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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 25 July 2016

Alfred 3.0.3 — Running with Crayons has issued Alfred 3.0.3 with fixes and improvements to the keyboard-driven launcher. The update reorganizes options between snippets and clipboard preferences, improves the update mechanism in preparation for macOS 10.12 Sierra, fixes a compatibility issue in 10.9 Mavericks in List Filter workflow object configuration, adds a new option to Show snippets when searching Clipboard History (on by default), fixes an issue preventing dictionary filter language from being correctly applied, and significantly improves snippet database caching performance. (Free, £17 for Powerpack, 2.6 MB, release notes, 10.9+)

Read/post comments about Alfred 3.0.3.

Tinderbox 6.6.2 — Eastgate Systems has released Tinderbox 6.6, adding “polish and infrastructure to prepare the way for Tinderbox 7.” The update to the personal content assistant improves Tinderbox maps, enabling you to drag the ends of links to reroute them and link labels where you want them, and adds more guides for more precise placement. The update also improves performance within the complex relationship between agents, rules, and automatic sorting; adds ways to specify the time for dates (such as “0930” and “930pm”); fixes a problem in following recently created footnote links; and corrects a variety of
user interface anomalies in the new link creation popover. ($249 new, free update, 54.4 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

Read/post comments about Tinderbox 6.6.2.

Evernote 6.8 — Evernote has released version 6.8 of its eponymous information management app with the addition of Google Drive integration, enabling you to add documents, slides, sheets, and files as attachments or links. The update also makes it easier to share a notebook and manage permissions, fixes a bug that prevented connecting an Evernote account with a LinkedIn account, improves Spotlight integration, and enables Evernote Business users to connect Salesforce accounts. Note that the Mac App Store remains stuck at version 6.7.1 as of
this writing.

At the end of June 2016, Evernote announced that it was raising prices on paid plans while limited the free Basic tier to two devices. If you are a Basic user, the app walks you through the process of choosing the two devices you want to keep, but you can also sign into Evernote via the Web and select your devices via this page. The company has also clarified that the browser-based Evernote Web does not count as a device, enabling you to access Evernote via a Web browser from as many computers as you like. (Free from Evernote or the Mac App Store,
54.2 MB, release notes, 10.9+)

Read/post comments about Evernote 6.8.

DEVONthink/DEVONnote 2.9 — DEVONtechnologies has updated all three editions of DEVONthink (Personal, Pro, and Pro Office) and DEVONnote to version 2.9 with a completely rewritten synchronization engine. Paving the way for the upcoming 2.0 release of DEVONthink To Go on iOS, the new sync engine works both on local networks as well as with Internet-based services such as Dropbox or WebDAV servers. According to this blog post, it syncs up to 688 times faster than DEVONthink 2.8 and consumes up to 80 percent less bandwidth, less RAM, and less computing power. However, the new sync engine is not backward-compatible, so you will need to delete existing sync stores and resynchronize your databases.

All four editions also change the default plain text font to 11 point Menlo Regular, improve the handling of selections with thousands of items, improve handling of tab stops of plain text views, and fix a glitch in the Info panel. The three editions of DEVONthink now scale thumbnails of very long PDF pages to width, improve ScanSnap/ExactScan support, and add conversion of .emlx email messages to HTML and formatted notes. Starting with version 2.9, all three editions of DEVONthink and DEVONnote require OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later. (All updates are free. DEVONthink Pro Office, $149.95 new, release notes; DEVONthink Professional,
$79.95 new, release notes; DEVONthink Personal, $49.95 new, release notes; DEVONnote, $24.95 new, release notes; 25 percent discount for TidBITS members on all editions of DEVONthink and DEVONnote. 10.9+)

Read/post comments about DEVONthink/DEVONnote 2.9.

BusyCal 3.0.4 — BusyMac has released BusyCal 3.0.4 with refinements that address many of the issues Adam Engst brought up in his review (see “BusyCal Updates Mac Calendar Alternative, Expands to iOS,” 1 July 2016). The new version improves time editing in the Info Panel (eliminating the need for delimiters between hours and minutes, and supporting 24-hour time entry), adds incremental scroll arrows to navigation buttons, darkens the text in the floating info window’s Notes field, adds support for travel time on Exchange calendars, improves looking up and matching
Locations, and fixes a bug that could cause edited events to disappear if both BusyCal 2 and BusyCal 3 were installed. ($49.99 new, $29.99 upgrade, 10.8 MB, release notes, 10.11+)

Read/post comments about BusyCal 3.0.4.

PopChar X 7.6 — Ergonis Software has issued PopChar X 7.6 with added support for Unicode 9.0, which adds 7500 characters (for a total of 128,172 characters) including 6 new scripts and 72 new emoji characters. The character discovery utility also launches more quickly when a different version was installed previously, improves scroll position and highlighting after using “Show x in Unicode Context,” works around an issue in Microsoft Word, and fixes incorrect highlighting of missing characters in the Font Info and Sample text views. (€29.99 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 4.6 MB, release notes, 10.6+)

Read/post comments about PopChar X 7.6.

Safari 9.1.2 — Apple has released Safari 9.1.2 for OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks, 10.10.5 Yosemite, and 10.11 to 10.11.5 El Capitan — it’s bundled into 10.11.6 El Capitan (see “Apple Releases OS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.3, tvOS 9.2.2, and watchOS 2.2.2,” 18 July 2016). The update addresses vulnerabilities in WebKit, including multiple memory corruption issues, a timing issue that existed in processing SVG images, and a permissions issue related to the handling of the location variable — all of which could compromise user information if visiting a maliciously crafted Web site. Safari
9.1.2 is available only via Software Update. (Free, release notes, 10.9+)

Read/post comments about Safari 9.1.2.

Security Update 2016-004 (Mavericks and Yosemite) — Apple has released Security Update 2016-004 for OS X 10.9 Mavericks and 10.10 Yosemite, bringing a few select patches from the 10.11.5 El Capitan release (see “Apple Releases OS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.3, tvOS 9.2.2, and watchOS 2.2.2,” 18 July 2016) to the two older operating systems. The update resolves memory corruption issues in CoreGraphics, ImageIO, and libxml2, which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. (Free. For 10.9.5 Mavericks, 371.2 MB; for
10.10.5 Yosemite, 456 MB)

Read/post comments about Security Update 2016-004 (Mavericks and Yosemite).

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