The Download Blog

Windows 7: RTM in pictures

The official release of Microsoft Windows 7 has earned an Outstanding rating from CNET, and in this gallery you'll see why. Whether this is your first time looking at Windows 7 or you've been testing the operating system since the beta release in January, this slideshow is a comprehensive look at what Windows 7 offers.

Firefox 3.5 slideshow

Firefox 3.5 (for Windows, Windows Portable, Mac, or Linux) forges ahead with strong developer support, but most improvements for casual users will probably strike them as minor. See what's new for the second-most popular browser in this slideshow.

Animoto, the DIY-music-video-meets-slideshow tool, has released a new version of its iPhone app that brings it a little closer to its desktop counterpart.

Users of its paid premium service can now create and watch full-length videos right on their phone. Previously, users (both free and paid) were limited to 30-second clips consisting of just 16 shots. The new version allows you to create versions of as many as you want--or at least whatever photos can fit inside the length of the song you've chosen.

Anything you create on the iPhone can now be shared through Animoto.com and vice versa. So, if you've created something neat on your computer that you want to share while out and about, you now can. The app denotes videos made on the site with little A's that get stuck in front of the filename. And back on Animoto's site, there's now a special section in your videos list that separates the videos you've made on your phone into their own section.

The app also lets you download any videos you've created directly to your phone for offline viewing, which means you can play them back even if you're in the depths of a concrete bunker. This is by far the most important feature in an app like this, and something that should have been included in the very first version.

Future versions of the app may allow non-pro-users of Animoto to create one-off, full-length slideshows on their phones with in-app micropayments--something that's arrived with iPhone OS 3.0. However, that could take an additional paid version, since apps that started out as free cannot include Apple's in-app payment system. In the meantime, this version makes Animoto's $30 annual paid premium service a little more enticing for users who already have an iPhone.

Paying pro users can now create full-length videos, while everyone can download their creations for viewing offline.

(Credit: Animoto / CNET)

(Credit: TuneUp)

Often, asking Windows do your bidding is like disciplining a two-year-old child. You'll get your way in the end, but only after some resistance.

These six top-rated Windows applications optimize XP and Vista--everything from managing the programs that launch on start-up to freeing up your RAM cycles, to plucking out broken links in your Registry.

Have your way with Windows

Moblyng's interface for the iPhone pretties things up nicely.

(Credit: Eric Franklin/CNET Networks)

I'm not one for sharing or even creating photo slide shows, honestly. I have nothing against it, really, and I love looking at other people's slide shows. My biggest pet peeve, though, is that there are so many different services, and each one requires a log-in.

I may have registered at the Kodak slide-show site three years ago, but no one has sent me a Kodak slide show in that time. So now that someone finally is, I don't even remember my password for this site!

Anyway, there are many who are into slide shows, so they'll be happy to know that Moblyng (looks like it's pronounced "Mobling," to me) has launched a new slide-show app for the iPhone. With it, users can create and share slide shows for display on iPhones, other smartphones, and social media sites.

Users can:

• Create a slide show using the photos on their iPhone (Photo Library or Camera Roll)
• Enhance slide shows with animated effects and transitions
• Share slide shows to other iPhones or any Web-enabled, video-supporting phone, or smartphone
• Post slide shows as a Flash Embed to social media sites like MySpace
• Post slide shows to m.moblyng.com for future sharing

Moblyng is available at the App Store for free. My impressions so far are that it's easy to use and has some nice features like skins for surrounding your slides hows with clouds, and choosing a theme that your photos will be viewed in (photo stack, slider zoom, etc.).

I was able to create a quick slide show and send it to a friend's iPhone that did not have the app installed. He received a link, followed it, and was still able to view my slide show.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Do you want a simple way to bring life to your photos? Photo to Movie is a fairly basic concept which adds drama to average photographs. Once you have your chosen photo, use the intuitive tool set to choose your starting and ending frames to create a camera path across the image. The end result is a slow motion pan across a photograph or several photographs, making for excellent slide shows with extremely smooth animations. You can even add music to make it more dramatic. If you're looking for a way to make a photo DVD, a personalized screensaver, or a new way to present a favorite photo, Photo to Movie offers an easy and unexpectedly dramatic solution.

Choose from several options to bring your still images to life.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Still not convinced? Download Photo to Movie and Read our review.

For most of us, checking into work on your vacation isn't any fun, but if it's a matter of no vacation or a tampered one, we'll help you find the most efficient ways to do your duty, so you can get back to doing...well, anything else. For the rest of you who are prone to nervous behavoiral ticks if you're away from your work for too long, these tools will equip you with a mini mobile office for your own brand of paradise.

Along with "What's the best free video-editing software?" one of the most frequent questions I receive from CNET Download.com users is, "How can I put my photos on a DVD that anyone can watch?" For everyone whom I wasn't able to respond to personally, here's a quick overview.

First off, the most important issue is the DVD player for which you're creating the slide show. Many DVD players nowadays don't need a specially formatted disc to view digital pictures, and some have built-in slide-show features for viewing JPEG images. The best way to find out is to actually try it. Burn a DVD full of digital images (I personally use CDBurnerXP), fire up your DVD player with your new disc, and see what happens.

If your player can read JPEG and AVI files from a regular data DVD, you're on Easy Street. There are numerous free digital-photo-management apps that will create AVI files of your images for burning to DVD. Google's Picasa is an excellent choice. Windows Movie Maker (included free in XP and Vista) is another solid free solution for creating AVI slideshows.

The rub, of course, is that not all DVD players can read AVI or JPEG files. In order to view your slide show on these less-helpful DVD players, you'll need to convert your AVI slide show to a VOB file, and, for maximum compatibility, you'll probably want DVD information files (IFO) and their sometimes necessary backups (BUP).

It's difficult to find VOB encoding in a free DVD slide-show burner. In fact, I don't know of one. If you do, please tell me about it. Luckily, there are several afforable commercial apps that can perform the nitty-gritty work of burning DVD slide shows.

The most famous and most powerful software is likely Nero, which includes a massive amount of slide-show-authoring options for photo DVDs. If you don't need all of the audio and video functionality included in the full suite, Nero PhotoShow Deluxe offers a cheaper alternative for creating DVD slide shows.

Another popular option is VSO Software's simply named PhotoDVD app. The interface and features are sparser than Nero; it's simply a bare-bones program that gets the job done. Nero has a 15-day trial for PhotoShow Deluxe, while the free PhotoDVD trial lets you create slide shows with up to 100 images.

What do you all use to create slide shows for watching on your TV via DVD? Can your players handle JPEG and AVI files, or have you been forced into the wild world of video conversion? Tell me about it in the comments.

Mobile app publishers are obsessed with creating the fast, flawless mechanism to deliver content to mobile phones. That's great news for users, whose choices for accessing content through apps, browsers, or feed readers grow daily. Viigo for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 5 and 6 is a new contender. See the screenshot-by-screenshot blow in this Viigo slide show.

Incidentally, I've used Ilium Screen Capture (review) to nab my images. It's a great little program for Windows Mobile.