News Archive for 03/02/27

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Apps: ZeboPhoto, iScreensaver, DigiLife ...

02/27, 7:25pm

Apps: ZeboPhoto, iScreensaver, DigiLife ...

Bobby Cronkhite Software today released ZeboPhoto 1.2.1, a maintenance update to its $5 image viewer/editor made with REALbasic. Version 1.2.1 adds: the option for full-screen slideshows; rotation, mirror, file name and file path effects to the browser; and a preference pane for the browser. Additionally, the file browser now remembers the position of the last directory or file to which it was set. [Download Classic, OS X]

The final version of iScreensaver Designer 3.0 is now available. It is "the world's only" cross-platform screensaver editor, allowing users to create screensavers for Mac OS 9/X and Windows 9x/XP. Version 3.0 includes a new Slide Show editor with advanced features. The iScreensaver download is free and all features can be tested with no time limit before purchase ($200). [Download 6.1MB]

Today Kanex Group has released Restore Desktop 2.0, a new version of its free utility for desktop icon management. Restore Desktop is a Contextual Menu plug-in that automatically saves and restores the icons' positions on the Mac desktop after a resolution change. "How many times you change screen resolution and discover that your neatly placed icons have shattered all over the screen. No more," the developer says. [Download 9.0KB]

DigiLife Reports 1.4.6 delivers enhancements including international character output, full custom fields support in Address Book reports, and column customization in the Detailed iTunes report to the $20 suite for transforming information from Address Book and iTunes into printable reports. [Download 7.2MB]

Apple updates Keynote w/ localizations

02/27, 6:45pm

Apple updates Keynote w/ localizations

Apple Keynote 1.0.1 is now available via Mac OS X's built-in Software Update application. The update provides support for the following languages: Japanese, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish.

O'Reilly publishes second Samba guide

02/27, 6:25pm

O'Reilly publishes second Samba guide

O'Reilly has released "Using Samba, Second Edition," a $40 guide for Mac OS X users to using the cross-platform networking tool. Authors Jay Ts, Robert Eckstein, and David Collier-Brown walk users through making the most of their file and print sharing solutions. "Considering that Samba now comes with Mac OS X, the result of all this is that Samba is becoming a 'one source' solution for networking all three of the major operating systems that will be in use a few years from now, that is, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows," explains coauthor Jay Ts.

IBM announces PPC 970 at 2.5GHz

02/27, 6:15pm

IBM announces PPC 970 at 2.5GHz

IBM today detailed its PowerPC Blade platform, which is based around the new PowerPC 970 microprocessor, running at speeds of up to 2.5 GHz. The new IBM PowerPC 970 is expected by many analysts to appear in future Apple products. The latest PowerPC 970 units run at frequencies ranging from 1.8 GHz to 2.5 GHz, according to IBM, making the 970 "the fastest PowerPC so far."

LabMan solicits presentations for conference

02/27, 1:00pm

LabMan solicits presentations for conference

The University of Michigan is hosting the fourth annual Great Lakes Academic Lab Management Conference on June 27-28 and is currently making a call for presentations: "LabMan was conceived as a casual, small scale, inexpensive, intimate conference intended for persons who manage, supervise or are otherwise involved with maintaining computing labs in higher education, K-12 or library facilities. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet their colleagues from other institutions who, like them, face various challenges in putting together resilient, robust, academic computing labs."

Aspyr to bring SimCity 4 to the Macintosh

02/27, 12:00pm

Aspyr to bring SimCity 4 to the Macintosh

Aspyr today that it will bring SimCity 4 to the Mac in May. Aspyr has licensed SimCity 4 from Electronic Arts and is currently working with i5Works to convert the game to Mac OS. The fourth generation of SimCity, SimCity 4, features new simulation and graphics engines, an all new regional game play, and the ability to track the lives of individual Sims as they go about their daily routine. SimCity 4 will be available for $50. [updated]

Aspyr also posted info on Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 2003, which entered beta earlier this month, and will be released in April 2003. It features a new course and PGA TOUR golfer lineup along with "Enhanced True Swing mouse swing" for an improved feeling of swinging a golf club on the computer, play at 12 different PGA TOUR courses, and a Career Mode in which players can create their own custom golfer and develop their skills through competitions and challenges against amateur and PGA TOUR opponents. The $50 title, compatible with Mac OS 9/X, is available for pre-order. [updated]

Canon debuts printers cameras, scanners

02/27, 11:55am

Canon debuts printers cameras, scanners

Canon today introduced five new PowerShot digital cameras, the A300 (3.2MP), A60 (2.0MP), A70 (3.2MP), S400 Digital Elph (4.0MP), and the S50 (5.0MP) and the EOS 10D SLR (6.0MP) as well as the new professional CanoScan 9900F and two new Bubble Jet Direct printers (the i450 Color Bubble Jet Printer and i470D Photo Printer), and an updated photo printer, the wide-format i9100 Photo Printer, which replaces the S9000. [links added]

Tenon updates xTools 1.2 for Mac OS X

02/27, 11:05am

Tenon updates xTools 1.2 for Mac OS X

Tenon today released Xtools 1.2, its Mac OS X application that integrates Apple's Aqua desktop with X Window tools. It supports the latest XFree86 4.2.1 (although v4.3 was released today) and X11R6.6 as well as has improved screen rendering, refresh & redraw operations, OpenGL and Motif operations, pseudocolor, visuals, antialias font support, XDM, key mapping, secure shell and Jaguar support. There is also improved compatibility for CDE, KDE, and Gnome desktops and compatibility for Fink X11 applications. In addition, the new Xtools now allows you to view Mac applications on the X Window desktop while running in full (dedicated) screen mode.

Apps: PdfCompress, Magellan Pro, Exhibit...

02/27, 9:10am

Apps: PdfCompress, Magellan Pro, Exhibit...

metaobject today released version 4.0 of its PDF compression tool for Mac OS X, PdfCompress, adding image downsampling to the $25 utility. PdfCompress optimizes such PDF files by applying specialized image compression methods to the images stored in the file, and removing other elements: "Photographic images are reduced by up to a factor of 10 without visible degradation using JPEG compression [and] bi-level images are typically reduced by 20-30% using lossless CCIT Group 4 (Fax) encoding." [826KB]
MAKI Enterprise has updated its email client software. Magellan Pro 1.4.3 improves attachment handling, has better message handling (especially RFC822 /multipart messages), and has support for an additonal mailto scheme. The multilingual email client offers automated reply functions based on message content, auto forwarding functions, a mail database, and content analysis for filtering spam. It is $80, while upgrades from Magellan are $30. [Classic, OSX]
Exhibit 1.5, an update to Melonsoft's premier photo gallery creation tool with custom HTML templates, includes many performance enhancements, as well as custom thumbnail sizes and a more stable "None" template option. It is $15 shareware and runs on Mac OS 9/X. [Classic, OSX]
Bruno Blondeau's iPasteboard is a new Mac OS X application that lets you create an unlimited number of clipboards, which are "easily accessible from a clean and efficient user interface." It offers built-in preview of clipboard content, a keyboard shortcut for clipboard access, Mac OS X Service support, a dock men, and a toolbar. A demo of the $15 shareware is available. [382KB]
appMac software has released wKiosk browser 2.0 ($150), its full-screen web browser for internet/intranet kiosks with functions to disable ForceQuit and disable downloads as well as other access control functions. It can optionally integrate with wKiosk Server to control users and limit time access. wDesk browser 1.0 ($60) is desktop version with central adminstrative controls for business environments, while wKids browser 1.0 ($30) has an interface designed for children (offering parental access controls). The products are based on Netscape's Gecko rendering engine. [WK, WD, OSX]
Readers report the release of QuickTime Broadcaster 1.01, although Apple has not specified any changes. Apple's live encoding software lets users produce professional-quality live events for online delivery; it supports FireWire capture from most FireWire-equipped sources, including DV cameras, some webcams, and DV converter boxes.