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| Interrogator is an easy to use application which quizes users. It is one of the few applications which allows more than 2 fields, in fact, you can have up to 10 fields of information.
After a French install you may change the language to English as soon as you open Interrogator in the "Languages" menu. Interrogator packs almost all the commands into submenus of the "Admin" menu. Here you may make a new file, add/delete "topics", and add/delete "users". When creating a new file you pick a "topic" for the file which determines its location and catagory, give the file a name, and determine the number and names for the fields in the file. When this information is given you may edit the entries in a nice edit window.
To review the information the file is selected after choosing "Quiz me on..." from the "Quiz" menu. The quiz mode is only possible if you choose a "User" as scores from the quizes are saved for each user. If the file has more than 2 fields, you choose a field to act as the "Question" and one to act as the "Answer". Unlike most flashcard programs however, Interrogator does not seem to allow the simple "flashing" of words, as answers must be typed in and are graded by percentage (also accompanied by a cute sound for correct and incorrect). Finally, while non-Roman characters may be entered and displayed, they occasionally look odd when they entered as the answer in the quiz mode.
The program is short on features but is very fast, stable, and its ability to use more than 2 fields is one of its strongest points. |
Academic Flashcards
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(Win 95/98/NT4) |
| Developer: |
Settimo Systems |
| WWW: |
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| Download: |
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| Email: |
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| Version #: |
1.0.26 |
| App Size: |
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| License: |
Shareware ($15) 30 day trial, file size limit |
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| Reviews: |
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| Fool's Says: |
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| Academic Flashcards is a very basic application designed in Visual Basic, but one which does what it needs to do. Unlike many applications, it is both easy to use and offers some more advanced editing features. The application also allows the import of tab-delimited databases. Academic Flashcard's own file format is also tab-delminited, and it seems as though only the final line being reserved for its own uses.
When opening the application there is a main menu offering choices between the main features including "Edit" and "Study" Going to Edit will open a new toolbar with the functions necessary to make a new file. Academic Flashcards supports 2-field flashcards only but allows the customization of fonts and colors and also the names of these fields. It also allows the pasting of database entries, even allowing you to choose the deliminiter.
Reviewing the cards through the "Study" option firsts open a configuration page where one can choose between files to study (if they are in the application folder), set which field to show first, set a timer, and modify other settings. If you have stopped flashcard study in the middle of study before it will ask if you wish to start from where you stopped last time. However, this is asked even when the file you are reviewing is not the same as you studied last. You may turn this setting off in the "Settings" item of the "Options" menu.
The program is stable, easy to use, and performs well for those who wish to use it for 2-field flashcard study. It works fine with non-Roman text input. The company also has an online site for downloading various sets of words. |
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| BlastWords uses what it claims are traditional advertising techniques to increase your learning rate through their flashcard study program. It colors the questions and answers on flashcards yellow and green, respectively, with these being put on a black background.
I was a bit confused when I opened the program, for when you select "New" from the "File" menu nothing happens. There is a blank desktop like space which later gets filled with the entries of your open set when you press the "Edit" button on the toolbar. In the edit mode you may edit your entries, sort them, search for them, and filter them according to their "Set" which apparently is comment or number you can enter to organize your entries. The filter seems to still be a little buggy and the find command also gives unusual responses. These may be quite useful in later versions.
There are also "Go!" and "Test" buttons which correspond to other two modes of the program. In "Go!" mode, you are flashed the words according to your chosen options (automatically flashing after a certain number of seconds) and you may speed the flashing up by pressing keys or the mouse button.
The test mode prompts you to enter the answers to questions, and even tells you when you are "close" to the actual answer.
There are no apparent problems with using something like "TwinBridge" to input Chinese characters but this program is limited to two-field sets which isn't very useful for languages such as Japanese and Chinese or others that might need three fields.
The program has a number of additions that interesting but of rather questionable use, such as a calculator, the option to change something into Spanish (not sure what), and the option to change commas into semi-colons? However, there are not any options for importing or exporting sets. The sets are saved as text files though, with long runs of spaces. With a little fiddling, BlastWord files can be made to work in other flashcard programs.
This program has the basic needed features and some promising sort, filter, and search features but there are still a lot of bugs and isn't clear if this is an application still in active development. Also, there is a less than comfortable combination of keystrokes and mouse clicks that makes the program a little awkward to use at times. The program however, will do nicely for simple flashcard needs. |
Total Recall Learning System
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(Win 95/98) |
| Developer: |
Zoran Sevarlic and Zoft Systems |
| WWW: |
http://www.zoft.com |
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| Email: |
recall@zoft.com |
| Version #: |
2.2a |
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Shareware (29.95) 15-Day Trial uses the "annoying dialog" method, grows more annoying after 15th day |
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| The Total Recall Learning System is one of the most complete, flexible, and yet esay to use flashcard study environment available in shareware form for the Windows operating system. It is fully documented, rich in features, as well as both stable and fast.
When one opens Total Recall, you are presented with a blue background and the menus, "File", "Study", "Play" "Options" and "Help". It should be noted first that the help files are extensive and fully hyperlinked for easy reference to other related documents. There are even help files for using help. It should be noted, however, that at no point during my use of Total Recall did I feel overwhelmed by options or features and I didn't need to consult the help files to understand the program.
The files in Total Recall are called "Subject Files" When creating new subject files you may set their fonts (Total Recall works very smoothly with non-Roman scripts and has a number of features to help with entering foreign language characters for other European languages). The editing environment includes browsing tools to easily browse through your entries, and a drop down menu with all entries in the file. If you type into the "Search" box, it will select those words which contain the characters you have searched for.
Once you have written your file, you may review and study it in a number of different way. There are two games to help you memorize the words, including a "Concentration" and "Discovery" game both of which I found to work in fairly similar ways. One must find the pairs that match and doing so reveals a picture hidden behind. I doubt this is a very effective method of learning material but it is fun.
The more useful methods of learning words are through their "Auto-Flash", "True-False", "Multiple Choice" and "Written Response" study methods. The auto-flash mode flashes the characters either manually or by a timer (or both) and you may control a number of characteristics associated with this study method. The true-false and multiple-choice methods take answers from other entries to create false answers and answers for the multiple choice test. These are not as effective (time-wise) as flashing but a great feature to include. There is finally a "Written Response" study method which requires a written answer, similar to the quiz features in other flashcard programs.
All of these study methods have various methods of customization and have their statistics saved. The program keeps track of difficult entries which it appears to mark as "Least-Known" These can then be studyied later on for better retention. You may also "reset" set statistics when you have not studied a set for a long time. After completing a study session, a bar graph of your results and previously logged results are displayed.
Overall the program is excellent. On the negative, I would only mention that there are no import features, no support for files which need 3 fields, and the price is a high $29. However, the features are well-implemented, and the program is easy to use. |
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