Appletell

Apimac has just released new versions of its Compress Files utility, which allows compressing, archiving, and encryption of files. Along with some of the other features, a notable addition is support for AES-256 encryption for zip files.

Compress Files allows users to create a compressed file in any of the following formats: Zip, TAR, Gzip, Bzip2, Xar, 7zip and Compressed Disk Image (DMG). The encrypted formats are: Zip, DMG and 7zip. Version ‘08 release 2 brings:

• Xar version 1.5.2.
• Crypted Zip files now use AES-256
• Improved AppleScript dictionary for automated e-mail and archive actions
• Customisation in contextual menus
• And, of course, bug fixes

Since 1996, Apimac has been developing award-winning software for the Mac platform. Some of their best software includes Mac Notepad, Clean Text, Apimac Slideshow and Secret Folder. Compress FIles costs around $27 for a single user license from their website. They also have a free trial version available.

Product [Compress Files]

If free or low cost software is your lifeblood, this is for you. Macworld, a popular Apple site, has officially started their Gem a Day blog. From now until mid-August, Mac Gems will have a daily post about a new piece of software for your Mac that is either free or has little cost. These short snippets are all available on the Mac Gems blog, but if you miss that, do not fret.; all the features from the blog will be in the September ‘08 article of Macworld Magazine. 

The regular content provided to you by Mac Gems will resume in mid-August.

Product [Mac Gems] Via [MacWorld]

You may be familiar with Plasq’s popular Skitch screenshot-sharing application, and their comic book application: Comic Life (which was pre-installed on many Macs). Plasq have just released another amazing application called Comic Life Magiq. It sports a brand new interface, which aims to be more easy to use and even fun to use. This is not an update to the original Comic Life software that most of us are familiar with, but rather a “Pro” version of it - with more features and a newer-looking interface. Some of it’s unique features over Comic Life include: Professionally-designed templates and comic graphics, advanced object manipulation, Vector brushes, masking tools, a built-in image editor, and more.

I tried the demo myself and was very impressed by the user interface. It doesn’t feel like a typical Mac application, yet it works in a way that you can use it without prior knowledge - unlike Photoshop, for example, which can be frustrating for new users.

Comic Life Magiq can be purchased for the low price of $40, current owners of Comic Life can get a discount of $20 (includes Mac pre-installs). See Plasq’s official site for more details and a 30-day demo.

Via [MacUser]

Quite possibly the world’s best password manager, 1Password, has been updated to version 2.5.12 today with some new features, changes and bug fixes than need be listed. Those who like to be up-to-date with the betas will have noticed that 2.6 Beta 6 was also released. Beta 6 also includes some new improvements, including support for the Fluid extension.

Version 2.5.12 brings support to Safari 3.1, adds new changes to iPhone bookmarklets, better Firefox support and many more fixes that will improve the performance and stability of the application - whether it’s running behind the scenes or you’ve got it open. Unfortunately, the price of 1Password has increased by $5 with this update. If you’re a current license holder - not to worry - you’ll get this update for free. New customers will have to pay $34.95, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll know that this software is worth the extra cost.

Via [TUAW]

Softpress announced a new version of their flagship web design software for OS X, Freeway 5. The visual page layout-style interface of Freeway is what separates it from other traditional web design software. Its intuitive interface makes graphics and web designers alike feel comfortable using it. Freeway 5 brings some new features, including the ability to create CSS-based menus, Google Actions, dynamic effects from script.aculo.us, sliced background images, new background and graphic effects, save archive, iPhoto integration, color labeling and many more.

Freeway Pro now has multiple output options, a full output encoding choices, color and text style management across the entire document, extended graphic import capabilities, multiple style sheets for each document, full CSS text styling and CSS layout, and more.

Freeway 5 costs $249 for the Pro version and $79 for the Express version. Upgrades from previous releases are available for discounted prices, and you can also download a free trial from their website.

Smile On My Mac has updated its PDFpen application to version 3.4. The new latest version brings a number of new improvements, including: The performance of adding imprints to large files, as well as speed the opening of documents within Mac OS X 10.4.11 and 10.5.x. Stability and speed in general has also increased in this version, along with a number of needed bug fixes. I discovered this app a few weeks ago, when I needed to edit a PDF document from UPS - it’s a very handy app if you need to do things like that - and don’t want to pay the huge price for Adobe Acrobat Professional.

PDFpen costs $50, and PDFpen Pro costs $95.

We told you about the beta version of CheckUp last year, and today App4mac has announced the release of CheckUp 1.0. For those who didn’t catch what CheckUp is: It’s basically a diagnostic software tool for Mac OS X that is designed to be easy to use, whilst remaining a powerful and advanced tool. CheckUp 1.0 allows you to check the behaviour of your Mac locally, or even another Mac remotely over a network. It can check CPU, memory, hard drives, optical drives and network interfaces. Everything is displayed in an easily readable format and the information is very detailed.

CheckUp is a Mac shareware app and only costs $49, which is a great price for a piece of software that can help maintain your Mac. Licenses of CheckUp can be run on two computers. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later, and a G4 or better processor. The software is Universal Binary, so it will work great on both platforms. If you want to try before you buy, as with all shareware, a trial version is available for download.

Product Page [CheckUp]

With barely any effort at all, you can get at least 7 more presents this Christmas.

MacGivingTree.com is a site from MacHeist that gives you 2 presents that you can open on Christmas morning. It is luck of the draw what shareware you will get. With a simple friend referral, you can get a third present. For just signing up, you get BitClamp, a file encryption tool, WireTap, an audio recording tool, and other cool apps (valued at over $50) for free!

Just go to MacGivingTree.com, enter email and a username and password, and you’ll automatically have 2 virtual presents to open on Christmas Day.

Mac Giving Tree will be open up until Midnight EDT Christmas Day (early morning, not late at night), when the presents will be unwrapped.

Sign Up [Mac Giving Tree]

For those of you who participated in Heist 6 of MacHeist, you may remember a website called “iLikeOlives.” This website announced “the ultimate side-project” from developers Austin Sarner, John Casasanta, Ollie Wagner and Sophia Teutschler. Not many details at all were given on the initial website, but today a blog has been launched there in place of the splash page. The first blog post published today, gives a bit of an introduction to what their goals are, but still not a lot of information about the application itself.

“Billed as the ultimate Mac shareware side project (not to mention the least ambitious software project ever…the savvy Mac reader will get that reference), the app we’re developing is going to be a culmination of all four of our experiences in the shareware scene over the last years. Our goal is to combine what we’ve learned in every aspect of the Mac shareware biz and deliver a killer experience worthy of being called delicious.”

What does this all mean? Its hard to tell at the moment, but all I can tell you is that if their previous work is anything to judge this project by, it’s going to be awesome! Head on over to iLikeOlives and read the whole post if this is something that interests you.

Read [iLikeOlives]