Software Review of:
Gear 
Pro 4.41 

• Gear Replicator 2.1; $50. Win 9X/NT/2000, wizard support for data, video, audio & game CDs
• Gear Data 4.41; 
• Gear Pro DVD 2.0; for recording DVD and CD
• Gear Audio 1.2; $50. Win 9X/NT/2000, record from phono, tape plus HD and CDs, descratch and declick filters 
• Gear Pro 4.41; - $150. Win 95/98/NT/unix (LINUX on the way), premaster and multi drive record. Real heavy duty.

Main Screen
The Main screen is pretty straight forward. Click the down arrow in Gear Project. A menu of the different type of CDs the program will create appears. I chose New CD-Audio since I tend to make most of my coasters trying to make music CDs. Then, being a dunderhead, I spent the next four hours adjusting the Settings, Preferences, output devices, and recording combinations before it started burning my oldies CD. When they put Pro in the title, I should know the program is designed for someone that knows what they are doing. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m more the poster boy for a dork than a geek. In spite of my misguided efforts, this program identified the encrypted tracks and wouldn’t add them to the virtual image. Even with all my bumbling, not a single coaster was burned. Can you say - click Test before you click Write? 

Audio editor
After selecting New CD-Audio, insert the music disk and click the Create button. Give the virtual image file a name and indicate where the temporary work area is located. Remember, a full sk of music needs almost 700 Mbs of hard disk space for the virtual image. Next, click the Start the Audio Editor icon on the tool bar. On the Audio Editor screen, click the down arrow.  Click the drive letter for your burner with the music disk inside. A Windows Explorer like window will display the music track index in the top window. 

To get to the actual music track, click the View the CD-R icon on the tool bar. The My CD-R screen will show the music tracts. The program does not contain a music player, so know what tracks you want to copy before the music CD is inserted. Also, there’s no provision to plug into the CD Database to list the song titles. Select the tracks you want to copy and click the Copy the Selection to the Image icon or drag and drop. The selected tracks are copied to the virtual image, in my case, at the maximum speed of the drive. CD-R/RW drives are identified by their maximum speeds. One X being the speed music is played. My drive is a 4X4X32. That means under optimal conditions, the first 4 indicates four times normal speed to record recordable disks. The second number indicates rewritable disks can be recorded at four times normal speed. The third number indicates the maximum speed the drive can read data from a disk. If you remember from the last article, Nero reads music at 8X to the image file from this same drive. Gear reads music to the image file at 32X. Go figure! You can change music CDs to add more tracks. Click View from the menu bar, select Refresh CD-R View. Select the desired tracks and move them to the Project window. They will be copied to the virtual image (up to the limit of the blank disk). When the project is complete, click File menu, click Save and Close. The project can be edited anytime in the Audio Editor. Check your Settings, make sure the burner is listed in the Output Device, and click Test. At the completion of the test, a screen will quarry you before it starts the write. Make sure a blank CD-R is in the burner. 

Gear Software is the only company that followed up my download with an e-mail thanking me for trying their software and offering support if I had any problems. A company that cares — now there’s a novelty. 

Required to run this software: Pentium CPU; Windows 95/98/NT/2000; 32 MB RAM; 12 ms or less HD with 800 MB free space; CD-R/RW drive with blank CDs; and Internet access. 

This program is (in my opinion) not for the beginner. The help files assume experience and knowledge in burner operation. This program is excellent at premastering, but nothing comes easy. As far as I could determine, the program only reads music from the hard drive or CDs. Also, the virtual image file has to be deleted (outside the program) when the CD is burned unless you have gigs of hard drive space. But if a challenge is your cup of tea, and you want to see how the big boys play, the only cost is about a half hour of web time to download. Maybe one of their other programs (without Pro in the title) might be better. I wanted to try their audio program too, unfortunately, my burner wasn’t on the supported recorder list. 

Afterthoughts
Some other shareware or demo burner software you might want to check out: 

1. <http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles>. 

Search: easy cd-da
• Easy CD-DA Extractor (shareware - audio) 
• Gear Pro v4.4 (30 day demo) 
• HotBurn v2.0 (Shareware) 
• CDRWin v3.7d (crippleware - only records at 1X - but worth checking out) 

And over a hundred other CD related programs including MP3 rippers, etc. 
2. <http://home.snap.com>. 

Click on Download Software, Search: CD-R 
• Dart CD recorder +3.23 
• AudioTools v3.0 
• DiskJuggler 1.05.340 
• Instantwrite for Win 95/98 (UDF writer) 
• Fireburner v1.06 

Digital drivel 
While reading an article from tipworld, an e-mail newsletter <www.topica.com>, I ran across a term I didn’t know. The word was "dongle". So I headed on over to <www.webopedia.com> for some enlightenment. Sure enough, a clear definition. Also, a link to <www.Internet.com>, Download channel. Bingo! A veritable gold mine. If this site doesn’t blow your mind, you’re getting jaded. Links to enough software to keep your DSL line busy for years. Links to Jumbo and Software Blast and File Farm (which has a Linux section). Link to NewApps billed as software tools for the Internet professional. Handango — stuff for PDAs. Consummate WinSock Apps which has a Microsoft update section where I found the new beta Windows Media Player v7.0 that I couldn’t find at Microsoft.com. My favorite link is <www.Internetnews.com>. The categories run to most of two pages, and you can Opt-in e-mail announcements in areas of interest to you. Worth a look! Bookmark it.