VideoPad Video Editor Professional

NCH Software's VideoPad Video Editor Professional is a full-featured video-editing tool that is surprisingly easy to use. It can combine numerous clips and soundtracks in a wide range of video formats into movie projects, or build an entire production out of a single clip. It supports drag-and-drop editing, real-time effects previews, format conversion, importing and exporting files, captions, narration, and more. It can burn DVDs, HDs, and Blu-ray discs and output video to portable devices. It can also capture video from camcorders and other devices.

It's a rare video editor that you can just fire up and start making movies with, but that's what we did with VideoPad Pro. We browsed to a cartoon saved as an MPG file. VideoPad Pro scanned it and displayed it in the left half of the split main view, with its frames running sequentially along the bottom of a main preview window in a scrollable, time-marked view, and also displayed its information in the left-hand Media List panel. Pressing the Play button played the clip normally. Extracting clips from the main clip was incredibly simple; using the timeline, we selected an In Point and an Out Point and clicked the green down arrow. VideoPad extracted the clip and displayed it below in the Video Track section, which is just above the similar Audio Track. In this manner, we quickly cut up and rearranged the cartoon out of sequence, and then previewed it in the right-hand pane. The transitions between merged clips were seamless. We could save our finished clip or subject it to a wide range of processing and production tools. Toolbar icons let us quickly insert blank spaces or add narration, captions, and other effects. Clicking Build Movie called up a dialog that let us select the video format and whether to burn a disc, send it to a portable device, upload it to YouTube, and other choices.

With smartphones, video sharing sites, and Webcams everywhere, there's no lack of raw video resources, just a need for a powerful, easy-to-use tool like VideoPad Video Editor Professional to put your projects together, polish them up, and present them in the format of your choice. More than just fast and competent, though, we also found it fun to use.

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HomeBank

HomeBank promises "free, easy personal accounting for everyone." It not only manages your accounts but also helps you analyze your finances. Customizable filters and colorful graphs help HomeBank deliver on the "easy," and more than 50 interface languages cover "everyone," as long as they're using Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 8. We tried HomeBank in 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.

HomeBank's download is suitable for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, and its installer automatically detected our 64-bit system and installed the correct version. HomeBank's user interface is well designed and even attractive in a businesslike way, with well-rendered features and a layout and theme that will blend in well with many productivity suites (you can change the look, too!). A Welcome splash screen offered choices such as the HomeBank Manual, Configure Preferences, and Create a New File. We opened the browser-based Manual, which has an indexed Lexicon of terms. That's something we don't often see in any software, let alone accounting freeware. You can import files from Quicken, Money, and other apps, and HomeBank's import assistant dialog will hold your hand while you do it. We opened the Manage Accounts tool and created an account, manually, too. HomeBank's account wizard even lets you enter a number range for your paper checks (or "cheques").

HomeBank's layout breaks down your finances into three intuitive parts: Your Accounts, Where Your Money Goes, and Scheduled Transactions. A color-coded pie chart shows at a glance "where your money goes," which is the first step in getting control of your finances. You'll need some data and some transaction records to take advantage of HomeBank's analysis features and other extras. But HomeBank makes it easy to track your online purchases, monthly bills, and other expenses, so you can start saving right away. For example, the Vehicle Cost Report considers fuel cost and consumption, not just car payments and insurance. It adds up! But that's the point: With help from HomeBank, your finances can add up and balance out, too.

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