Sim City 4 is one of the coolest city building simulation games created thus far. This program allows you to open a pre-loaded grid of squares that the gamer is able to build a city on. The gamer can also create his own grid with water, land, hills, mountains and more! Once a square is selected on the grid, the gamer can start a city by naming it and become the mayor of that city. The city building process then begins. Things such as water lines, power lines, power plants, waste facilities, and roads are constructed by the gamer. After the utility and rudimentary transportation systems are in place the gamer can start the process of zoning the land in his or her city.

There are three different zoning types in Sim City 4: residential, commercial/office, agricultural/industrial. Depending upon the type of city a gamer wants to create, the gamer may zone property to meet his or her needs. For example, if the gamer wants an agrarian farming community, they will zone most of the land agricultural while making a small town with low density residential and commercial/office. Having started these steps to construct their city, the gamer then tweaks and controls different aspects of the city to grow and maintain their city. Some changes I would like to see in the next version is the ability to annex neighboring cities into your own, to be able to build tunnels for roads anywhere you want, and better graphics for the game.

Safelog is a pilot logbook software. It is windows based and is used for pilots to record their flight times and track recency of experience. It also includes an address book and a log section for flight instructors to log the endorsements they issue to students. There are also features for tracking personal data such as ratings and certificates and medical certificates plus many more. The best part about this software is that it is easy to use and is very self-intuitive. You can download the software for free and try it out. It is fully functional except the number of entries you can make is limited until you pay for an unlock code.

With other pilot logbook software, you can import data from other sources. With Safelog you can also export data. That way, if you don’t like it, you can easily transfer your pilot times to another program. With just a couple mouse clicks, a pilot can see if they are current for taking passengers or making an instrument flight. There is also a very good filter utility for breaking down flight time. Another of the best features is free updates once you purchase it. On the down side of Safelog is the FAA Recency of Experience section. While overall it’s a good feature, it doesn’t fully track instrument currency. It only tracks the approaches required and not the holding procedures or intercept and tracking procedures. There are user-customizable fields, though, so you have to use them and keep track of the holding and I&T requirements yourself. Overall, Safelog is a great product! I’ve been using it now for a couple of years and it is way better than any other pilot logbook software I’ve ever used or seen. I highly recommend it to any pilot, whether you’re a sport pilot, glider pilot, or an airline pilot. There are features for all of us. Check it out.

If you’re looking for free audio editing software, it might be a good idea to skip this article and look into downloading a copy Audacity. This article is going to prove that you get what you pay for. If you’re serious about audio editing, you’re going to want Sony Acid Pro. 6.0.

Now, if your wallet is feeling empty, you might want to pass this up. With a price tag of nearly $400USD, it’s pretty steep. But upon purchase you will see that this product is unrivaled when it comes to audio editing. Able to create loops, full MIDI recording, multitracking and practically limitless mixing and editing options? This is a product for the pros with a simple and intuitive interface. Also, when you’re finished, feel free to render your audio in any format you wish, with bit-rates ranging as low as you want, all the way to cd-quality. After that you can tag and organize it any way you want. Bottom line: Sony Acid Pro 6.0 is the definitive audio editing software on the market right now. If you’re serious about audio editing, you should settle for nothing less.

As an aspiring guitarist and total technofreek I bought some software so that I could combine my two loves. The software was Adobe Audition 2.0. This package allows you to mix several tracks at different times and then play them back. For instance I also sing, however my skill isn’t good enough to sing and play the guitar at the same time, so I record the guitar on one track and the vocals on another track.

The end result, I can sing and play the guitar! Not only this I can also download drum tracks from the internet, mix these in too and we have a band folks! An incredible piece of software that takes a little time to get used to but the rewards are astounding.

STATA 9 is a statistical package commonly used for biostatistical applications. It is used more in universities than in industry. STATA is quickly growing in popularity, and version 9 is the latest attempt to topple SAS from its biostatistical pedestal. STATA 9 is extremely user-friendly, yet powerful as well.

People who need statistical software but not the services of a statistician will find STATA quite useful. Provided you have a basic knowledge of statistics, the drop-down menus are extremely easy to navigate, even if you do not have a manual to consult. It is fairly easy to learn how to use STATA 9, and it is quite useful and powerful. STATA 9 is not perfect; it is not as powerful as SAS, and it still has design flaws. However, STATA 9 is the hands-down best choice for the casual statistics user. It is well-suited to people who need to complete a simple statistics project that is outside the scope of Microsoft Excel. Anyone who has taken an introductory statistics class should be able to use STATA 9 with relative ease. If you need to do some simple statistical analysis quickly and easily, consider using STATA 9.

Amarok is media player that supports all of the popular media formats. It is a GNU/Linux program that mostly installed by distros by default. It has features like OSD (On Screen Display), built-in last.fm support, built-in Magnatune.com store, cover finder and lyrics plug-in, burning music to CD’s (with k3b). You can easily manage your music collection with Amarok. It can play media formats like mp3, wma, ogg and aac.