I just purchased an LaCie Porsche external double layer DVD burner, and wanted to let everyone know that I've had really no issues burning both single and double layered DVDs by using Roxio's Easy Media Creator 7. The app does a good job of spoon feeding you various CD/DVD disc options, although I would like more of a drag and drop option for DVD creation. Once I had added my mpegs to the project and started the burn, the encoding process took almost 8 hours to complete. This may be due to how I recorded my mpegs, so I'll look at that on my end before I assign blame to the software. Overall, I thought this was a great tool to create custom DVDs for small organizations, family events, etc. I love how customizable the menus, background audio, and menu flow are, and after a little initial patience you'll see how useful this tool is.
I've burned two test projects, the first containing my own custom mpegs. Make sure you set your project's burning Standard to NTSC instead of PAL under advanced options, I had to change this for the DVD to play in my home DVD player.
The second project was a straight copy of a commercial DVD (which has been using double layer media for years), and this was virtually flawless. Roxio disc copier handles this task without blinking, either burning to single or double layer media. Many commercial DVDs are CSS encrypted, you'll be on your own to decode this, as Roxio doesn't support copying protected content, regardless of your personal piracy morals. There are, however, many decoding options available online.
All of my test projects were burned using Memorex DVD+R DL dvds.
All in all I was worried about $pending on this new technology, but almost everything went flawlessly, and I'd recommend using Roxio Easy Media Creator for anyone's double layer DVD burning needs.
Here's a nice article on double layer media.
I'm really starting to be impressed by all of the ways hobbyist developers have taken advantage of the powerful APIs released by megasites like Google and Amazon. I just received this link from Allen Feld, a developer in San Diego, pointing to frappr (Friend Mapper), which allows classmates, coworkers and online communities to map each others locations. Is this nifty? Yes. Is this really difficult to do? NO. And that's the beauty of where our industry is heading...anyone willing to learn, and with an imaginative idea, can create something great. Here's the bio posted on their 'About Us' page:
"Frappr was created by Brian, Kun and James at Rising Concepts, who wanted to see where all their high school and college friends went after they graduated."
That's it. And that fires me up. One fresh idea, new technology, and a great site is born.
The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar Beta 1 refresh was published on 10/31. From what I've seen, this is very similar to the Firefox plugin. This is still a Beta, and I'm hoping Microsoft will add client side script debugging, as Firefox's JavaScript debugger has been helpful in my latest efforts: creating XSLT and JavaScript based web applications.
One feature that can be really useful is the ability to outline div blocks and table cells. However, when I tried to use this feature on a page that still uses IFrames, the outlining was ineffective at best. It is a nice tool to have for when you are attempting to create cross-browser styling, as it was frustrating to be able to see what was happening easily in Firefox, while guessing at times within Internet Explorer.
I think its worth a try, and you can get it here.