paramita

Yep, I recommend xVid, because it is free and integrates easily with normally all video applications. I've noticed some unstability with early versions though, like it always crashed my Adobe Premier, but then I stopped using that sh**tty software when I discovered Combustion. Anyway, conversion's a headache but does some good. Also, xVid is not well supported by some apps so don't rely on it too much if you do some serious video work. Cinepak's less efficient but more popular and stable. Cool !

Nowadays on PCs with the bunch of cool softs such as Cubase, Fruity Loops, Tacktion, etc .. and the tons of plugins its easy to get your head around making tunes. For those who have an old soundcard and don't want to splash on a new one (don't buy Audigy thats gamers cards, not music making stuff), there is a cheap way : type in http://www.tippach.net/asio4all and you can download a generic asio driver for your SB Live or so ! It works wonder and you get near no-latency playing !!!! That's also provided you tell your app to use the new driver ;-)

To me it's funny to reply saying One is best, like if 3 words were expressing a useful post ... In terms of designing graphics for websites, obviously Photoshop has a lot more creative options, whereas Fireworks will only do the kind of geometric banners / text, unless there's some guru techniques out there. And with the latest version of Photoshop CS and Image ready, you have a killer package because Image ready takes your Photoshop design and splices it ready to be integrated into an app such as Dreamweaver. So now that's what I'm working on, I've dumped Fireworks for CS.

The best software depends on what you wanna do and how complex you tolerate the process to be. For Static stuff Photoshop is definitely the best, for animations I've just tried Discreet Combustion on trial on http://www.autodesk.com/solutionsand it's awesome. You can mix video, 2d, 3d, effects .... a killer software !