May 29 - 12:55pm EDT   A number of minor but cumulatively important interface changes have been made in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, observes a Flickr user with access to the developer beta. Beyond some known tweaks, such as the addition of sliders for icon size, the software is also expected to warn users who have not created a password hint, and enable Quick Look within Open and Save dialogs, not just Finder. The System Preferences pane has meanwhile been rearranged, for instance splitting the Keyboard and Mouse sections, removing QuickTime, and moving Bluetooth under a new Internet & Wireless header. [full story]

April 13 - 10:20pm EDT   Mac-Chi has announced WhoPaste, a contact-creation tool for Address Book. The software is designed to extract contact information from web pages, e-mails, text documents, and spreadsheets, and then place the data into the appropriate fields in Address Book. Each contact can be created by extracting the name, e-mail address, phone number, street address, or instant message handle. Contacts can also be added to as many as three Address Book groups. [full story]

April 6 - 7:00pm EDT   Address Book Server has updated its Address Book and Calendar Server software to offer a manual sync mode via iSync. The new version can now generate e-mail lists for each group, and web interface enhancements and bugfixes are also present. Address Book and Calendar Server allows a user to host an Address Book server on a local network, synchronizing local and remotely connected Macs and syncing other computers via a web interface. iPhone and iPod touch users can access the information via a free read-only app available on the iTunes App Store. [full story]

March 24 - 6:30pm EDT   JABMenu 2.1 ($15) provides quick access to Address Book data such as phone numbers, emails, and postal addresses. It can display the content in large type, copy it to the clipboard, create a new email, dial a phone number, or display an address on a map using the Google Maps service. Version 2.1 has added support for selecting multiple groups for menu inclusion and has also improved the handling of instant messaging actions. [Download - 1.2MB] [full story]

March 11 - 11:15pm EDT   Opacity 1.3 ($90) is a graphics creation utility that combines pixel and vector editors with Photoshop-like tools such as filters, layers and transforms. Version 1.3 adds an improved Pen Tool, improved Text editing, inside and outside stroke options, a new spiral tool and reduces the size of saved image .opacity files. [Download - 11.5MB] [full story]

February 25 - 4:35pm EST   Mac-Chi has released Googaby 1.0, an app meant to sync Google Contacts and Address Book. The program features a drag-and-drop workflow, and uses a layout similar to iTunes. Among other features is WhoPaste, a tool which captures bulk contact data from third-party applications and breaks it down into Address Book-friendly code. New contacts can be added to Address Book, Google Contacts or both, and subsequently routed into specified groups. [full story]

February 3 - 3:15pm EST   Multisite 2.4 ($20) is a utility for iWeb that allows users to more easily create and manage multiple sites. Users can select which site they would like to edit and Multisite loads only that data into iWeb which can speed up iWeb as less data needs to be loaded at a time. The update has added support for iWeb ’09 so that page names are displayed correctly in the Multisite window and also includes several bug fixes. [Download - 0.91MB] [full story]

January 29 - 10:45am EST   Hawkscope 0.4 (free) is a tool that allows users to access their hide drive contents from a dynamic menubar item. The update has added HTTP proxy authentication for update checks, features better handling of resources and smaller memory consumption, has added the possibility to use operating system icons if they are available and is now Java 5 compatible allowing it to run on Mac OS X 10.4 and up. [Download - 1.4MB] [full story]

December 15 - 1:10pm EST   As anticipated last week, Apple has posted its latest update to Mac OS X, v10.5.6. Available through the Software Update service or direct download, the patch consists mostly of dozens of fixes and performance enhancements, for issues such as sync and graphics. Sync reliability has been improved for Address Book, portable home directories and most notably MobileMe, which should now propagate contact, calendar and bookmark changes within a minute of their being saved. [full story]

November 26 - 3:25pm EST   Derman Enterprises has posted an update to its Sync 'Em, its Mac-based synchronization application. The program attempts to keep contact and calendar data consistent between multiple apps and user accounts; it does this by linking information from Exchange and Google with Mail, iCal and Address Book. The exact data shared varies however, as Sync 'Em does not yet, for example, support Google Calendar. [full story]

November 10 - 3:30pm EST   Tension Software has released Private Contact 2.0, upgrading the secure contact data software with a new interface and bug fixes. The software stores data inside the user's Address Book, with password protection via Blowfish algorithms. Version 2.0 uses new color categories to aid its sorting and filtering options, and adds many small improvements and fixes. [full story]

October 8 - 11:10am EDT   New software for syncing Exchange, Google and Apple contact and calendar information is said to have reached the end of beta testing. The completed release of Sync'Em has received support for syncing Google contacts, beyond those found in Exchange and/or Address Book. Support for syncing Google and iCal calendar events is still in development, but the developers say they hope to have this added by mid-November. [full story]

September 22 - 3:15pm EDT   A new option for syncing data across several Macs has recently moved into public beta. Fruux currently synchronizes Address Book files across each computer a user owns, but the app's developers hope that the next release will add iCal support. By the time the software finishes its beta stages, support for syncing bookmarks as well as system preferences is anticipated. [full story]

September 22 - 2:50pm EDT   New software for syncing Exchange, Google and Apple contact and calendar information has moved into its final beta stages. In its current state, Sync'Em can sync Exchange contacts with Apple's Address Book, or across several Exchange accounts. A recent update added support for Mac OS X 10.4, as well as unidirectional syncing and extended status reporting. The update also added an on-demand "check for new version" feature. [full story]

September 15 - 5:00pm EDT   Apple is now distributing the latest upgrade to Mac OS X, v10.5.5, through Software Update. The patch addresses a considerable number of aspects in the operating system, such as Mail, MobileMe and Address Book, as well as some "general" concerns, according to Apple's support notes. Some of these include Spotlight indexing, the reliability of iPhone sync with both iCal and Address Book, and problems with Macs powering on involuntarily at the same time every day. The update is sized anywhere between 136 and 353MB, depending on the number of minor patches already installed. [full story]