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

Frankfurt, Germany – TMMC is proud to announce an update to “Slam it!”, the popular parlor game for the iPhone or iPod touch. As a Christmas special, “Slam it!” features a new Christmas theme and is a free download from the Apple App store. This bargain offer is limited until Christmas Day 2008.

“Slam it!” is a fun way to draw sticks, to have a shoot-out or to find a random winner. “Slam it!” can thrill the young and old alike as the game requires a skillful timing of the participants to point out other players and to determine a winner.

“Celebrating Christmas and want to find the poor soul doing the dishes? Need to determine who’s choosing the next Christmas song? Who will be the designated driver? Don’t just agree on it, Santa forbid, slam it!”, sais Sven Schmidt, co-developer of “Slam it!”.

To play “Slam it!”, one player places his or her iPhone or iPod touch on a table or desk. Participants gather around the device and each player then selects a playing field by touching the screen. Once every player has lifted his or her finger, a spinner in the middle of the game board will start to rotate and to accelerate. At full speed, players can slam on the desk. The internal accelerometer of the iPhone or iPod touch will detect the vibration and the spinner will decelerate, pointing out a player.

“Slam it!” can be played in two game modes (“Protect Yourself” and “Last Player Wins”). The game now comes with four beautifully designed themes called “Christmas”, “Roulette”, “Psycho” and “Techno”.

Supported Languages:
English, German, Italian and Japanese.

System requirements:
iPhone or iPod Touch 2.0 or later.

Pricing and Availability:
Immediately effective and for the limited time until Christmas Day 2008, “Slam it!” for the iPhone or iPod Touch is a free download. The game is available exclusively through the Apple App Store.

Slam it!
Video
Download Slam it!
Screenshots

“Slam It!” was developed by a privately founded development team in Europe that has years of experience in Software development for Mac OS X and professional graphics design. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

San Diego, CA – GiantCrayon(TM) Games releases GiantCrayon WordSoup, a joyful new way for Mac Users to play with words and keep their vocabulary in shape. GiantCrayon WordSoup presents a jumble of letters from which players must find every possible anagram. A ticking clock makes the race interesting. For the player to move to the next round, they must guess the longest possible word available with the given letters.

“We’re incredibly excited,” said Tim Goggin, VP, Sales & Marketing for GiantCrayon Games. “This is more than just a computer game. It’s a way for adults to solve fun, challenging word puzzles and increase their vocabulary at the same time.”

Goggin added, “GiantCrayon WordSoup is like an spinning class for Mac users’ vocabulary. Whether you win or not, you find yourself stretching for words that aren’t on the tip of your tongue. You also learn new words all the time. It’s a rush to advance to the next level.”

The game has options to limit or expand the number of letters jumbled as well as difficulty settings that limit how long players have to guess words. Goggin warns that it can be highly addictive.

Pricing and Availability:
GiantCrayon WordSoup works on 10.5.x (Leopard) and retails for $9.95 (USD).

GiantCrayon
WordSoup
Download WordSoup
Purchase WordSoup
YouTube Video
Screenshot/App Icon

GiantCrayon Games is a wholly owned subsidiary of Information Appliance Associates, makers of ground-breaking Macintosh sync tools. GiantCrayon Games produces unique casual games for fun and stimulation. All GiantCrayon brands and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of Information Appliance Associates. Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.

Los Angeles, CA – app4mac has released CheckUp 2.0 Beta 1, a new major update. Checkup is an innovative tool that allows you to check the health and monitor the behavior of a Mac computer (even from a remote computer). Built from the ground up with Mac OS X technologies, CheckUp features an amazing user interface. CheckUp works with any Mac with a PowerPC G4, G5 or Intel Processor.

CheckUp is first designed to monitor the usage of CPU, Memory, Disk Drives and Network Adapters. You can display detailed information about all running processes and pause or terminate these at any time. By adding rules that will be triggered when certain conditions are met for a specified resource on the computer, you can receive visual notifications.

For example, CheckUp can alert you when a certain resource exceeds a certain value or when a hard drive seems to have hardware failures, even when the application is not opened (thanks to an innovative background process and the use of S.M.A.R.T technology). CheckUp can also help you to determine if your computer is able to run Mac OS X Leopard or determine if your computer have enough memory to run all your Applications at the same time.

The graphical user interface is designed with a top priority on high usability in mind. Unlike other competing products it takes a very short time to setup your environment. CheckUp is lightning-fast on the latest Intel-based Macs. One of the most innovative feature of CheckUp is the ability to monitor a Mac on a network or via internet. It’s a powerful feature for IT administrators interested to check a remote computer or a remote server.

What’s new with version 2.0:
* Improved user interface (with a new default color)
* New function to test the memory and detect bad components
* New function to optimize the performance of your computer
* New documents tab view
* New function to find duplicate files
* New function to see how many files you have per type and the related app.
* Totally redesigned system view
* Improved uninstall function (more items can be uninstalled)
* Redesigned wireless network detector
* New possibility to export a report of your Mac (not yet finished)
* Possibility to quit all applications with one click
* Many other small improvements

The final version is planned for January 4, 2009. A license of CheckUp is available for $29 (USD) only. All customers purchasing a license of the current version will receive the new version for free.

app4mac
CheckUp 2.0 Beta 1
Purchase CheckUp

app4mac is a company created in 2001 with the goal of providing innovative applications for Mac OS X. We take great pleasure building Mac products. We are committed to creating quality software that will make the Mac even more user-friendly. Copyright 2001-2008 app4mac. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Portland, Oregon – Dejal Systems, LLC today introduced SmileDial Lite and SmileDial Pro version 1.0 for the iPhone. Call someone by touching their smile, or send them a text message by touching their eyes! Not as creepy as that sounds, really! SmileDial displays a photo of someone’s face: tap the top half of the photo to send them a text message, or the bottom half to call them.

SmileDial Lite helps you call and text your favorite person. SmileDial Pro extends this to multiple people: swipe through multiple faces to choose the one you want. SmileDial Pro also enables you to call them via other phone numbers, send an email, visit their website, map their address, and more, in a fun way: shake the iPhone to show more contact information.

A tap of the info button flips the photo over to reveal fields to edit the name and numbers for text messaging and phone calls, plus buttons to show the contact info and change the photo. You can simply enter a name and numbers and choose a photo. Or you can pick an existing contact.

A contact’s photo is used for SmileDial, if available. It is previewed in the background of the edit mode. You can also choose another photo: an existing one from the Camera Roll or Photo Library, or take a new photo with the iPhone camera. The photo can be moved and scaled as desired, e.g. to show just the person’s face. The new photo is stored in the Camera Roll, so you can import it into iPhoto or use it elsewhere if desired.

SmileDial Pro includes a People button while editing. Tap it to display a list of people in the order they appear on SmileDial’s main side. You can change the order, delete them, or add any number of new ones.

Dejal is a long-established independent Mac software company, now expanding into iPhone software.

Minimum Requirements:
* iPhone version 2.2 or later

Pricing and Availability:
SmileDial Lite is available completely free of charge. SmileDial Pro is available for $3.99 (USD). Both are immediately available on the iPhone App Store. For-review coupons for SmileDial Pro are available to the media; contact Dejal to receive one.

Dejal Systems
Dejal SmileDial 1.0
SmileDial Lite on iPhone App Store
SmileDial Pro on iPhone App Store
Screenshot
App Icon

Founded by David Sinclair in 1991, Dejal Systems, LLC was originally established in New Zealand, and later moved to Portland, Oregon in 2001. With a focus on the Mac and iPhone platforms, Dejal specializes in user-friendly and flexible Cocoa-based utility software. Copyright 2008 Dejal Systems, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Dejal, the Dejal logo, and SmileDial are trademarks of Dejal Systems, LLC. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Calgary, Canada – Macgamestore.com today announced that an open beta of its digital download application, Mac Games Arcade, is now available for the general public. Mac Games Arcade allows users to download, purchase and manage their Mac games all through an innovative and easy-to-use Mac interface.

With Mac Games Arcade, users can browse through hundreds of digital download Mac titles from over 100 Mac developers, check out demos, write reviews, purchase games, and maintain their digital downloads.

Other features include:

Easy Browsing – Quickly and efficiently browse through hundreds of Macintosh games in either icon or list view. Check out descriptions, features, screenshots, and system requirements.

Quick Downloading – Download demos and full games with a single click with no messy installing. Once you download it, Mac Games Arcade installs the game and you’re ready to play.

Fast and Secure Purchasing – Purchase Mac games fast and securely. Add games to your cart, then checkout and start playing games within seconds.

Ease of Mind Maintenance – With Mac Games Arcade you no longer have to worry about losing your digital downloads. Mac Games Arcade keeps a complete history of all your purchases. You can re-download and reinstall your purchased games any time you want, forever.

Mac Games Arcade is currently in beta testing and requires a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4 or better.

Mac Games Arcade
Direct Download Link
Screenshot

Launched in 2005, Macgamestore is the most popular Mac gaming store on the Internet with over 600 Mac games available for purchase. Macgamestore is also the leader in digital download games and the number one web site for casual Macintosh games. Copyright 2005-2008 Macgamestore.com. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Toronto, Canada – Ironic Software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Deep 1.0 – Image Search for OS X. Finding images is always a challenge on any system, as most images will not have descriptive names. Searching using text can be useful, but more often than not, doesn’t work.

Ironic Software has developed technology to allow the searching of images by color and palette, which is a major breakthrough for personal computers. Picking a specific spot color from a web page or anywhere else will show all your images with this color. Perhaps more powerful, though is the ability to search by palette – Deep will return images that have similar palettes to any image you select. In addition to this color search, Deep allows searching by pixel count, aspect ratio, location, tags and text.

With a consumer and small business friendly price tag of $34, Deep is an easy to use alternative to programs like Adobe Bridge and iView multimedia.

The palette search capability, dubbed ‘Genius search’ in the program, allows users to find all the images that share similar colors to a dragged in or selected image. For instance, finding a small thumbnail sized jpeg image created for web deployment is good, but when using the Genius search, Deep locates the original Photoshop document, the retouched version of it that went into an ad, and several similar images.

Unlike many other image browser / organizer programs, Deep does not import images into a database, or require all the images to be located in a specific library. This allows it to be used on most setups, without altering current workflows.

Deep also includes the ability to search inside an iPhoto Library – including the color matching capabilities. Email attachments are another place on your computer where many important images may lie hidden. The program allows you to browse and search these with ease, opening the relevant email for you when you select an image that is an attachment.

Other Features:
* Core Animation for fast image rendering
* search by tag, location, aspect ratio, and image size
* restrict results to one image type, or show them all
* tagging images is fast and easy
* fast full screen mode

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or higher
* Intel processor

Ironic Software Website
Deep 1.0
Download Deep
Purchase Deep
Screenshot
Deep Icon

Located near Toronto, Canada, Ironic Software was founded in 2006 by Tom Andersen and Ted Leckie. Ironic Software has produced such products as Yep – “iPhoto for PDFs” and Leap – “search, find, explore”. In the past, Tom and Ted also wrote Starry Night – an astronomy application. All Material and Software (C) 2006-2008 Ironic Software / All Rights Reserved. Apple, Adobe and iView, are registered trademarks of Apple, Adobe and Microsoft.

Los Angeles, USA – ProteMac is proud to announce ProteMac Meter 2.0, their network Activity monitor and network traffic logger utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, ProteMac Meter allows control network activity for every application on your Mac, showing you exactly what was transmitted and to where. The capability to audit what flows in and out of every piece of software is critical for security aware users. ProteMac Meter provides real-time processes (applications and services) monitoring and shows the history of every network activity.

ProteMac Meter shows extensive information about each connection: application network connections, host availability, remote host name, amounts of incoming and outgoing traffic through connection or application, timestamps of the first and last activity, application that initiated or accepted this connection, full path to the application the process belongs to, and much more. The traffic summary indicator shows an upload and download speed graph and traffic totals specially for selected application.

Visualizing your Internet activity is simple, even for inexperienced users. You can view all established connections, monitor network and per application traffic over a certain period, setup various notifications and much more. Use ProteMac Meter right from your menubar floating diagrams to see the application and network bytes flow.

New in version 2.0:
* New Engine
* Preferences for application monitoring list
* Data cleanup interface
* Stability Improved
* Misc bugs fixed.

Feature highlights include:
* Display chart and table of network application’s or connection’s real time activity.
* Display real time network traffic usage for each application on your Mac!
* Display real time network traffic summary for your Mac.
* Display real time network speed for your Mac.
* Provides clear graphical and numerical network traffic details.
* Log each session, include start/stop time, application, remote address/port, total transferred bytes and average speed.
* Generate network traffic statistics report, display period network usage for each application and each remote IP.
* Monitors multiple network connection interfaces at the same time.
* Views connection details in summary, daily, weekly and monthly format, plus export to many different file formats.
* Readout in either kB/sec (kilobytes per second) or kbps (kilobits per second).
* Useful stopwatch to accurately time downloads and report the average transfer rates.
* Includes complete window configuration and view options.
* Alarms once a particular amount of traffic volume is reached in the period.
* Alarms for specified Application, bandwith or time
* The utility has a transparent user-friendly interface and is very simple in use.

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 12.4 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
ProteMac Meter 2.0 is available for only $29.95 (USD) for a Single License, and may be downloaded directly from the Macvide website.

ProteMac
ProteMac Meter 2.0
Download ProteMac Meter
Purchase ProteMac Meter
Screenshot
Screenshot

Located in historic St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Intelus, Ltd. is a privately funded company founded in 2002. Leveraging their longtime experience in the video industry, Intelus’ goal is to develop best-of-breed tools for the Mac platform, and lead to the creation of Macvide. Copyright 2002-2008 Intelus, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries. Flash, the Flash Logo and Macromedia are registered trademarks of Adobe Inc.

Orlando, FL – Tis the season for giving and one thing is for sure, FMPug has embraced that mantra wholeheartedly. FMPug along with the generosity of many well-respected companies in the FileMaker community, have organized one of the most bountiful giveaways to-date. Beginning the 12th of December through the 24th of December, FMPug will be showering its members with a healthy dose of gratitude – well over $15K USD worth of gratitude (and growing).

From December 12th and each day thereafter, FMPug will post the set of daily prizes on their newly redesigned “12 Days of Giveaways” Home page. All members of the FMPug community are eligible to participate, however members must register daily to win. Daily registration ensures members are interested in winning the respective prizes offered that day. Multiple members of the FMPug community will be selected to win for each of the twelve days, offering-up the opportunity to win up to twelve prizes in total for a single individual.

The final winners will be announced on Christmas Day (25 December).

FMPug is known for its cross-promotional efforts, and this holiday extravaganza is no exception. The registration process is clever in its formatting; striking a balance between the companies that donated the products and the members seeking to win. Visitors to FMPug will be able to read about the products being raffled that day in detail before joining (if not yet members) and/or submitting their registration.

By showcasing the participating companies while also providing much needed product background, it offers-up a nice dose of marketing exposure. FMPug has already secured well over $15K worth of merchandise, ranging from training, to plug-ins, to design templates, to hosting and everything in between. The FMPug team encourages companies seeking additional advertising, to participate. The deadline for vendor participation is Thursday, 11 December 2008.

It’s clear the FMPug team firmly believes in giving back to the community and there is little doubt this will prove to be an exciting holiday season for the members of FMPug – both new and old.

Vendors seeking additional exposure for their company and respective product(s) are welcome to participate in this holiday giveaway by contacting Andy Gaunt on/before Thursday, 11 December by 6pm EST.

To learn more about this incredible holiday spectacular and read all that FMPug membership has to offer, please visit us on the web. Registration for the giveaways begins December 12, 2008 and ends December 24, 2008. Participants in this Twelve Day Giveaway are required to be active members of the FMPug community. Registration is required.

FMPug
12 Days of Giveaways
Join FMPug

Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, DnG Design & Development, Inc. (DnG) is the home of FMPug and the newly introduced FindFileMakerDevelopers (FFD). DnG is fast becoming the world’s leading resource for developers and users who utilize FileMaker Pro in their day-to-day activities. Winner of the Mad Dog PR Award and two FileMaker Excellence Awards, DnG Design & Development is continually updating its offerings to meet the ever-growing needs of the FileMaker community. DnG prides itself on offering top quality resources to anyone and everyone interested in FileMaker.

Los Angeles, USA – Macvide has announced VideoFlash Converter 2.0, their video to Flash conversion utility for Mac OS X. Developed specifically for Mac users, VideoFlash Converter allows conversion of QuickTime compatible video to Adobe (Macromedia) Flash SWF and FLV files. The most popular formats are supported, including AVI, WMV, MOV, MPG, ASF, DivX and more.

VideoFlash Converter offers an easy-to-use interface that guides the user through the conversion process. The application automatically provides ideal default settings, as well as offers the flexibility to crop video, set duration, adjust quality, and control many other audio/video preferences.

New in version 2.0:
* Complete User Guide
* Misc bugs fixed.

Feature highlights include:
* Convert all popular video formats, including AVI, WMV, MOV, MPG, ASF, and DivX
* Choose between FLV or SWF output formats
* Modify resolution, frame rate, video and audio bit rates, width, and height for particular needs
* Crop videos to remove black sides
* Preview your video from the first to final frame using Rangebar
* Compatible with PowerPC G4 or G5 and Intel Core 2 processors
* Easy to use

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 12.6 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
VideoFlash Converter 2.0 is available for only $39.95 (USD) for a Single License, and may be downloaded directly from the Macvide website.

Macvide Software
VideoFlash Converter 2.0
Download VideoFlash Converter
Purchase VideoFlash Converter
Screenshot
Screenshot

Located in historic St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Intelus, Ltd. is a privately funded company founded in 2002. Leveraging their longtime experience in the video industry, Intelus’ goal is to develop best-of-breed tools for the Mac platform, and lead to the creation of Macvide. Copyright 2002-2008 Intelus, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries. Flash, the Flash Logo and Macromedia are registered trademarks of Adobe Inc.

Austin, TX, and Carson City, NV – ShowStoppers(R) today announced it is partnering with Inside Media Networks (IMN) to produce custom audio or video segments for each exhibiting company that introduces or sneak previews new products during ShowStoppers @ Macworld, the press-only event set for Jan. 5, 2009 in San Francisco.

The segments will feature interviews or quick tips anchored by Scott Sheppard, chief executive officer of Inside Media Networks and host of popular broadcast technology talk shows, including “Inside Mac Radio & TV” and “Inside Digital Photo Radio & TV.”

IMN will record 7-to-10-minute audio interviews during ShowStoppers @ Macworld, and deliver the content for use on exhibitor websites, emails, newsletters or viral/social sites. Exhibitors may also opt to record video packages on-site.

“We’re thrilled to create content that helps companies generate great exposure long after the event is over,” said Sheppard. “This definitely adds great value for participants at ShowStoppers events.”

About Inside Media Networks (IMN)

IMN creates targeted talk programming for technology, digital imaging, creative, B2B, and consumer markets. IMN’s team of communication professionals successfully built desirable niche audiences by leveraging Web 2.0 online content-distribution tools, podcasts, blogs and social networks. IMN also provides custom services to clients wishing to establish their own content or expand their online social & brand efforts.

About ShowStoppers

Now in its 16th year, ShowStoppers is the global leader in producing press-only events that organize company launches, product introductions, sneak previews and hands-on product demos for reporters, editors, columnists, bloggers and analysts who cover business, consumer, lifestyle and digital products for work, home and play. Industry leaders, innovators, startups and upstart companies exhibit during the year at ShowStoppers events to help generate news coverage and product reviews, make new connections, promote brand, and open new markets.

After ShowStoppers @ Macworld, the next ShowStoppers events are ShowStoppers @ CES, 8 Jan. 2009, in Las Vegas; ShowStoppers @ Mobile World Congress, 15 Feb. 2009, in Barcelona, Spain; and ShowStoppers @ CTIA Wireless, 1 Apr. 2009, in Las Vegas. ShowStoppers also produces in Berlin, Germany, the official press event of IFA, one of the largest consumer-electronics trade fairs in the world. To exhibit at ShowStoppers events, contact Dave Leon, sales director, 845-638-3527.

ShowStoppers
Inside Media Networks
Scott Sheppard interview of Dave Leon from ShowStoppers

Now in its 16th year, ShowStoppers is the global leader in producing press-only events that organize company launches, product introductions, sneak previews and hands-on product demos for reporters, editors, columnists, bloggers and analysts who cover business, consumer, lifestyle and digital products for work, home and play. Industry leaders, innovators, startups and upstart companies exhibit during the year at ShowStoppers events to help generate news coverage and product reviews, make new connections, promote brand, and open new markets.

Oxford, UK – The Softpress team will be at Macworld Expo San Francisco (Booth 1912), January 6-9, 2008, eager to show-off all the great features in Freeway 5 Pro and Freeway 5 Express. Both products will be available for a special price at the show. A limited number of free passes are also available, courtesy of Softpress and Macworld Expo. To claim one, visit the Macworld Attendee Registration page.

“We are always excited to return to Macworld Expo,” said Ian Schray, Softpress US Marketing Manager. “We’re looking forward to seeing old friends and spreading the word about what’s new in Freeway.”

Freeway 5 Pro has recently been honored with an Eddy in the 24th Annual Macworld Editors’ Choice Awards. To learn more, visit the Macworld website.

About Freeway:
Freeway, famous for its ease-of-use and efficient standards-compliant code generation, is the tool of choice for professionals and home Mac users who prefer to focus on design, not on coding.

Pricing and Availability:
Freeway 5 Pro and Freeway 5 Express are both available for purchase and immediate electronic delivery directly from the Softpress Store. Full versions of Freeway 5 Pro can be purchased for $249 (USD), and Freeway 5 Express for $79 (USD). Upgrades from Freeway 4 Pro to Freeway 5 Pro are $99, upgrades from Freeway 4 Express to Freeway 5 Express are $59, and owners of Freeway 4 Express can upgrade to Freeway 5 Pro for just $169. More pricing details (including student, senior and non-profit discounts) can be found on the Softpress website.

Softpress Systems
Freeway
Free Trial Download
Purchase Freeway
Macworld Attendee Registration
Macworld 2008 Editors’ Choice Awards

Softpress was founded in 1993 to address the emerging needs of professional publishers and designers for cross-media authoring tools. Freeway, and its extensive feature set, result from Softpress’ ongoing efforts to identify and meet the real needs of web designers in today’s environment. Softpress creates tools that many people rely on for their day-to-day business, so they listen carefully to their customers. Future upgrades and product offerings will continue to demonstrate Softpress’ commitment to quality, leading-edge innovation and customer service.

Shoreview, Minnesota – Howling Moon Software has released ScribBall 1.1, an update to their arcade game for iPhone and iPod Touch. Utilizing simple touch controls with realistic physics, ScribBall is an addictive, yet easy-to-learn tumbling ball arcade/puzzle game. By leveraging the iPhone’s unique abilities and interface, ScribBall makes full use of the tilt feature. As gamers move their iPhone from side to side, the balls will tumble and roll naturally as they fall.

ScribBall is the iPhone adaptation of the Mac version. Driven by a simple point-and-click interface, ScribBall is easy to learn. When a group of four colored balls touch, they will pop and an avalanche of new balls will tumble in to take their place. Quickly and strategically tap out a few balls to set up the next match even before they settle into place. If gamers are swift enough, they’ll add to an ever growing combo.

Version 1.1 sports many new improvements and polish throughout. ScribBall now pauses and can be resumed when users receive a call. And by improving upon efficiency, the new version leaves room for more special effects; there are now three times as many particles. ScribBall boasts a variety of special effect balls, such as the explosion ball, the wildcard ball, and the locked ball. These added elements were the most requested feature and have added a new level of game play.

Highlights include:
* New special balls featuring explosions, wildcards, locked balls, and more
* Realistic physics – balls tumble and roll as they fall
* Easy to pick up addictive gameplay
* Change the direction the balls fall by tilting the iPhone
* Fun hand-drawn graphics

“This latest release adds variety and depth to the game,” cites Andy Korth, co-founder of Howling Moon. “A lot of people missed the powerup balls from the Mac version, and I’m glad we’ve got them on the iPhone now. We’ve addressed the number one customer request by bringing in the special balls, and I’m sure everyone will love it.”

Supported Languages:
* US English

System Requirements:
* iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPod Touch 2.1 or later

Pricing and Availability:
To commemorate this update, for a limited time ScribBall 1.1 will be on sale for 99 cents (normally priced at $3.99 USD) and available exclusively through Apple’s App Store.

Howling Moon Software
ScribBall 1.1
Download and Purchase
Press Resources

Based in Shoreview, Minnesota, Howling Moon Software is a privately funded company co-founded in 2008 by Scott Lembcke and Andy Korth. Both are alumni of the University of Minnesota, Morris, and graduated in Computer Science in 2007. With an focus on the Mac and iPhone platforms, Howling Moon’s devoted to creating quality software. Copyright 2008 Howling Moon Software. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Fremont, CA – Web Help Desk, a leading cross-platform help desk software solution, today announced the release of a Free Edition of it’s web-based incident management software for small business, K-12 institutions, and small government organizations. The Free Edition has no trial period or expiration date, is completely free from ads, and includes one full year of help desk software upgrades.

Key benefits of this free help desk software edition include:

Cross-Platform Technology – Server-side installers are available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows Server; while all endusers access the help desk from virtually any internet browser.

Web Portal – A full customer support web portal for endusers to submit service requests, view ticket updates, and seek self help or view auto-suggested solutions from the knowledge base.

Email-to-Ticket Conversion – Automatic email-to-ticket conversion ensures that service requests submitted via email do not fall through the cracks and breach SLA.

Ticket History and Audit Trails – Support staff may add notes (and hidden notes) to each ticket, from the web app or via email. Every update to a ticket is recorded by username and time date stamp.

Knowledge Base – The mentioned customer service Knowledge Base also allows article visibility to support staff only; building an extensible and searchable internal knowledge base.

LDAP and Active Directory Integration – Utilize your current LDAP or AD directory for login authentication and to schedule imports of customer data.

SLA Email Alerts and Reminders – Configure various Service Level Agreements for email alerts and reminders to be sent to support staff.

Graphical Performance Reports – Run a variety of help desk reports to increase productivity and create new efficiencies. Reports may be run real-time, exported to spreadsheets, or through automated email delivery.

For more details and a free help desk software download, visit the Web Help Desk website or call +1-510-279-2251.

Free Help Desk Software by Web Help Desk
Free Help Desk Software for Europe, Asia, and Africa

Founded in 1998, the Web Help Desk software suite is the leading cross-platform service desk management solution for help desk and customer support professionals who seek to simplify and control their increasingly complex service environments. The extensive feature set of the Web Help Desk software addresses critical IT and support areas, including: Incident and Problem Management, Asset and Desktop Management, Knowledge Management, and Approval Workflow.

Hong Kong – Navicat is celebrating the holidays this year by offering a discount on all its Database Administration Tools for a limited time. The 2008 Holiday Discount allows customers to buy Navicat products at 20% discount off and is available through December 15. Customers can enjoy up to 50% discount off by purchasing multiple licenses. The more licenses you buy, the more discount you can get.

Navicat GUI Admin Tool is an ideal solution for database administration and development which lets you create, edit databases, run SQL queries and connect to remote database. It features an intuitive GUI and offers powerful visual tools such as an Import/Export Wizard, Visual Query Builder, Data/ Structure Synchronization, Data Transfer, Tasks Scheduler, Report Builder and more, to increase your productivity.

Jcoder is a lightweight Java IDE Editor that provides comprehensive facilities to Java and web developers to develop, compile and run Java program efficiently.

Products included:
* Navicat for MySQL Database Management Tool (also available for Windows and Linux)
* Navicat for Oracle Database Management Tool (also available for Windows)
* Navicat for PostgreSQL Database Management Tool (also available for Windows)
* Jcoder Lightweight Java IDE

Pricing and Availability:
The Navicat Holiday Special is available from Navicat and Jcoder websites only. Buying all the products at this great offer can save you a total amount of $110 (USD) or more. Free version (Lite) is available for download.

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PremiumSoft was founded in 1999 and is a fast growing company, aiming at accelerating application development and database management with software that enhance productivity and maximize results of our customers. With our customer-centric focus and best-of-breed products and services, PremiumSoft has been successful in making customers significantly more productive.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Brainjuice announced today that the public beta of Blogo 1.2 its Mac desktop blog editor and Twitter client, is available for download. The application makes blogging on the Mac easy even for those with no knowledge of HTML, and this release adds Expression Engine, a popular content management system, and Ping.fm, a service which updates multiple social networks with a single login, to the list of supported services.

With Ping.fm, Blogo now supports Tumblr, Livejournal, Facebook, Myspace, Jaiku, and Plurk among others. This version adds lots of features to the blog editor, as well as a number of fixes and improvements to stability in general. Highlights include:

HTML Editor:
The editor can now toggle between Rich Text and HTML, combining the ease of use of the classic editor with the flexibility to get into the code and make adjustments when necessary. There is also a preference to turn off inline styles, a welcome addition for those who prefer to keep their blog’s HTML clean.

Ping.fm:
Users can post status updates via Ping.fm, and accounts can be configured to send a status update whenever an article is published.

Expression Engine:
Users can now post to any blog built with Expression Engine, a popular content management system and one of the most requested blog platforms.

Twitter Search:
The Microblog viewer was expanded with a tab to search Twitter’s archives, useful for doing quick research and following trends.

Improved Safari Integration:
The application comes with a bookmarklet which can be added to Safari to post videos, slideshows and inline ads directly from Flickr, Picasa, Vimeo, YouTube, Google Adsense, Boo-box, and Blip.fm without copying and pasting HTML.

Offline Editing:
Users can write and preview their posts while not connected to the internet, as well as save drafts to a local drive to be published later.

Pricing and Availability:
Blogo is available for Mac OS X 10.4 and up as a 21-day unlimited trial, and can be purchased at the Brainjuice store for $25 (USD).

Blogo 1.2
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Brainjuice is an independent software house founded in 2007 by Benjamin Jackson and Ivan Neto. Its products focus on the Mac and iPhone and put usability first. Copyright 2007-2008 Brainjuice. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Ulm, Germany – Zykloid Software is delighted to announce Posterino 1.4.1, a maintenance update to their popular life poster and postcard creator for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, Posterino creates life posters, photo collages, frames, postcards, greeting cards and contact sheets from digital images. Posterino does the hard work while users just have to fine tune the results.

Posterino offers a variety of stylish templates with grids of identical or odd sized containers. With a single click, the application will fill containers with random images automatically, or for more control, the user may Drag and Drop images manually. Posterino also sports a built-in layout generator which can automate the process of creating and saving custom grid templates.

“If you want to create a collage of your favorite photos and put it on a poster, is the slickest and easiest way to get the job done.” MacWorld Review – August 07

At any time users may change the size and shape of individual containers as well as adjust the placement of each image within its own container. Posterino provides options to send an image directly to iPhoto, Flickr, Mail or save it on the hard drive.

Version 1.4.1 offers various improvements and bug-fixes:
* Improved image recovery of image files that have been used in a Posterino document and then moved to a new location on the same hard disk
* The management of custom templates has been improved
* Various small bug-fixes and user interface improvements

Feature highlights include:
* Various templates for posters, photo frames, postcards, greeting cards and contact sheets
* Send postcards via e-mail or real postcards (via Swiss Post)
* Integrated Image Picker to browse and choose images from iPhoto, Aperture, or a folder on disk
* Auto-selection and auto-placement of images
* Export documents to iPhoto, Flickr, or local disk
* Live image editing: crop, rotate, skew
* Changeable image border properties: width, color, radius, shadow
* Document layout and size can be changed to fit users needs
* Built in layout generator user defined number of images
* Users can create own templates
* Automatic software update

Creating an eye-catching Life Poster is as easy as choosing a template, a iPhoto album and hitting a button. Posterino will place, crop, enhance and render the images into a poster. The ease with which it’s possible to insert photos into templates makes Posterino particularly suited to both casual users and professional photographers alike, and a perfect compliment to Apple’s iLife suite. The uses for projects are only limited by the imagination.

Language support:
English, German, French, and Japanese

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or later
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 19.3 MB Hard Drive space
* Internet Connection (Sending Postcards or Flickr Uploads)

Pricing and Availability:
Posterino 1.4.1 is priced at $24.95 (USD) for a single-user license. A fully functional trial version is available. The demo will inscribe the words ‘Posterino Demo’ in large letters on top of a rendered document. Version 1.4 is a free and recommended update for all customers. Posterino may also be purchased as a gift. It is possible to create a printable gift certificate on their website. Every posterino license includes a coupon code good for three free postcards.

Posterino 1.4.1
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Headquartered in beautiful Ulm, Germany, Zykloid Software is an independent software vendor founded by Christoph Priebe in 2004. With a focus on the Mac platform, Zykloid’s mission is to develop unique and user-friendly applications. Copyright 2004-2008 Zykloid Software. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and iLife are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Perth, Australia – Pixelglow Software today announced Instaviz, a new graph sketching application for the iPhone. Instaviz turns roughly sketched shapes and lines into aesthetically pleasing graphs, great for drawing concept maps and flowcharts, or just simple note-taking and brainstorming. Instaviz features two functions new to the iPhone platform: advanced shape recognition and automated graph layout.

The user sketches a rough shape and Instaviz recognizes an ellipse, circle, rectangle, square or diamond in a split second. He sketches a link between two shapes and Instaviz quickly redraws the whole graph with the best layout. The user interface doesn’t get in the way of the brainstorming process, and the user doesn’t have to fuss with the layout since it is automated.

John Siracusa of Ars Technica commented, “Newton-style shape drawing and more for your iPhone.”

Instaviz uses Recog, a new shape recognition engine. Trained on over 2,500 sketches drawn by real users, Recog uses advanced fuzzy logic techniques to recognize what the user just sketched in a split second. Instaviz uses Graphviz as its automated graph layout engine. The industry standard for automated graph layout, Graphviz represents over 18 years of research work at AT&T and won two Apple Design Awards in 2004.

Pricing and Availability:
Instaviz 1.0 is available now on the Apple App Store for $9.99 (USD).

Instaviz
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Pixelglow Software synthesizes disparate ideas into simple and intuitive working software solutions. On the Macintosh, Windows and web platforms for over 12 years, they work with clients ranging from small firms to multinationals like WorleyParsons, AT&T and Autodesk. Their Altivec-optimized SIMD toolkit macstl is well-regarded in numerics and high performance computing circles since 2003. Their port of Graphviz to Mac OS X took two prizes in the Apple Design Awards 2004: Winner for Best Open Source Product and Runner-Up for Best New Product. Copyright 2008 Pixelglow Software. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – Volitans Software today announces a Holiday Hard Drive Giveaway. In the spirit of the holidays, Volitans Software is giving away one free hard drive to a lucky winner. The winner will have the choice between a 1.5TB desktop hard drive or a 500GB laptop hard drive. To enter, fill out the form on the giveaway entry website.

Volitans Software, maker of SMART Utility, wants to celebrate the holiday spirit by giving away a free hard drive. Since SMART Utility allows scanning for bad hard drives, and those hard drives need replaced, a perfect compliment is a free hard drive.

Winner chooses between new Momentus 5400.6 SATA 500-GB Hard Drive (model ST9500325AS) or Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5TB Hard Drive (model ST31500341AS), or equivalently priced drive if model is unavailable. The prize will be shipped free of charge to the winner. The giveaway runs from December 9th, 2008 to December 24th, 2008. The winner is randomly picked December 25th.

Full Rules and Fine Print:
* No purchase necessary to win, but try a copy of SMART Utility while you are here. It’s a great way to check out your current hard drive. Note that purchasing SMART Utility does not increase your chances of winning.

* Entry period runs from 12:01 am EST on December 9th, 2008 until 11:59 pm EST December 24th, 2008.

* Winner chooses between new Momentus 5400.6 SATA 500-GB Hard Drive (model ST9500325AS) or Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5TB Hard Drive (model ST31500341AS), or equivalently priced drive if model is unavailable.

* Winner will be selected at random on December 25th, 2008 from the email entries and notified by email. Winner will be posted on the website on or after January 15th, 2009.

* Winner must respond within 7 days of being selected or a new winner will be chosen. Volitans Software will not be responsible for email delivery failures, including but not limited to power outages, server crashes, filtering technologies, or incorrect email addresses.

* Only one entry per person, as multiple entries will be discarding. Entries will be monitored for cheating, and entrants may be disqualified if such cheating is discovered.

* Giveaway is open to individuals who are legal residents of the United States and 18 years of age or older. Individuals must also be legally allowed to participate in giveaways. Giveaway void where prohibited by law. While we appreciate all our customers in all states as well as in all countries across the world, laws very greatly and we cannot satisfy all legal requirements everywhere.

* By participating in the giveaway, entrant agrees to not sue Volitans Software and not hold Volitans Software liable for mistakes or other violations.

About SMART Utility:
SMART Utility is an application to scan the internal hardware diagnostics system of hard drives SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a system built into hard drives by their manufacturers to report on various measurements (called attributes) of a hard drive’s operation. The attributes can be used to detect when a hard drive is having mechanical or electrical problems, and can indicate when the hard drive is failing. SMART Utility can read and display these attributes. This allows time to hopefully backup, and then replace the drive.

SMART Utility is different from other drive utilities, such as Disk Utility, which only read the overall SMART Status. SMART Utility not only displays the individual attributes to see their status and information, but it also uses an internal algorithm based on those attributes to detect drives failing before SMART indicates it has failed. This pre-fail detection can save precious data before SMART has determined that the drive has failed. And, while the raw information can be viewed on the command line with smartmontools (which is what SMART Utility is based on), SMART Utility presents it in an easy to read format, as well as running its internal pre-fail algorithm.

Features:
* Displays all supported drives and their partitions
* Displays easy to read overall SMART status with color coded text
* Displays important information in the main window, such as drive model, capacity, power on hours, temperature, bad sector counts, and error counts and types
* Displays more detailed information in separate windows, including capabilities, all available attributes, and the past five errors
* Supports scanning individual RAID drives in addition to non-RAIDed drives
* Supports logging all information to a log file for verifying SMART data
* Supports Mac OS X 10.4 or later (including Server) and both PowerPC and Intel Macs

Pricing and Availability:
SMART Utility is available in a variety of licenses: a personal license for $25 (USD), a family license for $40, an educational license for $65 and a business license for $100. It can be purchased online or in an innovative way: within SMART Utility itself through its embedded web store.

Giveaway Entry Website
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Volitans Software was founded on February 22, 2007, by Matthew Butch, to sell SMART Utility. The name Volitans comes from the scientific name of the Red Lionfish. Matthew is an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician, an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator, and an Apple Certified System Administrator. He conceived of the idea of SMART Utility because he wanted a better way to test hard drives in his job as an on-site Macintosh Technician.