Yazsoft Sharetool - sharing for the masses

Yazsoft is proud to announces a major new application, ShareTool. Developed for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, ShareTool is hands down, the fastest, easiest, and most secure way to access all of your Bonjour services from anywhere in the world. No server or technical skills required. Just a simple mouse click. Also works with VPN connections. For anyone that's been itching to get Bonjour working over VPN, ShareTool is for you!

ShareTool lets you access all of the Bonjour services on your home or office network from anywhere in the world - securely. This includes iTunes Music Sharing, Screen Sharing, File Sharing, printing, and more.

With ShareTool, you can listen to your entire iTunes music library at work, control the screen of any of your home computers, or grab that important file you forgot to bring with you. And this is simply the tip of the iceberg. With ShareTool, it's as if you've never left the comfort of your very own network!

Some Key New Features in ShareTool:
* Simple Setup: ShareTool automatically configures routers supporting NAT-PMP or UPnP.
* Easy Access: Remote services automatically appear in Finder, iTunes, and other applications.
* Compatibility: ShareTool enables remote access for any application or service that advertises itself using Bonjour and runs over TCP/IP.
* Security: All network traffic is strongly encrypted. Access to your services requires your Mac OS X username and password.
* Dynamic domain name support
* On the fly compression: Transfer large files quickly.
* Secure web browsing: surf the internet using your own browser securely.
* and much more!

What's New in version 1.2.2:
* New: Major new interface changes for even more simplified usage.
* New: Updated internal ShareTool protocol to be more versatile.
* New: Added Remote Printing functionality.
* New: Integrated Sparkle support for future updates.
* New: Remote Login detection procedure.
* New: Built-in Help menu added.
* New: Updated ShareTool manual added.
* Other: Many internal tweaks to ensure optimal performance and security.

Supported Languages:
* US English

System Requirements:
* Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later; Leopard ready.
* 22 MB Hard Drive Space.
* Internet connection.

Pricing and Availability:
* $20: 1 User license.
* $30: 2 User license. (Save $10)
* $75: 5 user license (Save $25)

Free demo is available today from this link.

QuarkXpress 8 Available Today

Today Quark announced that QuarkXPress® 8, the next major release of the industry standard page-layout and design software, is now available to purchase directly from Quark and through Quark Authorized Resellers worldwide.

As a user of QuarkXpress for many years, this new release really excites me. I hope to bring you two video reviews covering the new features over the next few weeks, so watch this space.

QuarkXPress 8 delivers superior design power through a new, intuitive interface developed purposefully for the creation of high-end page layout and includes new features such as built-in print, Web and Flash® authouring tools, advanced typography control, and global publishing capabilities. QuarkXPress 8 also offers users an enhanced design experience so they can work faster and smarter by quickly and easily accessing the tools they need. The new, intuitive interface delivers updates that allow for more design with fewer clicks. For example:

- Flash and Web Authouring Tools: Without any programming skills, designers and creative professionals can share print content on the Web and in Flash format without purchasing multiple applications or learning code.
- Picture Content Tool: Allows users to grab, rotate, and scale images in real-time without typing in numbers or switching from tool to tool.
- Item Tool and Text Content Tool: Smart behaviour within these tools allows for less switching between tools, even for rotation and managing multiple items.
- New Bézier Pen Tools: Draw illustrations directly in QuarkXPress 8 with the redefined Bézier Pen tool.
- Workspace Enhancements: Include new buttons for instant access to master pages and exporting to PDF, EPS, SWF, and HTML - plus new split-view buttons, enhanced contextual menus, and customisable active pasteboards.
- Measurements Palette: Further enhanced to make even more functions easily accessible, including new clickable controls for on-the-fly drop-shadow modification.
- Drag-and-Drop: Drag text and pictures from the desktop, Adobe® Bridge, iPhoto®, or any other application that supports drag and drop. Alternatively, drag content from QuarkXPress to Photoshop®, Illustrator®, Microsoft® Word, and other applications for direct editing.

"We are excited to announce the broad availability of QuarkXPress 8. This new version of our flagship product raises the bar once again for page-layout and design," said Terry Welty, Senior Vice President of corporate marketing for Quark. "QuarkXPress 8 offers users advanced features and functionality and increased productivity while maintaining familiarity for long-time users. I encourage everyone to try QuarkXPress 8 with our 60-day Test Drive version, or visit us at one of our Xperience Design Global Tour stops."

60-Day Test Drive
In addition to being available for purchase, Quark is also now offering a free, fully functional, 60-day Test Drive version to users who are interested in experiencing QuarkXPress' new user interface, improved typographical control, built-in Flash functionality and much more. The 60-day Test Drive can be downloaded here.

Xperience Design Global Tour
The Xperience Design Global Tour is now underway and, in total, will span 30 countries and 58 cities across the globe. The upcoming portion of the tour to hit the United States includes Dallas and Milwaukee (Pewaukee). The international tour will visit various cities in the following countries: Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Chile, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Please visit this page to find out more.

Purchase Information
QuarkXPress 8 is now available for purchase directly from Quark and through Quark Authorized Resellers. An upgrade to QuarkXPress 8 from any previous version is £279 and full product can be purchased for £779. To purchase, visit the Quark Store http://www.quark.com/sales/estore.html or find your nearest authorized Quark reseller.

Apple Backup 3 Disappears

Am I mistaken, or has Apple removed the link to download the latest version of its Backup application? After the MobileMe announcement, I promised myself that I would make more use of iDisk, for storing some files off-site. It is/was my intention, that when MobileMe is released, I would upgrade my storage space and push some important files into the cloud. This followed considering using Amazons S3 service, but for some reason deciding against it.

After logging into my .Mac account and following the route to download Backup 3, I found my browser in a loop. Then I searched and went direct to this page, but all it does is go to a ".Mac will soon be MobileMe page". Nothing would download! So, perhaps in anticipation of MobileMe launching, maybe a new version of Backup is on its way. Yes, I know Backup resides in my iDisk, but I thought it strange that I was unable to find the download anywhere.

Apple Mail - Search not working? Re-index your messages

I recently moved all of my Mail accounts and messages over to our new iMac, using the Migration Assistant that comes as part of OS X. Everything seemed to work fine, in fact, although it took a long time to transfer the files, Mail was up and running with minimal fuss.
However, when I came to search for an old email, I could not find it. Mail would only give search results on emails that had arrived or been sent after the transfer. A quick search found this Apple document on the issue. I am happy to say that re-indexing the messages solved the problem. In my case though, I only moved the Envelope Index file and not any additional folders.

Mozilla to launch Firefox 3 on June 17

Mozilla has announced that it intend to release the full version of Firefox 3 on Tuesday, June 17. This had been my browser of choice for a long time, before slipping into Camino mode, but this new release will see me going back to Firefox full-time.
Help Mozilla celebrate this event, either by holding a party, or by pledging to download the new browser on launch day. They are trying to break the Guiness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24 hour period. If you want a sneak peak, the latest release candidate (RC3) is available here.

Apples MobileMe to replace .Mac - an Overview

Following yesterday’s WWDC announcements, I am going to concentrate on the new MobileMe service that will replace dotmac (.mac) for current subscribers. The new service has no firm date for rollout, though I expect we will see this during July. It sounds very exciting, so I am hoping sooner rather than later.

Current dotmac subscribers get an automatic update. Renewals fees and new users to the service get very good value for money. A single-user one year subscription costs just £59 and a family pack for up to five users is £89. The single user account also gives you a massive 20GB of storage space and 100GB monthly data transfer allowance. I know that this will certainly encourage me to take advantage of the service for more off-site backup.
Extra storage space is also available, with an extra 20GB weighing in at £30, or 40GB of additional space for £59. So with the figures out of the way, let’s take a look at what MobileMe actually offers on the application and service front.

The announcement for a service like this really does go hand-in-hand with two of Apples other products. Yes, the iPhone will be served well by MobileMe, it makes it easy for the rest of us to have Exchange-type functionality, without the tech know how and infrastructure behind it. Secondly, look back to when the MacBook Air was announced. This was a definite push from Apple that content and files would be stored remotely, available for download wherever you happen to be.

The MobileMe service strengthens this view, and offer up a whole host of ‘in the cloud’ features. For starters you get Push email, contacts and calendars. This equates to a very useful and powerful set of features. For example, if you receive an email whilst out and about, your iPhone would automatically be ‘pushed’ the email, instead of you having to start the Mail application and retrieve your new messages. Push contacts and calendars work in much the same way, but with an added pinch of goodness. Imagine you have a Mac computer back home and whilst you are out you meet a new friend, add their details to your iPhone or MacBook address book and the details are whizzed off through the MobileMe service and again ‘pushed’ into the Web 2.0 application on your desktop Mac. Another scenario would be someone back in the office changing or adding an appointment to your calendar. Within a very short period of time, this change would be reflected on your iPhone. This sort of power is now going to be available to us all. For me, this is a real winner.

Whilst we are on the subject of the calendar. For a long time iCal has lacked the ability to add or edit events through the .Mac interface. Now, with MobileMe you have the power to make changes to your calendars from all of the current internet browsers. Whether you are on a Mac or PC, you can take full advantage of the feature rich Web 2.0 interface. The calendars look superb, fully colour coded, with drag and drop functionality. Superb, I waited for a long time for this and it is finally going to be delivered with true style.

In much the same way ‘Gallery’ also pushes changes out to friends, colleagues and relatives. Taking a photo with your iPhone, allows you to upload and share this via the new service. Great for social use, but also from a business point of view, in many jobs this could be invaluable.

Last, but not least is iDisk. Personally, I have underused this great feature in its current version. It seemed very slow to me and the hassle of uploading to it far outweighed it usefulness. This was probably very shortsighted on my part, but I have vowed that I will take advantage of the new iDisk. Not only is it very well priced, but the Web 2.0 interface adds a whole new set of features to it. The interface looks as though it is a local desktop window. You can upload a file and share it with a link that is provided. The file can be openly shared or password protected. This would put an end to me sending out large files via email. Imagine you have an artwork proof that needs to be approved by more than one person. Now, you will be able to just send a link to the file... this will be much quicker and ultimately more productive.

Mac, PC, iPhone or iPod touch, the new MobileMe is a real winner. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. For current .Mac subscribers a useful FAQ can be found here.

Apple Introduce MobileMe - replaces .Mac

Apple® today introduced MobileMe™, a new Internet service that delivers push email, push contacts and push calendars from the MobileMe service in the “cloud” to native applications on iPhone™, iPod® touch, Macs and PCs. MobileMe also provides a suite of elegant, ad-free web applications that deliver a desktop-like experience through any modern browser. MobileMe applications (www.me.com) include Mail, Contacts and Calendar, as well as Gallery for viewing and sharing photos and iDisk for storing and exchanging documents online.

“Think of MobileMe as ‘Exchange for the rest of us,’” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get.”

With a MobileMe email account, all folders, messages and status indicators look identical whether checking email on iPhone, iPod touch, a Mac® or a PC. New email messages are pushed instantly to iPhone over the cellular network or Wi-Fi, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads. Push also keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically pushed up to the cloud and down to other devices. Push works with the native applications on iPhone and iPod touch, Microsoft Outlook for the PC, and Mac OS® X applications, Mail, Address Book and iCal®, as well as the MobileMe web application suite.

MobileMe web applications are 100 percent ad-free and provide an incredible, desktop-like experience that allows users to drag and drop, click and drag and even use keyboard shortcuts. MobileMe provides anywhere access to Mail, Contacts and Calendar, with a unified interface that allows users to switch between applications with a single click, and Gallery makes it easy to share photos on the web in stunning quality. Gallery users can upload, rearrange, rotate and title photos from any browser; post photos directly from an iPhone; allow visitors to download print quality images; and contribute photos to an album. MobileMe iDisk lets users store and manage files online with drag and drop filing and makes it easy to share documents too large to email by automatically sending an email with a link for downloading the file. MobileMe includes 20GB of online storage that can be used for email, contacts, calendar, photos, movies and documents.

Pricing & Availability
MobileMe, available on July 11, is a subscription-based service with 20GB of storage for £59 per year for individuals and £89 for a Family Pack, which includes one master account with 20GB of storage and four Family Member accounts with 5GB of storage each. Users can sign up for a free, 60-day MobileMe trial at www.apple.com/mobileme and current .Mac members will be automatically upgraded to MobileMe accounts. MobileMe subscribers can purchase an additional 20GB of storage for £30 or 40GB of storage for £59 annually.