1637 Press Releases Edited By Applelinks Contributing Editor Charles W. Moore


Sonnet Ships New Presto Gigabit Ethernet PCI Card
Terra Soft Asserts Commitment to the Apple G5 Platform
Marathon Computer Announces Cinema Display Safety Product
ConceptDraw Project Pre-Release Build Available
Pocket PC Backup - Not Just For Windows Anymore
Media Lab AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets Available for Mac OS X
Starry Night Enthusiast 4.5.1 Desktop Astronomy Software [OS X 10.1 up]
Starry Night Pro 4.5.1 Astronomy Software: Celestial Sky Simulator [OS X 10.3 up]
Intaglio 1.6.1 Drawing & Illustration App
Photo Mechanic 3.2.7 Professional Digital Camera Image Browser
Dissolve Factory Updated
Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools 3.6 Driver, Format, Testing Tools For Hard Drives [/url]

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Notable New Product News

Sonnet Ships New Presto Gigabit Ethernet PCI Card

Sonnet Technologies is now shipping the new Presto Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Ethernet PCI Adapter Card, for improved network performance. This high-speed adapter runs at ten times the speed of 100BaseT and is compatible with all 10/100/1000BaseT hubs switches and router. The Presto Gigabit Ethernet is suitable for anyone looking for more efficiency in handling large digital graphic files over the network or working with more robust multimedia content from the Internet without bogging down basic email functions.

System requirements:
The Presto Gigabit supports Mac OS X 10.2 and later, and Windows 98 SE, Me, XP, 2000.

Compatible computer models include:
- 7300, 7500, 7600, 85XX, 8600, 95XX, 9600
- Workgroup Server 7350, 8550, 9650
- Daystar Genesis and Millennium Series
- Mactell XB-Pro
- Power Computing PowerCenter, PowerCenter Pro, PowerCurve, PowerTower, PowerTower Pro, PowerWave
- StarMax 3000, 3000 Minitower, 4000, 4000 Minitower, 5000, 5500
- UMAX J700, S900
- Power Mac G3 (All-in-one, Blue & White, Desktop, Minitower, Server)
- Power Mac G4 (all except Cube)
- Windows machines with available PCI slot

The Presto Gigabit Ethernet is now shipping with an estimated retail pricing of USD $89.95.

For more information about the Presto Gigabit, please refer to the Sonnet website at:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/presto_gig.html

Terra Soft Asserts Commitment to the Apple G5 Platform

Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., a developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions, has announced preliminary support for Apple's Power Mac G5.

The Power Mac G5, fueled by the IBM PowerPC 970, provides an all-new 64-bit architecture featuring an industry leading 1GHz front-side bus with dual 2GHz microprocessors and up to 8GB DDR SDRAM. The G5 delivers a break-through price/performance ratio that shatters previous notions of traditional large-scale cluster installations.

"Terra Soft firmly believes the IBM PowerPC 970 technology, core to the Apple Power Mac G5, is a leap-forward platform. The solution we are providing today is just the first step of our commitment to a robust and powerful Linux solution that takes full advantage of the amazing hardware now available from Apple," states Dan Burcaw, Chief Technology Officer of Terra Soft.

For information on the current progress and future roadmap of Yellow Dog for Power Mac G5, visit:
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/apple/g5s.shtml

At SuperComputing 2003 expo, Phoenix Arizona, November 17-20, Terra Soft will showcase two G5s and an Xserve cluster as a guest of Engineered Intelligence:
http://www.engineeredintelligence.com

Terra Soft is now pre-installing Yellow Dog Linux on Power Mac G5 systems ordered directory from the Terra Soft on-line Store.

For more information, visit:
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com

Marathon Computer Announces Cinema Display Safety Product

"It's not so much a security issue, as it is one of safety," Marathon spokesman David Soch explained. "A school computer lab administrator contacted us with a problem: Cinema Displays were being accidentally knocked off the lab tables."

The Marathon DisplayLock is a simple solution to this not uncommon problem. DisplayLock's solid aluminum bar fits through the bottom of the Cinema or Studio Display's plastic kickstand, and is secured into a bracket attached to the desktop.

The bracket can be secured in a fixed position, or by means of a single center screw that allows the Display to swivel. Either way, the easel is prevented from being accidentally scooted off the edge of the desk.

DisplayLock's aluminum bar is secured by means of screws that require a special Allen wrench (included in the package), thus serving as a theft deterrent.

Installation is accomplished with common household tools, and requires no modification to the Cinema or Studio Display.

Marathon DisplayLock features:
- Heavy-duty aluminum construction
- Tamper-resistant screws and wrench included
- Can be installed in fixed or swivel position
- Unobtrusive in use
- Clear anodized aluminum finish to harmonize with the Apple Display
- Installs with commonly-available tools
- Requires no modification of the Display
- Works with all Apple Cinema and Studio Displays

Marathon DisplayLock sells for $19

Now available for shipping.

Order via Marathon's Online Store, or through your favorite dealer of Marathon products. Find more product information at:
http://www.marathoncomputer.com/displaylock.html

ConceptDraw Project Pre-Release Build Available

CS Odessa has unveiled a pre-release version of ConceptDraw Project. Use ConceptDraw Project to organize and manage projects with clear, attractive Gantt charts, WBS charts and MindMaps. Share your projects across Mac and Windows platforms.

Key Features:
• Work with projects of any size and length
• Make a quick start with Project Assistant
• Brainstorm and generate your project from MINDMAP
• Generate project status reports
• Export project data to Microsoft Project XML
• MS Outlook synchronization
• Publish your projects to the Web
• Email your projects and project reports as PDF files.

Recommended to:
• Project Leaders
• Projects team managers
• Business specialists
• Educators
• Anyone keen on planning and management

System requirements:
Macintosh (Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later)
Windows (95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP)

ConceptDraw Project Pre-Release version is available for free download. The final version is scheduled for release on November 18 at $179.

For more information, visit:
http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/project/main.php

Pocket PC Backup - Not Just For Windows Anymore

Now you can erform a full backup & restore of your Pocket PC right from your Mac.

While it's true that PocketMac (or ActiveSync, etc.) will sync most of your contact, calendar, etc data and files, there's still a lot of information, applications, system files, registry data, drivers, etc. on your Pocket PC that just won't get synched.

Just synching your contacts & calendar regularly is not enough to ensure a full system backup.

And, to make matters worse, most Pocket PC backup software is Windows-based. Yuck!

Now with PocketMac Backup, the next time your Pocket PC's batteries die, or you have to do a hard-reset, you don't have to loose your vital data and the software you've installed.

Best of all, you can selectively backup & restore only those parts of the system that you want! (ActiveSync itself does not allow this!)

PocketMac Backup can even save all of the backed-up files to a Mac-style disk image (.dmg file) for easy archiving & storage, and restoring from a backup is also easy -- just select the folder containing all of the backed-up files and then select what you want to restore.

System requirements:
• PocketMac 3.0 or other sync software for Macs/Pocket PCs
• Pocket PC 2002/2003 device
• Free disk space on the Mac to accommodate the backed-up files.

For more information, visit:
http://www.pocketmac.net/pmbackup/pmbackup.html

Media Lab AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets Available for Mac OS X

"We are proud to bring the unique and amazing features of AlphaMania and the Effector Sets to Apple's innovative OS X, and happy to announce that with this release Media Lab's entire product line is available on this modern platform," said Media Lab President Tom Summerall.

AlphaMania 2 adds an entirely new kind of cast member to Director that can create delightful and dramatic interactive visual effects with surprising ease.

"AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets are the only tools that allow Director authors to include video-style special effects that render and composite live on stage as their project is playing," said Chris Perkins, CEO of Media Lab. "This means that the effects can react to what the end user of the Director movie does, enabling a uniquely memorable interactive experience. Imagine a pond that ripples only where the end-user places the cursor or a single graphic of a car that can have paint of any hue based on user selection."

AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets include the following features:

• Ultra high quality interpolated scaling and rotation
• Flying masks that make it easy to accomplish tasks like magnifying glasses or x-ray lenses
• Live drop-shadows and glows
• Intuitive "Set FX" interface for non-programmers
• Batch importing of PICT/TGA files
• Batch importing of Photoshop layers (requires Media Lab PhotoCaster 3)
• Never-before-possible effects like dynamic embossing
• 8-bit alpha channel only cast members for use as invisible masks for effects
• 256 levels of transparency
• Automatic Download for Director Shockwave for Mac OS Classic, Mac OSX, and Windows
• Live anti-aliasing (just like Director's rich text, but for graphics!)
• Automatic fx animation management
• Powerful lingo functionality for controlling effects with absolute precision
• Advanced speed optimizations for real-time playback on a wide range of platforms
• Bonus popup-menu functionality on all platforms

The effects are optimized for both speed and quality and allow the user to prioritize one over the other when necessary. AlphaMania 2 has the ability to scale and rotate graphics using a smoothing technology known as interpolation. This provides a higher quality result than Director's built-in bitmap cast members. A side-by-side comparison playable in a browser is available at http://www.medialab.com .

The dynamic effects available are HSB/RGB Colorize, Interpolated Rotate, Interpolated Scale, Ripple, Roil, Blur, Magnify, Drop Shadow, Bevel, Seurat, Snow, Mosaic and Line-Skip.

Effects can be applied at cast or sprite level, or to arbitrary parts of the stage which can contain any number of sprites.

Media Lab has made AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets available as a downloadable demo and has also provided many example projects so that Director users can experience for themselves the amazing potential of this technology. In honor of the new OS X release, Media Lab has created new demonstrations playable in a web browser which include a colorizable car, an alien autopsy with "x-ray" functionality, a magnifying glass, and more. These examples are available at http://www.medialab.com on the revamped AlphaMania + Effector Sets product pages.

The real power of AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets is the way users can maximize the impact of every pixel. A single cast member can be used in many different ways for extreme memory and download efficiency without sacrificing drama and flexibility.

Finally, with the OS X release, Media Lab has now documented a heretofore not publicized feature of AlphaMania: the ability to create platform-native popup menus for use in Director-based graphical user interfaces. Media Lab added this much-needed feature to AlphaMania to assist with its own GUI needs and has now made easy popup menu generation available to its customers.

System Requirements
• For Macintosh: Power PC, OS 8.1 or higher (including Mac OS X), 32 megabytes RAM, and 30 megabytes free hard-drive space.
• For Windows: Pentium or higher; Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, or XP; 64 megabytes RAM, and 30 megabytes free hard-drive space.
• Photoshop layer import requires Photoshop 3 or later and the Media Lab PhotoCaster 3 Xtra.

AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets are now available and are sold as a single product. Price for the download version is $US 199.

Cross-platform AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets includes both Mac and Windows versions and costs $US 349.

Current owners of AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets for Mac OS Classic can upgrade for a limited-time special price of $US 49.

Discounts for volume purchasers and site license pricing are available. For more details, or to download a trial version of the software, visit the Media Lab web site at [url=http://www.medialab.com]http://www.medialab.com[/url][/url]

AlphaMania 2 + Effector Sets can be ordered from Media Lab's online store at http://www.medialab.com/store or by phone at 800-282-5361. Visa, MasterCard and American Express are accepted.

Starry Night Enthusiast 4.5.1 Desktop Astronomy Software [OS X 10.1 up]

Starry Night Enthusiast 4.5 is brilliantly realistic and designed for anyone with an interest in the night sky. Includes new weekly sky-gazing suggestions. See the sky from anywhere on Earth or lift off and visit any solar system body or any location up to 20,000 light years away. View 2,500,000 stars along with 170+ deep-space objects like galaxies, star clusters and nebulae. Travel 15,000 years in time. Check out the view from the International Space Station. See planets up close from one of any of their moons. Stunning OpenGL graphics. Now with more than 2 1/2 hours of video multimedia on CD-ROM and new bonus DVD featuring dramatic visualizations of astronomical objects and phenomena hosted by guest experts. Print handy star charts to explore outside. Learn about the movement of the planets, watch the phases of the moon and see what the stars looked like on the day you were born!

Features:
• NEW! Weekly sky-gazing suggestions
• NEW! View the sky from anywhere on Earth
• Blast off and visit any solar system body, or any location up to 20,000 light years away
• Learn how to identify planets, stars and constellations such as "The Big Dipper"
• LiveSky panel lets you see up-to-date images of the Sun and Earth from ground and space-based observatories
• Locate objects easily with 'Find' command
• Create your own movies and images
• Print detailed star charts for your next outing under the stars
• Multiple views lets you watch an eclipse from a planet, its moon and the Sun, all at the same time
• More than 2 1/2 hours of movies, on both CD-ROM and bonus DVD, on the solar system and beyond

New in this version:
• Bug fixes to version 4.5.0

System requirements:
• OS X 10.1 or higher, color monitor and CD-ROM drive. Requires 400MB hard disk space. Will not run on OS 9.x or earlier.

For more information, visit:
http://www.starrynight.com/enthusiast.html

Starry Night Pro 4.5.1 Astronomy Software: Celestial Sky Simulator [OS X 10.3 up]

Everything the amateur astronomer or devoted hobbyist needs to explore the heavens. View stunningly realistic star fields from 350 million light-years out or from your own backyard. Access to over 500 million celestial objects, including the complete NGC/IC, PGC and Hubble Star Guide catalogs. Stunning OpenGL graphics support the 3D positions of 28, 000 galaxies in the Tully collection and navigate through the closest stars to us in 3D perspective. Add images or build your own custom data sets. Graph tool allows you to predict eclipses and conjunctions. Over 90 minutes of compelling multimedia video with stunning visualizations of the solar system and beyond! Add custom field of view indicators to match your telescope eyepieces, binoculars or CCD. Add a custom 360-degree photo of your own backyard. Track the latest satellites, comets and asteroids, or control most popular brands of computerized telescopes including Meade LX-200 and AutoStar and the Celestron Nexstar series.

New in this version:
Bug fixes to version 4.5.0. This update applies only to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther; an update for earlier versions of OS X is forthcoming.

System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.3 or higher

For more information, visit:
http://www.starrynight.com/support/softwareupdates/

Intaglio 1.6.1 Drawing & Illustration App

Intaglio is a traditional Macintosh drawing & illustration application exclusively for Mac OS X.

Patterned after the original Macintosh drawing applications, Intaglio is intuitive to beginners and familiar to traditional Macintosh users. Intaglio builds on the 2D graphics, text, color, and scripting capabilities of Mac OS X to provide unprecedented power and flexibility in an inexpensive drawing program. Intaglio isn't just compatible with with Mac OS X, it was designed from the ground up to fully exploit the capabilites that make this platform ideal for graphics work.
Naturally Intaglio is great for casual users, but it is also an ideal tool for experienced graphics experts who need special features or want a simplier experience than what is provided by the usual multi-platform graphic franchises.

Intaglio takes full advantage of the following technologies built into Mac OS X:

• AppleScript
All graphic operations within Intaglio are fully scriptable and recordable. This provides a huge degree of flexibility to experts and, since anyone can record a working script, allows the novice to take advantage of AppleScript. Scripting makes it easy to automate repetitive tasks and access features that are otherwise cumbersome to use for some tasks. It also means that if a particular Intaglio function doesn't do exactly what you need, you may be able create a custom function taylored to your exact needs. Various included samples show how this can be done.

• Apple Type Services
Intaglio supports the full capabilities of the Apple Type Services to create dramatic text effects and get the most from all of your fonts. This includes access to all variations, such as those provided in multi-master fonts, and complete access to all font features such as ligatures, vertical position, letter case, and all alternate characters, which are frequently not accessible from most applications. Of course you also have full control of leading and baseline and kerning adjustments.
Text can be included in any of the graphics operations provided by Quartz and is edited directly in place regardless of any graphic transformations that have been applied to it. For more complex graphics operations, text can be converted to a graphic path to allow the full range of drawing manipulations.
Intaglio is fully compliant with the international text standard unicode, and supports direct input of characters from complex Asian alphabets.

• ColorSync
Intaglio uses ColorSync to calibrate all colors used within graphics and maintains any color profiles embedded in bitmap graphic image files. Every drawing has a default color space and maintains ColorSync profiles for each color space used.

• Quartz
Intaglio makes complete use of the Quartz 2D graphics environment. This allows Intaglio to provide traditional drawing features plus many advanced features previously found only in expensive high-end graphics tools. For example, complex "paths" made from lines, curves, and arcs can be drawn with various fills, line joins, caps, and optional dash patterns. In a feature unique to Intaglio, arcs retain their geometry (they aren't converted to curves) so their angles and radius can always be easily changed.
Advanced graphics features also include arbitrary 2D transformations like scaling and rotation, clipping, antialiasing, opacity, pattern and gradient fills, and PDF import/export.

• QuickDraw
There is a gap between applications that use the classic Macintosh graphics layer called QuickDraw and the new Quartz graphics layer in Mac OS X that most applications can't cross. Intaglio bridges this gap by providing the ability to convert QuickDraw based pictures (i.e., vector PICT graphics) into its own Quartz based graphics, allowing them to be edited in Intaglio. This means you can continue to use files created by traditional Macintosh drawing programs that don't run natively on Mac OS X.

• QuickTime
Intaglio uses the QuickTime graphics layer for importing and exporting bitmap images. This means Intaglio can import and/or export over a dozen image formats and will automatically support new formats as QuickTime is updated.

New in this version:
• Improve multi-lingual spell checking.
• Add non-modal Color palette.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes.

System requirements:
• Intaglio requires Mac OS X 10.2 (i.e., Jaguar) or later.

For more information, visit:
http://www.purgatorydesign.com/Intaglio/

Photo Mechanic 3.2.7 Professional Digital Camera Image Browser

Camera Bits, Inc. has announced its latest version of Photo Mechanic, a digital camera image browser. Photo Mechanic is the answer for professional digital photographers looking for a fast and easy-to-use image browser for digital camera files. Photo Mechanic's innovative batch captioning, renaming, speedy browsing, and Photoshop connectivity features have made it the choice of thousands of photojournalists and professional photographers worldwide. Now Carbonized for native Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 operation, and optimized for use with professional cameras from Nikon, Canon, and Olympus, Photo Mechanic has become the standard tool for digital image browsing.

Photo Mechanic is a standalone image browser that lets you view your digital photos with convenience and speed. Photo Mechanic displays the "thumbnails" of photos on a camera disk or folder in a familiar "contact sheet" display window. You can quickly rotate, preview, copy, delete, tag, rename, and add caption / keyword (IPTC news record) information to photos both individually and in batches. Photo Mechanic helps you find the best photo amongst several similar shots with its preview display that lets you flip through a group of selected photos at high resolution. Photo Mechanic can then pass the photos you select on to Adobe Photoshop for image retouching.

Photo Mechanic's unique Image Variable technology unleashes the power of meta-data. Meta-data can be information saved with each photo such as image capture data or IPTC fields, or other information like the current date and time. Standard image capture data like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focal length can be accessed through "variables" and tucked-away in any IPTC field such as the caption. You can also use variables representing the current or capture time, date, or frame number, for example, for file renaming purposes. IPTC fields can be extracted using variables for use in renaming - even the filename variable can be placed in an IPTC field. One important variable called the sequence variable can be used for sequential naming or to serialize certain IPTC fields. In all, Photo Mechanic has more than 60 variables that enable customized workflows for captioning and renaming photos. The possibilities are endless!

Photo Mechanic can also print contact sheets and export HTML for web pages. You can control the layout and size of your thumbnails, and even use Photo Mechanic's image variables to customize the text for thumbnail titles and page headers or footers, making Photo Mechanic one of the most flexible tools available for formatting your output.

New in this version:
• Fixed a problem with Photoshop CS (and in some cases Photoshop 7) not responding to “open document” events properly on Mac OS 10.3 (Panther). These events were sent by Photo Mechanic for the “Edit Photos” command. Photoshop CS would hang until another application like the Finder was selected. Photo Mechanic now uses a different mechanism to open documents in Photoshop on OS X only (in order to preserve this functionality on OS 9).
• Fixed a problem checking the free space of certain (e.g. large network) destination volumes for the ingest command, which would sometimes result in a error “not enough room” (878 or 879) on the destination volume when there is actually plenty of space.
• Removed the “Network” item that appeared in the Ingest dialog volume list on Mac OS 10.3 (Panther)
• Added support for recognizing the automatic rotation tag in Nikon D2H NEF files.

System requirements:
• Mac OS 8.6 - OS X

Photo Mechanic 3 for Macintosh costs $150 per copy (US $, quantity discounts are available). Updates are free for one year after purchase date. To extend the updates for another year, the cost is $90 per copy (before discounts).

Upgrades from Photo Mechanic Lite and Pro version 2.x are as follows. If you purchased version 2.x:

• on or after January 1, 2002:
° free upgrade and free version 3 updates for one year after purchase date (e.g. if you bought a copy Feb 15 2002 then you get free updates until the end of Feb 2003).
• after September 11, 2001:
° $80 to upgrade to version 3. Free version 3 updates for one year after purchase date (e.g. if you buy it June 3, 2002 then you get free updates until the end of June 2003).
• before September 11, 2001:
° $100 to upgrade to version 3. Free version 3 updates for one year after purchase date.

Newspapers requiring additional support in Photo Mechanic for displaying information from the JobMinder assignment tracking database can order this extra feature for $50 per copy. Upgrades from Photo Mechanic Pro version 2.x can request this feature at no cost as part of the upgrade to Photo Mechanic version 3.

For more information, visit:
http://www.camerabits.com/PM3.html

Dissolve Factory Updated

Buena Software, Inc., makers of professional video editing products, has announced the release of Dissolve Factory 1.0.2 today. This update, which is free to registered owners, adds support for Apple's Final Cut Pro 4 application. A free, fully functional demo can be downloaded from their website at:
http://www.buena.com/dissolvefactory.html

Dissolve Factory is an After Effects and Final Cut Pro plugin which allows users to create tasteful new cross-dissolve transitions for their videos. It can simulate film or optical dissolves, as well as create entirely new dissolves based on colors, saturation, or other attributes of your source footage. The product costs $39.95 and can be downloaded at the above address.

Buena Software, Inc. offers video, image and audio processing software and development services. For more information about their consulting services and/or products, visit their web site at
http://www.buena.com/

Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools 3.6 Driver, Format, Testing Tools For Hard Drives

Introducing... The all new Hard Disk SpeedTools 3.6 for all Macintosh and MacOS computer systems. Now getting lightning fast speed with rock-solid compatibility from all your SCSI, ATA & FireWire drives just got a whole lot easier! Plus, it's PowerMac native with optimized drivers for System 7 through MacOS 9, and now includes QuickStripeâ„¢ two-disk RAID technology as well as Intech's new QuickBenchâ„¢ universal benchmarking utility. Right now, you can purchase an electronic version including a full color user's guide file for just $59.95 and have it in minutes!

Now includes Intech's New SpeedTools Test Suite free

New in this version:
• Added Intech's Disk Defrag Classic utility.
• Can create multiple DOS volumes (up to 9).
• Added support for creating DOS volumes over 64 GB.
• Added ATA 100 support .
• Improved extended capacity ATA drive speeds on large transfers (over 128KB).
• Added warning when launching HDST in Classic mode under MacOS X.
• Added 'Jumbo' transfer sizes to Quickbench.
• And more.
Includes new utility: Disk Defrag Classic.

System requirements:
• System 7.0 through 9.2.2
• Disk Defrag Classic requires System 9.1 through 9.2.2

Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools sells for $59.95

For more information, visit:
http://www.intechusa.com/

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