I reviewed some demo OSX products from Don's Games/Home Software and the World Book encyclopedia at the 3/27/04 meeting of the Huntsville Macintosh User's Group (HMUG).
The World Book (2 discs) worked fairly well. There were a few quirks such as not being able to select different maps, such as temperatures or terrain, (the default was political) unless you were in a certain viewing modes, but I got used to them. One thing I personally didn't like was that in order to load the first disk to your hard drive, you also had to load a screen saver. The advantage of loading the first disk is that you could put the second disc in the drive, it has all the animations. Also, it is nice not to have to pop in a disc to run the program.
The program included data on a wide range of subjects in some detail, it didn't have the depth of Encyclopedia Britannica, I think that would take several DVD's. I did find some problems that I was able to work around. Since I had just been on a trip to Juneau Alaska and wanted some more info, I put that into a search. I got a college in Vermont? I was able to get to Juneau eventually, but the college didn't have any connection I could see, not even the name.
The program does have updates from the web site. I'm not sure of how current it is in all subjects, it seemed about a year behind. It has speech capabilities, timelines, reports, charts and a dictionary I'm going to leave it on my computer. I think this would be great for school work, through college and for general home use.
I feel the World Book was very good.
