Appletell | Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPod | News, Rumors, Reviews, How-Tos

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 7, 2008:

• Rainmaker Research, Inc. has announced Spell Catcher X version 10.3, a major new release of the industry’s most advanced collection of writing productivity tools. Not only does Spell Catcher provide spell checking services for more than a dozen languages, but it does much more. Spell Catcher X combines world class multilingual spell checking with suite of Writing Productivity Tools.
• Today i.TV announced the launch of i.TV, a TV and movie guide for the iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store. i.TV provides comprehensive television and movie information, including: TV and movie listings, celebrity bios and images, and movie theater show times. i.TV users can rate shows, write reviews and recommend shows through an email alert to friends. Watch movie trailers and TV previews on your iPhone or iPod touch.
• After you have created your pages with iWeb, instead of publishing your site to MobileMe, you can publish your site to a folder on a local destination (your hard disk, for example), then you can use iWeb Valet to enhance in many ways your iWeb pages, and finally have your website uploaded on a FTP server.
• ExactCODE GmbH has announced an upgrade for its award-winning software ExactScan that makes scanning faster. ExactScan now allows the use of more than 160 integrated certified drivers for document scanners without any Mac driver support from the original manufacturer, allowing users to utilize many different scanners under Mac OS X for the first time.
• Second Gear has announced a Halloween promotion for their flagship application Today. Through the month of October, users can pick up a license for Today for the price of $12, 20% discount off the regular price. Today makes it easy to get a one day snapshot view of your upcoming events and tasks in a compact window.
• Benoit Kaisin, Mac software specialist in databases launches GeoEdu, a software which generates more than 90,000 questions on the basis of an Atlas he developed by gathering thousands of data including the populations from 2000 to 2008 and the member states of international organizations.
• Gotow.net has announced the release of NetSketch 1.3, a collaborative drawing application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. NetSketch is a full-featured vector drawing app and allows you to sketch in real-time with friends on multiple iPhones. The update is available through the App Store and features several performance improvements.
• Oryx Digital announced today that their seating planner software, PerfectTablePlan, has now been used to seat an estimated two million guests at weddings receptions and other events. First launched in 2005, the software is now being used in more than 50 countries with a client list that includes fortune 500 companies, hotels, charities, universities and museums, as well as thousands of prospective brides and grooms. Version 4 of PerfectTablePlan was released recently, adding more than 30 new features and improvements.
• Freeridecoding has announced BurnAgain FS 1.1, a free update to the CD/DVD multisession burning utility for Mac OS X. BurnAgain FS makes it possible to repeatedly change the content of a data CD or DVD directly in the Finder. The user can re-mount the disk like a hard drive volume and add or remove files, or even edit and change files several times. Disks burned with BurnAgain FS are readable without additional software on all platforms. Special Mac file attributes are preserved automatically.
• LateNiteSoft has released version 1.4 of Sketches, its popular drawing app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Together with version 1.3, released two weeks ago, the updates provide significant improvements over the original 1.0 version. Notable new features over previous versions of Sketches include several new drawing options and tools. Additional clipart shapes continue to amuse and provide fun.
• Macvide has announced VideoFlash Converter 1.8, 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.
• Mozy, Inc., has announced the first online backup service designed for Mac-powered businesses. MozyPro for Mac extends the award-winning Mozy online backup service to the growing numbers of businesses using Apple Mac desktops, laptops and servers. Mozy provides simple, automatic and secure backup of critical information at a remote location, protecting against hard drive failure, computer loss or theft and natural disaster.
• GeoEdu is a free atlas and an educational game on the worldwide geography. The GeoEdu software, developed on the Mac, generates up to 93,566 questions on 8 different topics. The atlas, which is and will remain free, provides hundreds of interactive maps of the continents and territories, including countries, dependencies, divisions and even sub-levels territories such as atolls, islands, communes, etc.
• CS Odessa has announced the immediate availability of a training pack designed for ConceptDraw Office which consists of a number of short instructional videos, which demonstrate user scenarios and some important functionality in ConceptDraw Office. Also included in the training pack are Tips and Tricks documentation, Samples Gallery and many other start-up tools to help users discover the capability behind ConceptDraw Office.