Software

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

Lorne Fisher knew there had to be a better way.

When clients in Europe and South Florida alike couldn't easily download large files from his FTP server, Fisher was left in the lurch. Work ground to a halt, potentially dragging down projects and his professional image along with them.

So last fall, Fisher signed up for YouSendIt.com. The service allows users to upload large files or zipped documents up to two gigabytes in size. On the other end, recipients download the file without clogging their e-mail inbox or suffering through FTP woes. It certainly beats e-mailing files, he said. Read more

For our kids email is so yesterday. They’ve even gotten tired of text IMing (instant messaging). Now that they both have installed Skype they’d much rather use their notebook Webcams and talk to folks around town, around the globe. Frankly we like the cost of Skype calls as well! But they wanted to do more than just stare into the camera and talk.

Our web surfing son found a product called YouCam on the Cyberlink web site and with a two user license costing under $50 it seemed to give them the added punch for their web chats plus a lot of other neat stuff.

Loading and enabling YouCam was surprisingly simple once you understand the inner workings of your IM software. We had it up and running on their Windows notebooks in a couple of minutes. Read more

I am one of those people who literally saves every single receipt from all financial transactions. I then enter the transaction into my check register… then into Quicken and then… into an Excel spreadsheet. Then… every receipt is placed into a file folder for several years in case I need the receipt for any reason. Yes — this is a lot of work! I am now saved because NeatReceipts has developed the Scanalizer to simplify this laborious task I put myself through each and every day.

The process is made easy with NeatReceipts latest version of their Scanalizer. After scanning the receipt the software can recognize the numbers (truly amazing on this front) on the receipt and move them into an easy to read spreadsheet format. Then, the information can be exported into Quicken, Quickbooks, Excel, Word, Money and many more. The scanned receipt is also saved as its own file. Scanalizer creates a permanent record of up to 800,000 receipts in PDF format that can be searched in one secure location. Read more

For some compelling reason you really want to move the timeshifted TV show or latest video content from your PC to your mobile device -- iPod...Smartphone...PSP...Zune...you name it.

With Pinnacle's new Mobile Media Converter software it doesn't have to be a pain and doesn't have to be expensive. The software lets you take content -- even if you're running Vista -- with you wherever life takes you. $29.99. www.pinnaclesys.com

How cool would it be to make your own The Golden Compass...mixing your own animation/real life content? How about expressing the real you in SecondLife and bringing in your own controlled environment -- animals, vehicles, people, buildings? Adding your own action/figures into TV shows you've captured? Reallusion's iClone is your own virtual movie studio that lets you quickly (and easily) create your own characters and add your own special effects. Read more

iClone really lets you bring digital life to ...life! It's like an entire computer animation studio right on your system to create 3-D models of real people, bring places alive. Whether it's your games, your movies, your place in SecondLife, your videos on MySpace/YouTube/wherever.

Personal and personalized video content is not only more precious to people, it is quickly becoming the entertainment of choice as consumers buy and use lower-cost, high-performance camcorders; video-enabled cameras; web downloads and video-to-go personal media players (PMPs).

To put the fun back into video production and content distribution/sharing, Pinnacle Systems continues to expand the industry’s most widely known and used product line …the Studio family.

First Family of Video
Leading the cast are three versions of award-winning Studio 11 software -- Studio 11,under $50; Studio 11 Plus, MSRP $99; Studio 11 Ultimate, under $130.

With support for today’s advanced AVCHD format, the Plus and Ultimate versions of Pinnacle Studio enable users to capture video from AVCHD camcorders and immediately edit content --without requiring cumbersome, time-consuming format conversion. AVCHD delivers 1080i high-definition video requiring only half the storage capacity of MPEG 2. Videos edited in HDV or AVCHD format can be authored as HD DVD or AVCHD format discs using standard DVD media and played on the latest HD DVD and Blu-ray players. Read more

DC SEVEN, a new Audio Restoration and enhancement product from Enhancedaudio.com is now shipping. It is the newest incarnation of the world’s most popular Audio Restoration and Enhancement tools for PC computers. This new Hi-Def version offers users the ability to push filters far past the limits of standard restoration products in order to remove more noise from old vinyl and tape recordings.

New improvements and additions include:

Narrow Crackle filter is a new addition to the Filter Menu. This new filter tackles annoying crackle without introducing artifacts or inducing distortions. Improvements were also made which help the system be more precise when judging the difference between music and noise. It is especially evident when working with low-level recordings that have an impulsive noise floor. Read more

Most of your stuff today starts digital, stays digital...documents, data, photos, videos, music. Documents you can recreate with a little work. But...your photos? Your videos? Your music? Priceless!

That's why NTI has taken backup to the next level with the new Backup Now 5. It's so advanced it enables individual file/folder backup to virtually any system-attached drive including USB flash, mobile storage devices (micro drives), internal and external hard drives, NAS devices, and more.

For example, the Standard Edition includes file-level backups, 128/256-bit data encryption and password protection to email notification and migration. Unattended backups (full, incremental or differential) can be quickly set up using the easy-to-use scheduler. And, with the File Exclude / Include features, users can bypass or select specific file types from multiple folders for backup. Backup jobs can also be appended or overwritten. Read more

Skype this summer released Skype for Mac 2.6, the latest version of its communication software for Mac users. In addition to improved quality, stability and more features, the company has done something entirely new: for the first time, Mac users will be able to enjoy a new Skype feature before it's available to Windows users.

Skype has introduced a new call-transfer feature that is exclusive to the Mac platform. Users can now select More > Call Transfer to transfer an ongoing call to another Skype user on their contact list. This will be a useful feature for businesses and families alike. Read more

NTI just announced a complete digital audio management solution for Windows 2000, XP and Vista users – the NTI Ripper v2 Suite. The suite includes NTI Ripper v2, NTI Burner; and NTI Digital Jack. From now through September 23, 2007, NTI Ripper Suite will be available for the special launch price of only $19.99. Following the launch, the MSRP will be $29.99. Read more

NTI Ripper v2 has all of the features that have made the original version so popular with music enthusiasts, including the ability to carry out on-the-fly batch conversions of audio file formats on the user’s hard drive. With Ripper, there’s no need to manually name files. File Composer will automatically name the audio files by artist, song title, track number, and album name. In addition to supporting .MP3, .WMA, .WAV and OGG, NTI Ripper can be used to automatically rip and name an entire Audio CD to virtually any attached storage device, including portable MP3 players, flash media, fixed and removable hard drives, NAS devices, as well as U3 smart drives.