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MacSpeech Releases ScriptPak for Safari 1.2
The Bugs Are Out………Of The MacFrog
ProClip Offers Automotive Mounts and Holders For The iPod Mini
Developers: Target Users Efficiently And Sell Direct For Free -- Mac Users: Purchase Your Favorite Apps Conveniently From One Place
TextLightning 3.0 PDF to Rich Text (RTF) Conversion Filter Service
PrintSmith V7.0 Print Management Software Includes UI Redesign and Feature-Rich Product Enhancements
Xilinx Reports Broad Adoption of Virtex-II Pro IBM PowerPC Solution
Corda Releases HTML-to-PDF Converter [/url]
MacSpeech Releases ScriptPak for Safari 1.2
Macintosh Speech Recognition specialists MacSpeech have announced the release of a ScriptPak for Safari 1.2. The new ScriptPak adds voice commands for controlling virtually every aspect of Safari, including navigating links, making text larger or smaller, managing bookmarks, and much more. The ScriptPak for Safari is priced at $10 and is available immediately from the MacSpeech web site. ( http://www.macspeech.com ) iListen version 1.6.4, which is a free update for users of iListen 1.5 and later, is recommended in order to use all the commands in these ScriptPaks.
The Scriptpak for Safari also includes a coupon good for a $10 discount on the upgrade to iListen 1.7, which will be available later this year.
"Surfing by voice is a wonderful way to relax your hands and wrists from typing," said MacSpeech CEO and Founder Andrew Taylor. "The Safari ScriptPak allows users to take a break from the keyboard without having to stop working.'"
For more information, visit:
http://www.macspeech.com
The Bugs Are Out………Of The MacFrog
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FrogPad ( http://www.FrogPad.com ), maker of the portable one-handed keyboard, announces that all of the bug reports submitted for the MacFrogPad keyboard at Apple have been exterminated. FrogPad will start shipping Mac compatible USB FrogPads today. Use code ‘Frog25’ for a $25 discount on the MacFrog. Also, Gaming is FrogPad’s next huge development project. The GameFrog will be generated for MacGamers.
A FrogBlog site has been set up for immediate feedback http://frogpad.zeroforum.com/zeromodify?cmd=editpost&id=112
FrogPad has broken the Qwerty code single-handedly.
FrogPad is a portable one-handed keyboard that has an ergonomic layout designed around the 15 most-used letters in the English alphabet. FrogPad, in a very practical and compact 3” x 5” size, is the only fully functional and portable keyboard with low profile, full-sized keys that allow fast, easy and accessible data entry. In addition, unlike some other miniaturized keyboard offerings, FrogPad comes with complete numeric and symbol functionality.
It is currently available as a standard USB interface which plugs seamlessly into any available USB port on your computer. It is like conducting a one handed symphony on you Mac.
At MacWorld in January 2004, FrogPad and its strategic Bluetooth solutions partner, Gennum Corporation, http://www.gennum.com , announced the launch of the Bluetooth version of the FrogPad keyboard. Bluetooth FrogPad will offer mobility and portability in numerous commercial and industrial applications. With a built-in rechargeable battery, the Bluetooth FrogPad can be recharged either through a wall adapter plug or your computer’s USB port. The small and compact package, with no wires or cables, allows it to be used in areas where space is at a premium.FrogPad and Gennum are also working together on a single chip solution, which will incorporate FrogPad’s unique algorithm with the Bluetooth HID profile, for OEMs interested in developing their own keyboard designs.
“Clearly with Gennum’s Bluetooth solution embedded into FrogPad, we are the simplest common denominator for any global application,” said Linda Marroquin, FrogPad, Inc.’s CEO and President. “A Bluetooth FrogPad is the holy grail as a portable human computer interface and is the horizontal solution for all types of data systems.”
“Bluetooth technology is rapidly becoming the short range wireless standard by which devices get connected to each other,” said Gora Ganguli, VP & GM, HIP. “We are delighted to be working with FrogPad to bring Bluetooth compatibility to this innovative product”.
For more information, visit:
http://www.FrogPad.com
ProClip Offers Automotive Mounts and Holders For The iPod Mini
ProClip is now providing holders for the newly introduced Apple iPod Mini. These holders expand ProClip's product line of custom mounts for several generations of the Apple iPod.
"Thanks to our manufacturer's unique design and production process, we can have custom-designed mounts available almost as soon as these popular accessories are introduced to the marketplace," said Bjorn Spilling, president of ProClip USA.
ProClip holders for the iPod Mini are designed to provide a perfect fit and make these digital music players even more portable. Holders are available with or without the tilt swivel feature, which provides easy adjustment and better viewing of the display and to avoid unnecessary light reflection.
The holders attach to ProClip mounts that clip on the car or truck's dashboard or console, without any damage to the vehicle's interior. They are easily self-installed.
"Taking your music with you becomes even easier, and ProClip will soon offer swivel belt clip holsters for the iPod Mini as well," added Spilling.
ProClip products are available for purchase on the Internet at http://www.proclipusa.com or by calling toll-free 800-296-3212 and through a number of wireless communication retail stores and outlets.
Developers: Target Users Efficiently And Sell Direct For Free -- Mac Users: Purchase Your Favorite Apps Conveniently From One Place
MacShareware has been updated to allow developers to sell directly to users conveniently from the same place they come to check for new software listing and updates. This is a free service to all Macintosh developers.
Each software listing to macshareware benefits from: - a visually appealing, informative, and easy read layout - a direct link to the application's webstore - listing software on the macshareware.net site is absolutely free. Advantage: developers can easily and more affordably (it's free) provide a quick way for users to register their software, and all users can do so conveniently and directly from macshareware, eliminating the waste of time spent browsing and looking for the online store. Result: Macshareware and Speed Download 2 offer one of the quickest and most affordable means to download your files, keep your applications up to date, and all your software nicely registered.
All developers that currently have software listed on macshareware.net are requested to update their entries in order to take advantage of the new features offered. Please note that MacPAD adoption is also highly recommended. It's free and will further help developers increase their exposure tremendously and offer the Mac community the most comprehensive software database possible.
What is MacPAD: Imagine a world on the Mac where you, the software developer releases a new application or updates an existing one and then in one step, just like magic, every other MacPad ready software site on the internet gets automatically notified of this application, and in turn, reaches millions of users instantaneously WITHOUT you having to tediously visit each one of these existing software sites one by one to add or update your entry manually. Yazsoft and MacShareware.net will be working hand in hand to continue improving what we hope becomes, the greatest, richest, most dynamic software site available to the Mac community. http://www.macshareware.net
Benefits to developers: Software developers will no longer have to worry about submitting their applications manually to every single software site, each and every time they release an update. Those days are over! The future is " go MacPad, save time, be more efficient." As well, with its integration in Speed Download 2, developers will be able to directly reach their users much more easily and increase the exposure of their applications ten fold.
Benefits to the end user:, Macintosh users will no longer have to visit multiple software sites to find out what's new or if an update to their favorite application has been released. Because MacShareware is seamlessly integrated in Speed Download 2, Mac users will benefit from one utility offering the simplest and fastest way to download files, AND keep your Macintosh up to date from just one place. Furthermore, with Speed Download 2, you have the option of having SD2 invisibly and automatically monitor your favorite applications for any updates. You don't even need a browser! What's more is that all this is available for a one time price of $20! Unlike other software sites, there are no monthly or yearly subscription fees required to benefit from any of this and it's completely free for all developers to adopt MacPAD.
Speed Download 2 and MacShareware aim to become the one stop shop to the best downloading experience.
System Requirements
• Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later
• An internet connection.
• Any popular Mac OS X internet browser
Important: Speed Download 2 updates are FREE to all previously registered Speed Download 2 users. Speed Download 1.x users may upgrade to SD 2 for the reduced price of $15.
Simply visit:
http://order.kagi.com/?7NT
Also, until the end of the month, YazSoft will provide free registration codes to all sites that will use our banners to link their site. Feel free to choose from any banners found here:
http://www.yazsoft.com/link.html
TextLightning 3.0 PDF to Rich Text (RTF) Conversion Filter Service
TextLightning is a Mac OS X native utility for converting PDF files to RTF format. TextLightning reconstructs as much of the original formatting as possible, including fonts, paragraphs, justification, margins and international characters as well as ligatures.
PDF is the standard print and interchange format on Mac OS X, in addition to being a widely used cross-platform and standard for exchanging documents via e-mail and the web.
TextLightning makes all these documents accessible from your favorite Mac OS X text editing program as easily as opening the file. Any services-aware application, such as the Apple-supplied TextEdit or any other Cocoa app, gains the ability to open PDF documents as rich text once TextLightning is installed.
New in this version:
• 50 - 100% faster processing
• no re-launch necessary, filter instantly available
• encrypted files
• better font substitution
• acts more like a normal application
System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.1 or higher
TextLightning sells for $27.00
For more information, visit:
http://www.metaobject.com/Products.html#TextLightning
PrintSmith V7.0 Print Management Software Includes UI Redesign and Feature-Rich Product Enhancements
EFI has announced it is shipping EFI PrintSmith version 7.0, with new product features and a redesigned user interface to increase ease of use. EFI PrintSmith is a comprehensive, flexible and feature rich print management information system and the market leading solution for print and copy shops.
"We're excited to launch the best PrintSmith version yet," said Marc Olin, Vice President/General Manager, EFI Commercial Print Systems. "Responding to our customer's needs, we've designed this new product with features that significantly improve performance, ease of use and capabilities. With the enthusiasm we've received from our beta customers, we look forward to widespread adoption of version 7.0."
Highlights of PrintSmith 7.0 include the ability to open multiple invoices and estimates simultaneously, and easy copying of jobs from one to another, making estimating and invoicing even faster. The enhanced costing system allows users to cost all of their charges at creation, simplifying the costing process at job completion. Enhanced list price estimating enables users to base prices on the quantity ordered, press sheets or press sheets plus bindery waste. And the addition of bindery spoilage calculations will help ensure all jobs have enough waste to cover additional operations after printing. Version 7.0 now runs natively on Macintosh OSX, Windows and Macintosh Classic.
The new user interface incorporates hierarchical lists into the job window, saving the customer time and steps when adding charge items to the job. This feature both simplifies the estimating process and helps the user to remember to include all necessary job items.
"The new feature rich version of PrintSmith is making it easier to perform all of the business aspects required to meet our customer's needs," said Joe Morin, Production Printing Department Manager for the Colorado Springs School District. "In particular, the ability to have multiple invoices and estimates open simultaneously greatly improves our efficiency, and the redesigned invoice, job and charges windows are easy to maneuver through."
Additional product features include enhancements to the e-commerce add-on module, EFI PrintSmith Site. PrintSmith Site enables printers to offer online products and services with complete integration into the PrintSmith estimating module for faster job turnaround and a more streamlined workflow. Included in version 7.0 is support for customer brandable PrintSmith Site catalogs, allowing printers to tailor their websites to meet the needs of their end users.
Xilinx Reports Broad Adoption of Virtex-II Pro IBM PowerPC Solution
Xilinx, Inc. reports significant traction in the embedded market, driven by the broad adoption of the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro Platform FPGA family with embedded IBM PowerPC processors. Xilinx is the only company to offer a programmable logic device with integrated PowerPC embedded technology. Xilinx has shipped over 100,000 PowerPC cores to its customer base and enabled over 1,400 CoreConnect licenses.
"Acceptance of our immersed processor solution continues at an accelerated pace -- particularly in the embedded market space. This is a direct result of our collaboration with IBM to integrate the PowerPC technology," said Erich Goetting, vice president and general manager of the Advanced Products Group at Xilinx. "We plan to continue to work with IBM to integrate PowerPC processors into our next-generation Virtex FPGA family."
"Today's announcement is another example of how the PowerPC processor is gaining increasingly broad accessibility," said Kevin Carswell, vice president, semiconductor products and development, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "This is reflected in the large number of designers who have utilized the embedded PowerPC feature to build a host of embedded systems in a wide variety of applications."
Xilinx reports significant traction specifically in applications such as broadband access, wireless and satellite communications, Voice over IP, video broadcast and display. For example, Barco, an international leader in imaging technology headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, utilized the Virtex-II Pro embedded PowerPC processor to enhance its high-resolution air traffic control LCD panel (see related announcement).
Based on their industry-leading capacity, performance, and cost-effectiveness, Xilinx Virtex FPGAs are the number one choice of designers worldwide. The Xilinx Virtex-II Pro is the world's first and only FPGA to offer integrated PowerPC embedded technology. Providing designers the ability to easily develop, integrate, and debug their entire embedded system, Xilinx offers a fully integrated hardware/software development environment, Platform Studio, included in the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK). The Xilinx embedded system solution is comprised of an extensive library of IP (over two hundred cores), application/reference designs, internal and third party provided tools, most widely used operating systems -- including MontaVista Linux, Wind River VxWorks, QNX Neutrino and development boards. Further ensuring first-time design success with its Platform FPGAs, Xilinx provides a variety of embedded design services, training and support.
For more information, visit:
http://www.xilinx.com
Corda Releases HTML-to-PDF Converter
Government Computer News' Patricia Daukantas reports that
"A new server-side application can convert Hypertext Markup Language pages to Adobe Portable Document Format.
"The Highwire app from Corda Technologies Inc. generates PDF copies of well formed Hypertext Markup Language and Extensible Hypertext Markup Language on the fly, said David P. Vandagriff, vice president of marketing for the Lindon, Utah, company. PDF copies are easier to print without cutting off portions of text or inserting inconvenient page breaks.
"Users install Highwire under a server operating system, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix or Apple Mac OS X. The product requires a Java Virtual Machine."
It's not cheap; $6,495 for the single-threaded version and $14,495 for a multithreaded version.
For the full report, visit here:
http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25200-1.html
Charles W. Moore
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