News Archive for 03/04/16

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Apps: CyberGauge, BitPlayer, Chartsmith...

04/16, 9:55pm

Apps: CyberGauge, BitPlayer, Chartsmith...

Neon Software announced CyberGauge 4.1, the latest release of the popular bandwidth monitoring utility. CyberGauge monitors bandwidth usage and automatically creates utilization graphs as well as daily, weekly, and monthly quality of service (QoS) and billing reports. Version 4.1 includes several enhancements: improved FTP support, support for more SNMP-based devices, Mac OS X 10.2.5 compatibility, integrated Online Help, and bug fixes. CyberGauge is available for $300, $500 and $700 for the 5-, 10- and 20-device versions respectively. [Download - Visit FTP site]
BitPlayer (née SilverScreen) is a movie player that provides numerous options for viewing, organizing, and exporting QuickTime-compatible movies. It allows you to organize movies in multiple customizable playlists, and view them in a number of ways, including full screen. It also features queued, fully multithreaded exporting into numerous formats. Version 1.0.1, a minor update, was recently released to fix a stability issue involving URLs in playlists. [Download - 698KB]
SafariNoTimeout 1.0 is a 'haxie' from Unsanity that removes Safari's 60 second connection timeout limit. [Download - 410KB]
Blacksmith has released Chartsmith 1.2.1, an update to the popular charting and graphing application for Mac OS X provides that enhanced Keynote integration, expanded AppleScript support, along with several data parsing and user interface enhancements. Chartsmith is priced at $130. Educational discounts are provided for faculty at $100 and students at $70. [Download - 2.8MB]
FileMaker Developer 6.0v4 is a maintenance update to the tool for creating custom FileMaker solutions for deployment across workgroups, distribution as royalty-free runtime applications, or sharing on the Web. The update contains countless fixes. [Download - Classic, Classic]

Q2 earnings call highlights

04/16, 6:00pm

Q2 earnings call highlights

We've updated and posted Earnings Conference call highlights, which includes details on the March quarter and Apple's future outlook for the June quarter.

Martian Technology upgrades Martian NetDrive

04/16, 4:50pm

Martian Technology upgrades Martian NetDrive

Martian Technology today announced two new models complimenting its existing Martian NetDrive Wireless products. The new models include new drive capacities and a new Kit edition, allowing users to add their own hard drive to the wirelessly-connected enclosure. Both products offers homes and small offices the ability to add file storage and sharing to their networks by simply plugging the NetDrive into a power outlet. The device also includes a 10/100 Mbps ethernet port that can be used to attach the device to a wired ethernet network. The NetDrive Wireless is available with a 40GB ($400) hard drive or 120GB ($480) hard drive. The Martian NetDrive Wireless Kit is priced at $380.

Apple posts profit of $14 million, $0.04 eps

04/16, 4:25pm

Apple posts profit of $14 million, $0.04 eps

Apple today posted a net profit of $14 million, or $.04 per diluted share for its fiscal 2003 second quarter ending March 29, 2003. These results compare to a net profit of $40 million, or $.11 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenues for the quarter were $1.475 billion, down 1 percent from the year-ago quarter, and gross margins were 28.3 percent, up from 27.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 47 percent of the quarter's revenues. Apple said it shipped 711,000 Macs during the quarter: "Our 'year of the notebook' is off to a great start, led by the incredible demand for our new aluminum 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4s...This quarter over 40 percent of the Macs we shipped were notebooks -- our highest percentage ever and well ahead of the industry average." Analysts had expected a profit of $0.02 per share.

OWC launches FireWire 800 "combo" drives

04/16, 3:05pm

OWC launches FireWire 800 "combo" drives

Other World Computing today launched its Mercury Elite Pro FW800 series of storage solutions, OWC's first products to support the new IEEE 1394b/FireWire 800 standard. Utilizing a custom Oxford922 bridge solution, the 7200RPM units are available with up to 250GB of storage capacity and 8MB of cache. Each drive includes two (2) nine-pin FireWire 800 (1394b) ports; one six-pin FireWire 400 (1394a) port; one USB 2.0/1.1 port; a 7,200RPM "nearly silent" hard drive; either 2MB or 8MB of cache; a free copy of Intech HD SpeedTools; all connecting cables; and a full two-year warranty. Pricing ranges from $250 (80GB with 2MB cache) to $520 (250GB/8MB cache).

CompuCable ships Power Reach KVM Duo

04/16, 3:00pm

CompuCable ships Power Reach KVM Duo

CompuCable has introduced its Power Reach KVM DUO, an electronic Dual-VGA KVM switch. Bundled with ADC and USB adapters, this kit is specifically designed to share PS/2 keyboard, mouse, and two VGA monitors between two multi-monitor G4 Systems (PC as well). It offers support for both USB and PS/2 systems as well as video resolution up to 2048 x 1536 (400MHz bandwidth). The $250 Mac G4 bundle ship with two USB-to-PS/2 adapters and two ADC-to-VGA adapters.

NYRO Technix: update coming, seeking buyer

04/16, 2:55pm

NYRO Technix: update coming, seeking buyer

NYRO Technix announced an upcoming update to its NXRAID for Mac OS X solution. The first software-based RAID 5 solution announced for Mac OS X offers partition-based RAID for IDE, FireWire, SCSI and Fiber Channel systems running server or consumer Mac OS 10.2.1 and higher. The update specifically addresses issues that have become known regarding four-drive advance configurations, the new slot-loading Xserve and Mac OS 10.2.5. NYRO currently sells two versions of NXRAID. One is for slot-loading Xserves running Mac OS 10.2.4 only, and the original version (currently v1.1) for all other hardware, excluding 4 drive advanced configuration. These versions will be merged with the release of NXRAID v1.2. Additionally, NYRO Technix says it is seeking a buyer for its software assets, including NXRAID.

Apple comments on rumor, denies Vivendi offer

04/16, 2:50pm

Apple comments on rumor, denies Vivendi offer

Apple said it never made any offer to invest in or buy a music company, responding to speculation the computer maker had been in talks to buy Vivendi Universal's music group, according to Reuters: "The company said in a statement that press reports Wednesday morning attributed to Vivendi board member Claude Bebear are untrue. Earlier, a Vivendi spokesman also said Bebear denies having given a view of any talks that may be underway. The statement came in response to an article on Bloomberg news service that quoted Bebear in an interview... A Bloomberg spokeswoman said earlier that the news agency stuck by its story."

Resellers settle disputes, resign with Apple

04/16, 2:45pm

Resellers settle disputes, resign with Apple

After earlier balking at a new contract, several of Apple's key resellers have inked deals to continue selling Apple gear, according to c|net: "Among the holdouts that have reached a pact with Apple are Dell Computer and regional computer sellers Fry’s Electronics and Micro Center...a Dell representative [also] confirmed that the Apple music players should be available again shortly."

Exbem: image processing software for OS X

04/16, 1:05pm

Exbem: image processing software for OS X

Pixlock announces the final release of Exbem 3.0, an image processing software for Mac OS. Exbem processes and analyzes images, movies, and video 'online'. It provides functionality for basic image manipulation, spatial and temporal filtering, and image analysis. Among the new features of version 3.0 are: Exbem runs natively on Mac OS 9/X and supports 8/16-bits per color channel for images, movies, and video. In addition to the Grayscale and RGB color modes, it can operate in the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color space. For best visual perception, a display manager gives rich control over the way, image data is shown on the screen. Exbem is optimized for AltiVec and multiple processors. (Pricing not available.)

Demicron ships WireFusion web tool for OS X

04/16, 12:55pm

Demicron ships WireFusion web tool for OS X

Swedish software developer Demicron announced its interactive web graphics tool WireFusion is now available for Mac OS X. WireFusion 3.2 uses the latest Java Virtual Machine (1.4.1) and can be extended with different WireFusion add-ons. Available add-ons extend WireFusion with: real-time web3D capabilities (WF-3D); interactive zoom (WF-Zoom) and slide show (WF-SlideShow) web presentations; and streaming web video (WF-Video) and audio (WF-MP3). Homepage visitors can view presentations created with WireFusion in all cross-platform Java 1.1-enabled browsers. The price for WireFusion Professional is $400; WF-3D costs $300; WF-SlideShow costs $50; WF-Zoom costs $50; and WF-Video and WF-MP3 are freeware.

Apps: iAssist, PDF U, Watcher'84, Virex

04/16, 10:35am

Apps: iAssist, PDF U, Watcher'84, Virex

Maxum Development today released iAssist, a client/server application that organizes a collection of Internet server management tools that are dynamically loaded: The current feature set includes a full proxy server implementation, based on a modified version of the popular Squid caching proxy server as well as a tool for managing remote logins, and a set of general server management tools. The $250 application, free to users of WebDoubler, includes a one year "updates subscription" and will manage up to two servers. [844KB]
PDF U 1.0 is a utility that will allow you to quickly turn on the "hidden" PDF Services menu in the Mac OS 10.2 print dialog boxes: "Normally, you have to go to a special folder on the system, create a folder called 'PDF Services' and add your own scripts. The best part is that we start you with a few scripts to get started." The "donationware" runs on Mac OS X. [388kB]
Bruno Blondeau has released Watcher'84 1.1, a smart automated web page watcher for Mac OS X. Watcher'84 monitors a list of favorites web pages and notifies the user when something gets updated on one of them. This new version features improved behavior for many popular web sites, better advertisement detection, the ability to reorder watchers by drag&drop, and improved performance. It is $15 shareware. [303KB]
Scott Ferguson writes: "I just picked up the latest version of Virex 7.2.1 from Apple's .Mac site this morning. It resolves the long standing conflict with Fink. Please share this info with your users. I installed it this morning and it works great."
Melonsoft today released Exhibit 2.3, an update to its $15 shareware image gallery creation tool with HTML template support. Version 2.3 improves on workflow with various enhancements to the Image list, and Edit window and the ability to insert image-specific information when it builds an image gallery. [Classic, OSX]
LightWork Design has released an AltiVec-optimized update of LightWorks 7.0, its advanced 3D computer graphics software designed for integration into 3rd party applications. It offers users a performance increase of up to 1.5 times for typical scenes containing soft shadows, ray tracing and procedural shaders: "By optimizing functionality in the core of the rendering engine for AltiVec, LightWork Design seems to have taken a significantly different approach... Other photorealistic rendering engine vendors have generally restricted their Altivec optimizations to peripheral functionality - like simple post-processing filters."
LAJ Design's eOrdering Gold 1.8 (née Web Proofs) is a cross-platform application that creates online eCommerce stores allowing photographers or small businesses to put their products online easily. It now adds PayPal processing, secure processing via HP or GnuPG to PHP processing, and an optional processing fee for all orders. A 20-day demo of the $75 software is available. [Classic, OSX]

Apple financials due after market close

04/16, 10:35am

Apple financials due after market close

Apple will announce its second quarter '03 financial results today after the market closes and will hold a conference call at 5 pm ET to discuss the results (available via QuickTime audio webcast). According to a survey of analysts compiled by Thomson First Call, Wall Street is looking for a profit of 2 cents a share in the quarter, compared to net income of 11 cents in the year-ago period, while revenue is expected to slip to $1.46 billion from $1.495 billion, according to CBS MarketWatch. Meanwhile, Vivendi Universal said Apple may bid $6 billion for its Universal Music Group unit.

Apps: QuicKeys X2, SwitchRes, iMovie plugins

04/16, 4:55am

Apps: QuicKeys X2, SwitchRes, iMovie plugins

QuicKeys X2 Public Beta is now available with recording & playback features, new and improved shortcuts and a redesigned interface. Other features include new Toolbar features, select Pop-up menus, new Date and Time Formats, and many other features. The system automation utility can automate hundreds virtually any task, including the ability to launch programs or files, mount servers, run Unix commands, or type text. [10MB]
Stephane Madrau has updated the shareware program SwitchRes X 3.0.2. SwitchRes X is a background-only application (daemon) that allows you to control the resolutions of all connected displays along with a Control Panel (to change preferences), a Menu Extra placed in the right side of the Menu bar Module, and a Contextual Menu extension. The $15 utility runs on Mac OS X. [1.2MB]
Stupendous Software has upgraded its Time Effects 2 iMovie plugin pack with two new effects. The plugin pack now contains 15 effects, including Slow Motion, Interlaced Video--which produces very smooth slow motion for clips which contain interlaced video and are to be played back on a TV; and De-interlace for a slightly less smooth and more "film-like" feel to the video motion. The $25 plugin pack runs on Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X and requires iMovie 2.1.1 or later. A free demo download allows all effects to be previewed. [88KB]
Electric Image 5.03 brings new features and bug fixes to the 3D animation, modelling, and rendering application. Renderama now transfers files 10 to 20 times faster than before and now supports the .eiz file format (Z-buffer files), while theAnimator can display .eiz files (only the first frame). The update also includes a Radiosity.pdf file, which "gives advice and insight for the radiosity system." [4.3MB]
Koingo Software's Password Retriever 4.5 sports "a brand-new engine which guarantees data integrity, while operating at a much quicker speed. There have also been many feature enhancements and fixes. One of these is the ability to have more than one database open at any given time." The $16 shareware also features 448-bit encryption. [987KB]

Elite files lawsuit, closes retail stores

04/16, 4:30am

Elite files lawsuit, closes retail stores

Apple reseller Elite Compuyers has filed suit against Apple for $5 million dollars for alleged breach of contract, according to an article in the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal. Meanwhile, several sources indicate that Elite Computers has closed four of its ComputerWare Macintosh retail stores in the San Francisco Bay area. (We previously noted that both Dell and Target also stopped selling Apple products after Apple recently revised the terms of its reseller agreements, while Apple responded saying that the un-renewed reseller contracts made up less than 1.5% of its worldwide revenue in 2002.)