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 - Excellent Product, This product lived up to all expectations.The product is user friendly and gives a tremendous amount of information on the differenct workd areas. Rating: - Beautiful!I want access to a world atlas that help me understand current events. I like to listen to short wave radio broadcasts, as well. For example, I wanted to see the details associated with the Israeli-Lebanon conflict and using online media was a brutal experience over my 56k dialup connection. My hard copy atlas was helpful, but a little out of date, so I looked at software products. The MS program was expensive and it had many options that I didn't need or want. (I'm not a kid anymore and don't want online help with my homework, for example.) And the reviews were not too favorable for the MS product, either. 3D Globe comes with a free Lunar Map, as well. I have a small telescope. While this is not a necessity, it is a nice addition. This 3d Globe thing looked like an easy to use product so I bought it. At $19 I figure I've made bigger mistakes. It arrived today so I put in CD #1. When it asked me what kind of installation I wanted, I noticed that "custom" said it would run without inserting the CD. (Don't you hate the products that make you hunt that down every time you want to use it?) I've got plenty of room on my hard drive, so off we go. After a short while it wanted CD #2, and continued. I had to go through the XP START menu to find 3D GLOBE, but now have it "pinned" so I can access it quickly. (Every other product I've got insists on putting an icon on the desktop.) But that is a trivial nit pick. Once started, I was immediately impressed with the graphics. I zoomed in on the Moon and all the craters' names appeared. (You can toggle these on and off, I think.) The zoom-in was more than I needed, too - very nice. Now for the "big test." I brought up the Earth at Night - gorgeous. I switched to Political Globe and brought up the control box. I selected FIND and searched for Mundelein, IL (a former residence). The zoom was only one level, so I didn't see the detail I was looking for, but considering the size of the planet, that may have required an order of magnitude more disk space, and it's enough for me. I searched for what I thought was a fictitious town in Iran (from a TV show), but it was there! I selected the Nile River and it, too, was centered and I could zoom into it, as well. Over all, this is a real bargain and I am very pleased with it.
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