This program is fun, useful, and easy to use. Among its many features is the ability to find almost any street address in the United States, business listings, travel attractions, address-to-address directions (via an Internet connection to Rand McNally’s Home Page), and many interesting and useful facts about major cities. There is also a provision to use a GPS (Global Positioning System) if you have the proper equipment.

However, there are some caveats! The address must be exactly as Rand McNally has inputted it, or it does not come up with a match. For instance, 1000 N.W. 2 Street has to be put in as 1000 NW 2nd Street, or else a match is not found. StreetFinder Deluxe has two main views: the guides screen and the main map view. The guides screen contains two easy to use step-by-step guides and a tutorial button:

1.   A walking guide, which creates a path and directions from place to place.
2.   A map styles guide, which enables the user to customize and annotate a map.
3.   Several easy to use tutorials that will guide the user through the basic features in StreetFinder Deluxe.

The guides screen not only gives you visual, but if the user so chooses, audible instructions for both the walking guide and the map styles guide.

StreetFinder Deluxe contains the Mobile Travel Guide, which lets the user find hotel and motels using the Mobile One-to-Five-Star rating system. You can then read complete information on many facilities and their amenities.

Press the Concierge button and you can find information on restaurants, services, and hotels. There is even more detailed information on transportation, nightlife and attractions for over 100 top cities. In the Concierge window the City Page Online button is available for 100 key business cities. This button takes you to a web page where you can access links to other Web sites for city news, sports information, nightlife, transportation, and more. With the moneyminder feature, you can limit your search by the amount of money that you wish to spend for hotels and restaurants.

You can customize maps by both style and features. Listings such as churches, libraries, pharmacies, museums and many others are displayed. You can click on the displayed locations and a drop down box appears with the address and phone number. By pressing the Guides button and selecting the Map Styles Guide you are led step-by-step through customizing your map. You can also add address markers and customized labels. On the bottom of the screen there is a drawing tools button which enables you to annotate your map with drawings and text. If you wish to save a certain style of map you are able to name that style and save it. With Internet access you can go to the Rand McNally/ITN Website to make reservations and obtain directions from one location to another. You can then add the directions to an itinerary that you can make by pressing the Itinerary button. Reservations will then be automatically added to the itinerary. You can also add addresses, maps, and articles to the itinerary.

I found discrepancies with some of the addresses that I was trying to locate. After I located my own address, I found that at the north end of my street there was a transposition in the addresses, making them impossible to locate. I also found that a "name" street wasn’t shown that way at all locations, even though businesses listed their addresses that way. When I tried to locate those particular addresses, StreetFinder Deluxe was way off base in their location.

This is one program that the more you use -- the more features that you discover -- and in turn find more ways to make use of those features. I enjoyed using this program and found it particularly useful both for the business listings and as a guide to finding addresses, although I did lose some confidence in it as I continued to find discrepancies.