.
A note to systems administrators and power users: the Windows 98 installer is every bit as predatory as its predecessor. If your system has multiple bootable partitions controlled by a boot manager, they will be temporarily inaccessible as the boot record is over-written. Most boot managers have re-installation options to cope with this, but keep a boot disk and FDISK handy just in case.
Microsoft – Windows 98 features – Verdict
If you’re buying a new PC, it’s highly likely that it will have Windows 98 pre-installed, so the question of whether or not to upgrade is academic. For those users happy with their existing installation of Windows 95, there’s no immediately compelling reason to upgrade, although in our opinion Windows 98 is a better platform than its predecessor. If you do plan to carry out the upgrade yourself, make a backup of all your data first and be prepared for possible problems, although permanent data loss is unlikely. Also, note that it is rumoured that the first upgrade to Windows 98 could be here within a few months. Bizarre.

Buy Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition – 29$

Microsoft has offered home users a stripped-down version of its Office software since the early days of MS-DOS and, with the Vista-compatible version 9, has revised the series for 2008. In truth there aren’t a lot of significant additions to the feature set, but a revised interface and improvements to the calendar and contact features, among other tweaks, does offer it a bit of a refresh.
The majority of the tools within the suite can be controlled and accessed via the Task Launcher homepage, the Works startup screen that initially offers access to a calendar and contacts. Here you can view upcoming appointments and access the full calendar application itself, which supports up to 32 individual calendars for different users.

Microsoft has clearly focused on putting accessibility and usability at a premium with the Works suite. Although you can open each of the main applications manually, you’re encouraged to do so by using one of the many templates or projects available for a range of day to day activities. You’ll find categories such as Home & Money, Cards & Crafts and Sports & Fitness, through which you can access a selection of pre-designed templates utilising one or more of the Works applications to get you started.
You can also view templates by application, and in the projects menu you’ll find these collated into sequential steps that you can work through to complete tasks such as coach a sports team, plan a holiday or organise a household. Along with the History menu, which offers quick access to previously opened files or tasks, this rounds off the functionality of the Task Launcher interface.
Of course you can still open each of the applications manually: specifically these include a word processor, spreadsheet and database application, all of which are effectively stripped-down versions of Word, Excel and Access respectively.
Unfortunately we became a little frustrated when delving into the features of each, to discover exactly how much has been removed. The word processor includes its own dictionary, which is a nice touch, but has very little to offer in terms of formatting control, leaving you with basic font and style changes and mail merge.
The spreadsheet application has no support for multiple worksheets and limited formula control, and the database tool offers little more than the ability to store and perform basic management of fields and lists.
The degree of control for those who want to perform tasks any more complex than creating basic documents is therefore pretty limited, and we’d expect all but the least demanding of users to eventually become frustrated by the lack of flexibility.
Although the projects-oriented approach does have genuine appeal, this is little more than a collation of pre-designed templates and shortcuts that act as timesavers rather than revolutionary features. The calendar, along with its appointment and contact management, is a useful alternative to Outlook from a basic standpoint, but this suffers from similar drawbacks and backs up our biggest issue with Microsoft’s basic Office alternative.

Buy Microsoft Works 9 – 19$

Verdict: The adoption of web standards is welcome, but Web 2’s AJAX support is, disappointingly, still rooted in Microsoft’s own technologies.
The mission for the first release of Expression Web was clear: to lay the ghost of Microsoft’s unpopular FrontPage web authoring package. It largely succeeded by concentrating on providing standards-compliant support for the web’s core markup languages, (X)HTML and CSS. Apart from minor tweaks, such as the ability to automatically alphabeticise HTML properties, the handling of these two pillars is left unchanged and Expression Web 2 now seeks to widen its standards support.

In the script
First up, and most striking, is the new support for PHP, the popular server-side scripting language for building dynamic web sites. Expression Web 2 now provides full PHP coding support which not only means syntax colour-coding, but also full IntelliSense to help you choose functions and global variables and tooltips to provide information about parameters. Crucially, after you’ve installed PHP on your system, you can preview pages locally without having to upload your website to a server.
The support for PHP will surprise many because Microsoft offers its own rival server-side scripting language. What won’t surprise anyone is that Microsoft’s support for its own ASP.NET technology goes much deeper – and has been greatly extended in Web 2. The key to this deeper integration is the ability to drag dozens of ASP controls, from AdRotator through to XML, directly onto your page and manage their defining parameters directly in Web’s Design view. An important new data handling control has been added in the new sortable, editable and pageable ListView. And Web 2 also now supports custom ASP.NET controls that you download from third-party sources or develop yourself in Visual Studio.
The biggest development by far for ASP.NET users is AJAX support, which takes the form of server-side controls. Drag the ScriptManager control onto your page and then nest content within UpdatePanel controls and these can then be updated asynchronously. Web 2’s implementation is nowhere near as simple as Dreamweaver CS3’s Spry framework as it requires server side set-up and hands-on scripting, but it’s well worth getting to grips with. AJAX is essential for creating modern state-of-the-art sites where awkward full page refreshes are avoided and the dynamic web application seems more like a responsive desktop application. ASP.NET developers will seize on this new power.
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include a copy of Expression Design 2 for generating web graphics, but it largely – and surprisingly – makes up for this omission by adding support for Adobe Photoshop. Import a PSD file and you can choose which layers are converted and preview optimisation settings onscreen. More importantly, you can re-edit the original file in Photoshop and quickly update your web-optimised JPEG, GIF or PNG.
Static bitmap handling is central to web design, but these days dynamic media isn’t far behind. Predictably, Microsoft has made it easier to add and manage audio and video in those formats supported by its own Windows Media Player. Less predictably, it extends similar support to its biggest web media rival, the cross-platform Adobe Flash. In fact the support for Flash is actually deeper as you can preview SWF content in Design view. Rather less impressive is Expression Web 2’s claimed support for RealPlayer and QuickTime, as you have to go through hoops to approve their ActiveX players and then add all code by hand.
Expression Web 2 also adds direct support for another completely new ActiveX control: Silverlight. This is Microsoft’s cross-platform cross-browser answer to Flash and Silverlight authoring is the primary selling point of the new Expression Studio 2 suite.
Select Web 2’s Insert Silverlight command and you are prompted to select the folder containing your Silverlight project and all the necessary support files are then copied to your current web site and supporting links added to the current page.
The light at the end of the tunnel?
In the future, integrated Silverlight support could well prove Expression Web’s killer feature – but that’s certainly not the case yet. To begin with, compared to the simplicity of adding Flash’s SWF binaries, the process for adding Silverlight projects is awkward involving and multiple script files – and you can’t even preview the file in Design view.
Moreover, as it stands, Silverlight just can’t compete with Flash in terms of all-round power or all-important market share. There’s one area where Silverlight 1 does offer some advantages – the delivery of web video. However, as Web 2 doesn’t let you directly wrap video in a Silverlight player, this option is restricted to users of Expression Encoder.
Ultimately the potential of Silverlight to become a major web standard lies in the future – which makes Expression Web 2’s extended support for other non-Microsoft standards even more important. Here the support for PHP, Photoshop and Flash is particularly significant and welcome. However, it’s by no means a level playing field.
The FrontPage vision of the web as a Microsoft-only space has long gone but, as the restriction of AJAX to ASP.NET-based sites shows, Microsoft still favours its own technologies. If you do too, Expression Web 2 is the best choice available; if not, Dreamweaver still offers the widest and deepest web standard support.

Buy Microsoft Expression Web 2 – 99$

Authors Note: This is the first of six reviews I will be presenting on the Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition. The reviews will include Outlook 2003, Word 2003, Excel 2003, Access 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Publisher 2003, which are all separate applications under the Office 2003 Professional banner.

Keeping in touch and communicating with customers is essential for any business, but when you are a small business owner it’s an imperative. I have used Microsoft’s Publisher Desktop Publishing software for almost a decade now for projects big and small, personal and business. I have designed everything from simple flyers to multi paged brochures to business cards, with the program.
Over the years Publisher has always be considered a personal desktop publishing application, with little for the serious small business to medium sized business users. Earlier version tended to concentrate on designing cards, calendars, invitations, flyers etc. All that has changed with the introduction of Publisher 2003, which is sold separately, or as part of Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition, or as part of Microsoft Office Small Business Edition. Publisher 2003 provides just the type of tools small-to-medium sized businesses need to produce professional marketing materials—be it by e-mail, print or Web publishing.
The Product
Microsoft Publisher has evolved; it has morphed into a complete business publishing and marketing materials solution that can help your business reach out to customers in a variety of easy to design marketing tools. With Publisher 2003, it’s easier than ever to design, create, and publish professional grade marketing and communication materials in-house.
Publisher 2003now offers a greatly expanded assortment of publication designs, templates, and publication types designed to help small businesses create polished, professional-looking publications for print, Web-sites, and even e-mail distribution. And because it is part of the Office 2003 suite of applications, the look and feel of the program is universal and therefore familiar and easy to use.
From the Microsoft Website: Publisher 2003 is a comprehensive solution for creating and publishing a wide variety of publications for desktop printing, commercial printing, e-mail distribution, or viewing on the Web. Publisher 2003 provides all the help you need for professional results. Start from professionally designed templates that you can customize with color schemes, font schemes, various layout options, and your own design sense. Or, start from blank publications and get creative with sophisticated typography and page layout tools. Work productively across Microsoft Office System programs. Publisher 2003 looks and works like other programs in the Microsoft Office System, making it easier than ever to use the right Office tool for the task, while still making the most of your knowledge and experience with the Microsoft Office System.
Publisher 2003 is bolstered by the inclusion of 10 new Master Design Sets, from which you can select from a total of 45 professionally designed templates in order to create print or online publications. Anyone familiar with the concept of Web page style sheets will feel at home with Master Design Sets. These sets of templates enable you to apply a consistent design theme to a variety of business publications. Versatile and easy to use, Master Design Sets can be expanded beyond mere greeting cards and invitations, to include labels, inserts for CD’s and DVD’s, as well as personal stationery sets for address labels, letterhead, envelopes, and business cards.
Smart Web Page Functionality
Designing Web pages with earlier versions of Publisher was a confusing and often-time frustrating proposition, better left to the well seasoned. With Publisher 2003, that has changed. The program now affords two dissimilar environments for creating Web and print publications. When creating or editing Web publications, or even whole sites, users work in Web mode; e.g. when viewing real-time web pages produced by Publisher 2003, a web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer is utilized. This is because in Web mode the available options are tailored specifically to Web publications and optimized for viewing with a Web browser. In earlier versions this was not the case.
Creating professional looking websites that can be customized to suit specific small business needs is easier and more intuitive with Publisher 2003, with new and enhanced features for creating, editing, publishing, and updating websites. For those who opt for Microsoft Office Small Business Edition this is particularly important because FrontPage—Microsoft’s other Web publishing tool—is not included in the bundle. Indeed Microsoft is now marketing FrontPage as an e-commerce Web editor, a program probably not suited for the small business environment.
Building and editing small websites is easy with Publisher 2003 because Microsoft designed the program specifically for novices, and it utilizes more wizards than ever before to help you build a professional looking website. These new Web Site Wizards include guides for building a 3-page website, a product and sales-oriented website, or a professional service-based site. But you can also build a customized Web site from scratch, utilizing the Easy Web Site Builder tool, which offers a series of goal-based website design options based on your specific needs. For example, you could tell Publisher’s Easy Web Site Builder that the goal for the website is to market services. Publisher 2003 automatically pulls together a service-related website.
Building individual web pages has been made easier because Publisher 2003 offers an expanded selection of individual Web page types that you can select from to build a site one page at a time. Topical Web pages include the standard About Us, Calendar, Contact Us, Forms, General Information, and Home, among others. To better customize and organize a site, Publisher 2003 features editable navigational bars that you can add or remove and change links throughout the entire site. The program also allows you to add secondary navigation bars (very important) to a website to create a navigational structure within portions of a site.
Enhanced Email Capability
E-Mail capabilities are also improved, with the introduction of e-mail wizards, which allow you to generate professional e-mail messages that have the same high quality look and feel as print publications. With E-Mail wizard options such as events, activities, speakers, featured products, general newsletters or product lists you can create and send—via Outlook—high-impact specialized E-mail messages, directly to clients, bypassing the time constraints and expense of regular mail.
Layout and graphics features under Publisher 2003 have also been enhanced; they are now designed to give you better control over the design of a print publication. With better control of layout guides that dialog and picture frame boxes are far easier to manipulate; e.g. margin guides — design references on the top, bottom, left, and right sides of a page that are used to define available space — can be manipulated to position graphics or images outside of text margins. Earlier versions of Publisher made this a chore.
Publisher 2003 has two new laborsaving functions that have long been staples (in one form or another) in other Microsoft Office products; catalog and e-mail merge wizards. Publisher 2003’s new Merge Wizards allow users to transfer information that is stored in a data source; spreadsheet, table or database, merge it with a print or Web publication. For example, a spread sheet of titles, item numbers, links and pictures can be merged into an e-mail newsletter, website or print brochure.
With Publisher 2003, you can now merge pictures into publications using either e-mail merge or catalog merge. Mail merge allows users to create individually customized publications, while catalog merge allows users to create illustrated product publications or photo albums. These designs can then be sent to customers as email messages, allowing your business to create and send a wide variety of high-impact publications via E-mail.
Publisher 2003 comes with new designs for publications that users can send as e-mail messages. Publisher 2003 includes six E-mail publication layout options and 45 master design sets. New e-mail layout options include newsletters, letters, event notices, and product lists. As mentioned above you can send publications as E-mail messages using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Outlook Express. Recipients using HTML-enabled mail clients such as Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo can read Publisher 2003E-mail publications because of the programs enhanced compatibility.
Publisher 2003’s E-Mail Preview function allows you to view the publication through a Web browser, thus allowing you can to preview a publication before it is sent as an e-mail message. This means there are no surprises—users can see exactly what the e-mail recipient will see.
More flexibility have been built into Column guides (vertical guides that are used to divide a publication page into two or more columns), and row guides (horizontal guides that are used to divide a page into two or more sections to help structure the layout of the page); both have fine-tuned to make graphic or image placement more flexible.
Other Features
Paragraph formatting with earlier versions of Publisher was over burdensome; not so with Publisher 2003. The relationship between one paragraph and the paragraphs that precede or follow it can now be precisely defined with new options for paragraph formatting; e.g. with the new Line and Paragraph Breaks tab, you can keep paragraphs or lines of text together wherever words flows across text boxes in a publication. With these enhancements it is a lot easier to line up text exactly where it should be thus finally eliminating the problem of widowed or orphaned paragraph fragments, allowing for the creation of paragraph breaks that start in the next connected text box.
Like its predecessors Publisher 2003, offers commercial printing features via the CMYK standard, albeit significantly improved and updated, making it easier to produce professional output of print publications.
Technical Note: CMYK is short-hand for Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black, and pronounced as separate letters. CMYK is a color model for commercial printing in which all colors are described as a mixture of these four process colors. CMYK is the standard color model used in offset printing for full-color documents. Because such printing uses inks of these four basic colors, it is often called four-color printing. In contrast, display devices generally use a different color model called RGB, which stands for Red-Green-Blue. One of the most difficult aspects of desktop publishing in color is color matching — properly converting the RGB colors into CMYK colors so that what gets printed looks the same as what appears on the monitor.
With Publisher 2003 you can generate publications that will print composite CMYK PostScript —a page description language used by printers and image setters. This makes it easier for a commercial printer to create and print color separations. Publisher 2003 also boosts new advanced print settings that let you create separations directly from the Print dialog box. Finished Plates can be printed for single process-color or spot-color ink. Moreover, Publisher 2003 permits custom line screen frequencies and line screen angles; a line screen frequency is the fineness or coarseness of a halftone screen represented by lines per inch (LPI). The higher the LPI, the finer the dots used in a halftone screen. A finer halftone screen shows greater picture detail, which in turn leads to more professional looking output.
Like earlier versions, Publisher 2003 retains support for Papers Direct templates. Papers Directoffers preprinted templates for use with the Publisher 2003 framework. These templates include: greeting cards, wedding invitation, business card, office supply, stationery, envelope, graph paper, transfer paper, paper photo and printable stationery.
Publisher 2003 will easily and cleanly import older publications. Though there may be some font differentials, over-all I was able to open my older publications with no side effects; this includes flyers, greeting cards, brochures, business cards, and newsletters.
Conclusion
The additions of merge-tools, templates and wizards to help walk users through the process of creating professional sales and marketing publications, enhanced email capabilities, including tighter compatibility with HTML enabled email clients greatly enhancePublisher 2003.

However, Publisher 2003’s greatest benefit is the measure of control the new and improved design tool provides for small businesses.

With this latest release, Publisher 2003 makes it easier for small businesses to take and maintain control of print and Web-based sales and marketing materials. Wedded to a business class color inkjet or color printer, small businesses no longer need to outsource this imperative marketing tool to a third-party service, hoping for the best. Publisher 2003has come of age in fine form, with thoughtful enhancements and long sought after improvements that move Publisher to business class status. I, for one, will remain a loyal user.

System Requirements

• Computer/Processor – A computer with a 133 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor; Pentium III recommended.
• Memory – 64 MB of RAM (128 MB recommended) for the operating system, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each program running simultaneously.
• Hard Disk – 245 MB of available hard-disk space with 115 MB on the hard disk where the operating system is installed (hard-disk usage varies depending on configuration; custom installation choices may require more or less hard-disk space).
• Drive – CD-ROM drive.
• Display – Super VGA (800×600) or a higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors.
• Operating System – Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 (SP3), Microsoft Windows XP, or a later operating system.
• Peripherals – Microsoft mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or a compatible pointing device.

Buy Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 – 89$

Looking to create diagrams? That’ll be Microsoft Visio.
Visio Project Professional 2007 drawing and diagramming software makes it easy for students and their families (home use only) to visualize, explore, and communicate complex information.

Go from complicated text and tables that are hard to understand to Visio diagrams that communicate information at a glance.
No More Static
Instead of static pictures, create data-connected Visio diagrams that display data, are easy to refresh, and dramatically increase your productivity.
Use the wide variety of diagrams in Microsoft Visio 2007 to understand, act on, and share information about organizational systems, resources, and processes throughout your enterprise.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a Visio graph must be worth a few thousand more.
Features & Screenshots
Microsoft Visio Professional 2007 in action:
Effectively visualize, explore, and communicate your processes, resources, systems, and the data behind them with the wide range of diagram types in MS Visio 2007.
Find recently used templates and documents quickly using the new Getting Started window.
Easily determine which template to use by viewing enhanced thumbnail previews.
Top 10 Benefits of Microsoft Visio Pro 2007:
1. Visualize, explore, and communicate your systems, resources, processes, and the data behind them.
2. Be more productive by integrating diagrams with information across sources.
3. Reduce manual data re-entry by letting MS Visio Pro 2007 keep diagrams up-to-date for you.
4. Visualize and act on complex information by displaying data in diagrams.
5. Explore data and easily track trends, identify issues, and flag exceptions with PivotDiagrams.
6. Create diagrams faster by letting MS Visio connect shapes for you.
7. Communicate complex information with new templates and shapes.
8. Effectively convey information with professional-looking diagrams.
9. Communicate using diagrams and share them with a broad audience.
10. Customize Microsoft Visio 2007 programmatically and create custom data-connected solutions.
System Requirements Details:
* 500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher
* 256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher
* 1 gigabyte (GB) disk space; a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation
* CD-ROM or DVD drive
* 1024×768 or higher resolution monitor
* Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, or later operating system

Buy Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 – 119$

Targeted as the new high volume Windows Server product, Enterprise Edition supports 4-8 processors, 32 GB of RAM, and up to 8-node clusters. A 64-bit version with different specifications is also available (see below). Enterprise Edition is a superset of Standard Edition, adding Metadirectory Services Support (MMS) and Terminal Services Session Directory features, and support for hot-add memory and Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA).

File System and Storage
Windows Server 2003 includes various improvements to the NTFS file system and storage subsystem. David Golds, the Group Program Manager for the Core File System Team, says that his favorite new feature is Volume Shadow Copies. Essentially a network-based System Restore feature, Volume Shadow Copies lets you access older versions of files on the network after they’ve been changed or deleted. “It’s the largest single bet in Windows Server 2003,” Golds said. “We create a permanent or temporary volume representing a snapshot of an existing volume at a certain point in time, and then freeze that point in time, and let you come back to it. It’s not arbitrary.” The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) required for this feature represents the first time Microsoft has created a backup framework, one that can be extended by third parties.
Other file system and storage improvements include deep SAN support, Virtual Disk Service (VDS, for abstracting RAID systems), Automated System Recovery (ASR, which debuted in XP), command line disk defragging that now supports any cluster size (Windows 2000 supported only 4K clusters), a dramatically enhanced Check Disk (Microsoft reports over 1000 percent improvement), and dramatic improvements in the scalability of the NTFS file system.
Application Server
Despite the fact that Microsoft’s application server is one of the most often-used parts of Windows Server, it’s an ill-defined and misunderstood component. John Montgomery, the Group Product Manager of the Developer Platform and Evangelism Group, says that application server integration with Windows Server began in 1997, when the company shipped the NT 4.0 Option Pack. At the time, integrating an application server with the OS seemed foolish to certain analysts, but now everyone is doing it: Sun and HP both ship their app server products in the box with their UNIX OSes.
So what is the Windows Server 2003 application server, you might ask? Montgomery said that it’s a role, not a product. It provides the middle-tier application services that historically have been handled by COM+, Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) and IIS. However, in Windows Server 2003, the application server has been expanded to include the .NET Framework and its support for ASP .NET, ADO .NET, and related technologies. Essentially, it’s that portion of the OS that lets Windows Server act as the middle tier of a multi-tier application and services infrastructure.
Windows Server 2003 ships with .NET Framework 1.1, SOAP 1.2, COM+ 1.5, and MSMQ 3.0 (which now supports SOAP messages).

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