ISBN: 0195222172
List Price: $295.00
Amazon Price: $273.88
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
Reviews:
Summary: The One, the Only, the Best
There is something fundamentally repulsive about a company that sells expensive items and then refuses to answer letters (very polite letters, such as I send) from customers that brought the product and are having problems with it. I am referring, of course, to Oxford University Press, USA, located in Cary, N.C. As a result of my experience with this company, I swore profusely, and then I swore on the proverbial stack of Oxford Self-Pronouncing Bibles that I would never in my LIFE have anything to do with Oxford University Press, or their products, ever again.
So, you may ask, what am I doing giving the product involved (the OED CD-ROM) the best of all possible reviews? The truth is that the company has a monopoly on one of the greatest works in the history of mankind, and being able to have that work on my computer and at my finger tips constitutes a huge privilege. If my original investment of $398.95 for the 1988 version (1.13) of the OED on CD-ROM turned sour, the fact is that for years now I had not partaken of the incredible joys that this dictionary imparts; and that, for a mere $224.63 additional investment, I could remedy the situation in a matter of days. Yes, I reneged on my promise not to deal with these publishers and bought version 3.1, which now sits in my computer, dispensing, in an instant, some of the most amazing, profound, and complete knowledge about English words ever assembled.
The program is entirely different from the first version I owned (and still own). It installed in a snap, it appears to be extremely stable (not the slightest hitch so far) and nothing of its feel gives the impression of being "buggy," as one reviewer put it. Another reviewer suggested that one should keep one's expectations low, that this dictionary is not a panacea. Don't be silly...keep your expectations as high as you like, and they will be surpassed. No other dictionary even comes close to this one, but yes, I also keep a Merriam-Webster auditory pronunciation dictionary and the M-W unabridged on hand in my desktop.
It would be pretentious nonsense to attempt to evaluate the content of the OED in a brief review such as this one. No other language (so far as I know) possesses the incalculable lexical richness found in the OED. Only a couple of hundred bucks made it mine, and so far it has been worth every cent. The ugliness of the company that puts it out is still evident in their grasping attempt to protect their property rather than to serve their public. I have not reached the point where I will have to insert one of the discs in the computer to prove my ownership of the program: that point will happen four times a year, and frankly I can put up with such a minor indignity considering what I get in return. I do not know what will happen when new versions of Windows appear; I will be very cautious about changing my set-up precisely because of my OED. For those interested, my computer runs on a Pentium (R) 4 CPU, 2.8 Ghz, 1 GB of RAM, and Windows XP.
Summary: Content = A- ; Software = D-
This is the OED. Nice. It's searchable. Nice. At the same time, it is the OED; it is not a college dictionary. So, don't expect to find entries for place names and the names of people. If you are professional writer, professor, attorney, or other desk / knowledge worker, don't think for a second that this is going to be a replacement for the every-day dictionary software, internet site, or book(s) that you already use.
Note also, that this software is *ugly* and its user interface is clunky and poorly designed throughout. Take the other criticisms found here on Amazon in this regard seriously. For example, the absence of a back button, or any "back" function, can indeed be infuriating. Even installed on the hard drive, the interface does not load very fast. Yes, searches are fast, and that's great. But, to pop this application open for a single word in the middle of a task, where a faster-working program would do, is probably not something you are going to want to do. This thing loads up like a clunky Encyclopedia Britannica with all the elegance of 16-color graphics, designed on an IBM 286 with EGA video. They don't have a Mac version of the software because they barely even have an IBM-PC app. built circa 1985. And these are but minor examples of the many shortcommings that others have already well noted.
...and to think that this is the "good" 3.1 version of the software. Thank heavens it does function as well as it does! I can hardly even imagine the frustration and disappointment of owners of the earlier versions. One important note: in Windows XP you can run the software only as a user with local administrator rights. In some legal enviornments tightly controlled by IT staff, this is a deal buster, as well as for all those who actually practice good security habits and use an administrator account only when necessary. Again: just an example of many other things that are wrong.
Finally, don't be too quickly convinced that the OED always has the best etymologies and the best definitions, hands down. I've had OED-envy for a very long time - and don't get me wrong I'm happy to have my copy - but I do find many of the criticisms of the OED in comparison to other dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster and American Heritage, valid and well worth considering.
In short, keep your expectations low, my friends. Don't look to this software as a panacea for all your dictionary woes!
Summary: tremendous resourse, bug free.
I have been using the oed cd rom for two months, now. It installed without a hitch. Works every time, no 'bug' experiences at all. Do wish there were forward and backward 'browser'buttons. As for the content, do I really need to say anything?
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