Gurunet is More Explosive: It's Atomica
Written: Feb 25 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Extremely useful, simple to use and it's FREE! It's getting better monthly.
Cons: Sparse alternatives for misspelled words, must be online,can cause crashes in older systems.
The Bottom Line: Absolutely the BEST free reference help available on the net.
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| happy2000usa's Full Review: Atomica (Formerly GuruNet) |
Author’s Note: It’s been over a year since I wrote an epinion on Gurunet. In that time, the program has improved considerably, adding many facets that we beta testers recommended. Last November, Gurunet changed its name to Atomica and further expanded its useful features. Since this new program is a giant leap from the original Gurunet, I deleted my previous review and offer this new one in its place.
Everything You Wanted to Know…..Now You Can Ask
My English teachers would be shocked were they to learn that I had taken up writing for a living. They are well aware of my typing and spelling skills. Using four fingers, I can make a keyboard speak in other tongues. When it does, I often don’t catch my errors. “Get a spelling checker,” you say. I have one. Unfortunately, my vocabulary is bigger than my helpful companion’s database. (Sounds like a male thing, doesn’t it?) Consequently, I thumb dictionaries and other common references, such as the Thesaurus, into confetti'd oblivion. Before you mention it: yes, I use CD’s. The problem is finding the space to spread them out for instant use and the time lost in swapping them in the drive.
Fortune smiled upon me. I was asked to beta test Gurunet. It’s a simple program. It waits for you to point at a word and click the mouse while holding the ALT key. When you do, it springs into action, giving you a definition and a thesaurus tab to look for alternatives. The first program also gave some foreign translations, two as I remember, and encyclopedia references. You could also opt for a keyword search of the web to discover pages on the subject. Wow! I no longer had to rack my brain to discover alternative words. I had an instant thesaurus. Further, I had an umpire. When Bill Gates told me that I had misspelled a word, I no longer had to look it up in the dictionary. Gurunet did that for me. When it confirmed Word’s shortcomings, I had but to add it to my custom dictionary, never again to have my vocabulary questioned…at least about THAT word.
Two things struck me about the program. First, the beta version was extremely clean. No blue screen of death. No interfering with other programs. Basically, I loaded it and it worked the first time out of the gate. Wow!
The second aspect of beta testing the program was the company’s responsiveness. I wanted it all. I wanted more than Spanish. I wanted French, German, and Russian translations. (Why? I’ve never gotten the hang of getting those French accent marks and foreign letters to incorporate in my writing. With Atomica, it’s a simple cut and paste.) I also wanted maps. I wanted better encyclopedia references. I didn’t like their “keyword” search program and wanted to link to the major search engines. Friends, Atomica has all of that now….and more.
Ta Da! Atomica Has Arrived
Why did they change the name? Gurunet was fine. It described the function of the program. Atomica? Is that a reference to explosives or a power plant? The answer is that Gurunet became a part of a much larger endeavor. Atomica offers research services to businesses. For a fee, of course. The basic program, the one you and I use, is still free.
The word “free” often strikes fear in the heart of computer owners. The price is right initially, but when you see the amount of advertising to which you are subjected, the cost becomes too high. You start searching for the “unwise.exe” file to delete it. Atomica doesn’t have any advertising on its control panel. Some of the links will take you to paid encyclopedias or book stores, but Atomica’s approach to advertising redefines “unobtrusive.”
The second concern with freeware is what it does for others. Many free programs inventory your hard drive and send the results to “mother.” They may follow your web wandering and report that as well. The nastier programs obtain your logon ID’s and passwords. These are collectively known as “spyware,” and they can be a real alligator in the net pond. I have a few programs that screen for spyware and I’m happy to report that Atomica is not a predator.
So What’s New? How is Atomica Better Than Gurunet?
You can imagine my shock. I had my Gurunet set to “auto-update” and suddenly Atomica appeared on my screen. The name was different. The control panel was different. I immediately went to the website and you could hear my cries of anguish for miles: “Gurunet sold out! They’re going to start charging me!” Wrong. When I stopped twitching, I read further and it was really just an expansion of services. The program was still free.
I then went to look for changes. The setup and options were presented differently, but remained unchanged. I still had the options of key combinations and which languages I wanted supported. The help section was still one of the best of any program I’ve tested.
The similarity ends there. I was no longer presented with a definition, thesaurus, and encyclopedia article. There were now many tabs. For instance, lacking any great ingenuity, I looked up the word “word.” I got my definition. I got a thesaurus full of alternatives, each one linked to their own definition page. I didn’t get an encyclopedia tab, but that didn’t surprise me. What I did get was:
The Library of Congress In Your Computer
Did You Mean? – Alternatives such a references to people with the name Word.
Quick Tips – Tricks for using Atomica.
Technology – You guessed it. Computer terminology definitions and a link to MS Word.
Dictionary – If you have to ask, you really need this program.
Thesaurus – The old carryover.
Online Courses – Computer courses for MS Word…no doubt requiring monetary outlay.
Quotes – Oh WOW! A writer’s dream come true. Several quotes were listed, complete with references and links to the author. No more searching for that quote I can’t quite remember. Now I type a keyword and there it is.
Translation - I was treated with the corresponding word to “word” in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Greek and Russian. They no longer limit your choices to four. You can select or deselect your languages of interest in the language preferences. (A convenient link is provided at the end of the page.)
Internet Keywords – This function has been improved and includes many more links to potential key words. In essence, it’s filling in the search engine blank for you.
User Links – Why would I need this? If you have a failing memory, such as I do, and know that you’ll need to return to a page, you can “bookmark” it here.
Web Search – This page provides access to 16 alternative search engines. I noted that “Mother” and the “IWON” search engines are not included. (IWON reaped an award for the best engine on the net.)
That isn’t the end of it. If you search other words on Atomica, you may get more tabs:
News – This provides links to current news archives and web pages about your word. I typed in “Russia” and got 17 articles.
Geography – This is a country’s basic description, apparently excerpted from an encyclopedia.
Stats – All of the significant statistics about the word, if they are available.
Maps – These maps are taken from the World Fact Book produced by the CIA. You can go to another map locations as well. I was particularly amused by the “get directions” to Russia button.
Local Links – These were links to other sites relating to the word “Russia.” In this example, it included a Yahoo! board and the Lonely Planet site.
And for the legal eagles on epinions, if the word has some legal meaning under this law or that, Atomica includes a Legal Definition tab.
Tripwires and Tips
I can see you now. This is ALL free? What’s the catch? There has to be a downside. And there are a few minor ones.
I found that the improved Atomica us a few more percent of my system resources than Gurunet. Boo! Hiss! I need them all when editing a 250,000-word document. This is particularly bad for the “select” few friends who loaded Gurunet and it crashed their computer. (For the most part, those were CPU and RAM disadvantaged machines.) I avoid the problem by leaving Atomica in the wings until I need it. I dragged the Atomica shortcut to my Start Button and it loaded onto the menu. When I need it, I click START and ATOMICA. It loads to my system tray. Then I use the clicking exercise or boot the control panel to enter the word manually. When I’m done, I close the program to recover the resources.
The old Gurunet would update itself automatically and you never knew it. Atomica has that capability, but I do not recommend that you set your preferences for automatic updating. Why? Atomica has joined the ranks of those programs that I dearly detest: The ones that end the update process with a placard stating that you have to reboot Windows. This change is a giant step to the rear.
The Bottom Line…or “Is That Your Final Answer?”
The other day my son came in to ask me a homework question. I find that the 7th grade is now including subjects that didn’t cross my bow until college or graduate school. He wanted to know the difference between an Ester and a Keytone. Trust me. I bear no resemblance to a chemical engineer. I was in trouble. Instead of doing a web search or going to one of those homework helper sites, the ones he doesn’t know that I use, I asked Atomica. Within a very few minutes, I gave him more information than he wanted to know. If you’re a parent, Atomica is essential to maintaining your image as the smartest person on Earth.
I cannot overemphasize Atomica’s importance to writing. My DSL went down for two weeks and I found my written output decreased considerably. I had to look up words and facts the old fashioned way. It was time consuming and very painful. Not having Atomica available made me my DSL provider’s worst nightmare. In my humble and often uniformed opinion, Atomica is simply the best reference tool on the net. If you don’t have it, get it at www.atomica.com.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
happy2000usa
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Wayne Arnold
Location: Tracy, California, USA
Reviews written: 97
Trusted by: 171 members
About Me:
Writer, editor, beta tester, pilot, traveler. I'm an easy mark, always evaluating new software.
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