May 19 - 6:30pm EDT   TuneUp Media has updated its iTunes add-on, and has announced that Apple will sell the plug-in online and at its retail stores. The TuneUp interface has been updated to closely resemble iTunes, and new features have been added. The software takes an "audio fingerprint" of songs to help users identify and organize tracks, find album art, and locate information about artists and concerts. [full story]

February 21 - 12:25pm EST   In brief: Toolfarm a source for professional visual effects and motion graphics plug-ins has announced that it has acquired Pluginz. ToolFarm views this acquisition as a natural step in growing their site into a one-stop shop service. MacNN readers are now being offered a 30% discount on several video tutorials from Computer App Training. The latest releases include tips and tricks on working with iMovie '09 and Photoshop CS4. Separately, Macuarium, a spanish Mac news site, is celebrating its tenth anniversary and has released a special icon pack for its readers to celebrate. [full story]

February 18 - 11:40am EST   YourHead Software has launched Stacks 1.0, a page-style plugin for RapidWeaver. Stacks 1.0 brings layout editing to the website creation software, allowing for flexible web page design using a drag and drop interface. Stacks arrives with a library of simple building blocks for creating complex layouts. Users build web pages using Stacks by placing elements from the Stacks Library anywhere onto a web page layout. Each element can be moved, resized, styled, and nested, while pages built via Stacks are flexible and flow content to fit the dimensions of any RapidWeaver theme. [full story]

February 17 - 1:40pm EST   Pomfort has released PaintGrade Plugin for Aperture, offering a painting approach to color correction within Aperture. The software allows common adjustments like brightness, saturation and contrast to be painted into the picture, making adjustments to only the areas affected by the brush strokes. The plugin uses dynamic color keying, allowing interactive modifications of the keyed area and uses algorithms that smooth and soften all the manipulations within a painted area, avoiding hard edges and color clipping and engineering smooth tonal changes between original and adjusted areas within the image. [full story]

October 23 - 9:10pm EDT   TuneUp Media is bringing its Windows-based iTunes plugin to the Mac, and MacNN users are invited to try the beta. TuneUp works within iTunes to find missing album art, clean-up mislabeled tracks and inconsistent metadata and more. TuneUP claims its plugin is the most popular iTunes add-on for Windows with more than 60-thousand downloads in the past three months [full story]

July 7 - 6:55am EDT   Google Code project owner 'Colesbury', has released Firefox Mac PDF Plugin. Unlike other browsers such as Safari, Firefox by default does not allow for inline viewing of PDF files (that is, the viewing of .PDFs without need of third-party applications). Based on the PDFKit in Cocoa, the open-source Mac-PDF plugin allows users to view full .PDF documents within the browser itself, bringing Firefox into line with other browsers that already sport the feature. The plugin requires Firefox 3 and Mac OS X 10.4 or later. (Last week Adobe's PDF file format became an ISO standard and the company released Reader 9 with several new features. [full story]

June 29 - 6:30pm EDT   IK Multimedia and Muse Research have joined forces to create what they claim is one of the most powerful music sound modules ever made. The Total WorkStation Rack uses Muse Research’s Receptor hardware plug-in player with IK’s SampleTank 2.5, Sonik Synth 2, Miroslav Philharmonik, SampleMoog and Sampleton virtual instruments. The product also ships with more than 10,000 sample-based sounds from every instrument category. [full story]

June 17 - 3:35pm EDT   Nova Media has released Phone Plugins, a utility that allows one-click dialing and text messaging from any application in Leopard. Users of OS X Tiger were able dial cellphones connected over Bluetooth, but Apple removed that feature in OS X 10.5. Nova claims the utility not only restores that lost functionality, but improves on it as well. The Berlin-based developer says the Phone Plugins include a Bluetooth wizard to connect cell phones in one step. Users can call or send a text message to any number within Address Book or other applications using the “services” menu. [full story]

April 10 - 9:10am EDT   AKVIS has released the v6.0 update to Noise Buster, its photo enhancement tool. The app is able to remove noise in both the color and luminance layers of photos, separately or together. The Mac version of the upgrade has a variety of changes, among these support for Photoshop Elements 6; also new though is the "Microdetail" parameter, which attempts to return minute details to a photo without additionally reintroducing noise. [full story]

April 7 - 2:55pm EDT   In brief: We have a review of the Tannoy i30 iPod speaker system, Apple refreshes the "Macintosh" trademark, a 36-hour iPhone programming marathon takes place and iSync phone plugins gets new device support ... We have posted a review of the Tannoy i30 iPod speaker system. This heavy-duty speaker system has an oval shape that is flat from the front view, but extends the oval in the back, complete with an inset hidden handle. The clean front design has not a button to be seen; so all the controls are on the small remote. The front is graced with two non-removable gray grills that cover 4-inch iCT, Inductive Coupling Technology , speakers and an iPod dock, under which ... [full story]

March 25 - 8:25pm EDT   Apple today unveiled PluginManager 1.7.3, an update to the plugin management service for Final Cut Pro, Motion, Aperture, Logic Studio, as well as several SDK kits. The update addresses certain problems within Final Cut Studio relating to backwards compatibility. PluginManager.framework, FxPlug.framework, ProFX.framework, and FxPlugWrapper.plugin have all been replaced with current versions to address the issue. The update is also available through Software Update, under the Apple Menu. [full story]

March 12 - 1:40pm EDT   Digital Heaven has announced the release of DH_Subtitle 2.0, an upgrade to the popular subtitle generator plug-in for Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. The tool allows users to create professional style subtitles with boxes behind the text. The new version adds text tracking and leading controls plus a new outline style option. It automatically creates the box according to the text entered and also ensures the last line of text is always in the same vertical position, no matter how many lines of text a subtitle may contain. With version 2.0 there is a new outline style which puts a line around the text to increase legibility. Also new in this version are controls ... [full story]

February 19 - 6:15pm EST   Live Interior 1.5 ($80) lets users design house, office, apartment, and other interiors with realistic 3D walk-throughs. Live Interior 3D 1.5 update adds lamp creating functionality. Now you can compose and edit various lamps using Light Source Editor, insert and adjust different types of light sources in any objects including imported ones. [Download - 49.4MB] MBS REALbasic plug-ins 8.1 ($270) a collection of several plug-in parts which extend the REALbasic development environment with over 900 classes and 2 controls featuring over 17000 documented functions. This release adds: new ThreadMBS class for crossplatform preemptive threads in REALbasic; MutexMBS class to work with the ... [full story]

February 13 - 3:50pm EST   Troi Automatisering today unveiled Troi Dialog Plug-in 5 for FileMaker Pro 9, a plug-in designed to extend FileMaker's dialogue boxes in a number of different ways. The latest version adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and an improved InputDialog function, which provides access to upwards of 15 input items. PresentImage has also been revamped, allowing users to view full screen slideshows of pictures or movies. Troi Dialog Plug-in 5 is currently available for $60, with free upgrades available for those who purchased v4.x on or after February 1st, 2007. [full story]

February 4 - 4:15am EST   Developer Brandon Holland recently unveiled a downloadable beta version of his Apple TV Skype plugin that uses a standard USB VoIP handset to make calls through the Apple TV. The plugin is a front-end, and requires the Skype framework to be installed prior to use. Holland offers a fairly in-depth video tour of the as-of-then working features, giving users a technical demonstration of the software's capabilities. [full story]