Canto (http://www.canto.com) has released Canto Cumulus 8.1, built
upon technological and usability advances made possible by the new
Cumulus 8 system architecture introduced last May. "The Cumulus 8
architecture has freed Canto to take Cumulus in exciting new
directions, and Cumulus 8.1 offers just a glimpse of what's to come,"
says Canto CEO Ulrich Knocke.

Among the new capabilities are a standalone version of the Cumulus
Client, which enables users to create and work on local catalogs,
connect to Cumulus Server catalogs, and update assets and metadata
between the two. This enables traveling professionals to work with
catalogs even when Internet access isn't available.

New report types include assets cataloged during a period, check-out
"time spent" reports, asset inventories by format, and the ability to
use search queries as the means for selecting report assets. Reports
can now be saved to PDF format and automatically emailed.

A new image comparison mode makes even subtle differences between
images clear, says Knocke. Asset cataloging starts up faster, and a
bulk editor offers users an "apply to all" option when adding
metadata to cataloged assets. Users can also easily create asset
"placeholders" for assets in production, which enables them to add
metadata and track production long before an asset is ready to
catalog.

Sorting improvements can display the pages of PDFs, layouts,
presentations etc. by page number, regardless of the primary sort
field. A secondary sort order is now available, and algorithm changes
speed sorting operations and ensure all field types sort as expected.

New centralized email administration are designed to make it easy for
administrators to manage user email addresses for automatic
notifications, emailed reports, etc. Catalog back-up reports and
system log (syslog) messages generated by Cumulus can each be emailed
automatically.

The new version adds support for Microsoft's Failover Cluster
technology and offers added protection for Cumulus Servers running on
Windows Server 2008. The Cumulus Web Client (formerly Internet Client
Pro) has been updated for Cumulus 8.1. Contact Canto for pricing
options.