Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe 2008 [OLD VERSION] | ![Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe 2008 [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RstRJ3PsL._SL500_.jpg)
| From: Avanquest
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $14.95
You Save: $15.00 (50%)
New (5) from $14.95
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 1885
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp, Mac Os X
Genre: personal-improvement-software
ESRB: Everyone
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Deluxe
Operating System: Mac OS X Intel
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 1.2
MPN: 8020
Model: 8021
UPC: 018059080201
EAN: 0018059080201
ASIN: B000QFQA1W
Release Date: May 30, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | 84,000+ articles, atlas, timelines, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus, 166,000+ magazine articles and Web links | | • | Merriam-Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus, Atlas & Timelines | | • | Includes Six-Month Subscription to Britannica Online ($35 Value) | | • | Save articles, images, video, and more in one convenient location with Britannica Workspace | | • | Interactive tools including video and audio clips, and interactive tours |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 Deluxe gives you the world's most respected collection of information and keeps it right at your fingertips. Learn all about the great minds and great events that shaped the world, and use the new homework tool to finish school assignments more quickly -- and earn better grades. Virtual notecards and online videos Britannica Classics & Britannica BrainStormer Also includes Encarta World English Dictionary & Merriam Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus Homework tools like Homework Helpdesk & Homework Center Works with Windows Vista
Amazon.com
The easy & Trusted Companion To Online Research. Designed for adults and students alike, Encyclopaedia Britannica Deluxe DVD is a comprehensive reference resource that gives you up-to-date, in-depth, and easy-to-use information. Learn from Nobel laureates, historians, and other noted experts in a fun and single source. No other software can match the intelligence, depth, and accuracy of Encyclopaedia Britannica Deluxe. 
New--Britannica Biographies
Access insightful biographies of 2,000 Great Minds: astronomers, mathematicians, scientists, and others who shaped the world. |  With Britannica Workspace, you can save articles, images, video, and more in one convenient location. |  With more than 166,000 magazine articles and Web links, knowledge is simply at your fingertips. | Explore
Take an exhilarating ride through Videos, World Statistics, Classical Music, and more. - Daily Content
Learn something new every day with "This Day in History." - Exclusive--Britannica BrainStormer
Interactively understand relationships between ideas, subjects, and people. - Exclusive--Britannica Classics
Boost your knowledge with notable sources--including Marie Curie, Sigmund Freud, Harry Houdini, and Albert Einstein. - Free Content Updates
Get free monthly content updates for one year to ensure that you stay up-to-date.
More Productive Research & Homework Projects
Complete your research projects and homework assignments quickly and more effectively. Britannica Deluxe makes it easy with Britannica Workspace and Virtual Notecards. New--Britannica Workspace
Stay organized at all times! With Britannica Workspace, you can save articles, images, video, and more in one convenient location. Virtual Notecards
Save notes from your articles on a virtual notecard. Notes are printable, which makes your research easier and portable.
Extensive Online Links & Up-to-Date Information
Obtain more information faster! Britannica now makes it easier with more than 166,000 magazine articles and Web links. Knowledge is simply at your fingertips. - Get more in-depth research from magazines and related Web sites selected by Britannica editors
- Stay up-to-date with Britannica's newest and most updated articles through free monthly updates for one full year
- Access thousands of additional engaging videos online
More Exploration and Discovery with FREE Britannica Online Subscription
Register through your software today and enjoy a FREE six-month subscription to the award-winning Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. You'll also receive: - Newsfeeds and additional audio and video
- Britannica newsletters
- Discounts to the Britannica store
- And more!
6 Great Reasons to Trust Britannica
- Efficient. Search results are organized by relevancy, not popularity or paid placement.
- Accurate. Information is fact-checked by the Encyclopaedia Britannica editorial staff.
- Credible. Articles are written by Nobel Laureates, historians, and notable experts.
- Trusted. Content is authoritative, trusted, and unbiased.
- Convenient. No downloading or Internet connections required.
- Safe. No pornography, pop-up ads, or questionable content.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Another Unfortunate Version January 13, 2008
M. Allshouse (York, PA USA)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
I really wanted to like this product, but it's broken out of the box. Apparently the video problem involves some kind of codec, but Britannica seems to have no clue. First, you have to download a patch to keep the software from looking for a specific version of Quicktime, apparently the one installed by Britannica. One has to wonder why they would (1) even install a version of Quicktime when it's available on the web, and (2) program the product to look for a specific version, when software versions change constantly. Even after installing this patch, however, the product STILL does not work. Now, instead of enjoying all the features of my brand new product, I will get to deal with support personnel and hope that they can solve the problem. If, in fact, it is a missing codec, why in the world is this problem not addressed on the Britannica support site?
Another potential drawback to this software is the advertised FREE subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica Online. This is offered as a one-year "trial" that requires a credit card to activate. At the end of the year, if you do not cancel, your credit card will be charged $49.95 for the next year. So, if you decided that you did not like the product and forgot about it after you uninstalled, you would suddenly find a $49.95 charge on your credit card. I really don't need the hassle of trying to get a refund on something I may not even remember signing up for. In my opinion, this offer is not "free."
All-in-all this is an unnecessarily amateurish effort from a company that should be capable of much more. I cannot recommend purchasing Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite.
 The Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 September 11, 2007
Sam Vaknin (Skopje, Macedonia)
17 out of 25 found this review helpful
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 (established in 1768), both Ultimate and Deluxe, builds on the success of its completely revamped previous editions in 2006 and 2007. The rate of innovation in the last two versions was impressive and welcome. It continues apace in this rendition with Britannica Biographies (Great Minds), Classical Music (500 audio files arranged by composer), and a great Workspace for Project Management (a kind of friendly digital den). Generous 6-12 months of free access to the myriad riches of the Britannica Online complete the package.
The Britannica comes bundled with an atlas (between 1600 and 2530 maps and 287 World Data Profiles of individual countries and territories), the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, classic articles from previous editions, ten yearbooks, an Interactive Timeline with 4000+ indexed timeline entries, a Research Organizer, and a Knowledge Navigator (a Brain Stormer). All told, it offers a directory of more than 166,000 reviewed and vetted links to online content.
In its new form, the Britannica is as user-friendly as the Encarta. With monthly updates and the aforementioned 6-12 months of free access to its impressive powerhouse online Web site, it is bound to give the former close competition.
The Britannica's newest interface is even more intuitive and uncluttered than previously and is great fun to use. For instance, it generates a date-based daily selection of relevant information and highly edifying interactive tours of articles and attendant media.
When you enter even the first few letters of a term in the search box, it offers various options and is persistent: no need to click on the toolbar's "search" button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse of knowledge. Moreover, the user can save search results onto handy "Virtual Notecards". Whole articles can be copied onto the seemingly inexhaustible Workspace.
The new Britannica's display is tab-based, avoiding the erstwhile confusing proliferation of windows with every move. Most importantly, articles appear in full, not in sections. This major improvement facilitates the finding of relevant keywords in and the printing of entire texts. These are only a few of the numerous alterations and enhancements.
Perhaps the most refreshing change is the Britannica's Update Center. Dozens of monthly updates and new, timely articles are made available online (subject to free registration). A special button alerts the user when an entry in the base product has been updated.
Regrettably, unlike in the Encarta, the updates cannot be downloaded to the user's computer or otherwise incorporated into the vast encyclopedia. Moreover, the product does not alert its user to the existence of completely new articles (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol). Only a manual scan of the monthly lists reveals newly added content.
Speaking of updates, one must not forget to dwell on the Britannica's unequalled yearbooks. Each annual volume contains the year in events, scientific developments, and everything you wanted to know about the latest in any and every conceivable field of human endeavor or nature. Close to 10,000 articles culled from the last 10 editions buttress and update the Encyclopedia's anyhow impressive offerings.
The Britannica provides considerably more text than any other extant encyclopedia, print or digital. But it has noticeably enhanced it non-textual content over the years (the 1994-7 editions had nothing or very little but words, words, and more words): it now boasts in excess of 21,000 images and illustrations and 900 video and audio clips.
The Britannica fully supports serious research. It is a sober assemblage of first-rate essays, up to date bibliographies, and relevant multimedia. It is a desktop university library: thorough, well-researched, comprehensive, trustworthy.
The Britannica's 80-100,000 articles (depending on the version) are long and thorough, supported by impressive bibliographies, and written by the best scholars in their respective fields. The company's Editorial Board of Advisors reads like the who's who of the global intellectual and scientific community.
The Britannica is an embarrassment of riches. Users often find the wealth and breadth of information daunting and data mining is fast becoming an art form. This is why the Britannica incorporated the Brain Stormer to cope with this predicament. But an informal poll I conducted online shows that few know how to deploy it effectively.
The Britannica also sports Student and Elementary versions of its venerable flagship product, replete with a Homework Helpdesk - but it is far better geared to tackle the information needs of adults and, even more so, professionals. It provides unequalled coverage of its topics. Ironically, this is precisely why the market positioning of the Britannica's Elementary and Student Encyclopedias is problematic.
The current edition is fully integrated with the Internet. Apart from the updates, it offers additional and timely content and revisions on a dedicated Web site. The digital product includes a staggering number of links (165,808!) to third party content and articles on the Web. The GeoAnalyzer, which compares national statistical data and generates charts and graphs, is now Web-based and greatly enhanced.
The Britannica would do well to offer a browser add-on search bar and to integrate with desktop search tools from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. Currently it offers search results through Google but this requires the user to install add-ons or plug-ins and to go through a convoluted rite of passage. A seamless experience is in the cards. Users must and will be able to ferret content from all over - their desktop, their encyclopedias, and the Web - using a single, intuitive interface.
Some minor gripes:
The atlas, dictionary, and thesaurus incorporated in the Britannica are still surprisingly outdated. Why not use a more current - and dynamically updated - offering? What about dictionaries for specialty terms (medical or computer glossaries, for instance)?
Despite considerable improvement over the previous edition, the Britannica still consumes (not to say hogs) computer resource far in excess of the official specifications. This makes it less suitable for installation on older PCs and on many laptops. If you own a machine with anything earlier than Pentium 3 and less than 4 Gb of really free space - forget it!
The Britannica uses a new graphic and text renderer. On some systems, the user needs to modify his or her desktop settings to get rid of jagged fonts and blurry photos. The software also seriously conflicts with security applications (especially anti-virus and firewall products). It is not compatible with the latest QuickTime, though it offers a patch to remedy the situation.
But that's it. Don't think twice. Run to the closest retail outlet (or surf to the Britannica's Web site) and purchase the 2008 edition now. It offers excellent value for money (less than $50) and significantly enhances you access to knowledge and wisdom accumulated over centuries all over the world. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self-love - Narcissism Revisited".
 Encyclopedia Britanica software November 24, 2007
Gayle Teague (Dawson Springs, Ky.)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Very easy to use, useful product, takes a long time to fully install, does not list all information, as encyclopedia. Some of the simplest items that should be listed are not. Software needs a Codec to operate which is not on the disk, should be included, have to down load codec from Apple Software and the manually place it witin the corect foder on harddrive in order to access the videos, onsoftware. This is a real downside.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED April 3, 2008
Mama to Aid'nAsh
8 out of 24 found this review helpful
I realize that my review is not about this product, but I think it is relevant to potential purchasers of Avanquest products. I do not know anything about this particular program, but have had considerable difficulty with Avanquest as detailed below.
I purchased My Ultimate Organizer 7.0 via download and subsequent key.
I am not making this up - the product displayed a message in Serbo-Croatian telling me the key had expired.
Four hours later with Technical Support and the problem is still not resolved (despite erasing the program, reinstalling, trying different keys, searching the Windows Registry, etc). It takes a full hour on hold to get a technical support representative and at the conclusion of the last session, I was told to contact Customer Service for a CD copy in the hopes that that would resolve the issue. Now Customer Service tells me Technical Support must send me the copy, although Technical Support says otherwise. I am out $30 for a program that is at this point, totally useless, and left adrift by Avanquest who has my money and refuses to help me.
I would purchase Avanquest products with extreme caution. If you have a Technical Support issue, you will have to wait a minimum of 60 minutes on hold (no 800 number), and then get fairly substandard service after that.
 Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe 2008 June 1, 2008
Z**** (New York State)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a nice program to have for school projects. The only problem I had was viewing video files. I have Vista Operating System and after doing some research had to download a patch in order to view the videos. My 10-year old daughter can search and find anything she's looking for easily without any help from an adult.
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