New PhotoSuite Is Awesome

HAVE been using MGI Photosuite 8.1 this past year. But now comes the amazing MGI PhotoSuite Platinum Edition Version 4.0 to make life both easier and more exciting.

The upgrade has powerful editing tools that allow you to repair and restore, crop, and of course eliminate red eye.

It comes with free photos, props and fonts to customize your output. Using the built-in templates, you can create cards, calendars, flyers, stationery and other projects for home or business.

The special effects for your photos are awesome, including warp, ripple, splatter, painterly, mirage and more.

You can organize and store photos in customized electronic albums. You retrieve photos with the keyword search, and create stunning slide shows with sound effects, voice-overs and music. Awesome, right?

PhotoSuite Platinum build Web sites with your photos, links and audio files. You’re helped along with a variety of Web page templates to choose from.

With one click you can email photos and slide shows to family and colleagues – without leaving PhotoSuite. You wouldn’t want to leave PhotoSuite with so much to do and so little time. Price is $49.95 but you’ll get $10 off by ordering direct at www.roxio.com.

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Animated Pictures
With 3D-Album

UST by pointing and clicking, you can create animated photo albums using dozens of different 3D presentation styles. We’re talking 3D-Album for Windows from Micro Research Institute. No more viewing and sharing your digital/scanned photos one by one.

Select a photo folder from the image management software, then drag and drop photos in the sequence you prefer. Choose the presentation style that suits the subject matter. There are 23 different styles, and more on the 3D-Album website.

Choices range from an animated 3D oval frame that spins to reveal a new photo at every rotation to a hot air balloon full of photos soaring over scrolling mountains.

You can even include music, text and/or voiceover. You can create screensavers from your own pictures.

Finished albums can be copied onto CDs, uploaded to web pages, sent as email attachments, or turned into custom screensavers in which the images spin, rotate, dissolve, curl, explode and otherwise stay in constant motion.  Family and friends can enjoy the show without installing any special software on their PCs.

Business users can create presentations with their company logo, product photos or other business images to entertain customers or employees before a meeting.

3D-Album comes with two CDs. One is for the program and the other contains a demo and a 20-minute tutorial. Priced at $39.95 at select retailers or www.3D-album.com.

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One of a Kind Camera
Does 3 Different Tasks

HIS is a digital camera/video recorder/voice recorder all in one. The DC 3300 from Argus Camera Company is one of the smallest video and voice digital cameras in the market.

It can record up to four hours of voice recordings and five-minute videos.

The camera, which fits neatly in the palm of your hand, needs four AAA 1.5 batteries, which are not included. It takes a Smart Media Card (SMC), which is also not included – but you don’t need one.

An SMC increases the memory of the camera. Without an SMC installed, pictures are stored in the camera’s 32MB of internal memory.

The camera is so easy to use, it’s a joy.

The manual of 25 pages is conveniently small, so it fits in your pocket, ready to be referred to any time. It is organized nicely, and very accessible.

Price is under $200.

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Is Rally Racing in Your Blood?

LEAN the windshield, check the oil pressure, strap yourself in for the ride of your life. That’s how you’ll feel with RalliSport Challenge, Microsoft’s exciting arcade-style racing game for your Xbox video game system.

You’re in the driver’s seat and on the track, with all the sensation of mud, snow, rain and dirt of off-road Rally racing.

RalliSport Challenge gives you four distrinctly different types of racing, with more than 25 famous rally cars, packed with advanced graphics and audio.

Up to four players can compete at the same time. There’s nothing like the thrill of racing head to head with close friends and humiliating them.

Priced at $49.99. See it at www.rallisportchallenge.com.

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