XPost: alt.collecting.stamps.us, alt.collecting.stamps.software,   
   rec.collecting.stamps.discuss   
   From: kbsmith@wwdb.org   
      
   I have tried four different programs and finally settled on stampcat at the   
   overall best for my needs.   
      
   What I was looking for.   
      
   !.  Ease of use in adding stamps to the collection.   This one beat all the   
   others as you only have one screen to deal with and all the information you   
   really need is there.   You can also modify most of the boxes you input data   
   in to reflect your preferences.   On the other three programs you had to go   
   to more than one screen (ie click on a tab) to input all your data, or see   
   it.   This is fine is you are working in a museum and want a detailed   
   catalog of each stamp you are collecting, but for 99% of us, what you see on   
   the stampcat page is more than you ever want to know.    Even something as   
   simple as the perf size was easy to add with this program.   Try putting in   
   12.5 x 10.5 in another program.   
      
   Scanned pictures of your stamps:   On a different program you had to input   
   the scan's of  your photo in one of three different ways, depending on how   
   the individual stamp was loaded into the program.  You also had to be   
   careful on how you labeled the scanned picture file.   On another you could   
   have four different scans (nice), but you could not lock in the size of the   
   scan, (a real pain).   On stampcat, just scan the stamp, I label it with   
   it's Scott number and then save it.   Once loaded in the program, you can   
   delete the scan, but I don't.   I save it to a separate directory to have a   
   back of of all the scans of my stamps.   Why go through the trouble of ever   
   re-sanning a stamp again, should you ever have a problem with your comptuer   
   or a program.   
      
   2.  Reports.   What good is a computer catalogue if you can't easily print   
   out different reports to document your work.   This one beat all the others   
   by a mile by how easy it is to use and the quality of the report layouts.   
   This one item was my biggest frustration with all of the other programs.   
   For insurance reasons, you can't beat the printout you can get of your   
   collection.   
      
   3.  There is one negative about stampcat.   While you can get databases of   
   different countires, I find them to not be worth the trouble to load in, and   
   I just manually load in each stamp I own as I get to it.   
      
   4.  Cat value of your stamps.   No program is perfect here.   I prefer to   
   use the Scott cataloge as my source as to the current value of a stamp.   I   
   have yet to find a program that will let me put in the scott values, AND   
   also let me put in what I figure is the value of my stamp based on a percent   
   of the scott value.   Remember that the Scott value is for a very fine stamp   
   with no faults, and not all of your stamps will be very fine or be fault   
   free.  Some of the other programs use their own mystery source as to the   
   current value of stamps (which I think is even worse) and if you ever load   
   in an updated database it will reset all of your currently loaded values (a   
   major bummer).  This alone defeats the purpose of using their catalgue   
   databases.   
      
   5.  Cost.  The cheapest of all the ones I tried.  It was also the easiest to   
   use.  Sometimes simpler is much better.   go to stampcat.com and check it   
   out.   
      
   6.  If you are going to scan your stamps to include in your cataloge,   
   (highly recommended), then the I strongly recommend EzImage.   I use the pro   
   version and it is worth every cent you pay for it on the ease of scanning   
   stamps.   Two big pluses of this program.  You pace a stamp on your scanner   
   and do the scan, but you will 'never' get it to be aligned straight.   This   
   program will align the scanned stamp with just one click of the mouse.   If   
   you don't want to scan each individual stamp you can place several on your   
   scanner and do one scan, and then let the program sort them into individual   
   scans.   Resize the stamp to fit into your program or change the size of   
   it's file size, is another huge item and you can also do this with one click   
   of the mouse.   The script feature is POWERFUL.   You can find this at   
   ezstamp.com.   EzGrader is another nice program to check the margins of the   
   stamp (the perf part of the program sucks),  and if you create your own   
   album pages, the AlbumGen program is a must have.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)