Mozilla.org releases Firefox 1.5r3 preview

Mozilla.org has released Firefox 1.5r3, a second test preview of the next generation open-source browser with better performance, more privacy features, security enhancements, and fixes for Mac OS X. Release 3 features an improved automated update engine, improvements to back and forward button performance, drag & drop reordering of browser tabs, improvements to popup blocking, a new Clear Private Data feature to quickly remove personal data, more descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, better RSS discovery, and a new "Safe Mode" experience. The update also brings better DHTML accessibility, improved profile migration from Safari and IE for Mac, and new support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6.

Analyst: Apple is top pick in PC industry...

Apple is still the top pick in the PC industry. While Credit Suisse First Boston research analyst Robert Semple maintained a "marketweight" rating on the PC hardware sector, but maintained an 'outperform' rating on Apple, saying that Apple's product cycles make the company preferable amid a slowing growth industry. Forbes notes that October results from market researcher NPD revealed "elastic" consumer demand driven by aggressive pricing. "Within the PC market, we continue to prefer the profitable share gainers with compelling product cycles, with Apple as our top pick," said Semple. During the month, Apple saw its unit growth slow to 23 percent, but it has still delivered over 50% unit growth year to date.

NRF declares iPod "hot toy" this year

The National Retail Federation (NRF) has officially declared Apple's iPod one of the hot toys this holiday season, for the first time. The iPod ranked as the sixth hottest toy for girls, but was nowhere to be found on the list of hot toys for boys. Boys are more pre-occupied with traditional gifts, as well as the Xbox 360, according to the report. Boys are going to be more focused on the new video games that are coming out this year, according to a report from MarketWatch. A supposed stigma has previously been attached to electronics, resulting in hesitation to call them toys. The news "is probably very good for Apple", considering its digital music player is such a high priced-item." Other toys that made the list were Barbie, Star Wars, Legos, and Hot Wheels.

Toon Boom Studio Express V3 released

Toon Boom Animation today announced the release of Toon Boom Studio Express V3, an update to its animation tool for beginners, hobbyists and kids. It can create Flash banner ads, interactive projects and games, and videos for the Web, PDAs and phones. A new Text tool lets users type and animate text easily, enabling the creation of greeting cards, web banners, storyboards an comic strips. Version 3 also features a new unified mode and many interface improvements as well as a new transform tool that allows users to scale, rotate, move and skew any object over time with a simple click. Toon Boom Studio Express V3 is available online for $70 ($30 discount) for a limited time. Upgrades from previous versions are $30. In addition to getting free support for installation and download, customers receive additional free goodies, including Christmas templates, tutorials and clip art, a total value of $200 US.

Study questions 'iPod halo effect'...

Apple's small rise in marketshare over the past few years may be more about ratios and numbers than due to the "halo effect." A new study questions the effect of the iPod on Apple's Mac marketshare, saying that the often-touted halo effect may be a "misguided" theory at best, according to a report by Roger L. Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. The report, issued late late Wednesday, contends that Apple’s recent rise from 1.8 percent market share worldwide to 2.5 percent in the second quarter had more to do with how far Apple had fallen rather than any "belated halo cast by the iPod." The report notes that Apple’s market share has fallen slightly in the third quarter to 2.4 percent, which bolsters arguments by those who question the iPod halo effect.

Omnipilot offers free Lasso blog solution

OmniPilot is offering a free Blog solution for its Lasso customers, which is designed to allow developers to quickly add a blog to any website. Once authenticated a user is permitted to create new entries for their personal blog, with each entry consisting of a time-stamp, a title, and a message. The blog solution is built using CSS and XHTML, requires Lasso 8 Professional, and utilizes the built-in SQLite database for storage. Lasso 8 Professional is available for $650, and requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

Rapid Weaver 3.2.0 offers Smart Publishing

Realmac Software today announced the release of RapidWeaver 3.2.0, its web design application to create professional looking websites quickly that requires no knowledge of complex code. Flash slideshows can be created with no knowledge of Flash, and Smart Publishing tracks files that have already been published to reduce repetitive uploading. All templates are XHTML and CSS based, and over 20 themes can be mixed and matched. Podcasts can be imported into a blog via drag-and-drop, automatically adding it to the blogs RSS feed. Primary features include iPhoto integration; FTP and Mac publishing; over 30 themes; Flash-based slideshows; blogging and RSS feeds; podcasting; photo and movie albums; multiple themes per-site; and the ability to scale and rotate images. RapidWeaver 3.2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9, and is available for $35.

MemoryMiner Beta organizes, shares media

GroupSmarts has released MemoryMiner Beta, its application designed to create the an extensive network of first-person accounts of modern society and culture. MemoryMiner can automatically synchronize the contents of an iPhoto library when the application launches, and can import photos using the Open Panel or via drag-and-drop. After drawing selection areas over photos, the standard Address Book is used to select an existing person--or create a new one--after which a new Person object is created in MemoryMiner that is linked to the Address Book entry. Files and URLs can be attached via drag-and-drop, with support for QuickTime movies. MemoryMiner uses web services to automatically fetch maps as well as latitude/longitude values, and graphically displays locations for people on a high-quality global map projection. Pricing and system requirements were unavailable.

Briefly: Trafford Store; PodFreq; Xmas fonts

In brief: Apple announced that the fourth UK store in Manchester--The Trafford Store--will officially open this Saturday, as noted earlier this week.... Sonnet today announced that its PodFreq is now compatible with the fifth-generation iPods.... Linotype today began offering its Xmas font family ($30 each), a set of character sets depicting a wide range of symbols from nativity scenes to snowboarding.... Advanced Computer Innovations today expanded its internet-based "instant online conversion" service, adding support for Microsoft Office 2003 XML as well as several other file formats.... The 2006 CES Best of Innovations honorees have been chosen, with two iPod accessories selected to receive recognition.

Aspyr ships RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for Mac...

Aspyr today announced that RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 has begun shipping for Macintosh. The game allows users to build, operate and experience the amusement park of their dreams as well as as ride the rides. As the first title in the series to come to the Mac, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 features "stunning" 3D graphics, and the all-new CoasterCam, which allows players to see their park from the eyes of a guest and ride all the rides. Using the new Fireworks MixMaster�, players can also create pyrotechnic masterpieces and synchronize them to music. In addition, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 also includes the ability to assign music to rides in the park, new realistic day and night cycles, a park lighting system and various weather effects. RollerCoaster Tycoon is avialable now for $50.

EzBackup-sa offers one-touch backups

Data Protection Solutions (DPS) today unveiled EzBackup-sa, its USB-based standalone device providing instantaneous, complete system and data recovery. The device--which has been specifically designed for Mac users--can restore the operating system, preferences, settings, applications, and data. Three routines (backup, restore, and schedule) ease the process of maintaining data integrity at speeds of roughly 1GB per minute on a USB 2.0 connection. The EzBackup-sa creates a fully bootable mirror-image copy of a user's system, and instantly restores the entire system as well as its data. Features include flexible and automatic new/modified backup, flexible backup schedule options, and file/directory/full image restore in a single step. The EzBackup-sa is available in 80GB ($140), 160GB ($200), 250GB ($280), 320GB ($350), and 400GB ($450) capacities.

HighDesign 1.6.0 enhances productivity

Ilexsoft today released HighDesign 1.6.0, a free update to its 2D computer aided drafting application for architects, engineers, designers and homeowners. Version 1.6.0 focuses on productivity and reliability enhancements, offering improvements to existing features such as copy and paste, layers, PDF and printing, as well as speed improvements. The update provides continuous intersections of dashed lines and bilinear image scaling, as well as a simplified workflow for designers. HighDesign imports and exports DXF drawings from version 12 up to version 2004; PDF documents with CMYK or RGB colors; HP-GL (plt) files; vector PICT; JPEG, PNG, Tiff, Tga, PSD, BMP, and more. HighDesign standard edition is available for $150, while the professional version is priced at $350. The software requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later, and comes with the user's guide as well as a 14-page "getting started" tutorial.

Radio Shark 2.0 offers improved scheduling

Griffin Technology today released radio Shark 2.0, an application designed to simplify time-shift recording of AM or FM radio. Radio Shark can start and stop recording at any time while listening, and can schedule or create presets of favorite radio stations. New features include a redesigned interface, improved scheduling, and an enhanced 10-band equalizer. Version 2.0 also provides expanded record/playback, tuning and appearance preferences; a spectrum visualizer; selectable display color; station and record status via the Dock icon; and AppleScript support. Radio Shark includes a Dashboard Widget as well, to control the application from the Dock. The FM section offers a tuning range of 87.5 to 108.0 MHz, frequency steps of 100kHz, and a frequency response of 50Hz-15kHz. The AM section offers a tuning range of 530-1710kHz, and frequency steps of 10kHz or 9kHz. The device is available for $70, and requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later.

Popular Science honors Spotlight search

Popular Science has honored Apple's Mac OS X Spotlight search technology in its 'Best of What's New' roundup for 2005. "Most desktop search tools are perpetually a step behind, periodically snooping your machine to find new and changed files. But Spotlight, the search function in Apple's new Tiger operating system, updates the instant anything changes because it's built into the core of the OS. That integration also means that the search function is available in the Save and Open dialog boxes of other applications. And Spotlight searches more metadata—the information about a file, such as who created it or what camera it was taken with—than ever before, so as long as you sort of know what you're looking for, you'll probably find it."

iTools 8.04 offers graphical Apache controls...

Tenon today announced iTools 8.0.4, a sixth-generation web-based administration tool suite for configuring and managing Apache, DNS, and FTP. iTools combines open-source technologies: JavaScript, Perl, and XML, to provide anywhere, anytime Apache administration. The new iTools 8.0.4 is designed to maximize performance on heavily loaded sites and adds new scripts, fixes a number of bugs, and improves operation in key areas, including access control, server side includes, DNS, FTP, logging, and cron job management. The software also integrates with the company's companion products: Post.Office (a powerful and easy to use mail server and list server) and WEBmail (a web-based mail client). iTools 8 is available for $350.

QuickerTek networking kit for Power Macs...

QuickerTek has extended its long distance wireless network products for Apple's desktops. Designed for Power Mac users without built-in AirPort, the Transceiver and PCI card Bundle includes the Buffalo 54g PCI Card and the QuickerTek 27dBm Transceiver for maximum wireless performance. The QuickerTek tranceiver operates like a "super antenna," pulling in signals that are up to a mile away as well as providing full speed connections, according to the company. The Buffalo PCI Card provides the means to connect the Transceiver to PCI Power Macs without AirPort, while the transceiver can be powered from the USB port or the AC power adapter supplied in the kit. The QuickerTek Transceiver is shipped with a 2dBi omni-directional antenna. The bundle is available for $240, a savings of $40.