What's better than a free trial? Why, when something's free forever, of course!

While I agree with that statement on the Nero 9 Free Edition download page, I'm not going to recommend any of you rush over to download it. Why not? I've got eight reasons.

1. They're asking for your email before giving out the download link.
Not a huge deal, I know, but it's still annoying. I'd recommend using something other than your primary email address on the download page or something like OtherInbox. In addition to the setup file, "you will also begin receiving Nero News with the latest tips, special offers and technology info from Nero."

2. The installer bundles the Ask.com toolbar
Again, not a massive problem - you can always opt out by unchecking the boxes during setup. Regardless, bundled toolbars are always an irritation during installation.

3. Upon completion, the installer asks you to send anonymous data
It's opt-in, but it's the third piece of the "why do they give it away for nothing" puzzle. A new address for their mailing list, possible referral bucks from Ask, and maybe some anonymous usage info from you.

Most of my customers still think Nero and Roxio are the only people that make burning software. Most of you know better - there are tons of good, free burning applications for Windows. Here's a quick list of five that I enjoy using. If your favorite isn't mentioned, share it with us in the comments!

ImgBurn (pictured above)
Since most of my recording tasks involve ISO files or burning entire folders as a backup, ImgBurn has become my app of choice. It's small and easy to use, and I've yet to produce a coaster with it. It's also a great tool for creating ISO files - either from a disc or files and folders on your PC.

ImgBurn also gets bonus points for the random comments that appear in status bar.

See the rest after the jump!

I don't do a lot of ISO creation, so when I do find myself needing to compile an image I like a nice, uncomplicated app to get the job done.

Free ISO Creator's self-explanatory interface makes the process about as easy as it can get. Browse for files and folders to add, choose where you'd like your ISO to be saved, and click convert. It's speedy, compiling my test CD in about 12 seconds.

Bootable images can be created, and CD, DVD-5, and DVD-9 are supported, and you can also specify your ISO to be created as ISO 9660 or UDF. I'd get in to more detail, but this is a simple, straightforward app, and there's nothing at all tricky about using it.

Free ISO Creator is a 1mb free download for Windows only.

There are plenty of free CD/DVD burners for Windows, and to be honest we haven't often been tempted to look beyond CDBurnerXP and InfraRecorder, which both seem to handle pretty much any tasks you can throw at them. But while reading an article about BurnOn over at Life Rocks 2.0, we noticed a link in the comments to StarBurn. And while we might check out BurnOn later, we were kind of blown away by StarBurn.

The application can handle all of your basic tasks like burning data, audio, and video discs. It supports a wide variety of formats including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD. And it has some nifty features like the ability to either rip audio CDs or compress audio already on your computer to MP3, WMA, or OGG formats.

One StarBurn feature that you don't often see bundled with disc burning utilities is a virtual drive mounting application. In other words, you can use StarBurn to create a disc image or ISO file, and then mount that file as a virtual disc so you can see how it performs without actually burning the file to a disc and sticking it in a drive. This can come in handy if you want to see check an image before burning it, or if you want to mount an image you've created or downloaded on a system that doesn't have a working optical drive.

StarBurn is free unless you want the network version, which offers network burning features and costs a whopping $495. The full functionality is included in the free version, but you can only use the network features during a 30 day free trial period.

As you may have noticed, now might not exactly be the best time to get involved in the stock market. Sure, year over year, chances are you'll make money. But there's a good chance that if you throw a few thousand dollars into a mutual fund right now it might be worth less in 3 months than it is today. Fortunately, there's more than one way to turn your savings into more savings. And thanks to the internet, a couple of new opportunities have developed over the last few years.

First up, you might want to take a look at online savings accounts and CDs. Since banks like ING Direct don't have to spend a lot of money on bricks and mortar operations, they can offer higher interest rates than many traditional banks. And even many old school banks offer online accounts with higher interest rates than their traditional offerings.

But thanks to the recent economic downturn, many of these banks are lowering their interest rates. While you could easily open an account with a 5% interest rate a few months ago, you'll be lucky to find one over 3% now. If you're looking for another opportunity, albeit a riskier one, you might want to check out a new breed of financial transactions: social lending services like Prosper, Lending Club, or Zopa.

Looking for an inexpensive (read: free) alternative to the CD/DVD burning utilities currently dominating the market? BurnAware Free looks to fill that space nicely.

BurnAware is a free utility that enables you to perform most common disc burning tasks:

• Burn data to most any type of disc, including DVD+R and DVD-R
• Create audio CD's from WAV, mp3, or WMA files
• Create disk images (.ISO's)
• Write DVD video files (e.g. VOB files) to a DVD

The interface is very clean and easy to use. BurnAware has a simple home screen where you can see the different burning options. Once an option is selected, the home screen minimizes to the taskbar (similar to Nero and Roxio's functionality) and a new window is opened, allowing you to customize whatever function you selected.

An added bonus of BurnAware is support for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats (provided that you have the appropriate drive, of course). Though BurnAware supports both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, we found it peculiar that it only advertises Blu-Ray support. A pointed jab at HD-DVD, or simply an oversight? Only time will tell...

BurnAware Free is currently in beta, with support for Windows 98/NT/2000/XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit).

Mac OS X does a great job of integrating CD/DVD burning into the iLife suite and Finder, but LiquidCD unifies your disc-burning needs in one easy-to-use (and free!) program. LiquidCD lets you create basic audio CD's and data CD's or DVD's, but it also adds the handy ability to burn multiple disc image formats like .cue, .iso, and .dmg.

LiquidCD, which is available in 15 different languages, is a great alternative to Mac OS X's built-in burning tools, especially if you want to bypass iPhoto or iTunes so you can burn a simple project. You may have a folder of songs on your USB drive that you don't want added to your iTunes library. With LiquidCD you can plug your drive in, select the songs you want to be burned, and have a CD burning in seconds.

Online music retailer AnywhereCD is closing down within the next few days. The online retailer took a different approach toward music sales than pretty much anybody else around. The company's business model was based around selling CDs and throwing in free MP3 downloads. Or maybe it was the other way around.

If you ask us, there were two fatal flaws in the plan:

1. They were selling DRM-free tracks, which kept many record labels from signing on (they had only managed to get a contract with Universal).
2. They were hardly adding any value to your CD purchase, since anyone who buys a CD can rip their own MP3s just as easily as they can download them from the internet.

Anyway, AnywhereCD never really caught on, and plans to shut down as soon as its contract with Universal expires. In the meantime, the site is having an "everything must go" sale, which means you can pick up complete albums for $7 a piece. But you'll have to navigate a pretty difficult site to find the music you're looking for. You can browse by genre or search by band name. But if you're not sure the artists you're looking for are on the Universal Label, good luck.
[via paidContent and socalTECH]

Seems that we forgot to wish our good friend 'Compact Disk' a happy birthday on August 17th. It was that day in 1982 that the first CD was manufactured at a Philips factory in Langenhagen Germany, close to Hanover.

Sony and Philips worked together to develop this new technology as a shift away from analog and into digital recordings leading to the eventual launch of the DVD and Blu-ray media technologies. This technological revolution sparked a big change for the music industry, skyrocketing music prices among other things. Since then there has been over 200 billion CD's sold, with Polygram holding the title of the first CD for ABBA's The Visitors album. However, people couldn't listen to them because the first CD players hit the Japanese shelves three months later, with the US and Europe not seeing them until March of 1983.

The computer virus also celebrated its 25th birthday earlier this year. So one thing we need, and one thing we definitely do not.

Many years ago, car manufacturers emphasized only new features to entice new buyers. Then some time in the early 90's car safety became important and car manufacturers put safety features top of the selling points for new model.

I feel that right now Web 2.0 service providers are operating like those car manufacturers before the shift to car safety.

Ever since the infant days of the internet, people have been putting more and more data online (emails, newsgroup posts and IRC conversations) without giving it any thought. But in the Web 2.0 age we are leaving behind a trail of data much more personal than ever before. We tell people about our lives, our thoughts, and where we've been with our photos (some even tagged with geo-data).

After years of successful topics and entries that everyone has had the ability to contribe to, the online free encyclopedia is finally going offline.

Ok, so it's not going offline in the traditional sense of shutting down, Wikipedia has created a DVD version of Wikipedia, with close to 2,000 hand picked articles from a group of academics and Wikipedia staff.

The CD is selling for $13.99, which seems like a rather high price for something that can be accessed for free online. But hey, if you don't have internet access this is the next best option. The Wikipedia Foundation DVD is first available in English format, with a French format as well as other launguages in development.

Disco is a relatively new Mac OS X disc burning application that strives for simplicity, functionality, and good looks. It supports common disc burning activities (creating data CDs and DVDs, disc imaging, creating audio and MP3 CDs) but also packs a ton of other handy features: CUE/BIN burning, multiple file system support (Hybrid, HFS+, UDF, Joliet, ISO 9660), disc spanning support, and more. It's unique interface is intuitive, yet minimalist - you insert a disc, it asks if you want to save it to a disc image; you insert a blank CD or DVD, it asks what you would like to burn. My favorite feature is the smoke animation it emits during disc burning. Authored by Austin Sarner (creator of AppZapper), it's currently available as a public beta, but is also available for pre-purchase at a discounted rate of $14.95.

You know weird Al Yankovic right? I suppose you blocked that out from several years ago right? He has a new song out untitled "Don't Download this Song." He is trying desperately to get people to buy the CD, "like you know that you should" and extols young thugs and hooligans NOT to download his new song, because "cause you start out stealing songs, then you're robbin' liquor stores, and sellin' crack and runnin' over school-kids with your car." We all know the evils of downloading, that's why we all go to meetings to help with our downloading addiction.

My concern here is that Weird Al is sending a very mixed message, because not a few hundred pixels from his music video for the song is a "Download this song" button. This is the entire problem with the music business, they are two-faced. Don't download the song, but here it is if you want it. It's horrible and entrapping to many younger computer users. Someday we'll put a stop to this. Until then, I hope you realize that I am just kidding about the mixed message thing. I laughed my butt off twice. The music video is priceless. His song is pretty good too. Get a truly free music download for once, go download Weird Al's latest song, "Don't download this song."