Cartoon Doctor - www.drmussey.com

Great news for animators! Toon Boom has announced a new program to update "Digital Pro." It's called "Animate Pro." The coolest part of this program will be the ability to manipulate drawings in a 3-D space. Several of my animations featured cars driving with the background moving from front to back. This simulation of a 3-D camera was actually a real pain in the neck with the current available programs. True, there is a limited 3-D capability in both "Digital Pro" and "Toon Boom Studio," but there are serious limits on the camera moves. On some of my animations, there are strange artifacts that start to appear with the cars on the road that I tried to conceal with character placement. The 3-D camera will be very helpful in adding drama to limited animation. Yes, limited animation is wimpy, but when you are a lone animator and want to crank out a commercial spot quickly, you can maximize your quality by dramatic zooms or subtle perspective sh...

Intuit software makes Quickbooks Pro, the standard for company accounting. It's pretty much a mandatory piece of software that must be updated regularly. We started the company with the 2002 version, updated in 2005, and were advised to update to the current 2009 by our bookkeeper I've dreaded this moment. To put it simply, Quickbooks updates its software for one major reason: It wants to turn your company files into an incompatible format that will require everyone in your management: bookkeepers, accountants, etc. to also update the software. This keeps everyone paying an annual ransom of $100 to $200 per year per machine installed. Quickbooks also demands that you physically call the company to activate the product. You cannot use that new fangled internet thing. First, you wait on hold because all operators are busy. Then, you must try to spell “Mussey,Sarber, & Associates, P.C.” to some poor underpaid guy in a third-world cubicle and hope he doesn't mistake your “s...