Software

Over the last few years, affordable DVD and CD recording technology has given us all the power to produce and distribute digital content. Like millions of other Americans, you may have created CDs filled with digital photos to share with family and friends, or perhaps you've even created DVDs containing your camcorder footage. If you haven't gotten in on the personal content revolution yet, now's the time to take the leap. New technologies are making it easier than ever before to create professional quality productions without any special training or skills.

Recording DVDs and CDs at home is easy. Most of today's computers include a pre-installed DVD and CD recording drive, and recording software. After firing up the software, selecting the files you want to record, and loading a blank disc into the drive, you simply click the software's record button. A few minutes later, out slides your fully recorded disc, ready to share with the world.

But wait. As great as the content you've recorded on the disc might be, there's one final piece missing. You need to label the disc. You don't want to just scribble some notes on the surface with a marker -- that wouldn't impress anyone. You need a labeling solution that looks more professional. Read more

By Jeff Zbar 
www.chiefhomeofficer.com

In the age of the Internet, the ability to manage data and personal stuff - from your own PC or from a public terminal somewhere - is vital. It’s not just about business; it’s about having a rewarding online experience - whether that means being able to access your data from a client’s office or just open a browser and pop in on a home page that’s memorable, familiar and comfortable. For just as the HP commercials say about the computer, the Internet should be personal again.

I’ve long had a gmail account (the free email service from Google). But I’ve used it mostly as a safe-deposit box for email. I would Copy/Forward all inbound email to gmail, and rest easy knowing some 2.8 gigs of my email and attachments are duplicated and backed up out there should I need to fetch one in a pinch (like if I accidentally delete an email from my Inbox, or if I want to show someone an attachment when I’m not in my home office). Yet with the woes my ISP has been having, I’ve sworn off their service. So gmail will become my primary email service. Read more

Ah…the joys of business travel. Once again I was grounded at DFW because of thunderstorms after three days of meetings in New York City. I could have done my trip reports, but I simply wasn’t in the mood. I wanted to let my brain unwind, but watching the CNN repeats on the airport monitors wasn’t on my wishlist. Having two hours to kill, I decided to test the new notebook add-on I had bought for my son at Best Buy for his return to college. He had put in his request for a flat screen TV and stereo system, but I found something that seemed to be just the ticket for his school apartment and a heck of a lot less expensive.

It was Pinnacle’s PCTV HD Pro Stick, the packaging claimed it would do it all – anytime, anywhere. Standard and high-def TV viewing; DVR time-shifting; pause, rewind, fast-forward functions; even the ability to grab area radio stations. About the size of a standard USB flash drive, it seemed difficult to believe that the little device, plus the telescoping antenna and mini IR remote, could turn his new notebook computer into a complete entertainment center. Read more

There’s an old saying that if all you have is a hammer…everything looks like a nail.

It may be true in the building of your house but when you’re building your multimedia content library, everything is different and everything seems to require a different tool. That has meant loading, learning and using a wide range of software and then hoping you can find the content – audio, photo, video – when you wanted to share or enjoy it.

The InterVideo MediaOne Gallery puts an end to your cluttered media center desktop and stores your content so it can be quickly found and used. It is a new category of content suite software that lets you access nine different applications from a single opening screen. Read more

Video is everywhere today: MP3 players, smart phones, PDAs, pocket PCs, viral video found on websites like YouTube … the list goes on. And there are music downloads, and don’t forget your digital pictures. While storage is increasingly becoming more of an issue, the portability of all this data is more pressing: How do you easily transfer your content from your PC to your mobile device? There are people in this world who know the right formats, codecs and frame rates to move a video file to a portable device with ease, and then there’s the rest of us. Read more

Can you get the video of your kid’s winning soccer goal from your computer to your Treo? Or how about the video clips from that office birthday party where your coworkers did the unthinkable? Can you get that onto your video iPod? Lots of people can’t, and all those great images go unseen.

Victor Lue-Yat has seen the gamut of data-conscious computer users. Most back up their data and remove back-up tapes or other media - when they remember to do so. One was concerned what another Hurricane Wilma would do to his data. But it was a 30,000-gallon flood in the office that trashed the back-up tapes that were forgotten in his PC one weekend.

"Hurricanes seemed to wake everyone up, but it's the mistakes and accidents that cause more damage and losses to computer data," said Lue-Yat, founder and CEO of DocuBlue Corporation, a Sunrise, Fla.,-based creator of the DocuBackup.com document back-up solution.

IT professionals only half-jokingly divide computer users into two camps: Those who have lost data, and those who will. Of 185 business people surveyed last year, 69 percent of respondents said they had experienced data loss due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses, fire, lightning strike or some other disaster, according to Carbonite Inc., an online back-up and storage service. Read more

Be the envy of all the guys at your weekly game with the complete do-it-yourself kit for creating your own custom poker chips. For poker players who want personalize a new, or their existing set of chips; the original poker chip customizer comes with easy install software, including clip art and templates. Simply choose photos to personalize your chips and set them to print on the individual labels supplied (compatible with all inkjet printers). Read more

Growing up, many people had television consoles that were a marvel of home electronics. People had their TV, radio and stereo all in one cabinet. Today, you can experience the same excitement when you set up a Windows Vista-based PC. The capabilities of Microsoft Windows Media Center have changed the way we find, record, view, download and access our digital entertainment. Hook up a Windows Vista-based PC to your cable TV line, high-speed home Internet network, big-screen TV and stereo system, to navigate through your favorite television programs, schedule recordings, view vacation photos, play video games and listen to your favorite tunes -- all from the home computer. Read more

Our daughter sat on the edge of her bed sobbing uncontrollably. Her friends stared at her notebook’s blue screen. She had accidentally hit the wrong key while showing them the shots she had taken on our dive vacation in Kauai. The entire folder was gone. Her brother volunteered his underwater shots but that was no consolation. She had some special turtle, monk seal and nudibranch shots…his shots didn’t compare in her mind. We reminded her that we had her photos on our system as well so everything was not lost. Nothing is better for a father than a “thank you, thank you, thank you” hug from your daughter. But it made us think that we had better plan for a disaster we couldn’t recover from and find a backup solution for all of the systems in the house. So we did a little research.

Turns out according to Contingency Planning Research most computer problems are user error (50%) while 20% of the losses are caused by hardware/software error. Everything else was a distant problem – natural disaster, fire, even theft.

Our kids are like most teen-agers and in fact most PC users. They have a lot of video content on their systems. While the RIAA (record industry) and MPAA (Hollywood) might look at them and see rampart pirates, the kids could really care less about their stuff…it is all about them. Read more

As the Microsoft's Widows Vista operating system continues to make its mark in the marketplace, computer users around the globe are anticipating the increased hardware requirements that the system will need. Graphics cards, increased CPU size, and larger RAM requirements are just a few of the many areas that experts are warning users about. This is especially noteworthy for businesses, who will likely be forced to make the upgrade in order to remain competitive whether they want to or not. The issue, says Cari Diaz of Fast-Teks' On-Site Computer Service, is less focused on the Vista system itself than it is on installation.

Fast-teks is a nationwide, on-site computer service company which specializes in both residential and business hardware installation and maintenance. Companies such as Fast-teks have put together several recommendations for consumers interested in running the Windows Vista system, many of which are aimed at upgrading existing systems on PC's. Read more