Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 6

Garden People: Valerie Finnis and the Golden Age of Gardening -

List Price: ?39.99
Used Price: ?15.00
Customer Review: Excellent Home Design Software
The pack contains an excellent handbook with easy to follow tutorials. I was up and designing after only four or five hours practice. 3D views really good. Only two drawbacks: you can’t set the length of, say, a wall, you have to draw it and it can be a bit tricky getting the dimensions exactly right and the American appliances don’t have standard European dimensions. However, the latter is only a minor problem and the former is well worth putting up with for the sheer usefulness of the package as a whole. Which? rated it one of their two best buys. If you want an inexpensive and easy to use home design package, then this is the one for you.
Customer Review: Good product for the price
This is an excellent product for the DIY designer/Selfbuild person. It takes less than a week to master and there is excellent technical back up either online self help or very promt email reply, under 24hours. There is perhaps one major weekness. It is not possible to have different roof pitches on the same building. This has prevented me from producing a 3D view of six seperate buildings varying from 15 to 45 degree pitches. This has not prevented me from putting together full plans and elevations to accompany a planning application very quickly. There is a demo avaliable of the pro version which I am going to upgrade to.
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Since remixing Radiohead’s “Climbing The Walls” into a horizontal classic, `chill out’ champions Zero 7–Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns–have gone from strength to strength. This third album from the duo is highly anticipated to say the least. Will the duo stick with the floozy, fuzzy, lounge-heavy sound that has made them famous? Or will they make an Air-style u-turn into rock/harder electronica territory. The Garden does it all. Enlisting vocalists Sia and Jos? Gonzalez (Henry has a go too), the document displays many links back to previous work–warm synths, French pop flair, subtle world music influences–but also showcases a keener sense of experimentalism and a more driven, assertive sound. The contrast between the sultry, folky Gonzalez (who supplies four tracks, including a reworking of his own great track “Crosses”) and the more soulful, upbeat Sia (who supplies three) introduces an interesting dynamic and help Zero 7 achieve what is ultimately a more mature and interesting direction. –Paul Sullivan
List Price: ?11.99
Amazon Price: ?9.98
Used Price: ?3.50
Customer Review: Vintage Zero 7 at the start then branches out
The opening track is the one used in British TV advertising for the album (and if I remember rightly, it became a single) so it has a “head start”, I immediately liked it and the track which followed. The rest of the album is very relaxed but the smorgasboard approach means that overall I enjoy the previous album a lot more. Perhaps if I’d bought it when it was brand new I would like it more but respect to Zero 7 for getting to their third album and nearly 10 years, on a dance level they’re getting close to M-People’s Longevity.
Customer Review: Keep the Faith
Like so many before me, I too have waited to review this. Mainly because I was adamant to keep the faith. Thankfully, I have and it has remained in tact! A bit Lemon Jelly meets Jose Gonzalez meets Sigur Ros meets the ‘usual’ Zero 7, this is not an album you listen to if you’re in the mood for Simple Things or When it Falls. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to it. Quite simply, it’s just different. Good, but still different. It’s a different mood to the other albumbs and so should be listened to when you’re not in the mood for/expecting the same feelings from them. I am still to fall for as many of the tracks as I did on Simple Things (ie. all of them!) but I’m putting it down to still ‘getting my ear in’. I personally love Throw it all Away and You’re my Flame, but I’m sure the list will be more populated by the time I’ve grown to love this as much as the other albums. Keep listening…and then listen again.
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