MacEdition Pro News : June 10, 2003
Whistling down the wire

by MacEdition Staff (feedback)

In this issue

• Revolution 2.0 released
• SystemWorks 3.0 on the way
• New project manager goes to work
• Corel slashes pricing on wares
• Coast-to-coast dust up
• Stick fun for everyone
• Admin tool rolls in X support

The new Revolution

Runtime Revolution pushed Revolution 2.0 out to market with a focus on cutting development times for cross-platform applications.

“Using Revolution cuts the time to develop an application by up to a factor of 10,” said Kevin Miller, Runtime Revolution’s CEO. “With this release, we’ve re-engineered Revolution from the ground up for even higher productivity levels.”

Revolution 2.0 is a full-featured release that adds more than 118 new features and over 500 enhancements. Feature areas include:

• XML library with full support for creating and parsing XML content
• SOAP support
• New development-environment user interface, including OS X enhancements
• Unicode text entry and manipulation, conversion, import, and export
• Automatic report generator with point-and-click layout
• Video capture, text-to-speech, and more new multimedia features
• Spreadsheet/table text fields with cell editing and automatic formatting
• Windows of any size and shape
• Fully configurable drag-and-drop architecture for multiple data types
• Code Cookbook explaining a range of useful routines
• Improved database access on all platforms adds point-and-click setup,
• PostgreSQL support, and MySQL SSL connections to the existing full-featured support for MySQL, Oracle, Valentina, and ODBC connections

Runtime has posted a 30-day evaluation copy of Revolution on their website. Licenses for the programing tool run anywhere from US$99 for an education flavor to US$995 for the full-blown professional edition, which comes with email technical support and a year’s worth of free updates.

Workin’ in X

Symantec announced it will be rolling its newly release Antivirus 9.0 into a new edition of SystemWorks which will be boot in OS X, defrag the hard drive during the computer’s idle moments, and provide OS X versions of FileSaver, Volume Recover and Wipe Info.

SystemWorks 3.0 will also come bundled with Dantz’s Retrospect Express and Aladdin System’s Spring Cleaning.

“As any user who has experienced the loss of important computer files or personal data will testify, the most valuable component of a computer system is frequently the information it contains,” said Steve Cullen, senior vice president of Symantec Consumer and Client Product Delivery. “One of the easiest ways Mac users can safeguard that information is by using Symantec’s Norton SystemWorks 3.0 for Macintosh, which comprehensively guards against potentially disastrous events such as disk problems, performance issues, and virus attacks."

Symantec expects to have the new SystemWorks on vendors shelves by the end of this month with a retail sticker of US$129.99. A US$50 rebate will be offered to uses of Symantec products and those of some competitive products as an upgrade path.

Project control

appMac Software stepped into the professional productivity arena with the release of their new product xTime, a project manager software for OS X.

Features

• Gantt charts display project details in daily to yearly timelines
• Projects view clearly illustrates assignments and resource usage
• AutoFit formatting optimizes your schedule, eliminating excess space
• Assign a single resource to projects or allocate multiple resources
• Summary bars for illustrating earliest start and finish of a project phase
• Critical Path highlighting identifies key tasks with the least flexibility for change
• Set task dependencies
• Summarize project costs and other key values with report function
• Over 10 example schedules to jump-start your projects
• Calendar window for entering dates

The cocoa-based software was designed to work with Apple’s iCal and Address Book. A preview version is currently on the appMac site for evaluation purposes. The program carries an introductory price of US$99 for downloads and US$119 for a CD version.

Bargain bin beauties

Corel Corp. tossed in a couple of nuggets of Mac-goodness into their deeply discounted summer blowout bin.

Corel is offering Photoshop plugins KnockOut 2.0 at the KPT collection (formerly known as Kai’s Power Tools) for US$99.99 respectively. Also on the table is a chance for Mac users to buy the end-of-the-line version of Bryce 5.0 for US$79.99.

“We can’t wait for customers to see what we have in store with our newly updated line of graphics offerings, designed specifically to address their needs,” said Steve Houck, executive vice-president, partner relations at Corel. “With award-winning graphics technology, an updated look and lower prices, there’s no better time for customers to unleash their creative energy and explore the possibilities provided by Corel’s software.”

Corel expects to have the newly priced titles on retailers shelves in North America this month, with international rollouts coming over the course of the summer.

More from the Great White North

Another coterie crafty Canucks have cobbled together an update for a prepress workflow tool which takes dead aim at one of their cross country rivals.

Ultimate Technographics released an update to Impostrip which allows the imposition tool to read files and templates created in Creo Preps, allowing users of Impostrip to rollover legacy jobs to their OS X product. Creo sets up shop in beautiful Burnaby British Columbia, which is basically across the street from Vancouver.

“Impostrip has always been recognized as the fastest imposition workflow product in the market. With the release of IMPress for OS X, the first OS X PostScript and PDF imposition solution in the world, at GraphExpo 2002, and with the OS X front end support of Impostrip, we have a product line that answers the needs of any print shop, from a digital on-demand print workflow, to the most sophisticated CTP systems,” said Robert Dumas, Director of Product Management, Ultimate Technographics. “Ultimate’s products are all about choice, our imposition products work with the OS, RIP and output device of your choice – and now we even work seamlessly with our competing product, Preps. Preps users now have more options, they can expand their imposition workflow without spending an enormous amount of money on individual licenses of Preps and instead simply add Impostrip for a faster and more economical imposition workflow”.

The Impostrip update also folds in an updated PostScript filter list, full support for 1-bit TIFF imposition, PDF trap layer annotation and more control over PDF 1.4 pages. The update is free to supported users of Impostrip. Users of Creo Preps are being wooed with a price tag of anywhere from US$995 to $3,995 depending on the feature set of the product. Regular pricing for Impostrip range from US$2,995 to US$5,995. An evaluation copy of the software is available from the Ultimate site.

Fun time in the house

Stick Software has found another way for discerning Mac OS X users to waste their productive time.

The company released Trisection, a Tetris-like puzzle game which involves the user placing falling pieces into a triangular grid.

It’s a very different challenge, and with more than a dozen levels, lots of different Aqua-style rendered pieces, great sound effects, not one but two soundtracks, and beautiful background photos, we think it’s a winner.

Trisection is available as a $15 shareware title.

In the palm of your hand

Xnet Communications released a new of their network administration tool that lets a Windows-based administrator control a Mac OS X user from a Windows CE PDA.

NetOp Remote Control 7.6 adds Mac OS X to its support of Linux and Sun Solaris systems, folds in LDAP name resolving, auto-authentication, and improves file transfer speeds.

The new version of NetOp Remote Control also boasts significantly improved performance. Intensive focus on TCP/IP traffic has led to speed increases of up to 40% on some LAN configurations, drastically reducing the transfer time for large amounts of data. Cross-platform speed has also been increased in NetOp Remote Control 7.6, enabling faster remote control of Windows hosts from platforms such as Linux and UNIX. Providing the world’s most extensive cross-platform support, NetOp Remote Control satisfies the need of enterprises with large, complex networks to reduce costs and increase efficiency by making it easier to remotely manage and troubleshoot the widest range of computers securely.

A starter pack for the software, which comprises of a license for one host and one client costs US$179. An additional 10-user pack costs US$75 and the per seat rate declines with larger volume licenses. Additional information and a full evaluation version of the software are available at Xnet site.

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.

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