14 DAY TRIAL // Although not the kind of thing we usually think about, measurement converters are the kind of programs everyone needs to have there 'for a rainy day'. If you do any kind of scientific work, you probably use one on a daily basis, but these programs can be useful to everyone. With the widespread adoption of the Internet, even the most casual of users can find themselves discussing something with someone from another country and invariably hit the conversion barrier. In an ideal world, we would all have paid attention in school and should be able to perform such conversions on our own. But since the world is not yet ideal, we can get a program to do all the hard work for us.
MConvert is one such program that makes converting pretty much anything from one unit of measurement to another a piece of cake.
Does it do everything? With such programs, the most important factor is how many things it can convert between. After all, this is not exactly the sort of program you spend a few hours in every day, and even if you do use this sort of program in every day work, all the better to have one converter that can do everything instead of using several different ones.
From this point of view, Mconvert stands up pretty well, being able to convert just about anything I can think of, and a few more. The various units of measurement are grouped under different categories relevant to what they measure. The entire list would be: Length, Mass, Radioactivity, Time, Thermodynamic Temperature, Acceleration, Angle, Area, Density, Fuel Consumption, Energy, Force, Permeability, Power, Pressure, Torque, Velocity, Viscosity, Volume, Computer Data and Currency. As you can see that's a pretty exhaustive list that covers 99 percent of all conversion you could ever possibly need and a few more.
Organization is key The sheer number of units of measurement this program knows is overwhelming, and fortunately they are grouped under easy to locate categories.
Furthermore, within each category, each unit is grouped and labeled so that it is easy to see which group the unit belongs to. SI indicates base units, I indicates SI derived and International units while UK and US represent units commonly used in the United Kingdom and Unites States respectively.
Hovering the mouse over any unit will open a tool tip that normally contains the symbol of the unit. In the case of some units, the symbol is also the formula and is highly obvious, such as m2 for square feet and m3 for cubic meters, but it also has the symbols of the more obscure units, even the currencies. Also, in some instances, the formula through which the unit is calculated is also displayed.
Numbers The program can display, and accepts input of number in both normal and scientific notation. This is great for those used to using scientific notation, and is also great for those who value accuracy. However the biggest gripe is how you cannot actually choose between one and the other. Those who are not used to the scientific notation will probably be confused at first and will have problems adjusting.
Ideally, there would be a toggle or a preference that can be adjusted so you can set how many decimals you want to display.
Minor issues There are two versions of the program, one for resolutions of 1024x768, and another for resolutions greater than that. This is extremely peculiar, especially since you consider that the only difference between the two is three units in the currency window, which would make the window too big on the smaller resolution. This workaround seems hilarious seeing as how you can actually resize the window a little, and there is even enough room for a scroll bar in the window as it currently is, but? to each developer his own.
The second issue is how the program sometimes lags for no apparent reason. It is not using the processor, or the ram, it doesn't read or write from the hard drive? it just stalls and hangs. Fortunately it doesn't happen often enough to be truly a bother.
The Good Can convert to and from just about any unit of measurement you will ever need. Everything is well structured for easy access and all the relevant information is conveniently located.
The Bad Sometimes it stalls for no obvious reason, but it's not often enough to make it a problem. Still annoying though.
The Truth Whether you need it to actually do something productive, as a reference when you come up against some obscure measurement, or just to soften out regional differences, this program does it all.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
