With over 1000 equivalent pages of geographical reference material, the gazetteer comes in very handy when dealing with clues such as, 'Upper Volta today' (Burkina Faso) or 'Grenoble's river' (Isere). Cities, towns, mountains, bodies of water and much more are all traceable with a few clicks of a mouse button. Furthermore, monetary denominations, famous landmarks, sports teams, stadiums, artists and other VIPs, etc., are listed for most major place names. Throw in a healthy dose of almanac material such as Nobel Prize and Academy Award winners as well as Shakespearean characters and historical facts and you have a lot of bang for the buck.

There are a number of options for getting where you want to go within the database. You can simply browse all the dictionary and gazetteer or you can view words beginning with a cetain letter or of a certain length (from 1-15 letters long). Additionally, you can enter any known letters using question marks (?) for unknown letters. The program will return all words which meet that criteria. Finally, you can enter the clue's keyword(s) and get a list of associated entries. Very neat!

This is definitely a valuable resource and I recommend it to crossword puzzle solvers and creators. However, it does have its limitations and, though they don't significantly diminish the program's value, I'd be remiss not to mention them.

I think TCD&G would offer even more value if the user could update, modify and correct the database. I wrote to William Weiss, who is responsible for the product (and, incidentally, the son of the author), and he plans to have a user submission tool posted on the Web in the near future. This would allow customers to submit data for inclusion in subsequent upgrades of the software. A great idea and one which I hope he implements successfully.

My only other quibble is a few spelling inaccuracies which might undermine a customer's faith in the integrity of the database. I found three instances of misspelt words and/or typos during my test drive. I happen to be a Bela Fleck fan and looked up the famous jazz banjoist. He's listed as "Bela Fleck & The Fleckstones". (They made a guest appearance on "The Flintstones".) These minor deficiencies can be overcome with the proposed user submission tool.

I give TCD&G four and a half stars out of a possible five. There's a wealth of information here in a user-friendly interface with multiple search options. If the information is updated and maintained this will prove to be a great addition to the puzzler's library for years to come. Thanks to Yetta Weiss for her diligence, perseverence, and hard work. I think it must have been a labor of love. Thanks also to William Weiss for designing the interface and putting it all on a CD at a very affordable price. I'd definitely like to have this in my collection.