Shareware to Share By Harry {doc} Babad Shareware Editor

This month I’m trying something new --- an effort to out reach to you your readers to see if any of you are interested in some of the shareware items I’ve found, but we haven’t had time to review. In know it’s against the paradigm… MacAddict (now MacLife) or Macworld don’t do it. But ever since the MacUpdate site starting pasting reviewer ratings, I’ve been tempted. Oh, and I’m only picking items with scores above 2.0 stars. Why 2 stars? In my experiences, complex products often get downgraded by MacUpdate (or Version Tracker) reviewers. In addition, apparently some the ratings are an average across all versions; I’m only interested in the current release.

Background:

Some of you know that I check the MacUpdate site about twice a month for items I’ll find interesting. I also checkout both the MacWorld and MacAddict share/freeware related material. All of this goes into making my perhaps review list – talking names – to give me a heads up on shareware reviewing. And of course I always find enough toys to keep at least a half dozen folks busy reviewing. To add to the hidden treasure list, Mike sends me announcements, as do some of the developers who products I’ve reviewed.

These are some interesting items that you might want to consider checking out or even reviewing for a future issue of macCompanion.

Harry aka doc_Babad [mailto:hbabad@macCompanion.com]

URL: www.macCompanion.com

Actually what we’d really like is a volunteer to do graphics related shareware reviews, it’s not doc_Babad’s strong point. I know a picture is worth a 1000 words but I’ve several million words in my vocabulary.

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ConceptDraw 6.2 [MacUpdate rating: 3.5 Stars]
The software is designed for professional flowcharting, diagramming and illustrating. Its flexible, handy tools help business and technical users quickly document complex structures, systems and processes. ConceptDraw V chart can be shared as a variety of graphics files and CAD documents, printed pages, presentations and web pages. Owing to the advanced libraries of pre-drawn shapes, ConceptDraw V is perfect for most of the charting tasks including business, IT, project, UML and network diagrams. The built-in scripting language allows using ConceptDraw VI to build enterprise-level visualization solutions. [OMNI (OMNIgraffle) makes a comparable product]

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ConceptDraw MINDMAP 4.5 [MacUpdate rating: 2.0 Stars] — Brainstorming, mind mapping and visual thinking. ConceptDraw MINDMAP is your personal assistant when discussing ideas, making decisions and planning projects. It enables you to present information in a simple, visual way by building trees of ideas or Mind Maps. Use ConceptDraw MINDMAP to organize brainstorming sessions, take notes, plan your work and make presentations.

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EazyDraw 2.1.3 [MacUpdate rating: 4.0 Stars] — A vector-based drawing application for desktop publishing (DTP) with Apple's Mac OS X operating system. It is an Illustration or drawing software application that offers vector-based graphics editing for creating simple, non-photographic drawings, technical diagrams, and illustrations such as logos, icons, buttons, and stylized art. Support for Classic Mac drawing formats including full import of ClarisDraw, MacDraw Pro, and MacDraw II files.

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FinanceToGo 1.0.2 [MacUpdate rating: Not Yet Rated] — This is an affordable and easy-to-use personal finance manager based on the principles of double entry accounting. If you are an individual or small business owner, FinanceToGo is an ideal tool to create budgets and track what you spend your money on with automatically generated graphs and charts.

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iDraw 1.3.2 [MacUpdate rating: 4.5 Stars] —This is a powerful, yet easy to use, illustration and animation program for Mac OS X. It has many of the features of high-end design programs, such as smooth anti-aliased rendered paths, different fill types including semi-transparent colors and gradients, object transformations such as tapers and arcs, text shape manipulation, and much more. Best of all, it's only a fraction of the price of commercial drawing packages with comparable features.

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Intaglio 2.9.1 [MacUpdate rating: 4.0 Stars]— Intaglio is a traditional Macintosh drawing & illustration application exclusively for Mac OS X. Patterned after the original Macintosh drawing applications, Intaglio is intuitive to beginners and familiar to traditional Macintosh users. Intaglio builds on the 2D graphics, text, color, and scripting capabilities of Mac OS X to provide unprecedented power and flexibility in an inexpensive drawing program.

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Lineform 1.2.5 [MacUpdate rating: 4.5 Stars] — This is a completely new drawing program. Winner of a 2006 Apple Design Award, it is the ideal tool for vector based diagrams and illustrations. Powerful features combine with a simple interface to create an intuitive artistic process. Powerful Bezier editing tools, Boolean operations, Expert typesetting, Artistic strokes, SVG for full document import/export and much more.

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myNotes 1.4.2 [MacUpdate rating: 4.5 Stars] — myNotes is a note-taking program that lets you create and organize notes and clippings, as well as print with the help of beautiful customizable themes. Its streamlined interface lets you easily organize your notes, ideas or your diary. [I believe this was formally a program Called Sticky Brains]

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PDFpen Pro 3.1 [MacUpdate rating: Not Yet Rated] — This one is from the folks who created Page Sender, a great Fax Program. PDFpen Pro can fill out and save PDF forms; split, combine, and reorder pages; mark-up & augment PDFs with text and image overlays. With PDFpen Pro you can even create fillable cross-platform PDF forms. Show PDFs in single, facing-page, multi-page, and multiple facing-page views Create cross-platform fillable PDF forms Fill out and save PDF forms Re-order pages in a PDF by drag & drop Insert pages from one PDF into another (drag & drop or copy/paste) Remove pages from a PDF Overlay text and images onto PDF (for example, sign purchase orders by applying signature image) and more [I’ve hogged the PDF tool area and Robert and I are doing Acrobat 8 for February, we’ve been new feature trained by Adobe; this one is up for grabs.

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PDFProtect 2.2 [MacUpdate rating: Not Yet Rated] — Change PDF document security quickly and easily — This is a specialized software application that can change, add or remove security level standards in the PDF documents. This is a stand-alone application, which means that Adobe Acrobat (or any other product) is not required. To change current document encryption settings, simply select the PDF file or folder with PDF files, set new protection options and push the "Start" button. That's all. The encryption level and security settings are changed automatically.

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PulpMotion 1.0 [MacUpdate rating: 4.0 Stars] — Quick is easy and easy is fun! Create fun animations with all your iLife: music, photos AND your videos... no one's left over not even the iSight! From stately to funky, from captivating to comical, choose your style to impress your audience. It's nice to share...and it's easy too:  Send video postcards or screensavers by email. Podcast your video animation with GarageBand. Put your animation onto an iPod. Publish your animation to a webpage using iWeb. Or export your animations for further editing in iMovie or Final Cut.

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Spamfire X 2.23 [MacUpdate rating: 4.0 Stars] — Spamfire is an email filtering program that removes spam from your in-box. Works with any POP3 account and any email software. [I’m using a Eudora specific product that works so this one is up for grabs.]

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Typinator 1.6.1 [MacUpdate ratng: 5.0 Stars] — The software types repeating texts and pictures for you. Have you ever resent having to type your name, e-mail address, home page URL or other words or phrases again and again? Or do you frequently need quick access to images like your signature, location plan, or company logo? Save your time and annoyance and let Typinator type repeating texts and pictures for you. [An interesting alternative approach to shadowClipboard].

Feedback please… should I continue to share the items we’ve not had time to review but seem attractive and potentially useful?

doc_Babad