Iomega Ships Snappy Manager for CD Burning

Iomega has released new CD mastering software designed to help users easily navigate the hoops and hurdles of recording CDs.

HotBurn, available now, is priced at an affordable $30 for a download or for a CD purchased online from Iomega. Current users of Iomega CD-RW drives can upgrade for $20. These prices are lower than most competing CD mastering software packages; the only one to come close is Stomp's less elegant but more powerful $20 Click 'N Burn Plus.

HotBurn will be bundled with future Iomega drives in lieu of Roxio's Easy CD Creator software, which comes with Iomega's current drives.

Compact, Friendly Tools

HotBurn's user-friendly interface sticks to the basics: It determines the type of CD to burn (closed session, multisession, track-at-once), offers three recording options (Music CD, Data CD, and CD Copy for creating and writing to an image file of a CD), and provides buttons for access to program settings and the CD Label Designer bundled with HotBurn.

The program is designed for easy use: For each feature, a dialog box outlines the two-step process for adding files to a project, then burning the CD. Adding files is simple: Just drag and drop the files from Windows Explorer onto HotBurn's main window. Once files have been added, they can be dragged and dropped to change the order--a convenience when burning audio CDs.

The included CD Label Designer creates liner notes, covers, and labels for CDs.

HotBurn also provides a drag-and-drop module for supporting packet writing to CD-RW discs using UDF. This component can be installed separately, which prevents software conflicts when HotBurn is installed along with other CD-R Mastering programs that might have come bundled with your CD-RW drive, such as the popular Easy CD Creator or Nero Burning ROM. Users may wish to use functions in more than one program, but cannot have more than one packet-writing module installed..