2007 World Book, Version 11
© 2007 Software MacKiev
Looking for a non-web based encyclopedia for the Mac? You have one choice, but it's a good one, thanks to the efforts of Macintosh developer Software MacKiev, a publisher known for breathing life into popular titles like Kid Pix. For those familiar with previous versions of World Book, this edition looks the same. It has the same amazing first page, where animated thumbnails float by, as if on the water, making it fun to just browse the 26,000 updated articles. When you search for a topic, you get a listing of everything on the disk related to that subject—audio, text and video. For the subject "sharks", we found a lengthy, well-written article with six illustrations by Samuel H. Gruber, Ph.D., Director and Professor, Bimini Biological Field Station. Other new features include a Trivia Center with 500 questions, a Just Listening Player that samples the music and movies, and lets you export to iTunes (a very handy feature for those looking to bolster their podcasting sound effect library). There are two widgets: The Librarian for quick desktop content searches, and This Day in History, giving World Book further utility for classrooms. The program comes on two CDs—a program disk and an optional media disk that contains more multimedia. The complete install takes just under one GB; more if you choose to install all the content. The Price is $50 for single user and $70 for a Family Pack (up to 5 Macs per household). You can upgrade earlier versions for $35 and $50. It requires just under one GB of hard disk space. For Wikipedia-weary teachers, this edition of World Book can turn a Macintosh computer into a reference powerhouse, with no Internet connection.
$50, Mac OSX
Teaches: reference, creativity (a source of thousands of sound effects, photos and videos), science, math, history
CTR Rating: 92%