MacEdition Pro News : August 8, 2002: Game programming, Budget balancing, ArcherPro and free seminars

by MacEdition Staff (feedback)

Let the Games compile

It’s on again: The uDevGame 2002 Mac programming competition is back. It’s run by the folks at iDevGames, and is intended to encourage budding developers to write games for the Mac:

Takamatsu City, Japan, August 1, 2002 - iDevGames, the premier website for Macintosh Game Developers, invites the Macintosh community to support the second annual Mac game programming contest - uDevGame 2002. Building on the hugely successful inaugural contest last year, which saw over $4,200 worth of game development prizes offered, this years’ contest promises to be even bigger and better.

uDevGame was established by iDevGames with three underlying objectives in mind: create, educate, and succeed. The goal is to motivate developers to create original games for the Macintosh platform, and then to release the source code back to the Macintosh programming community. In this way, the participants of uDevGame actively help to educate developers (and aspiring developers) in technologies, such as OpenGL and Cocoa. In addition, the contest also helps to draw attention to those that develop unique and exciting games for the Macintosh, as well as help introduce the best and brightest Macintosh game development talent to development houses and publishers alike.

iDevGames is also keen to attract additional official sponsors. If your company would like to help iDevGames support the Macintosh game development community by becoming an official sponsor of uDevGame 2002, simply sign up at http://64.246.17.165/internal/contest_sponsor_form.php/.

For more information regarding the contest, visit the official page at: http://64.246.17.165/content/contest.php?id=6

Budget with Budget

Hooray! Intuit is planning to release a Mac OS X native version of its popular QuickBooks program Real Soon Now. However, if your appraisal of Intuit’s press release is as skeptical as the TidBITS summary, you may be interested in Budget. It probably doesn’t have the (as yet completely unannounced) feature set of QuickBooks, but it’s Cocoa-based for Mac OS X, it’s cheaper and most important, it’s shipping:

Springfield, VA and Minneapolis, MN – August 1, 2002 – Ron Hooper and Kyle Hammond announce today that Budget 3.1 for Mac OS X is available for immediate download. Budget is a personal finance application that helps people plan where their money is going and track how well they stick to their plan. Budget also provides a powerful checkbook management capability.

[...]

Some of Budget’s major features are:

• Envelope Method - A proactive method of budgeting - set aside money to pay your bills BEFORE they’re due.
• Define Pay Source(s) - Set up your regular income to automatically distribute funds to various “envelopes”.
• Checkbook Management - Write checks, enter deposits, and balance your checkbook - no need for a “register”.
• Print Checks - Print personal or business checks, including an image of your signature, on any printer.
• Reports and Statistics - See how well you are keeping within your budget.
• Powerful Search Capability - Find any transaction using a combination of different criteria.
• Savings and Investments - Manage your savings accounts and track your investment portfolio.
• Reminders - Repeating transactions, such as monthly bills, can be set up as reminders.
• “To Do” system - Keep daily lists of things that need to be done.

Budget 3.1 is US$24.95 shareware and is available for download immediately from http://cocoabudget.home.att.net/. Version 3.1 is a free upgrade for registered users. Also, in a refreshing change from the tardiness of Intuit, the folks at Budget strive to provide 24-hour turnaround for user tech support questions. For more info, check out the Web site.

Manage your media with ArcherPro

ArcherPro comes from the folks at Parker Software, and seems a nice shareware alternative for folks who want to do simple slideshows on Mac OS X without shelling out for Powerpoint X:

Parker Software Development, Inc. has just released ArcherPro 1.1.0. This release introduces a new feature called Destination Folders. This feature allows you to rapidly sort through your slide shows. With a single keystroke, you can copy the displayed image in any slide show viewer to any of eight user-defined folders.

Another big change is the removal of the limited trial. You can use ArcherPro for as long as you like. For the first 30 days, you will not receive any reminders to register. Once the trial period is over, you will occasionally receive reminders to register your copy of ArcherPro.

ArcherPro is a small, fast, easy-to-use multimedia viewer. Most commands can be executed with a single keystroke. ArcherPro, like its freeware counterpart Archer, lets you mix still images, audio files, and movies in the same slide show. However, ArcherPro has features not found in the free version: features like sequenced image export, integrated database for future growth, the new Destination Folders feature, and more.

ArcherPro is US$29.95 and can can be downloaded at http://www.parkersoftware.com/products/archerpro/

Free DV Seminars

The folks at Moviola are holding a series of no-cost digital video seminars around the Los Angeles area. Dates and topics are:

• August 9th (Friday) - (Lunch and Learn) - Avid Xpress DV 3.5 Overview
• August 15th (Thursday) - Maximizing your DV Filmmaking Budget
• August 22th (Thursday) - Bryce Buttons Aesthetics of Editing & Book Signing
• August 23th (Friday) - (Lunch and Learn) - Intro to DV Cinematography
• August 27th (Tuesday) - Apple, Pinnacle, Cinewave

For more information and registration, check out their calendar or seminar list. Since the events are free, space is limited #8211; register now to assure a seat!

Looking for old ProNews segments? Check out our index at http://old.macedition.com/news/. Do you have news releases or tidbits of interest to the Macintosh professional? Send them to pronewsnotes@macedition.com.