MacEdition Pro News : June 13, 2003
A truckload of trinkets

by MacEdition Staff (feedback)

In this issue

• Speed Download gets faster
• Quark ready to roll for OS X
• Reporting added to PrefsOverload
• iCash provides more detail
• New sales tool released
• Finder tool gets hot key
• EarthDesk gets update
• iClip gets faster
• Aladdin cleans better
• New Stupendous bundles
• ThumpsUp gets quick addition;

Pedal meet metal

YazSoft has taken their Speed Download utility into the pits and retooled it to be 75 per cent faster, slapped in support for Apple’s Rendezvous and integration for the utility with leading Mac download site Version Tracker.

Speed Download 2 is no longer a simple download manager. It is the introduction of the new download hub. Speed Download 2 combines leading edge Macintosh technology as well as very advanced network tools, in a beautiful and extremely easy use interface. No other download manager comes remotely close to the feature set and concept behind Speed Download 2.

A 15-day trial of the utility is posted on the YazSoft site. The new version of Speed Download – which contains some 32 new features – costs US$20 for new users and upgraders are being offered dual license deal at the same US$20 price.

Quark 6 rolls out

Late to the party, but welcome just the same, Quark inc. announced it is releasing the long awaited version of Quark 6 for Mac OS X to market.

“QuarkXPress 6 fulfills two fundamental needs in the publishing industry. It gives you the creative tools to design what you can imagine, along with the productivity features you need to deliver on time and within budget,” said Quark president and CEO Fred Ebrahimi. “One of the most significant enhancements is native support for Mac OS X, the leading platform for creative professionals.”

The focus of the new release is to allow users to better manage content in order to target various media types and layouts. Users are now able to create a project file that can share style sheets, colors, hyphenation settings, an other properties across various layouts.

The new version also contains a synchronized type feature which will allow text editing changes in one document to automatically flow to other layouts using the same content. The new version also has support for PostScript 3 and a built-in PDF creation tool.

On the web side, Quark 6 promises to speed up the creation of web pages from the program and provides a number of enhancements for rollovers, menus, hyperlinks, font management, and an industry-standard XML parser. Xtensions from older versions, however, need top be ported in order to work in the new OS.

Quark 6 is expected to carry a sticker price of US$1,045 with upgrade offers going out to users of Quark 3 or higher. Current Quark owners can upgrade for US$199, Quark 4 users can buy the new version for US$299 while Quark 3 owners will need to pony up US$499 in order to get back into the game.

Your prefs report is ready

Zik Software updated PrefsOverload to give users the ability to export reports on the preference files on their systems to a text file and added scroll wheel support for the Mac OS X version of the program.

PrefsOverload is a utility which scans preference folders and reports to the user which prefs are no longer needed, or are damaged, so that the user can better conduct system maintenance.

The utility can be downloaded from the Zik site. The utility costs US$15 to register.

Cashing in

Max Programming has tweaked their iCash personal finance program to provide a more detailed reporting and the ability to import and export files in Quicken format.

What's new:

• Account Statement report.
• Summarized and detailed P&L and Balance reports.
• Editable transaction types.
• Balance Panel P&L accounts flow range.
• Balance Panel linked transactions browser.
• Quicken™ QIF single all-in-one file import support.
• Quicken™ QIF export (categories, accounts, transactions)
• Transactions printouts from transaction panel.
• Accounts printouts from Accounts panel.
• Balance panel print support.
• Rebuild database Index tool.

iCash is a $25 shareware program available for both mac OS X and Classic. The program, available for download from the Max Programming site, is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.

Working the cycle

7Office Inc. has released a major update to their sales management tool 7Office for Small Business.

7Office is a FileMaker-based sales management tool for which tracks sales and contact activity and follows the process through to invoicing. The program features a daily call log, a quote engine, fields for client credit information, and data is exportable to FileMaker Pro or Excel.

7Office manages all interactions with clients and generates sales and receipts reports for any time period. These figures can then be entered in bulk into the end user’ s choice of money management software. Anything touching on clients, including A/R and A/P, is in 7Office. Anything touching on the results of sales, including bank reconciliation, payroll, profit & loss statements and the like, is managed in programs such as QuickBooks, MYOB, Simply Accounting, etc. In this way 7Office users employ one program to generate sales and another to manage the proceeds.

The basic call management module of 7Office costs US$99 and the price of the program scales up from there depending on the degree of customization the client wants done. 7Office also comes with free lifetime support and upgrades.

Hot keys

PUBLICSPACE added hot key combination to A Better Finder Rename to allow users to launch the Finder enhancement. Launching of the program can be done by hitting the Command, Control and L keys while in the Finder.

A Better Finder Rename is a contextual menu plugin for the Macintosh Finder which allows users to quickly rename multiple files. “ A Better Finder Rename” is ideally suited for Macintosh webmasters, users who need to transfer files from or to Windows or Unix, as well as for all other Macintosh users who deal with large numbers of files.

The US$14 shareware enhancement is available for download from the PUBLICSPACE site.

The new world

Time Palette released a new version of EarthDesk, a program which provides real-time information on atmospheric illumination around the world.

EarthDesk replaces your static desktop picture with an animated, real-time rendered image of the Earth, continuously updating in the background while you work. The software supports eleven different map projections, political and satellite views, and renders accurate sun, moon and city lighting. This second generation release offers vastly improved performance and efficiency with preemptive multitasking, higher quality maps and full multi-display support.

The US$19.95 program runs in both Mac OS X and Classic and can be downloaded from the EarthDesk page. Upgrades can be had for US$9.95.

Clipping many items

Inventive Inc. reworked their multi-item clipboard tool, iClip, to improve program speed, beef up Unicode support, and allow the user to change the location of clipping control buttons.

iClip is a utility that helps you get past the limitations of having a single Clipboard. It allows you to quickly copy & paste and drag & drop clippings to and from its multiple “clipping bins” so that you can easily access them in the applications you're using. The clippings can be of various types such as text, pictures, Internet locations, sounds, and more. Clippings can be organized into unlimited groups called “clipping sets” to help you keep all of your clippings neatly arranged. Since the Scrapbook application that was in older Mac OS versions isn’t a part of Mac OS X, iClip can conveniently serve as a replacement for it.

The US$19.95 shareware program can be downloaded from the Inventive site.

Cleaning House

Aladdin Systems created a way to let Mac OS X users rifle through their systems and remove un-needed language files in their newly released edition of Spring Cleaning.

The program also added support for deleting cookies from Opera and Apple's Safari browsers.

It is easy to clean a Mac with Spring Cleaning’s speedy searches, removal of large and unnecessary language files, and the ability to quickly remove duplicate files. To simplify the decision-making process regarding whether or not to delete an individual file, users can “preview” thumbnail files in the search results and decide at-a-glance if a file should be deleted. Text files, applications, resource forks and binary files can also be quickly compared. Version 6.0 now supports Opera and Safari browsers and the ability to delete Sherlock cookies.

Spring Cleaning will carry a US$49.99 sticker price when it hits the retail shelves and upgrades will be available for US$19.95 directly from Aladdin.

Byte-sized goodness

Stupendous Software made it easier for iMovie mavens to grab a whack of the company’s effects packages without having to pop US$200 to swallow the company's whole 300+ plugin catalogue.

Stupendous announced two six-pack bundles, each comprised of almost 150 plugins, at a more affordable US$100 per bundle.

The first pack – Sixpack Alpha – contains effects for image enhancement, time controls and titling while the second bundle – Sixpack Beta – focuses more on screen effects and color control.

One more thing

DEVONtechnologies added a new feature to their recently released ThumbsUp.

The company added the ability for users to scale the sizes of thumbnails created by the program and rolled in some rudimentary image correction tools to allow the user to sharpen the thumbnail image.

ThumbsUp is a freeware title available on the DEVON 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.

E-mail this story to a friend