November 2000

There's a lot to like on the Microsoft reference site--and one annoyance. In general I was impressed with the dictionary, encyclopedia, and atlas. The site even offers free instruction in Spanish and French.

So what annoyed me? The same thing as last time when I decided not to review it for this column: some of the content in the encyclopedia is free and some requires that you purchase the encyclopedia on CD-ROM before you can access it online for free. And there doesn't seem to be any way to know beforehand which is which.

That annoyance aside, do use this site. It's wonderful. Let's start with the Microsoft Encarta Dictionary. It has all the features you'd expect of a good dictionary, plus one: it pronounces the words for you. Lately I used the word "archipelago" in conversation and wasn't sure how to pronounce it. Now I know. And I'd never been quite sure how to pronounce "banal," having heard it pronounced in several different ways. Now I know the most common pronunciation.

And I also was impressed with the world maps. This section is well organized and loads fast. An initial menu lets you choose from eight broad regions. I chose to view a map of Asia. From the resulting map I chose to view a map of Southeast Asia. I like being able to get the big picture and then to keep zooming in to more detail. I then selected The Philippines. The first view you get is the "main" view, which shows an outline of the country and locates the capital. You can also choose the "detailed" view, which is a topographical map that locates all the major cities and other features, such as Mt. Pinatubo. Most of them are clickable links that take you to the entry for that city in the encyclopedia. I liked the way these were integrated.

Which brings us to the problematic encyclopedia. I searched on the name of the small college where I teach and was told that I had to be a paid subscriber to view that information. I searched on "Iowa" and got a plethora of information, along with multimedia content (including a picture of a pig farm). I surmise that the more general content is free and the more specialized content requires that you subscribe. In any case, there's a wealth of free content available.

The language instruction seemed free and without strings attached. I tried the first Spanish lesson. It begins by having you listen to a dialog and then identify various phrases that you heard. I came away confident that this too could be useful and fun.

© 2000 by Jim Karpen, Ph.D.