Fish Tycoon for Mac ships

Last Day of Work has released the Mac version of Fish Tycoon, allowing players to cross-breed, nurture, and grow exotic fish in a virtual aquarium. Players search for the fabled seven magic fish of Isola, on the island of Isola. The loss of those seven magic fish has broken the ecosystem, and until players find the magic fish and solve their genetic puzzle, they must nurture and breed fish as a means to finance research. Players sell fish in a virtual store and use the proceeds to buy supplies -- such as medication or eggs -- to assist in the care of the fish. Fish Tycoon is available for $20, and requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

TIME reviews 13-inch MacBook

TIME Magazine has taken its first look at Apple's 13-inch MacBook, touching on the notebook's price, non-Universal Mac software, and Boot Camp. The reviewer notes that the MacBook lacks various features offered by its more expensive sibling, the MacBook Pro, such as a backlit keyboard, the light-sensitive display, a dedicated graphics card, and an ExpressCard/34 expansion slot. Despite this, however, attention is brought to the fact that the MacBook shares most of the professional notebook's features, such as the built-in iSight camera, the Apple Remote, a break-away magnetic power connector, and wireless Bluetooth support. TIME found Apple's Boot Camp software to be a great success. "I even tested out MTV's Urge service with -- Jobs forgive me — an iriver clix music player. It all worked together even more smoothly than it had done on my high-powered Dell desktop."

Seagate debuts enterprise hard drives

Seagate has debuted its new Barracuda ES and Savvio 10K.2 hard drives, which are optimized with a variety of storage requirements for the enterprise market. The Barracuda ES offers SATA capacities of up to 750GB, powers RAID systems as well as other multi-drive solutions, and can support 50 percent more capacity within the same form factor, according to Seagate. The second-generation 2.5-inch Savvio 10K.2 delivers high I/O transaction performance with a 1.6 million hour MTBF reliability, offering up to 146GB of storage capacity. The Savvio drive consumes an average of 15 percent less power than its prior generation, and boasts a size 70 percent smaller than conventional 3.5-inch drives (pricing and availability were unavailable).

Apps: RSS Menu, Daily vX, Cyberduck

• RSS Menu 1.8b is a system-wide menu that enables users to listen to podcasts or read RSS/Atom feeds without switching applications. The update improves speed and performance, resulting in more stability and less CPU usage. RSS Menu 1.8b also incorporates numerous bug fixes. [Download - 776KB]


• Daily vX ($20) is professional journal and note taking software. Users can write a journal, take notes, document ideas or comments, save text/code snippets, store important data such as registration keys, and note todo's. The software features full integration with Mac OS X applications such as Mail, Safari, and iCal. [Download - 19MB]


• Cyberduck 2.6 (free) is an open source FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) browser licensed under the GPL with an easy to use interface. The application features integration with external editors, as well as support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, the Keychain, and AppleScript. [Download - 7.9MB]


• Cocktail 3.7.2 ($15) is a general purpose utility for Mac OS X that offers various maintenance tools as well as interface tweaks. Cocktail features are accessible via a graphical user interface, designed to simplify the use of advanced UNIX functions. [Download - 1.7MB]


• On Air 1.1 ($40) offers native compatibility to Intel Mac users, enhancing the video source control application. On Air allows users to manage multiple video sources, from Web and DV cameras to IP cameras, as well as Apple's iSight. Version 1.1.0 supports the D-Link DCS 900 camera, and improves overall application stability. [Download - [form]]

FirmTek ships SATA card for MacBook Pro

FirmTek is now shipping it SeriTek/2SM2-E ExpressCard adapter, one month ahead of original projections. Announced at NAB, the solution provides the MacBook Pro with storage performance capable of streaming live video directly to disk. "Now professional and amateur videographers can perform almost any and all of their work in the field. FirmTek's established hot-swap compatibility also makes it easy for users to move entire drives and arrays from the MacBook Pro to any FirmTek-equipped desktop system, or into secure storage, in seconds," the company said. FirmTek says its SeriTek/2SM2-E is the first ExpressCard solution shipping that supports SATA drives and enclosures. It is available now for $120 or as part of specially priced bundles with selected hot-swappable drive enclosures.

Briefly: CBS on iTunes; iPod pricing

In brief: CBS and Apple today announced that prime time programming from The CBS Television Network is now available on the iTunes Music Store.... Apple has cut the prices of its fifth-generation iPod sold in Canada, offering the 30GB iPod -- which was CAD$379 -- for $349, while the 60GB model is now $459, a $40 drop from the original $499 price tag.... Black Cat Systems is offering a 20 percent discount on all of its software products through June 15th, 2006 to celebrate its 15th anniversary.... Verbatim today announced that it will begin shipping 2X Blu-ray write-once and rewriteable media in July.... Nova Media today introduced nova media phone plugins 2.9.1, featuring Nokia E70, Nokia 6102i, Nokia 3250 and BenQ EL71 support for Apple's iSync software.... Softchaos today began shipping Workstrip 3.2.3, an update to its software alternative to Apple's Dock in Mac OS X.

Civilization IV goes beta

Sid Meier's Civilization IV for Mac has hit beta status, and is scheduled to ship later this month. Civilization IV features multiplayer support over LAN, the internet, and "Play-By-Email" for competing or cooperating with live players. A 3D world brings dozens of fully animated units and customizable armies, as well as cities and wonders. Key features of Civilization IV include fast-paced game play for a more streamlined experience, greater accessibility via an easy-to-use interface, a flexible tech tree allowing players more strategic choices for developing civilizations through unique paths, and more. Designed from the ground up for "modability," the game includes a powerful map editor with XML and Python support. Civilization IV is slated for shipment in June for $50, and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

MOTU brings instruments to Intel Macs

MOTU today began shipping Ethno Instrument 1.0 and Symphonic Instrument 1.1.2 as Universal Binaries to run natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. The Ethno Instrument features 4GB of ethnic instrument sounds combined with another 4GB of world music loops and phrases. Symphonic Instrument 1.1.2 boasts an 8GB library of new sounds from orchestras and musicians, and includes a built-in convolution reverb processor to produce realistic room ambiences. Symphonic Instrument is available as a free download for registered Symphonic Instrument users (pricing and system requirements were unavailable).

Heat resistant MacBook sleeve ships

Wrappers has launched the MacBook sleeve and lap protector, a heat resistant rubber sleeve for Apple's 13-inch MacBook. The tailored cover serves as a protective sleeve on-the-go, and can be used as a mat to the shield users' lap during computer usage. Made from heat-resistant rubber, the sleeve insulates against temperatures up to 250 degrees centigrade. Constructed from 76 percent rubber and 24 percent cotton, a spongy exterior guards the notebook against scratches and light bumps. The cover comes in six varying trim colors consisting of black, purple (shown at right), red, blue, green, or orange. The heat resistant rubber sleeve is available for £18.

NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter

Newer Technology (NewerTech) today introduced the NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter. The device is a single-source solution to allow any 2.5-inch, 3.5-inch, or 5.25-inch hard drive or optical drive mechanism with standard IDE/ATA/ATAPI 40 pin or any Serial-ATA interface to be plug-and-play accessible via USB. Offering transfer speeds of up to 480Mb/sec, the adapter is backwards compatible to provide USB 1.1 connectivity. Allowing quick connection of hard drives and optical drives, the drive adapter includes all necessary hardware for plug-and-play of supported storage devices to any Mac or PC with an available USB port. No software is required for the use of the adapter on any Mac system running Mac OS 8.6 or later, and a CD is included with drivers for Windows-based systems. The NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter ships for $25.

FotoMagico supports GarageBand, AR

Boinx Software has released FotoMagico 1.7, bringing better support for the Apple Remote and Apple's GarageBand music production application. The slideshow application solution allows you to wirelessly control a presentation using the Apple Remote control device that comes with the new Macs. Version 1.7 also integrates with Apple's GarageBand 3 to help users create a soundtrack with sound effects, voice over and royalty free music to go with your pictures. FotoMagico saves a preview movie of the slideshow and opens it in a new GarageBand project, allowing users to add jingles, sound effects and voice recording features to their slideshow soundtracks. "Once your work is finished and saved, simply drag the GarageBand project file back into the FotoMagico Storyboard to add it to the slideshow," the company noted. Version 1.7 also brings better drag & drop support. It is available in both German and English for $80.

Apps: PDFClerk, LaunchBar, Downfall

• PDFClerk 1.0 (15€) is a PDF manipulation tool that allows you to join multiple PDF documents together, rearrange the page order, delete individual pages, impose multiple pages onto a sheet of paper and rotate pages on imposed sheets, making it easy to create own books, booklets and magazines. Users can create prints for languages that read from right to left like Arabic, Chinese and Hebrew. The Universal Binary software runs on Mac OS X 10.4 or later. [Download - 674KB]


• Jon's Phone Tool v3.5 ($15) is a Universal Binary of the versatile phone dialer for Mac OS X. Users can use it to dial their Bluetooth mobile phone or a standard land line through the Mac's modem or speakers. JPT can also make calls via Vonage, CallVantage, Skype, Ovolab Phlink, Parliant's PhoneValet, an Asterisk PBX server, IP Phones from Cisco and others. JPT features extensive AppleScript support, Bonjour notifications, caller ID, a call log, a notepad, and call timers. It runs on Mac OS X 10.3 or later. [Download - 3.4MB]


• LaunchBar 4.1.1 ($20) is a maintenance update for the company's popular, award winning search and system utility. The update includes a number of improvements and bug fixes, improves compatibility with Xcode 2.3 (supports the new ADC Reference Library structure), and provides a couple of new web-search templates in the factory configuration. The softwarwe provides instant access to your applications, documents, contacts and bookmarks, to a music library, to search engines and more, just by entering short abbreviations of the searched item's name. [Download - 866KB]


• PreemptiveThreadTD 2.0 ($20) is an update to the toolkit which makes it easy for REALbasic users to execute code in OS native, preemptive threads on Mac OS X and Windows. Version 2.0 fixes numerous bugs which could lead to crashes when using version 1.0. The PreemptiveThreadTD toolkit includes 4 classes for implementing and communicating with preemptive threads: PreemptiveThreadTD, CriticalSectionTD, SemaphoreTD, and ThreadCompletionTimerTD. Using these classes REALbasic users can create threads that execute code which would block a standard Thread and lead to sluggish behavior or a frozen UI. [Download - 272KB]


• Veenix Font Tools 5.1 ($50) updates the Type Book Creator tool. Type Book Creator that allows users to easily create type books/catalogs/printouts of any font collections--whether activated or not. Version 5.1 brings a Visual Font Database/Font List Auto-scroll to quickly view or preview fonts. The update also adds type-specing information to the Font Measurements feature, new type-specing information to Type Book layouts, a new Type Book layout, and other interface refinements. It runs on Mac OS X 10.4 or later. [Download - 1.0MB]


• Downfall 2.6 ($20) is a fun arcade puzzle game, that uses the latest technology to produce stunning 3D graphics. The Tetris-like game consists of over 30 different boards to play, with smooth 3D animations and endless replayability. All the boards have special blocks like indestructibles, dynamite sticks, snow shovels, wrecking balls etc. This updated version includes a new board called 'Petrified' that has been added to the 'Demolition' category and fixes a number of other bugs. [Download - 1.1MB]