Gizmos Mega Pak 1.0

I bought this years ago when it first came out and lost the disk. 7 Years later, I was needing to make a slideshow and hated everything I used. So I remembered this program and found this thank god! I love it a lot! The other features I don't really use, but it was worth it to me just for the Slideshow, I love the screensavers and stuff.

Many of the great features included in this suite, have come to be common in other suites and even in the operating systems, but I don't think they are as well presented or thought out. The interfaces in Gizmos ae very intuative and attractive, and while you can view thumbnails of pictures in Vista's Explorer, this still does it better. However, I do not think the Picture Management is this program's strong suit.The CD player is very nice (how many years has media player been around and it is still clumsy and ugly?), as are the clocks and calendars and calculators, but those are just fun.Games and screensavers are nice also, but just fun, not important. To me, they would not be the reason I would buy this, but even if that is all this was, it is hard to argue with the prices people are asking for this program.The security aspects are interesting, there is a "vault" in your fle manager, a special file folder that is not only password protected, but 128 bit encrypted, so that prying eyes cannot get inside the folder, nor can someone veiw the data through other means, because the data inside the folder is unrecognizeable. Great for the storage of any files you wish to keep private - especially useful on laptops (because of the high theft rate). There is also a file shredder, that does to the files you dispose of, what a paper shreader does to paper files, only much better.One of my favorite things in the program suite though, is called Performer. It allows you to easily make broadcast quality slideshows with fabulous transition effects, music, sound effect, and or narration. If you like, you can email those to your friends.There are 25 "Gizmos" in all, and each of them is very well executed. I was sorry to see Play (the manufaturer) go out of business, the had products that were better than their competition, and lower prices. I paid about $70 for mine and to this day consider it a good deal.

This package of little programs, such as a rotating cube screen saver, different types of calculators, etc. was essential when it came out. Even now, years later, it still runs on XP. I haven't checked it on my Vista (a chorus of Boo!'s) system yet. If you have a system running an older version of Windows were you can't see a folder of pics as thumbnails, just as details, then you need this for its ability to display thumbnails. Heck! It's worth it for the entertainment value of the developers. The guys/gals that wrote this include a couple who are obviously in love. And enjoy using the gal in all sorts of silly outfits for sample pics. You can't lose buying this. I bought my copy on impulse why checking out at Fry's years ago. My favorite all time purchase. At the time, it was invaluable for sorting through folders of photos by looking at the thumbnails. May Kiki and the gang have gone on to as much fun as they clearly had doing this.