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Review of Blaze 2.01
Blaze 2.0.1
Koingo Software <www.koingosw.com>
MINIMUM Requirements: Mac OS 8.6, CarbonLib; OS X
RETAIL Price: $9.95 US
Have you ever marveled at MS Word or AppleWorks as you're using them? All those options and bells and whistles. WELL ... what the heck are they for? I know I never use them and I'll bet most of you never use them. Surely someone makes a program with just the tools that I need. Here it is - Blaze 2.0.1.
Blaze is TextEdit on steroids and cross-bred with bits of textSOAP for a fraction of the cost. It has enough tools and integration with OS X Services to keep most campers happy.
THE GOOD
For starters, at the bottom of your text window, Blaze keeps a real-time running tally of your Word Count, your Line Count, and your Character Count. For students, you'll know just how far you have to stretch those last few sentences to meet your teacher's criteria for that paper on 'The Importance Of Export Revenue On The Economy Of Liechtenstein.' And if you ... oh, I don't know ... write software reviews that must be of a specific length, Word Count comes in very handy.
As far as tools, you have date and time stamps, integration with Apple's Font Utility, alignment, and all the other bells and whistles you would expect from a text editor. But the added bonus is that you can convert the file in any number of ways that include PC-DOS, UNIX, and Mac format.
Blaze includes a Replace All option which allows instant replacing of a certain word in your document. And you can send your document as an email or save it as an HTML file. You can set ten text shortcuts (i.e., Thank you for...,etc.) for saving a lot of repetitive typing
THE BAD
I don't know that you would call it bad but it doesn't do .rtf. On the other hand, you can export as Plain Text, Plain HTML and Styled HTML.
THE UGLY
That would be me, your humble reviewer. Otherwise, nothing to report.
NUTSHELL
First - how can you go wrong at this price? You spend more on your family at Burger King on a Saturday at the mall. Second - it's a solid program. Koingo has dispensed with the fluff and has created a text editor that does exactly what you need it to do. Definitely, I suggest you buy this product, if not at the very, very least, test drive it. You'll be glad you did. It's a diamond in the rough.
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A review from Frank Petrie
Technologies and Products Specialist for User Groups
Mid-Atlantic Macintosh User Groups Team (MaMUGs)
The Mid-Atlantic Macintosh User Groups Team (MaMUGs)
Promoting camaraderie, cooperation and collective efforts for User Groups from CT to VA.
http://www.mamugs.org
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