The MacTrack – iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and Mac News

Traverse City, Michigan – MacUpdate is celebrating the holidays this year with a software bundle that delivers great value and appeal to every Mac user. The 2008 Holiday Bundle features $450 worth of applications for just $49.99 and is available through December 18. Buyers receive all 10 bundled applications immediately, and a new gifting system makes it easy to purchase copies for friends and family. In addition, buyers who purchase or gift three bundles receive a fourth bundle, free!

Included in the bundle:

* Drive Genius 2 ($99): Currently the highest-rated disk utility on the market and used by Mac Geniuses at Apple Stores, Drive Genius diagnoses and repairs problems with your hard drive, optimizes your system, and much more. Buyers will receive a link to download a bootable DVD image of the software to burn, which can be used to boot and fix any Mac that can run Mac OS X 10.5, including Apple’s newest laptops.
Notable Mentions: MacLife Editor’s Choice pick (July 2008), 2008 MacUser Labs winner against competing disk utilities, Macworld UK Editor’s Choice (5/5 rating), “Excellent” rating from ATPM

* DefaultFolder X 4 ($34.95): Fly through Open & Save dialog boxes at lightning speed.
Notable Mentions: 4.5/5 rating from Macworld, 5/5 rating from MacUser UK, and numerous other awards

* VirusBarrier X 10.5 ($69.95): Fast, simple, and non-intrusive anti-virus software for your Mac and iPhone
Notable Mentions: 4.5/5 rating from Macworld in July 2008, which called it “the gold standard”

* RapidWeaver 4 ($79): Create powerful, professional-looking Web sites quickly and easily.
Notable Mentions: 2008 Macworld Editor’s Choice pick (5/5 rating), 4.5/5 rating from MacFormat magazine

* MacGourmet Deluxe ($44.95): Like iTunes for food, track recipes, plan meals, manage wines, and more.
Notable Mentions: 4/5 rating by MacLife magazine

* LittleSnitch 2 ($29.95): Monitors your network connection to make sure your Mac only sends out what you want it to.
Notable Mentions: 4.5/5 rating by Macworld, 5/5 rating by MacUser UK

* KeyCue 4 ($27): Displays full keyboard shortcuts for all your applications; learn them and work faster.
Notable Mentions: 4.5/5 rating by Macworld, 5/5 rating by MacNotes

* MacPilot 3 ($19.95): Access hundreds of hidden features to customize and improve your Mac OS X experience.
Notable Mentions: 5/5 rating by MacCompanion magazine, 4/5 rating by Macworld UK

* WhatSize 4 ($12.99): Effortlessly identify files that are hogging disk space and that you don’t need anymore.
Notable Mentions: 4/5 rating by Macworld, prominently mentioned in the latest issue of MacFormat magazine

* iVolume 3 ($29.95): Ensures all your iTunes tracks play back at the same level, so you never have to adjust the volume individually.

“We’re excited to be delivering this award-winning bundle of applications to Mac users this holiday,” said Nate Houle, coordinator of MacUpdate Promo. “Our developer partners understand that value counts more than ever during this time of year, and both novices and experts will be able to get a lot more out of their Macs with this collection of software.”

Pricing and Availability:
The MacUpdate Holiday Bundle is available for $49.99 exclusively from MacUpdate Promo.

MacUpdate Promo
MacUpdate

MacUpdate was founded in 1997 and has since become the leading Mac software site on the Web. The site remains independently owned and operated and represents one of the largest Apple communities online. MacUpdate Promo was launched in 2006 and delivers 24-hour daily software deals and periodic bundles.

Kitchener, Ontario Canada – seyDesign is proud to announce seyDoggy Gotem, their latest in a growing catalogue of RapidWeaver themes. Gotem is a sophisticated, contemporary RapidWeaver theme of extraordinary beauty and capability. But it also sports a new technology called ExtraContent.

ExtraContent came about when a handful of 3rd party developers got together to address the need for more content spaces in RapidWeaver. While the content area and sidebar are ample space for the vast majority of RapidWeaver users, there are some who want more flexibility to add content in ways keeping with todays modern web designs.

ExtraContent was the solution agreed upon by (((Bonsai Studios))), RapidWeaverThemes.com and seyDesign, as an easy means of end users adding more content to their site, in developer designated areas of ExtraContent enabled themes. While these areas will vary from theme to theme, the process will be very much the same. These developers worked closely to come up with a solution that would give all users a common experience.

Features at a glance:
* ExtraContent enabled
* Two ExtraContent areas
* 10 Custom headers
* RWmultitool Ready
* Split navigation
* Width control
* Header height control
* 3 background textures
* Dual sidebar control
* Choice of font style
* Color control
* and more…

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac Gotem X Version 10.4.11 Tiger or 10.5.2 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* RapidWeaver 3.6.7 or RapidWeaver 4.x

seyDesign has been serving the RapidWeaver community since December 2005 with professional RapidWeaver themes, trusted, reliable service and unparalleled support. Take advantage of our birthday celebrations with their 45% discount code: birthday2008

Pricing and Availability:
Gotem Ultimate r1 is available now for $19:49 CAD at their online RapidWeaver theme store.

seyDesign
Gotem Ultimate
Gotem Live Preview
Developer
ExtraContent ScreenCast

Headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario Canada, seyDoggy is a privately funded company founded in 2005 by Adam Merrifield. Leveraging their longtime experience in web and graphic design, seyDoggy’s goal is to develop great looking theme designs for RapidWeaver, and lead to the creation of seyDesign. Known for developing the first commercially available theme with split navigation, seyDesign is responsible for continually pushing the limits of RapidWeaver. seyDoggy also offers consulting services for companies looking to enter the web design industry or who don’t want to hire full time staff to manage their own internet or intranet web systems. Copyright 2005-2008 seyDoggy. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries. RapidWeaver, and the RapidWeaver logo are trademarks of Realmac Software Limited.

Ashdod, Israel – Apparent Software announces ImageFramer 2.2, their custom image framing utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, ImageFramer can apply photo-realistic frames to digital images, drawings or any original artwork. Users can add single frames (with multiple mats), watermarks, batch process several images at a time, as well as colorize or adjust Hue, Saturation and Brightness of the frames for maximum flexibility.

ImageFramer 2.2 adds 30 more frame designs, usability changes, such as direct frame and mat width change on the preview and EXIF orientation tag support. ImageFramer 2.2 is a free upgrade for all customers.

Language support:
English, and Japanese

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 or later
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 30 MB Hard Drive space
* Core Image

Pricing and Availability:
ImageFramer 2.2 can be purchased for $39.00 USD (per single computer license). A Family option is available for only $49.00 (USD). A full-featured, trial version can be downloaded. This version 2.2 release is a free and recommended update for all existing customers.

Apparent Software
ImageFramer 2.2
Download ImageFramer
Purchase ImageFramer
Screenshot
App Icon

Located in Ashdod, Israel, Apparent Software is a privately funded company founded in 2006 by Jacob Gorban. With a focus on the Mac platform, Apparent Software’s mission is creating useful and unique software, complemented by first-class support for its customers. Copyright 2007-2008 Apparent Software. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Ann Arbor, Michigan – Humble Daisy is offering a 40% discount on all site license purchases of ProfCast during the month of December 2008. Sites who take advantage of this discounted price will receive a FREE upgrade to ProfCast 3.0 when it becomes available. Additionally, licenses purchased during the month of December are also compatible with the forthcoming ProfCast for Windows** which is currently in beta testing.

ProfCast is perfect for professionals and educators alike who need to provide a more flexible, rich media to supplement traditional pedagogical tools such as books, course packs, or notes. ProfCast is a perfect compliment to Apple’s iLife Suite. With its integrated workflow, ProfCast provides a low cost solution for recording and distributing lectures, special events, and presentations as podcasts.

Feature highlights include:
* Records Live Presentations
* Supports Multiple File Formats
* ID3 Tags for iTunes U
* Integrated Podcast Manager
* Export to GarageBand
* Share to iWeb
* URL Linking
* Audio Playthrough Support

ProfCast sports live presentation recording, synchronization of slides with audio, Keynote and PowerPoint support, RSS generation and publishing support. All elements of a presentation, including slide timings, bullet point builds and voice narration are seamlessly recorded. ProfCast allows users to record their presentation as they give it, and also helps publish recorded presentations as enhanced podcasts, complete with RSS.

ProfCast is a unique utility that is easy to use and produces high-quality results. It remains the only innovative capture solution that records presentations and creates enhanced podcasts.

“It’s been another great year for ProfCast and as more sites are deploying ProfCast institutionally, we wanted to provide an additional incentive to get even more sites on board.” explained Humble Daisy Chief Instigator and CEO Dave Chmura. “Humble Daisy has always been about empowering people to do great work, and hopefully this sale will enable more sites to provide ProfCast for their users.” Site licenses for ProfCast are regularly priced starting at $1750.00 for up to 500 users. “I also want people to know that even if they take advantage of this discount, they will receive a FREE upgrade to ProfCast 3 when it becomes available.”

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or later (10.5 Leopard Compatible)
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 500 MB Hard Drive space
* PowerPC G4 667MHz or greater
* Keynote 2.0 or later
* Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2008
* Integration with GarageBand and iWeb requires iLife ’06 or later.
* Integration with GarageBand on Mac OS X 10.5 requires iLife ’08.
* Internet connection (required for online publishing)

** ProfCast for Windows includes lecture recording and media creation functions only. RSS generation and publishing are available on the Macintosh platform only.

Pricing and Availability:
ProfCast 2.3.0 Beta is priced at $59.95 (USD) for a single-user license. A full-featured, 15-day demo is available and a recommended update for all customers. Educational discounts are available.

Humble Daisy
ProfCast Educational Pricing Page
Download ProfCast 2.3 beta
Purchase ProfCast
Getting Started Guide
Application Icon

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Humble Daisy, Inc. is a privately funded company founded in 2002 by husband-wife team of David and Michael Chmura. With a focus on the Mac platform, Humble Daisy’s goal is to provide simple and elegant, user-centered solutions to facilitate personal and professional success. Copyright 2002-2008 Humble Daisy, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and Keynote are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Cerdanyola de Valles, Spain – Aero Quartet has released version 3.8 of SimpleMovieX, the lightweight Mac OS X movie editor. With a feature set roughly similar to QuickTime Pro, SimpleMovieX extends editing capabilities to other popular video formats AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The main advantage of native editing is speed and quality, since no re-encoding is required to save edited movies.

This new version brings increased productivity in edition tasks. Sequences can be selected directly on the movie “Contact Sheet” and then cut or trimmed. Several movies selected in the Finder and dropped in SimpleMovieX will merge into a single movie with chapter marks, ready for editing or sharing.

Powerful editing operations like splitting a movie into clips, a Batch Converter, an Audio Waveform tool to make sharp audio editing and synchronization, are among most appreciated features of version 3. SimpleMovieX also provides a search pane to quickly find a sequence and an adaptable timeline for accurate playhead positioning even in large duration movies. Huge files beyond 4GB, for example 6 hours of TV recording, can be edited without truncating.

SimpleMovieX is a tool for a wide public: Discriminating TV viewers that clean their recordings of commercials, Users of a digital camera, mobile phone or camcorder that need to edit, compile, convert and share their personal footage, Video collectors compiling music concerts or Google Video shorts, and more.

System Requirements:
SimpleMovieX requires Mac OS X v10.3 or higher. QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component is required to take advantage of MPEG-2 capabilities. QuickTime Pro is not required. For occasional users, an unlimited demo version of SimpleMovieX is available for free download.

Aero Quartet
SimpleMovieX 3.8
Download SimpleMovieX
Purchase SimpleMovieX

Aero Quartet was founded in 2005 in Barcelona, Spain by Benoit Joossen. Our charter is to create useful software for the Macinstosh platform. “The major software companies have already filled the space with their big software suites. But you don’t fill a box only with big stones, you also need lots of pebbles. As a small developer, I want to craft some of those pebbles, indeed I want them to be gem stones !” Copyright 2005-2008 Aero Quartet. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Blacksburg, VA – Gotow.net is pleased to announce the release of NetSketch 1.4, a collaborative drawing application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. NetSketch sports a powerful vector graphics engine that has been fine-tuned for mobile artists. Create detailed drawings with infinite pan and zoom, a full-spectrum color picker, and a fast eyedropper tool. Take NetSketch to a meeting or lecture and use it’s WiFi sharing features to draw with people on other iPhones in real-time. Version 1.4 adds the much-requested replay feature and a new community browser!

Since it’s release, NetSketch has included an online community where users can post their work. Now, you can watch replays of drawings by other NetSketch users, leave comments, and explore the best of NetSketch – without leaving the app! Explore thousands of drawings uploaded to My NetSketch and upload your own work for a community experience unmatched in other drawing apps.

About Netsketch
NetSketch allows you to draw on the iPod’s screen using a full range of colors and brush sizes. You can share drawings over the wireless network, and others using the NetSketch application can contribute to your work. As you draw, everyone’s changes are reflected in real time.

Unlike other drawing programs, NetSketch features infinite pan and zoom based on familiar gestures. It is the only iPhone app to render drawings in a fully scalable vector space independent of the size of the iPhone’s screen. When you zoom in, you get smooth, accurate lines – not huge pixels.

System Requirements:
iPhone or iPod Touch. Wireless network required for collaboration and community features.

Pricing and Availability:
NetSketch is $5.99 (USD), and is available for immediate download on the iTunes App Store. For a free promotional copy of NetSketch 1.4 and more information about the app, contact Ben Gotow.

NetSketch Website
My NetSketch
Gotow.net Website

Gotow.net is a creative studio offering web development and programming services, in addition to software for the Mac OS and iPhone. Copyright 2008 Gotow.net. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod Touch are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.