Agen Schmitz
Agen Schmitz is a freelance writer and editor with a lot of Amazon time under his belt. Since leaving Amazon in 2003 (as senior editor for the Electronics and Camera & Photo stores), Agen has continued to work within the Amazon eco-sphere to help vendors bring clarity to their marketing content. He lives in Seattle with his wife and son, and is always dreaming of Iceland.
Major new release comes out of public beta with new book creation, geotag management, and video editing tools. ($149 new, $79 upgrade, $79 student and teacher edition, 384 MB)
Adds experimental support for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview and Microsoft Windows 8 Consumer Preview. ($79.99 new, $49.99 upgrade, $39.99 student edition, free update, 304 MB)
New release of the file cleanup utility includes a revamped rule engine that responds more quickly to folder changes and uses fewer system resources. ($25 new, $10 upgrade, 4.7 MB)
Adds a number of few format-specific and user interface-related features, and fixes a number of bugs. ($39.95 new, free update, 124 MB)
Update to all three editions of information assistant adds support for Adium chatlogs and Google Chrome bookmarks, and improves indexing of Safari Web archives. The Pro and Pro Office editions improve display of news feed unread items and add a contextual menu item for deleting databases. ($49.95/$79.95/$149.95 new, free updates, 17.7 to 28.6 MB)
Resolves a graphics issue that may cause the internal display to flicker. (Free, 1.8 MB)
Adds new video and audio encoders and improves support for Mac OS X Lion, plus provides a link to download the correct VLC library for DVD decrypting. (Free, 7.1 MB)
Maintenance release for venerable file transfer software that’s full of fixes and corrections. ($29 new, free update, 11.3 MB)
Update adds official Smile developer ID used by OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion's Gatekeeper plus a variety of small fixes. ($34.95 new, free update, 5.9 MB)
Resolves an issue for iMacs running Mac OS X 10.7.3 that can prevent automatic connection to a Wi-Fi network after waking from sleep. (Free, 25.81 MB)
While much of the chatter over the upcoming release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has focused on the Gatekeeper security feature and unifying the Mac and iOS experience, Macworld’s Serenity Caldwell delves into ten less-heralded system changes, including multi-disk Time Machine backup, draggable files in screen sharing, and a Dashboard overhaul.
Apple recently debuted a Mastered for iTunes section in the iTunes Store, where audiophiles can discover releases that have been optimized for playback within its 256 kbps AAC format. Chris Foresman at Ars Technica delves into what goes into the mastering process for compressed digital audio files, including a discussion with Masterdisk Chief Engineer Andy VanDette (who recently completed a remastering project for Rush’s back catalogue).
Quartet of firmware updates for 2011 Macs improves stability for three instances of system booting. (Free, each approximately 4 MB)
Maintenance update to the screencast recording app with a plethora of fixes, including problems with publishing to Vimeo and recording PowerPoint. ($99 new, free update, 14.1 MB)
Open source Web browser gets updated to the latest Mozilla Gecko rendering engine and limits the use of older versions of Adobe Flash Player 10 and 11. (Free, 18.5 MB)