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Repair Encyclopedia by Books
That Work offers many advantages over a conventional book. Reference
books are particularly well suited to electronic media. Everything except
the movies can be sent to the printer. If you have as many dirty fingerprints
in books as I do, you can really appreciate this feature. Layout is good,
the software is really easy to use. Forward, back and history controls
make flipping back and forth a breeze. Search will help find any references
to key words. There are icons at the end of each topic for extra information
including money saving tips and hints for old houses, as well as related
topics and safety tips. There are also lists of tools and materials as
well as specific manufacturers of tools and materials that are hard to
find.
The Home Repair encyclopedia also contains four references called survival guides. These topics are adhesives,paints, stain removal and best of all, toll-free numbers. The guides will ask you questions and make suggestions to help you select the right glue, paint or stain removal method. The toll-free numbers are sorted by topic and include help lines from a great variety of manufacturers. There is also three estimators that will query for dimensions and other information to tell you how much paint, concrete, or attic vent area you will need for your particular job.
Audio video movies are sprinkled throughout the text on such subjects as flushing a toilet or soldering a pipe. I don't think the movies do much to explain anything, but the sound effects are wonderful, and they are fun.
The program I reviewed is version 1.00 and comes on three 3.5 inch diskettes. The system requirements are VGA, Windows 3.1, 2 MB RAM and 12.5 MB hard drive space. The software installed easily on a 386 DX40 with 4MB RAM, The only problem I had was that the readme file must be opened on Write before it can be read from the program icon.
There is a lot to like about this software and at a list price of $29.95 could easily pay for itself with just one tip. The weakness of this product is its lack of depth on its topics. It does a fine job of explaining the basics, but not much more. For example, when I looked up leaky faucets it explained how to change the faucet washer but didn't mention worn out seats or stems. Version 2.00 on CD ROM list price $49.95, $29.95 street hopefully will add to the topics to provide for the experienced handyman as well as inexperienced beginners.