Smarter, friendlier deal

Smart and Friendly has struck a new deal with Macromedia to bundle its optical recording devices with Macromedia's Web publishing and graphic design tools so that Webmasters can back up their carefully constructed sites.

The bundle is the product of a two-year relationship between the two companies and is intended for Webmasters, home users, and small businesses who want to set up Web sites but don't want to spend a lot of time maintaining them. The system allows users to back up and archive multimedia and data files on CD-Recordable discs.

The new bundle, which is available now and costs $999 each, once again targets the technically challenged crowd, includes the CD-R 4000/PRO recording package and Macromedia's Backstage Designer Plus. Backstage allows people with no programming skills to develop Multimedia Web pages.

The new product costs the same as Smart and Friendly's CD-R 4000/PRO standalone data storage product introduced last year. The CD tool includes quad-speed recorder and reader drive, an Adaptec SCSI-2 host adapter, and CD mastering software for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Apple Computer Macintosh operating systems.

The Backstage Designer includes an image editor for placing graphic images on a Web site and Shockwave for animating text, buttons, bullets, and graphic images and deploy interactive elements.