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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 12 February 2018

Carbon Copy Cloner 5.0.8 — Bombich Software issued Carbon Copy Cloner 5.0.6 (CCC) in late January 2018 with improvements to the postflight option that unmounts the destination volume and to the efficiency of copying sparse files on APFS volumes. The drive-cloning and backup app also fixed a timing issue that occurred when a scheduled task with an hourly run time limit started a couple of seconds early, improved the remote Macintosh option to better handle IPv6 addresses, and revoked notifications prompting you to reattach a missing source or destination when the task starts to run (after reattachment).

In early February, Bombich Software updated Carbon Copy Cloner to version 5.0.8 to fix a bug introduced in version 5.0.6 where encoding of a network volume whose username or hostname contained special characters led to errors mounting the affected network volume. ($39.99 new, paid upgrade from CCC 3.5 and CCC 4, free update, 13.6 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

Read/post comments about Carbon Copy Cloner 5.0.8.

MarsEdit 4.0.7 — Red Sweater Software has issued MarsEdit 4.0.7, a maintenance release for the company’s recently updated blog editor (see “MarsEdit 4.0.1,” 9 December 2017). The new version changes character count behavior so it considers spaces in total character count, resolves a crash that could occur in the plain text syntax highlighting functionality, fixes a bug introduced in version 4.0.6 that caused a doubling of file extensions on image uploads, and addresses a bug that prevented the Featured Image from being deleted from an already published post.

MarsEdit 4.0 offers a free, full-featured 14-day trial from either the Red Sweater Software Web site or the Mac App Store, after which the app costs $49.95. If you have a MarsEdit 3 license, you can upgrade to version 4 for $24.95, and anyone who purchased MarsEdit 3 on or after 1 June 2017 is eligible for a free upgrade. ($49.95 new from Red Sweater Software or the Mac App Store, 24.95 upgrade, 14.6 MB, release notes, 10.12+)

Read/post comments about MarsEdit 4.0.7.

VLC Media Player 3.0 — VideoLAN has updated its open-source VLC media player to version 3.0 (dubbed “Vetinari”), a major release that adds support for playback of HDR (High Dynamic Range; both 10-bit and 12-bit color) and 360-degree video. The update also activates hardware decoding by default for smoother playback of 4K and 8K video, allows audio passthrough for HD audio codecs, adds support for streaming to Chromecast devices, reworks the AudioUnit modules to share more code between iOS and macOS, and adds support for browsing local network drives and NAS
destinations. VideoLAN also updated the iOS edition of VLC to version 3.0. (Free, 44.6 MB, release notes, 10.7+)

Read/post comments about VLC Media Player 3.0.

BBEdit 12.1 — Bare Bones Software has issued BBEdit 12.1, updating the venerable text editor to a 64-bit application and increasing the system requirements to OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan or later. BBEdit 12.1 now enables you to open and perform large-scale operations on very large files (exceeding the previous limit of 1.5 GB). Other additions include support for MacBook Pro models with a Touch Bar (with options for FTP/SFTP browser windows, Text Factory windows, and editing windows), support for specifying line ranges in the Go To Line feature (via the menu command or popover from the cursor position display), and a
new Open in Browser button in the Preview in BBEdit window.

The release also significantly improves performance when soft-wrapping long documents to the window width, fixes a bug in which the Text-to-HTML entity conversion didn’t honor the settings specified in the dialog box, prevents a crash that would occur when a computer’s display configuration changed, and works around a bug in modern versions of Microsoft Office that caused certain characters to be improperly encoded as UTF-8 and pasted incorrectly into BBEdit.

You can upgrade from BBEdit 11 for $29.99 or from an earlier version for $39.99 (upgrades for purchases made after 1 March 2017 are free). Upgrade prices apply to copies purchased from the Mac App Store as well. ($49.99, $29.99 or $39.99 upgrade, free update from version 12, 13.6 MB, release notes, 10.11.6+)

Read/post comments about BBEdit 12.1.

ChronoSync 4.8.4 — Econ Technologies has released ChronoSync 4.8.4, implementing an alternate technique for aggregating package files that works more quickly on APFS file systems and ensures that APFS bootable backups start up the first time more reliably. The synchronization and backup app adds more intelligence to the Analyze Panel to reduce and eliminate unnecessary refreshes, prevents the system from sleeping when restoring or deleting a batch of files in the Analyze Panel, streamlines the process of connecting to target file managers in a scheduled sync, and fixes a number of bugs related to
the Validator. ($49.99 new for ChronoSync with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 48.7 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

Read/post comments about ChronoSync 4.8.4.

DEVONagent 3.10 — DEVONtechnologies has updated all three editions of its DEVONagent research software (Lite, Express, and Pro) to version 3.10, adding a Google Scholar plug-in to the existing support for Lexis, FindLaw, and EUR-Lex for finding case law and opinions. All three editions now require OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later. The Express and Pro editions gain support for recognizing live streams with the webcam and video scanners, update several plug-ins (including Google Patent Search, BBC News, and British Library), and disable the Twitter plug-in on macOS 10.13 High Sierra as access to
system-wide social accounts is no longer possible. DEVONagent Pro also adds support for DuckDuckgo Bangs. (All updates are free. DEVONagent Lite, free, release notes; DEVONagent Express, $4.95 new, release notes; DEVONagent Pro, $49.95 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, release notes. 10.7.5+)

Read/post comments about DEVONagent 3.10.

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