Last week, MacTech Magazine and Macsimum News teamed up for the first time
to announce their Best of Show awards for the 2009 Macworld Conference &
Expo. With so many products from over 450 exhibitors, editors from both
publications combined forces to find interesting jewels on the show floor.
For those not able to attend the show, this list gives you an idea of what
each product is about, and where you can find out more. In alphabetical
order by product, here are the winners:
1Password, by Agile Web Solutions. 1Password is a password manager and
'data safe' that can store bank account information, personal details,
login credentials and secure notes. Thanks to plugins for Safari, Firefox
and other browsers, these values can be automatically filled in on
web-based forms. An iPhone app is also available that can sync with the
desktop version (http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password).
BlueStor by JMR. BlueStor is a new line of Mac-compatible 16- and 8-bay
RAID storage solutions. BlueStor uniquely uses a PCIe card and treats the
RAID unit also as an external chassis that can in turn be used as a point
of expansion for other PCIe cards, including further storage expansion.
Powered by a Mac Pro using Final Cut Pro software, the BlueStor product
line will run multi-stream real-time HD playback (http://jmr.com).
Dictate 1.2.1 by MacSpeech is the latest version of the speech recognition
for the Mac. Dictate customers can dictate any specific word, no matter how
obscure, by spelling it letter-by-letter with the Spelling mode. It also
has a "move" command for easier verbal editing of a document, a Spelling
Mode for letter-by-letter dictation of unusual words, and the Phrase
Training capabilities that help the user increase accuracy on the
fly. (http://www.macspeech.com)
FontXChange by Morrison softDesign is Mac OS X software that converts fonts
to OpenType, PostScript Type 1 and TrueType for compatibility across both
Macs and Windows systems. It supports batch processing for converting
entire font libraries and has preferences to set font encodings.
FontXChange has a font inspection window with preview and support for many
font encodings. The latest version upgrades encodings to Unicode 5.1,
updates parsing and rendering of various font tables, adds an option to
generate .AFM files, adds font naming options and adds a feature to rebuild
damaged fonts. (http://www.morrisonsoftdesign.com)
GraniteSTOR by Small Tree is a new family of shared storage solutions.
First in Small Tree's GraniteSTOR product line is EasyAoE, an ATA over
Ethernet protocol shared storage solution. It's designed specifically for
audio/video editors and graphic artists looking for affordable means to
manage shared storage solutions (http://www.small-tree.com).
iRecord by Streamingnetworks is a personal media transcoder that lets you
record movies, songs, TV shows, video game clips and streaming audio
directly to an iPod, PSP or USB storage device without a computer. It
records using H.264 compression techniques while audio is encoded using AAC
compression in real time (http://www.irecord.com).
NEC LCD3090WQXi. This is a 30-inch, 2600 x 1600 desktop LCD display for
high-end graphics applications. It has a wide format design (16:10 aspect
ratio) that provides roughly the same work area as two smaller sized
displays. The NEC display offers a wide color gamut, an ambient sensor,
MultiSync support and more (http://www.necdisplay.com).
ModBook Pro by Axiotron is an aftermarket modification of the unibody
MacBook Pro, Axiotron's ModBook Pro offers a 15.4-inch pen-enabled display
with a pixel resolution of 1440 x 900 WXGA, and features a surface layer of
the company's etched, paper-emulating ForceGlass for drawing and writing
comfort. It features Axiotron's Synergy Touch, a technology that employs
touch functionality primarily in support of the pen input
(http://www.axiotron.com).
Neat Receipts by Neat Co. Neat Receipts is a mobile scanner and digital
filing system that enables you to scan receipts, business cards and
documents so you can organize, store and secure all your important
information. The patented technology identifies and extracts the important
information and automatically organizes it for you. A Spotlight plugin
allows you to search on all information without launching the application
(http://neatco.com/products/neatreceipts-for-mac).
PhotoMotion by GeeThree is for Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express lets you
preview and import high-resolution images from existing libraries. You can
preview images from Aperture, Lightroom, and iPhoto libraries and Pictures
folders. Other folders can also be added. The plug-in appears as a standard
Final Cut generator. There's no need to adjust keyframes when adding
transitions or changing the duration of the animation
(http://www.geethree.com).
LiveScribe Pulse by LiveScribe. Livescribe's Pulse Smartpen captures
handwriting and simultaneously records audio and synchronizes it to the
writing, so users never miss a word they hear, write or speak. Users can
tap on their notes to replay what was recorded from the exact moment they
were writing. With the Livescribe Desktop software, notes and audio
recordings can then be transferred to a Mac, where they can be digitally
stored, searched, or shared (http://www.livescribe.com).
TapIt4Me for iPhone by Ettore Software. This is a version of the company's
text expander app (originally available only for the Mac) that runs on the
iPhone and iPod Touch. The application expands keyboard mnemonics into full
phrases and whole paragraphs, increasing your typing speed
(http://ettoresoftware.com).
TypeTrax by Insider Software and Moksa. Type Trax is a new product for
managing design projects created using Adobe Creative Suite. Developed
jointly by Insider Software and Moksa, Inc., TypeTrax manages projects, and
tracks, organizes and pre-flights project files, including fonts and
digital assets. It adds the missing link to digital design projects. Fully
integrated with Canto Cumulus, a leader in digital asset management,
TypeTrax allows a user to simply drag a document into Canto Cumulus and
TypeTrax automatically detects and displays the project's font resources in
WYSIWYG mode (http://www.typetrax.com).
About MacTech...
Established in 1984, MacTech Magazine is the only monthly magazine focused
on Macintosh at the technical level. Each month, MacTech and MacTech.com are
read by over 150,000 technical Macintosh users in over 175 countries ...
from network administrators to programmers, from solution providers to
Enterprise, and in general anyone that's interested in the Macintosh beyond
the user level.
If you're interested in getting under the hood of your Mac, if you want to
know how to make things happen inside the box, you should be reading
MacTech Magazine. Contact the magazine. Toll free: 877-MACTECH,
International: 805-494-9797, custservice@mactech.com, http://www.mactech.com
