ObjectCube has just announced what they claim is the most comprehensive download to DVD software on the market.

This software is already in use by some of the bigger programs and is now being offered to studios and video-on-demand providers that are looking to deliver direct-download services to their customers.

ObjectCube Chief Executive Officer Jay Janarthanan says “All they have to do is take a DVD from the shelf, use our software to create an image, and from that image they create a downloadable format. You get all the menus and chapters and everything you would on a regular DVD, but without all the re-encoding,” he says. “It’s the next step in technological evolution.”

In a few cases, users might only be able to burn single copies of movies, or they will not be allowed to download to DVD if it’s been 30 days since a title was purchased. It will be up to each studio or VOD provider to determine which restrictions may apply.

“There are a lot of things happening in the next few years: You’re going to have set-top box players with Internet connections, and you’ll be able to download movies onto your hard drives. But, until that happens in the U.S., this is a great substitute for the next two or three years.” says Jay.

This announcement follows ObjectCube’s release of Version 6 of their Download Manager, which allows users to download large movies at up to 1000 times faster than is allowed by the browsers.

For more information contact Jay((at))ObjectCube.com, or visit the ObjectCube web site.

PANDO LETS PEOPLE SIMPLY EMAIL HOME MOVIES, FOLDERS OF PHOTOS AND OTHER LARGE FILES PRIVATELY AND SECURELY

This week Pando Networks Inc. announced a first-of-its-kind solution for sharing digital media - movies, folders of photos and business presentations - previously too large to send via email.

Pando is a small, free, downloadable application that lets people send large personal media using existing email addresses. Pando users can attach files of up to 1GB, creating no need to sacrifice quality with compression. With Pando, large files are sent privately, securely and directly from one person’s computer to another using the familiar and unrivaled standard for sending files - email.

Pando is the first peer-to-peer/email hybrid of its kind; Pando combines the distribution efficiencies of peer-to-peer technology with the asynchronous “send-and-forget” paradigm of email. Using expanded BitTorrent technology, the Pando application bypasses email servers and clogged inboxes to transport large files and folders directly from senders’ to recipients’ computers.

“Every computer user has experienced the frustration of trying to send large files via email,” said Robert Levitan, Pando co-founder and CEO. “Pando’s intuitive, drag-and-drop interface allows users to send personal media - files and folders - to anyone with an email address, regardless of his or her computing skill level. As a viral product with great consumer benefit, Pando can accelerate the sharing of home videos, photos and large business documents over the Internet for users worldwide.”

Pando is targeted the vast majority of people who don’t have the time or inclination to maintain a social network or don’t feel comfortable posting their personal photos and videos to a public Web site. However, this new service has real potential for those working in the adult business. One use that immediately comes to mind is the delivery of content. With this new technology, content suppliers can easily ship product to their consumers.

To use this service both parties must have the free Pando software installed.

There never seems to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. A good set of tools can shorten the time it takes to accomplish many of your daily tasks, freeing you to concentrate on other things.

CompuPic Pro has been a real time saver, and favorite of mine for managing photos. The most powerful component, of the Pro version of this software, is its ability to manipulate an entire gallery of photos at one time. You can point it at a collection of photos and make a variety of changes. In one pass it will resize, sequentially rename, adjust contrast or brightness, sharpen, set .jpg compression, watermark, and rotate all the photos you have selected.

Frequently used set ups can be saved and used again, such as generating thumbnails or resizing the full sized images in a gallery. CompuPic Pro also has a separate batch file renaming utility that comes in very handy for simple batch renaming tasks.

CompuPic Pro is one of many photo management packages on the market today. If you are looking for a tool like this, it’s well worth taking the 15 day free trial.

A favorite tool of mine is JPEG Optimizer. It does a nice job of crunching the file size of .jpg photos by as much as 50%. You can work with one file at a time, or point it at a group of files. A nice feature is the ability to compress, even more, specific areas of an image. This is handy when you have a lot of leaves, grass, brick or other items in the photo that drive up its file size. You can add more compression to those areas while leaving the model untouched.

Check out this tool, and others, at http://www.xat.com/jpegopt/index.html

Premiumbeat.com, a new provider of high quality royalty-free music, announced today that their online service is now in full operation. Premiumbeat.com offers music for new media and traditional productions. All music files are downloadable instantly. The new site targets web designers, Flash animation developers, and video production companies looking for royalty-free music.

Fake Pagerank scams are becoming more and more common on the web. Scam artists usually hang out in forums or chat rooms, looking for inexperienced people to prey on. Often times they will act like the inexperienced web user, asking advice about what they should do with their high pagerank site. EBay is another place where sites with fake pagerank are sold.

For someone who knows how to do it, faking pagerank is quite easy. In effect, someone is basically telling Google that the web site my-low-pagerank-site.com is no longer at the address, and that the new address is someone-elses-high-pagerank-site.com. Google then displays all of the information (including Pagerank) for someone-elses-high-pagearnk-site.com for my-low-pagerank-site.com.

Now for anyone looking at my-low-pagerank-site.com in a browser with the Google toolbar, the pagerank now shows the value of someone-elses-high-pagearnk-site.com.

SEOLogs.com has developed a tool combat this problem. The Fake PageRank Detection / Pagerank Fraud tool (http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html) can help anyone to know for certain if the Pagerank value of a site is valid. Simply enter the URL in question. For example, enter my-low-pagerank-site.com, and the tool will show that the true identity and Pagerank for this site belongs to someone-elses-high-pagearnk-site.com.

Before purchasing a domain name, or a link on a website claiming to have any Pagerank, you should check the Fake PageRank Detection / Pagerank Fraud tool (http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html) first.

Source: PRWEB

Ever have a bunch of .mpeg movie files that you would like to convert to .wmv? I’ve found a package that will convert a wide range of video formats, and it will do them in batch! While there are other packages out there, I found River Past Video Cleaner does a good job. It’s easy to learn and reasonably stable. They offer a free trial, and for 30 bucks you can’t go wrong on the price.

I made a discovery the other day that I just have to share with everyone. 409 Orange Power Wipes do a fantastic (pun) job cleaning computer and other electronic components. I’m talking keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, speakers, phone, calculator, and any other office item that gets dirty over time.

In the past I used spray cleaners, paper towels and Q-tips to clean these items. Most tedious, and time consuming was the keyboard. Too much liquid could cause permanent damage, so I had to go slow and use care not to get any liquid down inside.

The other day I decided to try these 409 Wipes. I wasn’t expecting much, but figured what the hell, it’s worth a try. I started on my keyboard and quickly discovered these wipes are the best thing since sliced bread!

The wipes are moist, not dripping wet, so you don’t have to worry about any liquid running down into a component. And the dirt comes right off, usually in the first pass. Needless to say, I went wild with these things, cleaning everything in sight. Nothing was safe! My cat ran and hid under the bed thinking she might be next.

I know this is sounding like a Tide commercial, but I’m really jazzed about these little wipes. Right now they top my list of new discoveries in 2005.