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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 9 April 2012

TinkerTool 4.8 — Marcel Bresink has released version 4.8 of TinkerTool, his system utility that lets you adjust a variety of settings under Mac OS X’s hood (covered previously by Matt Neuburg; see “Lion Frustrations? Don’t Forget TinkerTool,” 29 October 2011). While TinkerTool can still be used with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, this update focuses on adding new ways to control system behavior in 10.7 Lion, including Launchpad and Mission Control animations, the delay when moving between Spaces and Mission Control, and the capability to open Dock Stacks by
scrolling. You can also add pop-up notifications to the Dock when playing a new track in iTunes 10.4 or later, enable copy operations when previewing text files in Quick Look, and configure a less-precise edge to windows when grabbing to resize them. If you’re running a Mac OS X version prior to 10.6 Snow Leopard, TinkerTool is available in separate applications for use with those previous iterations (TinkerTool Classic for 10.1 Puma, 10.2 Jaguar, and 10.3 Panther; TinkerTool Classic Generation 2 for 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard). (Free, 1.7 MB, release notes)

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Hazel 3.0.4 — Noodlesoft continues to refine its file cleanup utility with Hazel 3.0.4 after its recent update to version 3.0 (see “Hazel 3.0.1,” 4 March 2012). This release modifies a number of user interface behaviors, including the capability to click on tokens to add them when editing patterns and display of a pause icon for paused folders in the Run Rules submenu. It fixes a problem where a deleted custom token wasn’t deleted from patterns using it and a bug where multiple custom tokens were created with the same name. The update also fixes incorrect formatting of
custom tokens with numbers, prevents Growl messages from converting slashes to colons, prevents a crash when opening rules that used the old keywords attribute, and fixes a bug using the copy action with the Throw Away Duplicate Files option set. ($25 new, $10 upgrade, 5.0 MB, release notes)

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SpamSieve 2.9 — C-Command Software has released SpamSieve 2.9 to address a bevy of maintenance issues. This update improves the spam-filtering software’s training regimen for “good” Exchange messages in Apple Mail as well as handling of incoming messages in Microsoft Outlook. The release adds support for Growl notifications via GNTP and support for training messages as spam via the Herald notification plug-in. Other changes include adding a new auto-training parameter in the score script that can override the setting in preferences on a case-by-case basis, modifying the mailbox moving behavior of the Change Settings
command in Apple Mail, and adjusting drone AppleScripts for better troubleshooting. SpamSieve is also now code-signed for compliance with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper security feature. The update is rounded out by improvements in handling errors and fixes to other bugs. ($30 new, free update, 9.3 MB, release notes)

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App Tamer 1.2.1 — St. Clair Software has released App Tamer 1.2, which gives some props to our own Adam Engst for the change to its menu bar icon. The St. Clair Software blog writes that this update to the CPU-monitoring utility started as a user request for a colored menu bar icon, but it evolved after reading about Adam’s account of an unseen CPU process draining the battery of his MacBook (see “Solving iCloud-Related Slowdowns in Lion,” 16 February 2012). To better get your attention, App Tamer 1.2 now dynamically
colorizes its menu bar icon (turn it on in App Tamer’s preferences), with the color getting brighter and more alarming (moving from pale yellow to red) as your CPU usage climbs toward 100 percent. The menu bar icon also displays a speedometer-like needle to reflect processor load, and you can choose to display the percentage next to the icon. Version 1.2 also fixes an issue that prevented viewing of all processes launching and quitting, and it enables you to double-click App Tamer to open its window if the application icon isn’t in the Dock. A quick 1.2.1 update solves a problem when running under very high load and fixes the menu bar icon in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. ($14.95 new, free update, 3.6 MB, release notes)

Read/post comments about App Tamer 1.2.

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