This happens a lot. A family member or friend buys a new PC and says “Gee can you install all the software for me and set it up?” My dad finally bought a new PC, only his second since 2003, and the task fell on me to get it ready for everyday use.

And sure, we admit it, our inner nerd squeals with delight whenever we get our hands on a fresh computer, out of the box.

Depending on who the computer is for, you may have some business software and games to install, but if you’re the technologically-adept one in your family, make sure you don’t overlook these five programs that will make everyone’s life easier now and in the long run:

5. The PC Decrapifier

The PC Decrapifier is a magazine and tech-site favorite, and it is well-regarded as an essential tool for new computers.

What is boils down to is this: sometimes it’s not only about what you put into a computer, but what you take out of it that makes a difference.

When you buy a new computer, it’s loaded with software. Loaded. We call this “bloatware.” It’s fat. You don’t need all of it.

You want to remove trial software, search engine toolbars, Dell/Sony/etc. support software and anything else that you don’t need — and don’t need running in the background — on a new PC.

You can run ‘msconfig’ and then open up the Control Panel’s software add/remove tool to get this same task done, but the Decrapifier has online resources that will tell you which software should go and which software can stay. So it’s helpful.

4. Dropbox

With all this talk about cloud computing and online data storage, even your mom or dad should be able to take advantage. Enter Dropbox, an easy-to-use service that gives you 2GB of online storage for free or up to 100GB for $19.99 per month.

Dropbox is useful. You can store software installations, photos, videos, documents, website files and anything else you need to access later.

3. iTunes and/or VLC

iTunes has come a long way on the PC since I ranted about it in 2009.

And the fact is, your parents and aunts and uncles are using iPads and iPhones, so they need iTunes. Go ahead and install it for them, but then make sure you set up their iTunes account also. Old people get confused.

Beyond iTunes, there’s a bit of Gen-Y software magic that even dear-old-dad can enjoy. VideoLAN’s VLC Media Player is the best, open source, cross-platform media player that can play nearly every disc, video file and audio file available, including DVDs, DivX movies and MP3s, and it has no advertising or spyware

It’s software that we use, so they should use it too.

2. Chrome or Firebox

I still install Firefox on family computers. It’s faster, better and more secure than Internet Explorer. A growing number of people are plugging into the Google matrix, however, so Chrome may be the way to go.

Either way, you need to install a second browser and set it as the default.

Just make sure you tell your loved one to allow the updates to install when prompted. Keep that most recent version running.

1. Microsoft Security Essentials

Go back to the Decrapifier for a second. Now remove whatever trial version of Norton or McAfee came with the computer. Get rid of it. Your relative is never going to pay to renew it after it expires, and the constant prompts reminding then to upgrade will result in “I think I have a virus” phone calls that you don’t need.

So just uninstall the stupid trial editions.

Install Microsoft Security Essentials. It is the best piece of software that Microsoft never charged for. As long as you have a genuine version of Windows (and all new, out-of-the-box commercial PCs do) you can download and install Microsoft’s always up-to-date antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-malware security suite.

It integrates with the Windows Firewall (make sure that’s turned on, especially once you remove the Norton/McAfee software) and gives you real-time protection just like the expensive boxed products.

If you have some moral problem with Microsoft securing your computer, you could try avast! and the free version of its antivirus software. It’s a very good solution that keeps your computer secure.

Honorable mentions

You may also want to consider EASEUS Partition Master, if you’re really doing some hardcore configuring. If the PC has one big 2TB drive, it may be a good idea to break it up into a system drive and some workspaces.

Recuva is a good choice for file recovery. It helps you recover accidentally-deleted files. We’ve all been there. Another phone call-saving measure.

We’ve been through this before with Sony’s movie-making software. I can’t list every feature — heck, I can’t even test every feature. Suffice to say, I’ve been a big fan of with the Vegas line of movie software and the Acid line of audio software for many years.

The word is usually “value.” Sony’s software is cheaper than it’s competitors, especially the Movie Studio line, which can be had for under $70 online.

If you are editing video on a PC, Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 is easier to use than Corel VideoStudio and just as good as Adobe Premiere Elements, both of which are more expensive than the Sony title.

You can import video directly from your camera, drag and drop everything into place, and export or burn the product onto a disc with full DVD or Blu-ray menus.

One feature that I found even more useful is the ability to upload your videos directly to YouTube. As you probably won’t be using $60 software to make a full-scale Hollywood motion picture, the rest of us, on YouTube, can be satisfied.

There are also intuitive tutorials built-in to the software, taking away some of the learning curve. The software is stable, streamlined, and powerful. Pound for pound, Movie Studio is a good buy.

We’ve tried a bunch of times to objectively and subjectively rate and review complicated software programs, but it’s impossible to delve into all of the technical nuances of video editing and CAD/CAM titles.

Suffice to say, Vegas Pro 10 is a great video option for filmmakers and anyone else who is looking to author DVD or Blu-ray discs in particular. The price tag ($599 new) is also a breath of fresh air for people who have paid $800 for Premiere. If you’re editing video on a PC, it’s also easier to pick up and learn than Avid, though Avid is much better for broadcast applications.

The interface is similar to most editing packages. You have your preview panes up top, timeline on the bottom, and in the bottom left, you have your clips and resources that you can drag and drop into the timeline and do your work.

The suite’s DVD Architect Pro 5.2 program (included) is what allows you to take your complicated video package and throw it onto a disc. It allows you to create menus, insert subtitles, and add alternative camera angles into movie scenes.

This Sony title is also great for audio. Vegas Pro 10 can output in multichannel Dolby Digital surround sound and encode in AC-3.

New features in Vegas Pro 10

• Leading edge technology, including support for stereoscopic 3D, 4K, and GPU-accelerated AVC encoding
• Improved closed captioning
• Improved multicam functionality
• Performance improvements for DSLR video
• Enhanced plug-in support
• Customizable UI and flexible workflow environment
• Track grouping
• Support for Blu-ray Disc

Digital photography has revolutionized several industries. Photographers are no longer bound to a few dozen shots in a roll of film. Even simple things like photograph size have changed dramatically with the shift to digital.

But consumers have been slower to catch up to the new technology. A lot of people still think the best way to see their photos is to run a memory card to the corner drug store and wait for prints. That just isn’t the case anymore. A Mac or personal computer is the perfect digital darkroom.

For the average consumer, with a $200 to $500 camera, the price and the power of the software for editing and organizing photos can be intimidating. So we did some research and found four photo editing titles that will get the job done without turning your hobby into a money pit.

For the name-brand warrior, we recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, a boiled-down version of Adobe Photoshop (which can cost $1,000) that won’t break the piggy bank at $79.99. If you want more of the functionality and power of Photoshop and don’t mind learning a new program, we recommend Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 at $99.99. For Mac users, check out Pixelmator at just $59. Finally, if you really want to save money, you must try the open source Gimp image editing software, which is free and works on Windows or Linux.

This is not a technical analysis and benchmark of the software titles, but a consumer-level look at what you can do versus how much you will spend. There are two tasks when editing digital photos. First, you need to organize your photos, sorting the good from the bad. Then you need to actually get inside each photo and edit it. A great software package will do both.

The best of the bunch was Photoshop Elements 8. While not nearly as powerful or robust as its big brother, Elements 8 is a familiar software title that comes with an intuitive organizing package that lets you rate your photos and sort them by place, event, keyword, etc. The software is family-friendly and easy to learn, with features that will correct things like red-eye, over/underexposed photos, poor lighting, and color saturation.

For a little more power, go with PaintShop Photo Pro X3, which has more of the pricey Photoshop features without the price tag. This is a good choice for a high school student who has aspirations of photography/art school. This software leaves plenty of room for tinkering with more advanced features like levels and curves. It also has a tool to create video slideshows that you can share online.

Willy King, general manager of the Bromfield Camera Co. in Downtown Crossing, recommends either Elements or PaintShop Photo Pro, giving a slight nod to Elements.

"The advantage is you can ramp it up into Photoshop Pro more seamlessly,” King said. "Although PaintShop Pro is also pretty feature packed.”

Individual titles are on Page 2.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, $79.99

Pros: Photoshop Elements has the name-brand recognition and reputation going for it, and the software’s stability, speed, and feature set mean it’s well-earned.

Cons: It’s definitely a consumer product. Professionals and photo students will want to explore the full version.

Final word: If you’re editing photos for any reason and are working on a budget, Elements, with versions for Mac and PC, is a great choice.

Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3, $99.99

Pros: PaintShop Photo Pro X3 comes with tons of pro-level features priced in the bargain basement of software titles.

Cons: The software has some speed and stability issues. It doesn’t load as quickly as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for that matter. Keyboard commands and shortcuts aren’t very intuitive.

Final word: PaintShop has been around for years. It has always been overshadowed by Photoshop, but its low price is impossible to ignore.

Pixelmator, $59

Pros: Pixelmator gives you image levels and powerful tools on the cheap. It’s also stable and fast on your Mac.

Cons: There’s no PC version.

Final word: If you can’t get a discount deal on Photoshop, you should definitely give Pixelmator a try.

Gimp, Free

Pros: It’s free. You get a powerful, portable, stable image-editing platform at no cost.

Cons: Gimp is not as user-friendly as the commercial products. There’s a bit of a learning curve.

Final word: You can’t beat free.

Organization is key for large companies, institutions, medical facilities, small businesses and even homes. Many Americans simply shove things into their desk drawer; some have their folders piling up with documents of all sorts stashed inside. What happens when you have to find something of importance in a short amount of time? For many of us, this means shuffling through our overcrowded desk drawers or various overloaded folders.  A filing cabinet is a good way of organizing, but how do you go about labeling the folders so you can find that one document in a short amount of time?

A product from The Monticello Corporation called The Paper Tiger Professional ($169) tries to tackle this problem. Once you purchase this product from their Web site and install it into your PC, its main focus is to create a database of all of your folders and filing cabinets where you can index and tag folders and documents inside for easy searching. In a nutshell, you tell the program where your folders are located and which documents reside in each folder. Then you can tag each document so that later when you need to find it, you can just search for it using The Paper Tiger’s built in search.

Installation was pretty easy. Once you download the software from their Web site, it takes about ten minutes or fifteen minutes to install, depending on the speed of your computer. Initially, when I went to download the product I thought it might be a scam based on the look of their site. The site didn’t feel welcoming at all and was very outdated.

Once installed, the Setup Wizard asked me to name my new database, choose an optional password, specify a location, and enter a capacity of folders for this location. I entered "Home" as my location and told it that I wanted it to only take care of ten folders. From here, it created a series of tabs for my ten folders and named them "Home 1-Home 10." It then instructed me to print out the tabs so that I could also place them on physical folders. Once complete, the program shows you every folder in your database and allows you to then edit each folder, so you can specify what documents are in each folder. After you choose the folder you wish to start with, a prompt asks you to enter a name for the folder, enter keywords, choose or enter a category and specify a date. After you tell the application what is in each folder, it brings up the browser- the index of all of your files. It displays the folder names, item names, any keywords you assigned, categories, dates and the status of the folder along with any notes.

I really like how this program gives you the ability to print out an index of all of your folders. This would be very useful to stick on a side of a filing cabinet or to keep in an accessible place as backup. The Paper Tiger also gives users the option to create and archive files and to back up the entire database. Other features I liked were the ability to transfer folders, toss folders, categorize folders and view folders in different ways (location view, category view, reminder view and a search view).

The user interface of this program is excellent! It incorporates the user very well by offering various ways of doing the same task but in a non-cluttered way. I do really like the large buttons at the top for common tasks and the search function makes the program. It will even search the notes section of a folder and the application has a wonderful advance search that allows for you to narrow down search options even more by entering a date range, category or location.

A few drawbacks of The Paper Tiger are that it is only available for Windows, the expensive price and the initial setup could take months depending on how many folders and files you have. For each folder, you must set up keywords, name the folder and tell the program what files are inside for it to be able to index the folders correctly. This could be a very difficult and time-consuming process for a large company or organization. If you have hundreds, thousands or more folders, expect to spend at least a weekend or longer importing all of your folders.

Would I recommend this product? Yes. I feel that it does the job very well and while the initial setup could be difficult depending on how many documents and folders you have, it does do what it advertises. Once everything is indexed within the program, it is a snap to locate even the smallest document. So get rid of that cluttered desk drawer or that piling up folder and try out The Paper Tiger.

The product is available for $169.95 from http://www.thepapertiger.com/

If you’re into the creation of professional animated graphics or you’re an artist looking to design your very own masterpiece using live-like animation, Smith Micro’s Anime Studio Pro 6 for both Windows and Mac is an impressively powerful tool.

Smith Micro’s Anime Studio Pro 6 ($199) is a vast update over the previous versions and adds many great new features. Enhancements to version 6 include motion tracking, integrated lip-syncing, a scatter brush, auto shading, morph targets, a new sequencer, HD video support along with the ability to export to more video formats and better scripting. This edition also adds speedier production times, improved drawing and design enhancements, the ability to directly upload content to YouTube right from the application and a large collection of predesigned graphics, sounds and templates.

I decided to put Mac version of the product to the test and the results stacked up well. One thing to note is this is a very large piece of software. The installation took about 578 megabytes of disk space, so I would recommend you have plenty of space before you go ahead and decide install this product. Other than that, the installation was smooth and took only about two minutes.

Anime Pro sports a sleek, clean interface, reminiscent of Photoshop or Flash. Performance-wise, everything seemed to run smoothly and I never ran up on any errors. Because this product is designed for professional use, there’s a bit of a learning curve and training may be necessary to fully utilize the capabilities of the software, but those who have used this product before will be satisfied with the interface, commands, tools and navigation of the application.

The applications preloaded content is especially useful for people who are just starting off. Within fifteen minutes I had my own animation going (AnimeStudioPro sample). It’s simple, but it just shows that in less then fifteen minutes, someone who has never used this product can get right to work with the simple, yet familiar interface.

The product retails for $199 new or $129 to upgrade from a previous version. If you currently use previous versions of this software, the new features are definitely worth the upgrade cost.

You can purchase this product online from Smith Micro’s online store.

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for:‚  without further ado, here are the new iPhone announcements which have had everyone salivating for months now.

Available June 19, the iPhone 3GS is Apple’s new iPhone hardware. Apple claims that everything on the phone is “twice as fast” at loading apps, sites, and everything else. The device will also feature a faster 3G antenna (7.2Mbps HSDPA, for those who like details), the rumored 3MP auto-focus camera, complete with an API for developers, and a 30 FPS video camera with an associated app to allow for video and photo editing. Another rumor to come true is an internal compass that will orient the maps app depending on which direction you’re facing.

The iPhone also features a new voice control UI, allowing users to make vocal commands such as “Call Mom” or “What song is playing?” all in a live transcripted interface. Snazzy? Sure. Necessary? Probably not. ‚ The phone also features hardware encryption and an improved battery life which should come as a relief to iPhone users everywhere.

The form factor for the iPhone 3GS is staying exactly the same, available in black and white (sorry, no flaming orange iPhones). Storage will also increase–$299 for the 32GB model or $199 for the 16GB model. Still too pricey for you? Pick up the older iPhone 3G for just $99 (yay recessionomics!).

The iPhone OS 3.0, which will ship June 17 to other iPhone users contains many new improvements, most of which have been announced before, but we’ll summarize them anyway: the iPhone is finally getting copy/paste, MMS messaging, system-wide Spotlight that will index your email, contacts, and apps, and a landscape oriented keyboard.

A cool new feature will allow users with MobileMe to locate their phones should they go missing and you’re not in enough hysterics from losing your iPhone to be able to use a computer. Apple announced support for data tethering, but AT&T was notably missing from the list, most likely indicating that iPhone users in the US will be SOL. Safari will be updated to run faster and will auto-fill contact and stored login info.

Push notifications (including text, sound, and “badge”) will finally go live in this release, after much delay. Apps will also be able to access the dock connector, allowing you to use you iPhone with external gadgets, such as TomTom’s new GPS driving device. Peer-to-peer interfacing will allow you to connect to other users to play games or send information such as contacts.

Overall, only Apple could drum up so much publicity for something that is ostensibly just an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary change. Nevertheless, these developments are still exciting, even if they’re overdue. We’ll let you know what we think when we get our hands on a new iPhone 3GS in just a couple weeks.

In approximately four months, I have a 270-mile bike ride across three states that I’ll be riding. What a lucky coincidence that I would find Pzizz, a “tech tool to energize athletes.” I love tech, and while I’m hardly an athlete per se, I’ll take all the help I can get.

Pzizz is basically a white noise generator. However, instead of making static noise or repetitive nature noises (you know, the squawking birds in nature sounds or the babbling brook), the program generates soundtracks filled with a varying combination of ambient sounds with soothing voice over giving you gentle instructions. Everything about the soundtracks is engineered to help you disconnect from your surroundings and maximally relax you. Sounds range from chimes and synthesized notes, string instrument harmonies, and even a few of those nature noises. None of the sounds are overtly displeasing or annoying, though you’ll probably grow to like some sounds more than others. One of the coolest effects I noticed was a string orchestra gradually crescendo-ing in the background as the voice over started to tell me to prepare to wake up from my nap.

The voice over is probably the weirdest part of the entire program, and the one the people are most likely to disagree with. The voice is a deep man’s voice who tells you to “Be as comfortable as possible, both physically and mentally,” and then that “For a few minutes, I’ll guide you while you begin to relax, but then just let my voice fade into the background.” I listened to the “Sleep” track for several nights.

I’m not going to lie, it was slightly strange having some random man talk to me as I was trying to fall asleep, but as I became accustomed to it, it stopped bothering me. While I didn’t notice a drastic increase in my energy levels in the morning, I snoozed fewer times than I normally do when I woke up, and falling asleep seemed to happen rather quickly, despite the fact that I typically fall sleep in silence.

The software comes with three modules: sleep, energize, and meditate. The sleep module is, aptly enough, for helping you to fall into a deep sleep. The energize module builds shorter programs meant to guide you through a power nap, complete with a beeping alarm at the end of the track should you not arouse and the end of the allotted time. The meditate module is silent, save for a single chime at minute intervals of your choosing. The volume of the music and voiceover are customizable depending on your tastes, which is nice for anyone who dislikes the voice over, as well as the length of the tracks.

Also useful is the program’s ability to export your tracks to iTunes in the AAC format via a single click to take with you on your iPod. While napping in public scares me and my boss tends to frown on me sleeping at my desk during the day, this is certainly useful for those who can get away with either.

The company makes many scientific claims (“induces theta sleep waves”), and though I couldn’t find anything to back them up, maybe it’s just the scientist in me complaining. ‚ All in all, Pzizz is a simple, easy to use sound generator that will help you to focus on relaxing and restoring your energy.

There are many methods and products for ensuring data encryption, but unfortunately many can run you hundreds of dollars along with countless hours of time in the process.

I’ve always felt that some of the best software is free — take Mozilla Firefox for example.‚  SafeHouse Explorer is another great free product and in my use, I’ve found it to be a comprehensive data encryption solution for most Windows users.

One thing that I’ve noticed and enjoy about SafeHouse Explorer is its very clean look and simplicity of use. The application is designed to have the same appearance as the Windows Explorer and some of the most frequent tasks such as the “open volume” button are well placed and labeled, making the overall interface very functional, yet simple.

SafeHouse Explorer works to protect and encrypt your files by first letting your choose the size of its database or volume file. Then you create a password. I recommend that you choose a strong password (use the password strength indicator to help you), considering this will be your “master password” to all your files that are stored in that one volume. Once this is complete, you can simply drag and drop files into the window, and the program will then index and encrypt the files upon exiting the program.

One feature worth noting is the secure move-ability. This feature enables you easily move files to the SafeHouse application, and once imported, it destroys the files in the original location where they were dragged from.

Recovering your files is simple as well, and there are a variety of ways to regain access to your encrypted files. Users can create desktop shortcuts, double click on the volume file or simply launch the application and use the “open volume” button and navigate to the database or volume file. From there, users must enter their password- in which they assigned previously when they created the volume. SafeHouse Explorer then displays all of their files and the user can make changes. It then automatically creates a network drive when it recognizes you are logged into a particular volume. Once you close SafeHouse Explorer it deletes the network drive from Windows. This option makes it incredibly easy for users to easily gain access to their files using the familiar genuine Windows Explorer without having to use SafeHouse Explorer to access files. When volume is open in the application, users can make modifications directly to the file in SafeHouse Explorer. Many other clients require you to re-import files to make changes.

The company also offers a pro version of SafeHouse that offers additional functionality, but the free version is more than enough for most Windows users just looking to safeguard and encrypt files. There’s no Mac version, however.

You can download SafeHouse Explorer for free at: http://www.safehouseencryption.com/

Safari has never been very formidable in the browser wars, always holding just a few percentage points of the browser share on the bottom of the list.

Of course, now that it’s no longer a Mac-only browser, it’s share has grown as a few (admittedly brave) folks downloaded it for their PCs. Even still, the vast majority of Safari users were Mac users who used Safari by default because they were too lazy to actually choose another (better) browser.

On Tuesday, Apple announced the beta for Safari 4 for both Windows and Mac. Apple has pulled out all the stops to make Safari an attractive browser that people will actually want to use. Heavy on new technical features as well as eye candy, this is quite possibly the first time Safari has resembled a browser that has the brilliant minds behind Apple’s design. Granted, most of the features just appearing now have been in other browsers. This time, however, Apple has put its own spin on them to make them, well… just work.

The first difference greeting users (after a brief, yet fancy, intro movie) is that Safari now offers better visual integration with the Window’s OS, featuring a standard title bar with buttons. While the chrome of Apple’s applications remains on the rest of the window, it is less distracting than before. Also, instead of a tab bar, tabs show up in the title bar like in Google Chrome (a feature Apple calls “Tabs on Top”). While I’m not a personal fan of this style because it prevents tab rearranging, it does take up less screen real estate.

The address bar and search box now have “AwesomeBar” like features, suggesting visited sites and bookmarks. When typing in addresses. The new home screen for empty windows and tabs shows the users’ most visited sites, a feature that Opera users have had for a long time, and intrepid Firefox users can add via plug-in. The screen is constantly updated over time, but can be customized by pinning or hiding links. Clicking on one of the tabs animates it as it moves to fill the window, a small piece of eye candy that is utterly cool to watch. Actually, the browser is full of these small animations that the average user doesn’t notice consciously, but make for a better visual experience, something Apple has always incorporated into its products.

Users can now look through and search their histories and bookmarks using Coverflow. Each entry has a screen shot saved for it. I find this interface for viewing bookmarks and histories actually to be more intuitive for both the average user who is likely to be a bit daunted by the system file structure as well as for native OS X users.

Something I found interesting and rather unique is the built-in RSS viewer. The in-browser RSS reader allows users to scroll through the stories, adjust them for length, sort them by any number of descriptors, and even search them, all from the same window. And while most users who know what RSS is will likely keep using a separate reader, these features are still very useful for quick browsing.

On the technical side, Apple claims that the new Nitro Engine renders Javascript faster than every other browser, and includes benchmarks to support their claims. In a completely biased and unscientific survey, I thought surfing through AJAX heavy sites like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Facebook was indeed snappy, so I’m likely to believe Apple assertions.

Safari still lacks an add-on architecture, which is perhaps Firefox’s best attribute, and the largest thing to keep Safari from gaining significant browser share. Otherwise, Apple has picked the best features of the browsers on the market and wrapped them up in a slick package that certainly deserves a look.

I still take crap from sanctimonious Justin Long-loving Mac people about the the holy artsy abilities of the Macintosh.

No doubt, bro. Mac’s got mad skillz. Word to your one button mouse.

Adobe Creative Suite runs just fine on my Dell, but for audio, and for the past, oh, 10 years, it’s been Acid Pro.

As I’ve said in a previous review, anyone can pick up Acid and make something happen with it. If you actually spend some time with the software, you can do absolutely wonderful things with the software. You can still get Acid Studio for about $40 if you just want to dabble, though.

In its most basic form, you can use Acid to mix together and cross-fade the perfect mix tape for your sweetheart. You can also compose a synchronized video soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1.

Acid Pro 7, released at the end of 2008, has all the features you’ve come to expect from the franchise — multi-track recording, loop-based production, MIDI sequencing, and lots of freebie effects. This iteration, however, has some features that are just plain delicious if you’re a musician.

Pro 7 features a dedicated sound and MIDI mixing console that has the ability to let you assign effects, working seamlessly with a good keyboard.

A look at the Acid Pro 7 interface

Sophisticated input busses allow the user to record from external sources and mix your audio and instruments. You can also plug external effects processors in and monitor them from the program. You can also direct that processed audio to other external hardware.

Basically, Acid Pro 7 is a modular recording, processing, and producing station.

The software also has native Flac support, which will make those people who record at concerts happy.

Best of all, the software loads up quickly, runs as fast as your computer will let it and puts out excellent sound.

There are two truly great and ridiculously fun pieces of software that have been out there forever in the music studio/audio editing/looping world: Fruity Loops and Acid.

They’re fun because even though most people don’t have a damn clue how to really use the software, anyone can pick either title up and start making noise right away.

Acid Pro first came out in 1998 and was the first true loop-based Desktop Audio Workstation. It’s been popular with bands, DJ’s and producers ever since.

Acid Pro 6 remains the bulked up commercial product at $200+, but a slightly lighter Acid Music Studio 7, which you can scoop up for $50 has most of the features of its predecessor and just about everything a student or individual user could ask for.

What I liked about Acid Studio were the tutorials. Sony’s “Show Me How” system lets you ease into working with the software, and I highly recommend spending a few hours practicing on them if you want to get serious with the software.‚ 

There are also 3,000 build in music loops, 1,000 MIDI files and the capability for importing your own audio to mix up. You can also record live from your own instruments via your sound card.‚ 

Finally, when you’re done you can export your audio artwork to CD’s, flash drives, MP3 players or package them for easy web streaming.‚ 

I have always prefered Acid over the years to Adobe’s Audition, and being a PC guy I don’t have much experience with Garage Band. I can tell you that if you want to really ease into audio editing and mixing, there’s a free, open source title out there called Audacity. While it’s not as polished or powerful as the boxed products, it is a great, free resource for audio editing.

There are a bunch of other DAW’s out there, but I’ve found Acid Pro and now Acid Music Studio balance power and learning curve better than the competitors. There’s also a free trial available.‚ 

Overall, Music Studio won’t do everything that Acid Pro 6 does — particularly with sample rates. Music Studio maxes out as 16/48kHz while Pro can do 24/192kHz. Pro also can process 5.1 surround sound recordings. But if you’re just looking to break into music creation and mixing, I love Music Studio.

Photos are a huge part of our lives, and the digital cameras that have dominated the market since the early 2000s have really given users the opportunity to edit and quickly share our photos with almost anyone regardless of their location.

Because many people, including myself, tend to overdo it and take far more photos than needed, digital slideshows have become increasingly more popular. But while the concept seems so simple, many people who would like to create a slideshow end up being lost in the creation process.

FXFoto 6, a photo editing application and advanced slideshow application, is attempting to change that. The company offers a few versions of the software, but I decided to stick with the free standard edition for the purposes of this review.

Starting with the installation, the process went exceptionally well. After about a minute and a half the program was up and running. I first tried to import photos, which wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. The program gives users the ability to import folders; however, I couldn’t seem to get that to work. When using the control key to try to import multiple photos simultaneously, the program would only select one photo at a time, which was a major negative.

After the tedious and frustrating import process, I decided to try out the built-in photo editor to touch up my pictures and remove some red eye off of the subjects. I found the editing process to be the best feature of the application. Although Photoshop obviously blows it out of the water, the basic photo editing that FxFoto 6 provides works. But one disappointment is the lack of options such as brightness and contrast adjustment.

As for the slideshows themselves, I was not impressed at all. The user interface is unorganized, unappealing and poorly designed. I can’t see how any basic user or even a slightly more skilled user could figure out how to effectively produce slideshows with this program.

On top of the aforementioned downsides, the company does not support the Macintosh platform.

Personally, I would stay away from FxFoto 6. As an alternative, the Web site Photobucket (http://photobucket.com) offers a great slideshow creator and powerful image editing tools all for free. Users can also take advantage of online Web hosting so they can share the slideshow they just created with friends and family.

As megapixel quality increases and camera optics greatly improve, photo size greatly increases as well and sharing large photos through email can create quite a challenge, not just for the sender but the recipient as well.

Memeo Inc., a California-based company is ready to take on the challenge with a new product called Memeo Share. Memeo share is a desktop application designed for Microsoft Windows XP that allows users to upload photos to Memeo’s servers where other the recipient(s) can automatically download the full quality photos to be viewed. The service also features a setting that allows the user to upload pictures directly to Facebook and is an overall easy way to transfer photos among computers.

My experience with the photo sharing application left much more to be desired. The download and install was very quick and user friendly but I felt many other photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Photo Bucket or even Apple’s Mobile Me service offers many more options such as RSS feeds, embed codes, photo editors, comments and better photo tagging options, without the need to download and install an application. The interface of the application was designed well and very user simple and the performance of was good as well. The application ran well and seemed to work well without using hardly any system resources.

Overall I just can’t use using Memeo Share as a primary photo sharing application. Sure, it’s better than email, but Flickr and Photobucket provide far more features in a web experience and give Memeo Share a run for it’s money.  Though I’m not a huge fan of Memeo Share, you can give it a try for yourself and let others know your experience by commenting below.

Zack didn’t like computers.

At age 3, he was diagnosed with severe autism. His parents decided to send him to a specialized school, where he could get one-on-one attention. It was there that he was first introduced to computers.

“It was impossible for Zack to use a computer,” said his grandfather, John LeSieur. “He was throwing the mouse and throwing the keyboard [in frustration].”

LeSieur is the owner of PeopleCD, a software production company that creates programs to build an interaction between the Internet and software application. PeopleCD’s released the beta of its first program, a child-friendly web browser called KidCD, in late 2006.

When the beta was released, LeSieur let his grandson try it out on their home computer and was shocked by the result.

Zack loved it.

Now, LeSieur tells stories of how Zack will go up to the computer, turn it on, and start playing around with the computer on his own. “[The computer] is a tool that he really likes and enjoys, and that he never shows any violence for, which is really good for mom,” said LeSieur.

“He was able to get the results he was looking for,” he said. “Since it’s a full screen application, the only thing he could do was to click on an icon to get results. [Zack] was very happy with his results.”

Zack is now 6, and he didn’t like the updated version his grandfather created, KidCD 2.0. Other young children who had been using KidCD 1.0 had a hard time changing the browser pages to view the other icons accessible and had just been clicking on those they could see. LeSieur changed the settings so that the icons would switch every hour to allow a variety of websites. It was this feature Zack did not care for.

“Autistic children like things when they are very organized. It’s in place, and they know they fill find a result right there,” LeSieur said.

In order to continue the successful relations Zack was having with the computer, his grandfather came up with an alternate version of 2.0. In this version, the main page was an aquarium (Zack’s favorite), and included mouse animation and stationary icons.

“He was so happy, even if [he] doesn’t speak, you can see it from what he’s doing and how many times per day he goes back to the computer,” LeSieur said.

Thus, in April, the ZAC Browser was born.

Since LeSieur made the browser accessible from his website, zacbrowser.com, over 150,000 people have installed the free program on their computer.

“I can tell you it’s amazing how many e-mails per day we get from people where it has just changed their world,” he said.

Named for his grandson, Zac also stands for “Zone for Autistic Children”.

Autism is described by the National Autism Association as a bio-neurological developmental disability that generally appears before age three, impacting the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction, communication skills, and cognitive function. Individuals with autism typically have difficulties with communication and social interactions.

“People are always watching for a magic teaching tool [for autism],” said Temple Grandin, science professor at Colorado University, who has autism and is seen as a poster child for adults living with the affliction. “A computer is not the magic tool. A first grade teacher is.”

Grandin said she sees the ZAC Browser as a helpful alternative for autistic children, but not a stand-alone solution for development in autistic children.

“A computer program is not your primary way that you teach young autistic children,” she said.

While Grandin acknowledged that the ZAC browser is a great activity for autistic children, especially in place of video games, she emphasized that nothing can replace one-on-one interactions with other people.

Symptoms of autism as described by the Autism Society of America are notably little to no eye contact and lack of interest in forming relationships. Children who are diagnosed with autism need to be taught things like taking turns, manners and sharing.

“They’ve got to learn not to be rude,” Grandin said.

Those types of concepts are hard to teach over a web browser.

“A lot of autistic kids are spending a lot of time on video games, but you can’t get them to do anything else,” Grandin said.

Still, a few hours on the ZAC Browser can be very beneficial for an autistic child. The browser’s filter does not allow access negative or violent websites, and those available are geared towards education. Since he first started using the browser, Zack has learned new words and started speaking more.

He has also not been violent toward the computer since his grandfather installed the ZAC Browser.

As the first web browser created specifically for those with autism, Zac has already reached amazing success with those who have accessed it, LeSieur sees the ZAC Browser as changing the future of how software is created.

The ZAC Browser has helped adults with autism as well. A woman, who identified herself only as “Mwoolhiser” on the ZAC Browser forums, told other posters of her son Robbie’s success story. At 31 years old, Robbie loved the computer but was tpp easily distracted by so many options. After his mother downloaded the ZAC Browser, Robbie was using the computer by himself within 35 minutes.

When used in accompaniment with other teaching tools, the ZAC Browser can be a great way to teach autistic children. Nothing can replace the effect human contact has in positively influencing those with autism.

Grandin’s advice to parents: A lot of computer monitors flicker, a phenomenon that we tend not to notice with our eyes. Due to the eye problems that is oftentimes a symptom of autism, many autistic children notice the flicker that we do not, and this can lead to violence towards computers. While this type of outburst is not true for every autistic child, when given the choice between a laptop and a regular table-top monitor, 20 percent of autistic children choose the monitor. Laptop screens, by contrast, are made differently than other monitors and do not produce the same flicker. In order to prevent damage to the laptop keyboard, try hooking up an external keyboard for your child to use.

For other helpful tips from Dr. Temple Grandin, visit her “Teacher’s Tips” section on Autism.com.

Download the Zac Browser free from BlastMagazine.com

Email has become a huge part of our lives. In fact it pairs with instant messenger applications as leading ways we communicate with friends, family and clients. It’s just a great way to get your message across without spending hours talking with someone over the phone.

It has greatly expanded dramatically in the new millennium. Today you can access your mail on everything form cell phones to iPods. With email usage booming, many companies have jumped on the bandwagon and developed their own email service. With larger services like Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Windows Live/Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, everyone is sure have an account somewhere down the line.

Many companies and small businesses want email with their own domain name (like preble.m@blastmagazine.com) and access to their email beyond their company server, but that can be expensive and require technical staff or knowledge. That’s where Palo Alto Software comes in with their new Email Center Pro, trying to make this process easier and more cost friendly.

Rather than relying on a third party, Email Center Pro essentially lets you use your domain name to create multiple email accounts, versatile mail folders, notes for coworkers and templates for different users.

There is a free version available, but you’re limited to 250 emails per month with five users. The Basic Plan includes five gigabytes of storage, two thousand five hundred emails per month, an unlimited amount of users, five accounts and POP support for $19 a month. The Standard version includes 10 gigabytes of storage, 5,000 emails per month, unlimited users, five mailboxes and POP support for $49 per month. The Premium version includes 20 gigabytes of storage, 10,000 emails per month, an unlimited amount of users and mailboxes and POP and SSL support for $99 per month. Finally the company offers a Pro package which includes: 30 gigabytes of storage, 15,000 emails per month, and unlimited amount of users and accounts, POP and SSL support for $149. All packages also include free backup as well.

After evaluating their Pro package service for a few days, I wasn’t that impressed. The web-based interface was passable, but it wasn’t even as user friendly and feature packed as my free Gmail account. I was also disappointed that there wasn’t any IMAP connectivity — a big letdown considering the high price of the service. There also isn’t an unlimited message package.

While I was testing the service, I noticed that after I clicked the send button it took around two minutes for an email message to leave the Email Center Pro’s server and to make it into my Gmail server. I also experienced downtime with the service as well, which leaves me questioning how reliable it’s going to be in a pinch.

I did like the ability to add notes into a message. There is some good “corporate” customizability there.

You can sign up for a free account here, but I’ll stick with Google for now.

Wouldn’t you love to be able to sit back and enjoy your computer without worrying if it’s vulnerable to attacks just because you clicked the “Remind Me Later” button? That piece of mind can be achieved with an automatic updater.

I recently came across UpdateStar, a great, easy-to-use application that lets you sit back and relax while it take care of all the updating.

The initial installation went quite smoothly. Within a few minutes, I had the program recognizing all my applications. When UpdateStar first launched, I was blown away by its Microsoft Office 2007-esque toolbar with the ribbon-like view. UpdateStar really offers a very simple and well-designed user interface. On the start page, UpdateStar includes a pie graph with detailed information about your application updates. It even includes vast list of all the available updates that are yet to be installed. The ribbon-like menu system gives you the ability to update programs, news, configure settings, increase the text size and so much more. Without a doubt, this has to be one of the best well layout and user-friendly applications I’ve ever used.

But UpdateStar doesn’t just focus on updating programs. It’s also is a great way to uninstall programs – far more intuitive and easier to use than Windows’ “Add & Remove Programs ” pane. Simply click on the programs tab on the ribbon menu system, highlight the program that you wish to uninstall, and click “Uninstall” and it’s done.

Best of all, it’s free. In my experience, the program keeps the user experience in mind as it performs very well, delivering all the latest updates to one’s computer in a timely and effective manner.

One of the things that I cannot stress enough is backing up your files.

We store our work documents, pictures, music, videos, precious family photos and more on our computers, and with one hard drive glitch all our important files can be gone forever. Luckily, there are plenty of easy ways to prevent data loss by backing up your system.

Essentially, backing up produces copies of all your hard drive contents and exports them to one file, typically stored on a remote drive. In the old days this was done with tape drives and CD-R discs, but now this can often be done with external hard drives or flash memory.

Finding the right backup program can be quite tricky, but I recently came across Roxio BackOnTrack 3, and it seems to make backing up my PC easier than ever.

My experience with BackOnTrack has been excellent. The installation process went exceptionally well. Once the program was fully installed, I was taken to a preference window to customize my backup options.

Once that was out of the way, I was brought to a beautiful, simple, well-designed interface where all the options were just a click away. The software makes a statement with its easy to use interface of big buttons and easy to follow prompts.

I started out backing up a 100MB video file, and soon it was in a folder on my drive ready to be restored. I then deleted the file off my internal disk and restored it with BackOnTrack, and again within a few minutes a notification window came up telling me that my restore was completed successfully.

Finally I decided to backup my whole system and see how the product performed. All you have to do is click the “backup drive” button in the frequent tasks pane, select the drive you wish to backup, select the destination drive and click the large orange “go” button. Restoring files is just as easy.

In my tests, Roxio BackOnTrack exceeded expectations, mainly because of its ease of use, large buttons, great interface and overall great functionality. I would definitely recommend the software to anyone who wants an easy backup solution and piece of mind knowing that their files are safe.

It does have a few downsides, like when you try to back up individual files. The program only gives you the option to select email messages, financial data, photos, productivity documents videos and music. I would prefer if you could use the windows explorer and select the files to be backed up, rather then using its choice interface.

With its great features, functionality, ease of use, $49.99 price tag and it’s great user interface, Roxio BackOnTrack is a must have for any PC user.

Quck Hits:

Publisher: Roxio
Developer: Roxio
Platform: Windows XP or Vista
Genre: Backup Utility

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Shinywhitebox’s iShowU screen recording software really packs a lot of power for a low price. I just recently upgraded to a Macintosh computer, and have been looking for a great screen-recording program that can capture both audio and video, but my choices have been quite limited. I’ve tried a few free-based programs such as Jing and Display Eater, but nether lived up to my expectations. Then I discovered iShowU.

Essentially iShowU is an application for the Macintosh platform that captures your computing activity and outputs it to common video formats. This piece of software is especially useful for providing quick tips, tutorials or addressing simple computing problems, while offering the viewer an optimal experience of being able to actually see a detailed view of what’s going on — far superior to reading standard text directions.

The installation process went exceptionally well. I was able to get the application up and running in a matter of a few minutes. Once the program launched, I was surprised on how easy and well set up the interface looked. The interface provides an exceptional experience that caters to both the standard user and the advanced user. On the left hand side is an array of video quality presets, which can easily be adjusted to fit the user’s needs. Separated on the right, is a more advanced pane which lets, the more experienced users adjust, audio quality, input devices, video frame rates, scale size, compression settings and more.

Once the output settings are complete, iShowU gives you the ability to select what you want to be recorded. Users can select from the available presets or drag a custom box around the subject to be recorded. Once finished, click the record button and you’re off. iShowU will even give you a countdown before it records. When the recording process is complete iShowU will open up the video up for playback and save the completed work.

I decided to put the product to the test by making a few short videos, tweaking settings such as quality, compression and more. The finished videos looked great and the product preformed as expected. I was then able to easily upload the video off to YouTube for the world to see.

My overall experience with iShowU was great. The product met my expectations and preformed well for the $20 price tag. One feature that I would like to see is the ability to place arrows or small captions in the recording. If you are looking to screen cast or help friends/family I recommend iShowU for your entire screen casting needs.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Shinywhitebox
Developer: Shinywhitebox
Platform: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
Genre: Utility
Launch Date: October 26, 2006 (New version on November 26, 2007)

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

This review originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com and Sharewarejunkies.com in 1998. It was rock-solid software that still exists today.

By John Guilfoil

Command Software pretty much created a winner with this one. Command Antivirus with F-PROT Professional is an affordable, high quality mercenary that will set out and battle any fiendish viral vermin that threaten your beloved system.

The software is packed up with the latest features including detection of Macro and Polymorphic viruses, detection of 100% of known viruses with a user friendly interface and Y2K and Windows 98 compliance.

Command Antivirus works on a multitude of operating systems and is rather easy to install and run. I recommend it highly, especially for computers with net access.

All computers should have Virus protection and Command Antivirus is one of the better among the many good ones out there.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Command Software
Developer: Command Software
Platform: PC
Genre: Utility/Antivirus

Technical Requirements:
Works with most desktop and server configurations including Windows, Unix, Solaris, OS/2 and Linux

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars

4D released a revision, which offers users a new set of Internet tools while providing user-friendliness and better functionally.

Essentially 4D’s Web 2.0 Pack v11 is an online Internet application, which allows business users access to use a simple drag and drop interface, essential to perform a variety of tasks like: the ability to create graphs, perform basic calculations and much more, all without the need to ever write JavaSript.

4D’s Web 2.0 Pack v11 is mainly designed for mobile platforms such as Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, however it will also run on you standard browsers seamlessly. This new update offers support for the 4D V11 SQL as well while providing a few advancements, such as improved performance and bug fixes; all in effort to provide a better user experience.

“The iPhone’s tremendous popularity has increased the need for powerful, mobile business tools,” said Brendan Coveney, President and CEO of 4D Inc. “We developed the Business Intelligence Dashboards for 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11 to give developers the cutting-edge tools they need to meet those business needs.”

The new AJAX powered software is priced at $599 and includes a six-month subscription to any further updates. The company will also provide an additional 12-month maintenance plan, which can be purchased for $249.

Overall it’s nice to see more productive tools for the iPhone and iPod touch mobile platforms. This new advancement will give business access more functionality, all on a simple, familiar drag and drop interface, without all the code.

Click here for more information and a complete list of features.

By the way:
Due to reporting errors, the name of the 4D V11 SQL was reported 3D V11 SQL. The price of the 4D Web 2.0 Pack V11 is $599, not $600, and the 12-month maintenance plan is $249 not $250.

When it comes to converting PDFs to word documents for editing, your software choice options are very limited. Docudesk, a company, which specializes in PDF software solutions, announced it’s deskUNPDF Professional that essentially converts PDF’s into various other formats like spreadsheets, websites and various image formats.

Formats include: Open Document Format (.ODT), Excel (.XLS), Comma Seperated Values (.CSV), Extensibile Markup Language, HTML, xHTML, Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG), Bitmaps (.BMP), Portable Network Graphics (.PNG), Tagged Image File Format (.TIF or. TIFF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (.JPEG).

My experience with this product was fairly good. The product installed very quickly and within a few minutes and I had the program up and running. The importing process was very easy as well.

Just drag a PDF located on the desktop into the program and a large preview will appear. Then just select your desired output format and tweak any advanced settings if necessary and once done, click the convert button at the top.

Within seconds the document was finished converting and opens itself up for viewing. The conversion process went seamlessly and seemed very effective. I couldn’t find any traces of distortion, which was a plus.

The trial version lets you convert one page documents, so you’ll have to buy UNPDF to go further.

My overall satisfaction of this product was fairly good, but this product does need improvements. I found that when importing large files the program unexpectedly quit which can be a problem. I would like to see more "eye candy" on the user interface, because having detailed buttons and animations make the user feel more at home, especially if they are running it with Windows Vista.

The price is also very high at $59.95 for a single user license and $269.95 for a five license pack, and it jumps up from there. Most consumers would purchase the single license pack, and I think $29.95 is more than enough for a relatively simple piece of software.

So is this product worth buying? It works as advertised and does its job well. It is expensive, but it’s really up to the consumer if Docudesk’s desk UNPDF is worth the money for the functionality.

Give it a try for free.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Docudesk
Developer: Docudesk
Platform: PC/MAC
Genre: Desktop Publishing Utility
Launch Date: November 27, 2007

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This review originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com and Sharewarejunkies.com in 1998. It was good DOS software that seems to have slipped through the cracks of time. We can’t find a download link for it anymore.

By John Guilfoil

PC Desk is a Personal Information Manager for DOS. It is a very handy and smallin size utility that will keep track of events, dates, holidays, and contacts.

Its features include a day planner, week planner, monthly calendar, yearly calendar, and address book. There is no sound, and the graphics are only 16 colors, but a PIM really doesn’t need to have good graphics and sounds, especially a smaller DOS-based program.

PC Desk is a nice, handy, and convenient PIM that is especially useful for small businesses.

The user interface is very friendly, and you can navigate through the program with just the click of a mouse. Installing the program is very easy, as long as you have a Zip utility (WinZip, Pkunzip, etc.) Registration for the program costs $25, and if you find the program useful, then you should really consider purchasing the full version

Updates from the previous version of PC Desk include:

• Improved the Main Screen Graphical Interface
• Enhanced the Yearly Calendar Display
• Various Internal Modifications
• Added a Windows Icon, PCDESK.ICO, to the Files
• Removed the Utility CONVERT.EXE to Convert Old PCDESK Address Book Formats (Before v6.0)
• The Shareware Version is Now Fully Functional

Quick hits:

Publisher: Robert Lindsay Wells
Developer: Robert Lindsay Wells
Platform: PC Dos
Genre: Personal Information Manager
Price: $25

Performance: 5 out of 5 stars
User friendly: 4 out of 5 stars
Support: 4 out of 5 stars
Cost: 3 out of 5 stars
Ease of Installation: 4 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 3 out of 5 stars

Ratings were determined in 1998

I was really impressed with Palo Alto Software’s Marketing Plan Pro. There’s a ton of people trying to be entrepreneurial and being their own bosses, and they (we) can’t always hire PR people and a team of marketing pros.

In our case, a marketing class from Northeastern took us on as their semester project and gave us invaluable information that led to our first redesign in June.

But take the startup restaurant, clothing boutique, widget maker, or whatever your lifelong dream happens to be. With Marketing Plan Pro, you have a $150 marketing professional at your fingertips. The software is really easy to use and gievs you dozens of sample plans and step-by-step advice to start from scratch. It gives you SWOT analysis, tactics and target forecasts as well as break-even analysis, project planning and color charts to visualize it all.

Marketing Plan Pro also lets you export your work to Microsoft Office or Adobe PDF to easily collaborate with colleagues.

The software even includes “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” by Al and Laura Ries and “On Target: The Book on Marketing Plans,” by Tim Berry.

While there’s not a whole lot of competition out there, Palo Alto’s Marketing Plan Pro has been the top-selling marketing-planning software seven years in a row. It’s easy to use, intuitive and invaluable for business owners and marketing professionals looking for an all-in-one resource.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Palo Alto
Developer: Palo Alto
Platform: Windows PC
Genre: Business software
Launch Date: April 18, 2006

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars Editor’s Choice

As YouTube videos become better and better (shockingly…the videos are getting better, the photos are getting better, but now if only as many people would learn where commas and semicolons go…) and high-definition video cameras come down in price, we are starting to see amateur and small-business video rise in production value.

That’s why software like Sony’s Cinescore Professional Soundtrack Creation is becoming more and more relevant. In the past, you wouldn’t necessarily find this software at Best Buy — and, well, you still don’t — but for a $100 investment this software lets you add a real score to your moving pictures.

Normally, I’d throw down a review of something like this and say “it’s powerful, feature-rich, but give yourself plenty of time to get over the learning curve.” But if you’re doing video editing right now and using Final Cut or Premiere (or Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio, which I’m sure they’d want me to plug…) you can use Cinescore. Explore the software a little bit, learn some of the specific functions like audio sweetening effects and transitions, and you’re pretty much all set. At this point, if you’ve seen one audio/video timeline, you’ve seen them all.

It is indeed powerful and feature-rich, and Cinescore includes a bunch of royalty-free sound effects and loops that you can use at your own will. The software also allows you to export your finished work to ATRAC, AVI, MOV, MP3, OGG, RM, WAV, WMA, WMV, DVD, MPEG-2 and PSP/iPod-friendly MPEG-4.

Cinescore includes interactive tutorials and help files if you do get stuck. Other video editing titles give you some of Cinescore’s functionality, but give this solid option a try.

Features:

• Automatically generates music to match any time duration
• Video scoring track and real-time preview window
• Includes 20 fully customizable Themes in multiple genres
• 16-bit, 44.1 KHz song quality for exceptional performance
• Powerful user-defined settings yield unlimited musical results

Quick hits:

Publisher: Sony Creative Software
Developer: Sony Creative Software
Platform: Windows/PC
Genre: Audio/Video utility
Launch Date: May 12, 2006

Usefulness: 4 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

Sound Forge is Sony’s professional digital audio production suite. Long considered one of the frontrunners in its class, SF has garnered much attention and has won the hearts of many with a well-polished user interface and lots of attention to detail.

THE MEAT

Probably the biggest new feature in SF9 is its ability to directly record and handle audio streams of up to 32 separate channels. What this means is that you can, for example, capture an entire 5.1 surround sound stream in one pass, whereas previously, you’d have to break the stream into three pairs of tracks and record them separately, synchronizing them after the fact. It’s something of a wonder that this feature wasn’t introduced a long time ago. In this day and age of DVDs and 3D games with cinematic soundtracks, producers are increasingly finding themselves to be dealing with greater-than-stereo mix scenarios, and Sound Forge’s previous two channel limitation was a thorn in the side that many weren’t willing to bear.

While the phrase that would come to most people’s minds in a case like this would be “better late than never,” Sony was obviously not satisfied to hide behind this excuse and used the time effectively to do things right, rather than simply tweaking a few functions to hack in multiple channels in a few places. They took the effort to modify the supporting features of the program to cope with the new information properly, so that things like the spectrum analyzer and mix meter would be capable of showing frequency and phase cancellation issues across the composite of all channels simultaneously.

Additionally, the mix capabilities are appropriately flexible and aren’t arbitrarily limited to stereo-based notions of left and right, enabling you to crossfade and bleed any channel into several others at once so that you can precisely position things when merging down or spreading up. If that’s not enough, they also put in enhanced drag-and-drop between channels and files, and added support for exporting and saving into over half a dozen multichannel file formats, with support for over two dozen formats overall.

In addition to multichannel capabilities, SF9 now comes with Quicktime/MPEG, Noise Reduction 2.0 and the iZotope mastering effects bundle as part of the standard package, which is a significant value boost over the previous version, considering all three are worth a couple hundred dollars by themselves.

The iZotope set is particularly interesting, giving you an EQ, reverb, compressor and limiter, all with real-time graphs and meters that show you exactly what you’re working with (the multiband compressor looks especially useful). Effects also have highly configurable wet/dry mix and crossfade options now, and along with all the multichannel support comes the ability to use multichannel VST pluggins too.

Last but not least, we also get integration with the Gracenote MusicID Media Recognition Service, so you don’t have to waste time manually typing in id3 tag information when extracting songs from audio CDs.

LAST WORDS

Sound Forge version 9 is definitely a major step forward for the program. With its current feature set and price (and now Windows Vista compatibility as well), it offers a very attractive package that’s well worth considering and should be on the radar of both owners of previous versions, and anyone new who’s just getting into the business.

Roxio Popcorn is an all-in-one multimedia ripping tool.

Of course, they don’t like to use the word ripping — Roxio prefer’s “popping.” Hence the name.

But Popcorn is a versatile conversion tool that works for non-encrypted DVD’s, disc images and VIDEO_TS file folders. As long as your DVD’s aren’t protected (so forget about most Hollywood films) you can backup and import a wide variety of movies.

The new version is compatible with TivoToGo to work with your favorite recorded television shows. You can also preview your selectons in real-time and free up space on your MAC by exporting EyeTV videos to DVD discs.

Popcorn has a useful feature called Fit-to-DVD, which squeezes a video down to size so that it will fit on one disc — up to four hours of DVD-quality video.

Finally, Popcorn 3 is Dolby Digital and Apple TV friendly and can convert for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP and BlackBerry and Treo devices.

It’s a good, solid utility, again it can not rip copy protected DVD’s, but if you’re looking to do some real video manipulation, pop away.

Publisher: Roxio
Developer: Roxio
Platform: Mac
Genre: Utility
MSRP: $49.99

System Requirements

• Macintosh computer with PowerPC G4, G5, or Intel® processor
• Mac OS X v10.4.10 or higher
• 300 MB of free disk space to install
• Up to 15 GB of temporary free disk space during usage
• QuickTime 7.1.6 or higher

Optional:

• DVD burner and recording media
• Apple TVâ„¢, Video iPod®, or iPhoneâ„¢
• BlackBerry® device with MPEG-4 video support
• Palm® Treoâ„¢ 680, 700p, or 755p with video support
• Xbox 360â„¢, PlayStation® 3, or PSPâ„¢
• EyeTV video recorder or Turbo.264 video encoder hardware

* TiVoToGo requires a TiVo® Series2â„¢ or other TiVoToGo compatible DVR connected directly to your Mac or to your home network. This will not work with DIRECTV with TiVo DVRs. See www.tivo.com for more information.

Supported Formats

Input formats:

• DVD Disc, disc image file, or VIDEO_TS Folder
• All QuickTime video formats, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI, DivX, VOB, EyeTV Recordings, and TiVoToGo transfers

Output formats:

• DVD disc or disc image file
• MPEG-4, H.264, or DivX files

DVD formats:

• Single and multiple movies and extras
• Multi-channel Dolby® Digital audio
• Multi-language audio
• NTSC and PAL video
• 16:9 widescreen and 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratios

Parallels allows Intel-processor Macs to emulate an x86 system. This allows them to run all versions of Windows and even Linux.

Pre-Windows 2000 support is questionable in Parallels. Windows 98 and below will run but won’t have any of the integration features. Parallels 3.0 represents some major improvements in that area. There is now some support for 3D applications. Snapshots are also supported. This allows the user to install software try it out and then revert to an earlier snapshot if they don’t like it. Parallels also supports multiple operating system installs.

Installing Parallels is effortless. It will install Windows from either an ISO image or an original CD. XP stills need to be activated, which can be a pain.

The Snapshot manager works well. It takes a bit of time to revert to an earlier image, and the software will warn the user that any work done since the last image was taken will be removed. Running the virtual machine though doesn’t seem to have taken any more of an impact on the system than before they had snapshots. The snapshot manager will work with a paused virtual machine or a shut down virtual machine. This worked nice when trying to install games to test their new 3D features. With a snapshot, the games are gone as if they never existed.

The 3D features were a little less impressive. Some did run but not all the ones the developers claimed, and some were painfully slow. Half Life 2 wouldn’t even start and complained about a problem with the shading engine.

Scorched Earth 3D did run, but was very slow. There was a noticeable difference between Parallels and a native Windows environment. Parallels 3.0′s support for 3D is a big step in the right direction, but it still needs work, or even faster machines for better games and applications.

Parallels has lots of other nice features that have been around since previous versions.

The Coherence Mode makes the the Windows applications look and feel like they are actually running native inside Mac OSX. The Windows task bar is put above the apple dock.

The virtual machine can be suspended at any time, this means that there is no time required to start it back up when you need to pause it and come back to something later, or your done using windows and don’t want to wait for it to boot next time.

The virtual machine also supports USB. It allows a device to be tied to either the host Mac OS or to parallels. This is nice for devices that don’t have Mac drives yet.

Overall, Parallels is a great piece of software. Its support for games may be lacking right now, but it will improve with time, and Parallels has shown to be well supported and patched by its developer. It’s a solid buy for dual OS users.