| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ BUREAUTIQUE ★ HOME EXECUTIVE ★ |
Home Executive (Amstrad Computer User) | Home Executive Suite (Amstrad Action) | Home Executive (New Computer Express) |
WATCHING THE PENNIES SD Microsystems is one of the CPC's more prolific serious software producers. And the latest product to roll off the SD production line and onto the market is Home Executive. Home Executive consists of an entire suite of programs. Central - and arguably most important - is the personal ledger. This will keep track of all your income (rare, in my case) and outgoings (altogether less rare), as well as handling credit card payments and standing orders. The ledger even has password protection, so your dearly beloved won't find out exactly how much you spend on computer games, cigarettes and beer. The filer acts as a sort of card-index system. You can carry out fairly simple searches, but more complex database-type functions are beyond it. Slightly less useful is the shopping list feature. This lets you draw up a list of goodies to pick up next time you set off for Safeway. Quite why you can't write it all out longhand is beyond me, but at least the printout will be nice and neat. No more claiming you mistook ‘two dozen brown eggs' for ‘two dozen brown ales'. Ah well. Possibly least useful of all is the popup calculator. It's only a simple four-function affair and hardly seems worth loading up when you could do the same job faster with a pocket calculator. There are several other utilities supplied with Home Executive. The diary and calendar functions let you produce Filofax-sized printouts, while an interest and depreciation calculator promises to be as useful as the shopping list and caculator put together. Home Executive costs £19.95 on disk only. Add another £1 for p&p and you're still not paying a lot for a package which sets out to do a lot. The fact that it only just succeeds is a shame, but you still get plenty for your money. Rod Lawton , NCE |
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