Battle of the Titans - Encarta vs. the Britannica

Written by Sam Vaknin


The Encarta Encyclopedia - and even more so,repparttar Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005 - is an impressive reference library. It caters effectively (and, at $70, cheaply) torepparttar 105769 educational needs of everyone inrepparttar 105770 family, from children as young as 7 or 8 years old to adults who seek concise answers to their queries. It is fun-filled, interactive, colorful, replete with tens of thousands of images, video clips, and audio snippets.

The Encarta is extremely user-friendly, with its search bar and novel Visual Browser. It comes equipped with a dictionary, thesaurus, chart maker, searchable index of quotations, games, and an Encarta Kids interface. Installation is easy. The Encarta is augmented by weekly or bi-weekly updates andrepparttar 105771 feature-rich online MSN Encarta Premium with its Homework Help offerings.

The Encyclopedia Britannica (established in 1768) sports Student and Elementary versions of its venerable flagship product - but it is far better geared to tacklerepparttar 105772 information needs of adults and, even more so, professionals. Its 100,000 articles are long and deep, supported by impressive bibliographies, and written byrepparttar 105773 best scholars in their respective fields.

The Britannica, too, come bundled with an atlas (less detailed thanrepparttar 105774 Encarta's), dictionary, thesaurus, classic articles from previous editions, an Interactive Timeline, a Research Organizer, and a Knowledge Navigator (a Brain Stormer). It is as user-friendly asrepparttar 105775 Encarta. The Britannica, though, is updated only 2-4 times a year, a serious drawback, only partially compensated for by 3 months of free access torepparttar 105776 its unequalled powerhouse online Web site.

It seems thatrepparttar 105777 Britannica andrepparttar 105778 Encarta cater to different market segments and thatrepparttar 105779 Britannica provides more in-depth coverage of its topics whilerepparttar 105780 Encarta is a more complete, PC-orientated reference experience. The market positioning ofrepparttar 105781 Britannica's Elementary and Student Encyclopedias is, therefore, problematic. Encarta has an all-pervasive hold on and ubiquitous penetration ofrepparttar 105782 child-to-young adult markets.

Both encyclopedias offer an embarrassment of riches. Users of both findrepparttar 105783 wealth and breadth of information daunting and data mining is fast becoming an art form. Encarta introducedrepparttar 105784 Visual (Virtual) Browser and Britannica incorporatedrepparttar 105785 Brain Stormer to cope with this predicament. But few know how to deploy them effectively.

Encarta actively encourages fun-filled browsing and Britannica fully supports serious research. These preferences are reflected inrepparttar 105786 design ofrepparttar 105787 two products. The Encarta is a riot of colors, sidebars, videos, audio clips, photos, embedded links, literature, Web resources, and quizzes. It is a product ofrepparttar 105788 age of mass communication, a desktop extension of television andrepparttar 105789 Internet.

The Britannica is a sober assemblage of first-rate texts, up to date bibliographies, and minimal multimedia. It is a desktop university library: thorough, well-researched, comprehensive, trustworthy.

Indeed,repparttar 105790 Encarta andrepparttar 105791 Britannica offer competing models for interacting withrepparttar 105792 Internet. Both provide content updates -repparttar 105793 Encarta weekly or bi-weekly andrepparttar 105794 Britannica 2-4 times a year. Both offer additional and timely content and revisions on dedicated Web sites. Butrepparttar 105795 Encarta conditions some of its functions - notably its research tools and updates - on registration with its Plus Club. The Britannica doesn't.

Get Rid of Unwanted White Box with the help of CorelDraw

Written by Maricon Williams


Background is always there becauserepparttar bitmaps are pixel-based files. This is alsorepparttar 105768 reason why it is quite tricky to remove them. However, no matter how tricky it is to others you can simplify it with CorelDraw.

Start by importing your bitmap into CorelDraw. Press Alt+F, I) and deselect it immediately so that you will not activaterepparttar 105769 Auto-Trace tool withrepparttar 105770 subsequent step. Usingrepparttar 105771 Bezier tool, start creating a Powerclip Container for your image. At this point, you need not worry about accuracy because you can always go back at a future time. Withrepparttar 105772 Node Edit rollup and your pointer, try to reshaperepparttar 105773 Container. Even if your bitmap’s background is not adjacent, you can still Powerclip it by combining several shapes into one Container.

To create a simulated transparent background from a Mask that enclosesrepparttar 105774 part of your image that you want to keep, you can also use Photo-Paint. Save As an EPS file, and Import it into Draw usingrepparttar 105775 Postscript EPS filter. It will be imported into Draw as a curve with a full-color bitmap fill, which means that if you try to resize it, you'll get a tiled fill. Selectrepparttar 105776 object and openrepparttar 105777 Fill rollup to avoid tiling. Click on Update From and selectrepparttar 105778 object again. Click on Edit and enable Scale Pattern With Object, and click Apply.

Withrepparttar 105779 bitmap selected, openrepparttar 105780 Bitmap Color Mask rollup and click onrepparttar 105781 Eyedropper tool. Userepparttar 105782 Eyedropper to selectrepparttar 105783 colors from your image to be concealed. Userepparttar 105784 slider to adjustrepparttar 105785 Tolerance for similarly colored pixels. Because all pixels of a particular color or range will be concealed by bitmap Color Mask, you can first use Photo-Paint to fill those pixels with a distinct color and then choose it withrepparttar 105786 Bitmap Color Mask Eyedropper. Bear in mind thatrepparttar 105787 Bitmap Color Mask does not work with B/W bitmaps, although you can still dispense foreground and background color withrepparttar 105788 Fill and Outline tools.

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