MacEdition ProNews : May 9, 2003
Goodies from the grab bag
by MacEdition Staff (feedback)
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Better is Bigger
Add WiebeTech to the short list of companies that are offering a FireWire 400 dual drive enclosure.
The drive manufacturer will ship a dual drive case next week. The case mounts as two separate volumes under Windows or Mac OS 9, while Mac OS X users have the additional options of striping or mirroring the drives using the RAID tools that ship with OS X.
“Users have been asking for a product that allows two drives to mount from within one enclosure, and DuoGB fills that role spectacularly,” said James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech. “DuoGB will also function perfectly as a high performance striped or mirrored RAID under OS X. As a result, we are offering a storage device with up to 500GB (unformatted) storage capacity, all achieved without drivers and with really awesome performance. For OS X users, the process of creating a RAID is as simple as opening the disk utility and dragging both drives to the RAID tab, then assigning a name and clicking on create, it’s that easy.”
WiebeTech rates the throughput of the drives at 40MB/sec. Base price for the case starts at US$179.95 and climbs to US$869.95 for a case stuffed with two 250GB hard drives.
WiebeTech also announced price drops on the company’s line of fanless enclosures. The single drive FireWire 400/USB 2.0 drives start at US$139.95 and climb to US$499.95 when including a 250GB hard drive.
Cashing in on a trend
Hey in these rough and tumble days, when a little guy’s gotta look out for number one, you gotta think quick and cash in on every opportunity that come around.
That could well be the credo of iTrolls cartoon creator Greg Maddux, who’s now selling T-shirts and posters picturing his little imaginary friends cashing in on the latest thing in rock ’n’ roll.
In celebration of the release of the new iPods, GMx has done an exclusive design available on a T-Shirt and as an 11" x 17" poster. The front of the T-Shirt shows L337 and his band (mobo on bass, Mullet on drums) cranking out the tune, “Steal This Song.” the back of the T has an iPod with the message, “Been Caught Stealing?”
The T is available in all sizes and lists for a special low price of $14.99 for a limited time only. (The regular price is $19.99) The poster is on heavy gloss stock and lists for $4.99 for a limited time only. (Regular price is $8.99)
Early adopters can grab the Ts at US$14.99 a pop and snag an accompanying poster for US$4.99. Once the creatures are rich and famous the price goes up to $19.99 for the T-shirts and the posters will demand US$8.99.
Oops factor figured
I'll bet there’s more than one person out there who has spilled their favorite beverage onto a now non-functional keyboard.
Well, if you don’t want to join that growing list of users who kill keyboards you might want to turn your browsers to ackNOWLEDGE, who have released a silicone protector for the Apple Pro keyboard.
The iSkin ProTouch is designed for users who want to protect their investment without sacrificing the look and feel of their Apple product. When placed on the Apple Pro Keyboard, the iSkin ProTouch’s grips to each key and creates a comfortable and natural typing experience.
The iSkin ProTouch is perfect for home, corporate and industrial environments. It is available in nine frosted, translucent Skin Tones (colors) that add a splash of color to the iMac, eMac or PowerMac’s Pro Keyboard.
The US$35.99 keyboard protector is removable, making it easy to clean when other household grim and grunge gets caught between the keys.
No recovery possible
Those still sloggin’ away on a Mac Classic box might be pleased to know at least one developer hasn’t forgotten about you fine folks.
Mireth Technologies has released a new version of ShredIt, their privacy utility which obliterates files and folders. The new version of the utility now measures up to the American Department of Defense 5220 standard. There are options to securely erase all the free space on a disk, or the use can rub out a disk by dragging and dropping it on an icon.
Inclusion of the 5220 standard and freespace shredding were included in a recent update for users of the Mac OS X version of the program.
Shredit 5 costs US$19.95 for either the Mac OS X or the Mac Classic version and are available from the company’s Web site.
Penny for your thoughts...
For those iMovie buffs with a twisted sense of humor, Virtix Inc. just released a product that’s right up your alley.
The company has a new effects package out, called iBubble, that lets editors draw cartoon thought and speech bubbles over top of people in their clips and the bubbles are able to follow one character and they move through their iMovie scene.
Virtix iBubble also has Labels with Arrows. You can use the custom user interface to place the labels and direct the arrows to certain objects, useful for instructional videos or for pointing out obscure or funny details in your video.
You can place plain text titles anywhere on the screen, allowing you to identify individuals in a group picture. Glowing text will show up on any color background. The “Moving Text” titles will move across the screen, then pause on a position you select, and then continue off the edge of the screen.
Virtix iBubble is compatible with iMovie 2 and iMovie 3 for both Mac OS X and Mac Classic. The US$24.95 effects package is available via download from the Virtix Web site.
Dog updates for HAMs
Dog Park Software issued a couple of updates to the company’s HAM radio offerings.
The company tweaked MacDopplerPRO, the company’s satellite tracking software, adding the ability to fast forward or reverse time to give the users views of predicted and actual satellite positions over the earth at any point in time. Dog Park also added new high resolution maps to the program and made some changes to the programs 3D rendering.
Dog Park also tweaked MacLoggerDX, their DX broadcast tracking utility. The update improved HF band tracking and added a bearing indicator to the Map Panel in addition to adding a driver for the Icom 8500 radio set.
The updates are available at eHam.net as well as VersionTracker and MacUpdate.
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