With SplashMoney, Mac users now have access to a complete personal financial manager that enables them to securely record transactions, track account balances, generate reports and budgets, and manage finances while on the go. SplashMoney features wireless access to online bank accounts – an ideal feature for laptops and smartphones, a streamlined user interface, charting of financial data, the ability to assign icons to transactions, transaction filtering, and bank account reconciliation.
SplashMoney supports most account types, including checking, savings, credit card, cash, asset, liability, and money market accounts.
Mac users of SplashID have been anxiously waiting for the release of SplashID 4, which includes substantial updates such as Web Auto-Fill, a feature that simplifies entering user names and passwords by using a web browser to go directly to a site and then retrieving the username and password directly from SplashID to auto-fill in the record. Other key features in SplashID 4 include improved ways to view and find information, such as the new Panel and Tree views, and an Auto Search feature that retrieves records simply by entering a few letters in the Find box.
Advanced users of SplashID 4 can use the new Database Sync feature to select multiple databases to synchronize with on the Mac desktop and easily share data with other users, even across a network.
The security of personal financial data on mobile devices is of chief concern to many, and SplashData has incorporated secure password protection in both SplashMoney and SplashID using 256-bit Blowfish encryption to protect against malicious hacking or other threats.
The SplashMoney and SplashID versions that include both handheld and desktop applications are available now for $29.95 each at www.splashdata.com. They are also available as part of the SplashWallet Suite, which includes SplashID, SplashPhoto, SplashShopper, and SplashMoney, at a 50% discount. The desktop-only versions of SplashMoney and SplashID, available for both Windows and Mac, are available for $19.95. Full functioning 30-day trial versions are also available for download.
Continuing to raise the bar in file transfer technology Interarchy 9 introduces over one hundred new and improved features, including a brand new protocol built upon SSH, numerous enhancements to the product’s interface, plus much more.
“For close to 15 years Interarchy has led the way with its advanced file transfer capabilities,” said Matthew Drayton, founder and CEO of Nolobe. “Interarchy 9 builds on this by adding a number of exciting new features to enhance our customers’ productivity.”
The new SSH protocol is a major addition to Interarchy’s already comprehensive set of supported protocols. SSH provides a number of advantages over incumbent protocols such as FTP and SFTP. Not only is it faster than SFTP but it offers much greater flexibility.
“Interarchy’s SSH protocol offers significant speed improvements, especially when mirroring. We are talking seconds versus minutes for large websites. This is a big deal.” adds Drayton. “Better yet, SSH puts us in the driving seat. Users will no longer will we be shackled by the limitations of SFTP or FTP.”
Pricing and Availability
Interarchy 9 is available at a suggested retail price of US$59.
Interarchy 9 can be purchased directly from The Nolobe Store:
A US$29 upgrade offer is available to all registered owners of
Interarchy 8.5.4 or earlier.
http://store.nolobe.com/upgrade
Volume discounts are also available. For details visit The Nolobe Store at http://store.nolobe.com/ or send an email to
sales@nolobe.com.
Interarchy 9 requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later.
So you’ve got a Mac or a Windows box with disk encryption and you’re feeling pretty good about your data’s safety. Bitlocker on Vista and File Vault (developed for the Depart of Defense even) on OS X put you at ease with its promises of using some super hard encryption scheme to defeat. The only way anyone’s getting in is via a key. Guess what? Hackers now can get that key.
A video on YouTube demonstrates just how easy it is to retrieve the very key that unlocks your hard drive. From start to finish, the video shows the retrieval of a laptop, the sniffing of a key, and then the opening of all the “protected” files. Just like that.
Now granted, the hacker will need physical contact with your computer in order to grab your key; however, this isn’t that reassuring if you think about it. In recent months, there has been a slew of reports of lost laptops from not just business professionals, but from government agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and of those in Congress. These laptops are in danger of losing very important and highly classified data. If enemies of the state are able to obtain such a nugget, it’s no telling what could result from the breach.
Again, the video does demonstrate a small window of opportunity in data retrevial; however, in our busy lives, it is easy to lose track of our laptops for a few minutes. That’s just enough time for someone to simply walk by and grab it without you even knowing.
The easiest and best way to protect yourself is to insure your laptop is OFF and not in standby when in public. Make sure it has been off for at least 30 minutes prior to placing yourself in a vulnerable situation. These two measures alone will greatly reduce the chance of the key residing in your memory and thus keep your data safe.
Netflix has wisely been adapting to the future fairly well with adding Blu-ray and HD-DVD (yanking the last from the queue just recently, however) to the mix. Netflix has also playing around with movie downloads. Many have been excited by the latter and with only a Windows version currently available, Macintosh fans are sitting at the table with fork and knife, ready to dive in. But you may want to put down the silverware as it’s most likely you’ll never see Netflix downloads on your Mac.
According to a source at Netflix, Apple is making things very difficult for it, and every other company with digital content, to bring this new exciting technology to OS X machines. The difficulty? FairPlay. Apple has a long history of not playing fair with it’s DRM (digital Rights Management) from shunning RealNetworks’ Rhapsody to work with the iPod to ignoring Sonos‘ constant requests for access to FairPlay to allow the music player to play content from the iTunes Store. Apple simply does not want to license out its DRM scheme as Microsoft has freely done with its Windows Media format.
Hollywood is very stringent with its content and has signed onto Window Media and FairPlay after much work by Microsoft and Apple. To add another DRM to the fold may not go down very well with Tinsel Town. Further, the cost of coming up with a new protection scheme may be too extreme for many companies. Lastly, the “bullet proof” aspect of the DRM would be questioned by all the studios and that would become the deal breaker. In the end, it has to be FairPlay on the Mac.
As long as Apple plays deaf to all the outside requests for licensing of FairPlay, one will never see Netflix movie downloads on their Mac. With Apple having its own movie rental scheme now, it’s highly unlikely Netflix movie downloads will come to the Mac. Like RealNetworks, Apple doesn’t want competition on its platform. In the end, if you really have to have those movies from Netflix on your Mac, get Parallel’s Desktop.
Ettore Software Ltd. today started shipping an enhanced version of its long-standing text expander for Mac,
TypeIt4Me, introduced at Macworld Expo in January.
Since 1989, TypeIt4Me has allowed users to set up short abbreviations which expand to words, pictures, phrases, paragraphs or indeed entire pages when typed.
New TypeIt4Me version 4.0 will now automatically correct spelling mistakes.
Unlike competing products which require the user to set up long lists of typos and their correct spelling, TypeIt4Me’s AutoCorrect uses Apple’s built-in OS X spell-checker, AppleSpell and requires no user set up.
Users can turn AutoCorrect on/off via a hotkey, which also allows changing among up to three supported languages (including English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese).
Company founder and CEO, Riccardo Ettore says: “Users have long been able to define commonly mistyped words to expand to their correct spelling. With 4.0, they can now leverage the power of OS X’s built-in spellchecker and have their typos automatically corrected while they continue typing, instead of seeing it
underlined in red.”
Also new in 4.0 is Autocue, which allows users to define boilerplate text with variable parts to be typed when prompted at expansion time.
For a complete list of features, see: http://ettoresoftware.com/EttoreSoftware/TypeIt4MeFeatures.html
Available now for download from http://ettoresoftware.com TypeIt4Me 4.0 costs $27 ($14 for students/teachers). Upgrades are $9, but free for users who bought the previous version after 1 August 2006.
You will finally be able to truly conquer Time Machine and Spaces with Apple’s latest update, 10.5.2. With the ability to turn off Space’s funky spring view of the folders, you’ll be able to go back to that great simply listing of Tiger. Also fixed is Time Machine’s inability to see some external hard drivers as well as automatically popping up the status window when running. Also noted by Apple is, ” Improved general stability when running third-party applications.” That would be nice since 10.5.1 seems to crash so many of my applications when I was on that awful rev. No specifics if Windows Network shares are fixed, but this comment, “Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume,” on Apple’s release notes seems to indicate maybe you mixed network folk should have no more issues.
Leopard users can initiate download via there Software Update on their Mac.
For a complete list of fixes in the near 400 MB upgrade, take the leap below…
equinux has just released the fifth generation of its award-winning online auction management solution, iSale. iSale 5 offers all Mac users a way to flexibly create and manage their online eBay auctions. The Template Editor allows each of the 222 templates, included with iSale, to be easily edited to fit the user’s needs. Additionally, iSale 5 simplifies the search for product information and pictures and can display running auctions on Facebook platform.
Import and search for product information
With the new Research Assistant, product descriptions can be easily taken from FileMaker databases and Delicious Library and then added to an auction per mouse click. Additional plug-ins allow you to research product information, as well as pictures, using Google, Amazon, the ISBN Database for books and any other website a user might wish to use. The Research Assistant saves all of the information it collects in folders, so it can easily be copied and pasted into your auctions.
“All iSale users will greatly benefit from the new version. iSale 5 not only gives you the possibility to manage and create your auctions, but it now also shortens the time it takes to look up information about the items you’re selling,” says equinux CEO Till Schadde. “iSale 5 is the most powerful and comprehensive online auction management software that equinux has ever released. iSale 5 includes an all-new Template Editor that allows users to edit every iSale template, we ever shipped and save them as your favorites.”
Manage and Archive Auctions
Anyone who wants to let his contacts know about any upcoming auctions, can post running auctions on his Facebook profile. And iSale 5 makes it possible to manage multiple libraries, allowing users to archive old auctions.
Full power with Mac OS X
iSale 5 takes full advantage of new functions and capabilities in Leopard. The user interface reflects the style and design of Leopard, as well as the other features from Leopard that seamlessly integrate into iSale. iSale 5 used the systemwide Calendar system so users can manage their deadlines. The QuickLook preview allows all users to find any auction with Finder. To benefit from all of the new features, iSale 5 requires Mac OS X 10.5.
Prices and Availability
Upgrades for iSale 5 are available starting today for $19.95. And all customers, that purchased their iSale license after December 15th, 2007 can upgrade for free at my.equinux.com. Full version of iSale 5 are available, starting at $39.95.
eBay has come a long way with it’s web interface on the worlds most popular bidding site on the world wide web. But, there still could be some improvements made, namely, with speed. One of my main gripes with eBay is that it can be slow at times. Not a biggy when you’re browsing but it can mean the difference between winning and losing at bid time. It’s happened a couple of times to me. Granted, network issues could be related to the speed problem; however, with its complex layout, eBay can take some of the burden of blame as well. Thankfully, eBay has an API (Application Program Interface) that allows developers to tap into the eBay engine externally. This means people at companies like iwascoding can make an eBay manager that works as if you were on eBay…but better.
iwascoding are the makers of the well known GarageSale, an eBay sell manager. This has been the more popular use of the eBay API but fortunately, those whacky German coding guys understand that there is a need to manage sales as well manage bids, so they created GarageBuy.
When I first saw GarageBuy, I was hesitant. What could it possibly do better than eBay’s web interface? Yes, speed was my key draw to this application, but was it worth opening another application to take more resources away from my Mac? Needless to say, the cost, free, was the strongest pull for me to click that download link.
Once installed, GarageBuy asks for you to authorize the application, much like wonderful Flickr Uploadr (also free) does. Once authorized, you’re already signed in and ready to go. First thing GarageBuy will do is import any items on your Watch list and other eBay information locally. Then, you’re off to the races.
I did a test search, “Purple Birkenstock”, to see how well the search would perform. To my surprise, it was quick and presented very nicely. The left side of the column shows your search term along with the hit count. To the right is the results. These results include brief auction information and a picture (if available.) With a limited pool of results, I went for something I wanted: NAS. NAS, short for Network Attached Storage, is a need at my home-based office. I’ve been looking for a rack mount product but this hardware form factor starts at 3k. Ouch! But what better way to test GarageBuy’s speed and see if I could find a deal? Well a deal indeed is what I found and speed was another feature rich benefit. My results quickly filled up the screen (over 700 total) and within minutes I found the perfect NAS at the perfect price. I’m sure I would have found it on my web browser as well, but no way would it have been this easy and this pleasurable.
Why pleasurable? The layout is so intelligently done that one would think iwascoding spent countless hours and Euros on this program. So why is this free, guys? On the right side, the Gallery display, where all your hits are shown, you can sort by time left, current price, Buy It Now price, or title. Above this sort line you can narrow down the results by clicking on soft buttons that differ from search to search that allow you really get into the details. You can also increase the size of the Gallery picture if you’d like. To watch an auction or hide it from the results, just click the appropriate button on the tool bar above.
To bid on an auction, all you need to do is click the money icon and up comes a new window with bid information including a place for your bid. The window is updated in real-time, so the auctions remaining time is displayed in countdown fashion along with the price being updated with the current bidders name. Placing your bid couldn’t be any easier than typing in your price, clicking the bid button, confirming the bid (which you can have disabled for future bids) and that’s it. Your bid is in and the screen updates with your information! It is very fast!
The left column will keep you up to date on your bids and other items you are watching. Green colored bubbles mean you’ve won the auction, red indicates a loss, and light red with dark red means it’s in auction your watching but you haven’t bid on yet (or your losing the bid.) Yellow is for the ended auction without a winner. Another nice feature of GarageBuy is the darker color will progress to the right as a time indicator. The closer it fills up the bubble, the less time you have left. It’s just so easy to glance at any auction and know when time is almost up.
GarageBuy is fully Growl compatible, so if you’re watching an auction, you’re notified when the bid changes. All other actions by you are also shown such as making a bid.
In short, GarageBuy, the first officially certified client for the Mac by eBay, is nothing short of awesome. Any user of eBay with a Mac should have this in their Applications folder. Light users to heavy users are going to thoroughly enjoy this eBay buyer manager. I know I am.
One of the biggest gripes with most for all the other iTunes wannabe types is the lack of Mac software. Universal yanked its content from Apple’s popular video downloading service for its own little venture with the likes of Fox called hulu. As you may have guessed, hulu is Windows only and at this point, is a private beta. Sources have indicated to SvenOnTech that only a few episodes are available for viewing of each show and it is using Adobe’s Flash technology. Your stuck to your PC screen.
SyncTV wants to change all that. It wants to share the video love with Windows, Mac, and Linux users. Giving each of them a client, now everyone can enjoy their favorite shows, now or later. Unlike hulu, all shows will be downloadable and will eventually even support portable media devices. What ever you choose to download, you can go a la carte or get every episode of every year. No restrictions. While this all sounds like iTunes, sans the Linux version, Apple won’t give you any of its content in HD. SyncTV does. To prove how good it looks, SyncTV is showing off its service on a 1080p HDTV at CES this week.
As for content, this seems to be the limited aspect of SyncTV. Only recognizing one show, Dexter, SyncTV has a long way to go before it can take on Apple or even hulu. Fortunately though, the Internet has removed the boundaries of “popular” and with “networks” such as Revision3 and ZiffDavis, featuring DL.TV, the old school TV networks may find itself lost in the shuffle just a few short years from now.
Nearly twelve months and counting. That’s the first time I saw Skitch at Macworld Expo. It started off as a tease and now has been a private beta for almost a year. When we say private, we mean private. Not that we’re big names or anything, but we’d at least think we could get in on this beta after sending a couple of requests in. We haven’t. From what it sounds like, only those with connections or well known names get in on this. For example, Merlin Mann of Mac Break Weekly has been using the beta from the start. He went on and on (listen…about 42 minutes in) about how awesome this application was…back in the early summer. We don’t doubt Merlin’s impressions, in fact, more times than not, we agree nearly 100% on like matters, but what has happened in those other six months? You really can’t blame Leopard as Plasq had to have a beta of that to work with. Even if not, compatibility issues shouldn’t have been too difficult to sort out. My SnapNDrag works just fine without an update for Leopard.
We love Merlin (we miss you on MBW) and no offense to him, but man, Plasq, where’s the goods? How long can one company have a product in beta? Publicly? Shesh, Apple’s Leopard was in beta about the same amount of time and it’s a freakin’ entire operating system! What’s your excuse?
From what I saw at Macworld Expo and what I’ve read and heard, Skitch sounds to be the best screen capture utility made. Note I didn’t say out there. 
It’s caused me to hold off on buying other products, but at this rate, it’s pretty much time to move on and forget. I’m sure Skitch will see daylight, maybe, at Macworld Expo in January, but after this long delay, it just doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal anymore. It may have been much wiser for Plasq to keep its mouth shut on this last year and then surprised us with it this year. Basic marketing trick, guys.