Mac Software

Although it hasn't exactly exploded into the mainstream music-listening population at large, the music-sharing application Simplify Media (download it for Windows or Mac) is a fan favorite of several CNET editors and staffers.

Simplify Media has always allowed you to listen to your iTunes playlists on the road or share them with friends. Yesterday, it announced support for the popular digital-music jukebox app Winamp for Windows.

When you install Simplify Media, you must choose whether it will work with Winamp or iTunes playlists. Those of us who occasionally use both apps and thought we might be able to consolidate playlists are out of luck. You can, however, change your preferred playlist program after installation.… Read more

As of today, Google Earth can finally tell you what the weather is like while you zoom around the 3D representation of our planet. The app has a new layer that lets you toggle cloud cover, Doppler radar, and conditions and forecasts, which will show you what's on tap in each region using information aggregated from Weather.com. There's also an "information" link that has more background about each of the services and links to download the 6- and 24-hour cloud animations, which can be controlled using playback buttons in the top right of your screen. It looks just like you've seen on any TV weather report, except you have complete control on the playback slider, and can drag is backward and forward ad nauseum to bend the clouds to your will (it's great fun).

I couldn't manage to get the "conditions and forecasts" sublayer to activate with the latest build for Windows, but maybe that's just me. Everything else works marvelously, including the Doppler radar that Google claims is "near real-time," which is a reasonable considering it's updated every 15 minutes--about what you'd find at most weather sites. The data for Doppler comes from Weather.com and is limited to the contiguous United States, with plans to roll it out to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Europe "shortly." All other regions of the globe are limited to cloud cover and forecasts, which Google pins at somewhere around 50,000 cities worldwide.… Read more

I mentioned some weeks ago that our friends from TechTracker are now part of the CNET family. Along with the addition of all their great sites like VersionTracker, MacFixit, and iPhoneAtlas, joining forces means we get to use and develop VersionTracker Pro, the software that keeps your computer's software up to date.

I'm excited to announce VersionTracker Pro 4.5 has recently received a major upgrade. Free to all current subscribers, VersionTracker Pro 4.5 is 100 percent Leopard-ready, automatically installs program updates (even the pesky drag-and-drop varieties), and new users will be able to perform a free … Read more

UPDATE: Glide is postponing the release of the Glide Crunch spreadsheet tool for a week. An updated version of Glide Crunch, contained in the Glide Sync download, is estimated to be available November 15. This version of the article also corrects a detail regarding how the Glide Crunch feature is downloaded.

This week, Glide (reviewed) is adding two new features to its beta Web suite, which is already 15 apps deep: Glide Crunch, which is a spreadsheet app, and support for OpenOffice.org.

Glide Crunch. Wednesday, Glide launches Glide Crunch, a spreadsheet app to join its word-processing, image-editing, and presentation-building buddies that sync information between the desktop and most mobile devices, including the iPhone.

Like these, Glide's spreadsheet contains collaborative tools to share, edit, and chat about data. Why this app is not like the others: It peels away from the nearly strictly Web 2.0 nature of Glide's other apps and settles onto the computer's hard drive as part of the Glide Sync desktop download. Spreadsheets with advanced formulas and functions can be crafted online, or offline with Glide Crunch Local, then auto-synced between the two. Pivot table support is anticipated for November 21. Glide Crunch spreadsheets were designed to be compatible with Microsoft Excel imports and exports. Check back tomorrow on CNET Download.com to download Glide Crunch.… Read more

Apple's omnipresent media player iTunes has quietly upgraded to version 7.5 for both Windows and Mac. There's no grand new interface, no code-scrubbing to make the Window version load quicker, and certainly no support for Linux users. There's not a lot to bother with, period, unless you're a Old World iPhone customer.

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Miro Public Preview 3 has been unleashed for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It seems like this is the version of the freeware Internet TV channel player and aggregator that we've all been waiting for. Crashes seem to be a problem mostly of the past. The smart player, able to download content on the fly as well as play nearly any video on your machine makes Miro's appeal hard to resist.

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Leopard has now only been available for a week, so even if you waited in line to purchase the latest Mac OS, you're probably still getting used to all the new features. My personal favorite at this point is probably Spaces, because I can split up my work into different areas and quickly switch between them. The addition of Stacks is a welcome change, too, because I now have all my articles in the same place--right there on the Dock. One surprise for me, though it probably shouldn't have been, was that I soon realized I missed a certain program immediately when I went to save a document.… Read more

Halloween is the one day of the year when it's OK to go all-out on a geeky costume. CNET News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy gave us 10 suggestions for techie Halloween costumes this year.

While we editors didn't see any dancing Mark Cubans or software pirates (believe us, we kept our eyes peeled), we did see a pair of LOLCats, a Nintendo Wii avatar, and...Facebook. Brace yourself for our techie Halloween slide show, and start your planning for next year.

The Mozilla Calendar Project has upgraded Lightning, the calendar plug-in for Thunderbird to 0.7, and is aiming for a 1.0 sometime in 2008.

As we've noted before, Lightning makes Thunderbird soar above Outlook for home use, and places them on nearly equal ground in the office. The latest update includes an overhauled interface with easier-to-use buttons for jumping from your mail to your calendar, LDAP directory support for event invites, and Sun Java Calendar Server support.

… Read more