News Archive for 03/02/25

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Tech: Bono; PCI Express; HP earnings

02/25, 11:15pm

Tech: Bono; PCI Express; HP earnings

U2 front man Bono is said to be the buyer of Steve Jobs' $14.7 million triplex in the north tower of the San Remo on Central Park West in New York; PCI Express -- a new technology for connecting PCs to peripherals and other computers -- will appear 2004, "but it won't conquer the industry overnight;" Hewlett-Packard today posted a quarterly profit at the high end of expectations, driven by cost-cutting and a narrower operating loss in its enterprise computing business, but revenue fell short of Wall Street forecasts.

CMS unveils new ABSplus models

02/25, 10:55pm

CMS unveils new ABSplus models

CMS Peripherals today announced that it is shipping the ABSplus -- Automatic Backup System -- for desktop computers in two new larger capacities of 200GB and 250GB for the Mac. "ABSplus for Desktops in high capacities is an ideal backup solution for the creative professional, multi-machine set-ups or anyone with extensive amounts of data to protect," explained Ken Burke, president of CMS Peripherals. With a choice of FireWire or USB interface, the ABSplus for Desktops is currently available for the Macintosh in capacities of 40GB, 80GB, 120GB 200GB and 250GB; pricing begins at $350. [Site not updated]

Apple releases new XP iDisk software

02/25, 10:45pm

Apple releases new XP iDisk software

Users of Apple's .Mac Internet service report that Apple has released a new iDisk accessibility utility for Microsoft Windows XP. This software enables Windows users to access Apple iDisks.

Intuit issues QuickBooks Pro survey

02/25, 10:35pm

Intuit issues QuickBooks Pro survey

Intuit has commissioned a QuickBooks Pro survey for users of the suite. One MacNN reader points out that the survey asks, "Which one of the following factors would be most likely to convince you to upgrade to new QuickBooks Pro 5.0?" Among the choices is "Windows to Mac data conversion service." Interestingly, there is currently no means to migrate from QuickBooks Pro for Windows to the new QuickBooks Pro for Mac.

Apple aims to boost market share

02/25, 10:25pm

Apple aims to boost market share

Apple Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson said at the Goldman Sachs Technology Symposium that the company's aim is to expand its share of the computer market. Mr. Anderson said a "good intermediate" goal would be to reach 5 percent market share from 3 percent today. He also said the computer maker's target is to get to $8 billion of annual revenue. Apple had revenue of about $5.7 billion in 2002. Anderson also said Mac users are "going to see more and more software coming out of Apple."

Apple tells 17" PB customers "3-5 weeks"

02/25, 7:50pm

Apple tells 17" PB customers "3-5 weeks"

David Ferleger reports on 17" PowerBook shipment status: "Today I spoke with someone in Sales at Apple Store" [...] "the Apple rep told me that shipping for the 17" PB would start in "3 to 5 weeks." From today, February 25. That means March 18 to April 1" [...] "My order is listed on Apple Store website Status with a March 20 ship date. Thus, the range I was quoted is consistent with that March 20 date."

Apps: KeynoteHQ, Jared, SysQuake, KiGB

02/25, 5:55pm

Apps: KeynoteHQ, Jared, SysQuake, KiGB

KeynoteHQ has released its first Premium Theme Pack for Apple's Keynote presentation software. Premium Theme Pack 1 includes four different themes in both 800x600 and 1024x768 sizes. The themes include photograph "cut-out" masters slides, custom bullets (on some themes), some custom graphics for chart patterns, and other "objects" that can be used in your presentations. Premium Theme Pack 1 costs $8. [See free themes]

Freeverse has released a Mac OS X 10.2-compatible version of its entertaining Jared application. "Like a gallant knight with a brave steed between his incredibly muscular and armored thighs, The Omni Group rode to the rescue," the developer says. Jared for OS X was released during the Mac OS X Public Beta phase, but that version had limited compatibility and functionality. [Download - 715KB]

KiGB 1.2.3 is an update to the Gameboy and Gameboy Color emulator that fixes display problems with certain Color Gameboy games. [Download - 580KB]

Calerga has updated its SysQuake and LyME software packages to versions 2.3 and 2.4.1, respectively. "From now on, all Calerga products are based on version 3 of the scientific programming language LME, which has a high degree of compatibility with Matlab." Improvements are related mainly to object-oriented programming, error handling and recovery, access to complicated data structures and solving linear programming problems. SysQuake and LyME are scientific software applications for the Mac OS and Palm OS, based on the same computation core, "LME." [Download- LyME (Palm), SysQuake LE]

ffmpeg DivX 2.1 is a maintenance update to the alternative open source DivX Codec. ffmpeg DivX can read now MS-MPEG4v1, MS-MPEG4v2, DivX 3.11 alpha, DivX 4, DivX 5, 3ivx and XVID. It is optimized for G4 and PowerPC processors. Version 2.1 reads 3ivx Delta 4.0 and later; fixes Fixed 'green frame' at the beginning of DivX 5 files; adds better recognition of 'exotic' DivX formats; addresses artifacts when playing DivX 5.0 alpha 3 files. [Site unavailable]

Bare Bones Software axes BBEdit Lite

02/25, 4:55pm

Bare Bones Software axes BBEdit Lite

MacNN reader Ramsey French notes that Bare Bones Software's new TextWrangler text editor has "killed" the popular freeware BBEdit Lite: "Thank you for your interest in BBEdit Lite. As of February 25, 2003, BBEdit Lite has been discontinued and is no longer available. If you're looking for a powerful, functional text editor at an affordable price, we recommend that you try out TextWrangler . If you need a professional-strength tool for text processing, HTML authoring, and software development, the award-winning BBEdit is your answer." The company is offering upgrades from BBEdit Lite to BBEdit 7.0 for $120 through March 31st (but no upgrade path to TextWrangler).

Apple updates security in OS X 10.2.4 Server

02/25, 1:45pm

Apple updates security in OS X 10.2.4 Server

Apple has documented the security fixes in Mac OS X 10.2.4 Server Update (released yesterday), including security updates for several QuickTime Streaming Server (QTSS) issues, a Sendmail buffer overflow, an AFP permissions issue, a Classic security bug, and a Samba password issue. The update also features integrated WebDAV Digest Authentication via a new mod_digest_apple Apache module, which can "enable digest authentication for an existing WebDAV realm." Both a "combo" and a stand-alone updater are available.

Students to use iBooks in Schaumburg schools

02/25, 1:25pm

Students to use iBooks in Schaumburg schools

An upgrade at Newton North High School may provide teachers with nearly $750,000 in computer hardware, software, and training, including an iBook laptop for every teacher (as well as professional training). Meanwile, Schaumburg Township (Illinois) Elementary District 54 plans to give every student in grades four, five and six a new iBook to use during the school year as part of a 3-phase $6.3 million project (hardware, software, and support), according to the Daily Herald.

"The laptops will be phased in over the next three years. This fall, District 54 will provide laptops to about 1,700 students in seven of its 22 elementary schools. Another seven or eight elementary schools will receive laptops for their fourth-, fifth- and sixth graders beginning in the 2004-2005 school year. The remaining elementary schools will receive laptops for students in these grades beginning in the 2005-2006 school year. When the program is at its peak, about 5,100 students and dozens of staff members will work daily on laptops."

Apps: BrowserService, iCab, QuickAccessCM...

02/25, 12:55pm

Apps: BrowserService, iCab, QuickAccessCM...

BrowserService is a free Mac OS X service which provides a consistent interface for opening URLs and files in various Mac browsers. URLs and file paths selected in Services-aware applications can be opened in a specified browser or in the default browser with a keyboard shortcut. It does not support Mozilla 1.3 and has a few other known issues. [98KB]
iCab 2.9.1 is an update to the compact, alternative browser. It has important bugfixes (especially with the "Classic" version), fixes HTTP authentification and Proxy authentification issues, has a new preferences dialog in Mac OS X, fixes a JavaScript bug, and has other improvements. It can be registered for $30. [Classic, OSX]
Sig Software has released Analog Helper 1.5.5, its $15 graphical configuration tool for Analog (a free program to analyze the logfiles from your web server). Analog Helper lets you control and preview the results of hundreds of settings. It can also configure Report Magic for advanced HTML reporting. Version 1.5.5 of Analog Helper for Mac OS X adds full support for the command-line versions of Analog and Report Magic and also has several other minor enhancements. [Classic, OSX]
httpmail plugin 1.7 for Apple's Mail.app application in Mac OS X 10.2 is a plugin that adds support for the httpmail protocol, allowing users to download email from Hotmail. [222KB]
QuickAccessCM 1.4.3 is a contextual menu plug-in for easy access to frequently used folders, documents and applications. It provides provides several modules, including "Quick Access" (for opening items), "Move To" (lists commonly used folders), and "Copy To" (folders into which you often copy things). The update includes the first version of a new QuickAccessSetup application for managing menu items. [198KB]
nFinity's QuickVoice 1.7 is a $20 utility that can be used to record and manage Voice notes and messages, send Voice eMail and make Voice Stickies. It offers 10 channels of recording with up to 99 messages per channel and user-selectable sound compression. Version 1.7 features a redesigned Message Manager, playback rate customization (slower/faster/reverse), playback looping, unattended recording, improved Stickies, and other improvements. A limited demo is available. (An older version is available for Mac OS 9.) [Classic, OSX]
Later this week, Prosoft Engineering will release a major update to Data Rescue--the first in over a year. The update to the industry-standard data recovery utility will bring advanced recovery capabilities and a new, improved user interface. Updates to the $90 utility for both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X will be free for all new purchases. A demo (of the currrent version) is available online.

Bare Bones ships TextWrangler text editor

02/25, 11:00am

Bare Bones ships TextWrangler text editor

Bare Bones Software today shipped TextWrangler, a new product for general purpose text editing and processing of data. The application serves as an editor for composing and modifying plain text and text-oriented data, including Unicode (UTF-8 and UTF-16) files and most non-Roman single-byte files. TextWrangler includes an integrated spell checker and an assortment of character formatting commands. It supports editing of remote files (via FTP), multi-file search/replace with optional PCRE, a plug-in architecture and an array of built-in text transformation functions as well as integration with Project Builder. It is available for Mac OS 9/X for $50.

Netlock Enterprise Security 5.0 for OS X

02/25, 10:55am

Netlock Enterprise Security 5.0 for OS X

Netlock Technologies has announced its Netlock Enterprise Security Suite 5.0, which includes the introduction of the Netlock Guardian. The Suite uses IPSec protocols to secure wired and wireless communications inside the local network, between local and remote systems, and across the Internet. The Netlock Guardian is a small, portable hardware appliance that provides plug-and-play security for any network device. Version 5.0 also introduces Netlock Protectors for Windows XP and Mac OS X and also adds support for 64-bit versions of the Solaris and HP-UX operating systems.

Two new ThemePAKs for iDVD 3.0 released

02/25, 10:00am

Two new ThemePAKs for iDVD 3.0 released

iDVDthemePAK.com today released two new ThemePAK collections for Apple's iDVD 3.0 software. ThemePAK 3 and ThemePAK 4 utilize Apple's new "Drop Zones". Each theme includes completely custom button designs and composite graphic backgrounds, including 6 motion themes and 2 still background themes. Two new free themes are also available--one of which can be downloaded immediately; the other is included free if you purchase both collections together for $55, while individual iDVDThemePAKs are priced at $30.

Apps: XShelf, Little Snitch, iOrganize...

02/25, 10:00am

Apps: XShelf, Little Snitch, iOrganize...

Karl Hsu's XShelf 1.0 is a "donationware" application that enhances Drag and Drop operations in Mac OS X by providing a shelf where Drag and Dropped items (such as files, text, or URLs) can be stored for later use. Version 1.0 adds a popup delay for the shelf (for hiding/showing the shelf), an optional metal appearance, the option to lock items, and other bug fixes. [887KB]
Objective Development today released Little Snitch 1.02 for Mac OS X, the company's new security application that monitors outgoing network connections: "[it] monitors all applications, system utilities and other Unix processes for outgoing network connections. It intercepts the connection and brings up an alert panel with connection details including the name of the application which initiated the connection. The user has the choice to allow the connection, deny it or to add a permanent rule for similar connections." A 3-hour demo of the $25 application is available. [444KB]
3TAG's ImageOrganizer-X is a high-speed image thumbnail database, tracking the location of where images are stored--even on CDs, DVDs and remote volumes. A demo of IMOX on the Web, allowing users to testdrive the software up to 15 times. It only runs on Mac OS X. [1.1MB]
Bruno Blondeau's iOrganize 4.4.2 is described as "the perfect application to store and organize notes, ideas, text extracts and web links. The new version enhances drag & drop support, improves the application perfomance and introduces a new instant save command. Other features of the $20 shareware include Mac OS X Services integration, a handy dock menu to quickly create new notes, and advanced search functions. [1.2MB]
NewTech Infosystems (NTI) will introduce a Mac OS X version of DragonBurn for Mac, its easy-to-use CD and DVD burning software package at CeBIT, which takes place March 12-19. DragonBurn will offer Mac OS X users the ability to quickly and easily begin producing audio, data and mixed-mode CDs and DVDs. The multi-burning engine will allow users to simultaneously write multiple CDs or DVDs and will fully support today's high-speed DVD and CD drives.
Macintosh speech middleware vendor CommandSets.com has released a suite of Command Sets for Apple's iLife bundle, including Command Sets for iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, and the Pro Version of QuickTime Player. Mac OS X users can utilize the sets with the English Speech Recognition software built into the OS. Sets for ViaVoice and iListen are also available. The iLife bundle, which adds over 200 commands, is $20.

Electric Rain announces Swift 3D 3.0 for OS X

02/25, 9:25am

Electric Rain announces Swift 3D 3.0 for OS X

Electric Rain today announced Swift 3D 3.0 for Mac OS X, its standalone application for designers to build and export 3D animations to the Macromedia Flash (SWF) file format, as well as other major vector and raster formats. Swift 3D for Mac OS X will be available late spring 2003 as a free upgrade to existing Swift 3D 3.0 users. It will feature the company's RAViX III Rendering Engine with options including reflections, transparency, specularity and multiple shadows; SmartLayer Technology to render scenes to layers; and EMO Ray Tracer with full support for bitmap texturing. Upgrades from pre-3.0 versions to the $170 application will be $90.

Apps: MovieWorks, SearchBar, Contact Keeper

02/25, 12:05am

Apps: MovieWorks, SearchBar, Contact Keeper

Interactive Solutions today announced MovieWorks Deluxe 6.0, a free update to its multimedia creation suite that adds general reliability improvements, support for importing MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files, and exporting to the new MPEG-4 format. MovieWorks Deluxe 6.0 sells for $120; installers for Mac OS 9, OS X and Windows are included on the single CD. Upgrades from versions prior to 5.x are $50.

SearchBar 1.1 is an update to the Web search engine accessibility utility. This release's manual contains more information than that of previous versions; Northern Light support is added; bugs relating to Mac OS X 10.1.x and running the application in the background have been addressed. SearchBar is accessed from a simple floating palette. [Download - 996KB]

Contact Keeper 4.1 is an update to the Mac OS 9/X contact management software, which allows you to store any number of contacts on your list, or in multiple lists. Version 4.1 adds: a 'Print Entire List' option; the ability to copy multiple contacts to the clipboard; support for long field content; a 'Print Envelope' option; the ability to remove multiple contacts at once; a 'Window' menu; a friendlier error handler; and bug fixes. Contact Keeper is priced at $10. [Download - 944KB]

Font Pilot 1.1.7 ($10) adds a new toolbar to the main window, and a handful of bug fixes to the font organization tool for Mac OS 9/X. Also included in the update is an improved search function, interface usability improvements, and new menu names to better comply with Aqua HIG. [Download - 974KB]