Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

My excitment went vanished merely five minutes after installing this software. And I immediately uninstalled it and tossed the CD's into the trash bin without a second thought. One gets the idea who much aversion this thing incurred in me. Before the purchase of this title, I had been using a very old CD Rom version of the American Heritage Dictionary for five years. And during that fives years, I made great use of it for the contents were no tenuous matter. However, one must say that the features of the AHD CD Rom were also dated - I had it installed on win 95, then win 98, and lastly win xp. I thought it was time that I opted for a more up-to-date software. Now I shall list all my disappointments in the Random House CD Rom and juxtapose them with the amenities of the ancient AHD CD Rom which still serves me after five loyal years: 1. Random House gives no synonyms nor anonyms -- which the AHD has them convenient at one's disposal via a split window, that is, if one chooses to have the window split in such way. The lack of thesaurus is quite fatal. 2. Random House gives no word origins -- while the AHD presents them in profusive details. One cannot regard a dictionary without etymology a serious reference. In fact, I myself quite rely on knowledge of history of words to remember word meanings and to use them in the suitable contexts. 3. Random House gives frugal usage examples -- whereas the AHD holds many more though I should like to see even more; the special usage notes frequently found in the AHD are so extemely helpful if one wishes to learn the subtlest shades of meanings between words and so to use them in the most proper manner. In the end, the interface and features of Random house did not strike me as 2000 (thus indicated the copyright on the package) -- it did not set itself much ahead of the AHD, if it was indeed being somewhat advanced at all (I care to name two: color coordination and bookmarking -- I can live without these but cannot fare well without the key features above). * N.B., the above mentioned AHD was copyrighted in 1995 and came on a CD Rom formatted for win 95 or win 3.1 (archaic but so timeless still!). The newest AHD on CD-ROM has made minor improvements but only accompanied by some fresh drawbacks. Another story...

I used an older version of this program for years and actually prefer it for it's cleaner interface and simpler functionality. Still, this is a good no-nonsense program that gets the job done. One disappointment was that I use both PC's and a Mac and bought this update because the CD has both versions. Alas, the Mac version isn't written for OS X, so you have to run it as a Classic app, which to me is like running Windows 95 stuff under XP. I didn't even bother to install it. The PC version is fine though.

I have owned the original (very large and heavy) hard-cover printed version of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary for many years and thought highly enough of it to give copies of it to several students as gifts. Now an updated version of this authoritive dictionary is available at an incredibly reasonable price for access on one's computer. What an outstanding piece of software and outstanding bargain. My only regret is that it is not currently available for Macintosh users. But, since most people use Windows-based PCs, they are fortunate to be able to have ready access to this oustanding dictionary whenever using their computer.