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Bookit X 3.1.2
Everyday Software
OS Compatibility: X; Price: $12
If you're a Web developer, you undoubtedly use more than one browser to test your sites. And Web developer or not, many of us use more than one computer. Either way, keeping bookmarks organized a major pain. Bookit provides an excellent solution to the problem. Import bookmarks from eight of the most popular Mac browsers (including Safari, Chimera, and OmniWeb), arrange, and edit them. Bookit synchronizes them by writing identical bookmark files for each browser. It will also synchronize bookmarks on multiple computers. Bookit includes a System menu listing all of your bookmarks. Select an item from the Bookit menu to open the link in your default browser.
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ChimeraKnight 1.9.4
Reinhold Penner
OS Compatibility: X ; Price: free
The Chimera browser is updated almost nightly, but it's a hassle to constantly download and install the latest version. ChimeraKnight automates the process by checking the date of the most recent build, and then downloading and installing it automatically if it's newer than the currently installed copy. It even creates a backup of your existing version (and has a restore command in case you experience problems and want to go back). As a nice bonus, if you've previously installed any ChimerIcon themes, ChimeraKnight will automatically install them in the new version.
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ChimerIcon 0.6.3
Reinhold Penner
OS Compatibility: X ; Price: free
ChimerIcon lets you customize Chimera's appearance by previewing and installing new splash screens, icon themes, and preference panes. You can create your own interface elements, and ChimerIcon will check the Internet for—and download—newly submitted themes created by others.
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ICeCoffEE 1.1
Nicholas Riley
OS Compatibility: X; Price: free
ICeCoffEE, based on the OS 9 extension ICeTEe, is an OS X plug-in that lets you command+click on a URL in any Cocoa application—in an email, a ReadMe file, even a dialog box—and it will automatically be opened in your preferred Web browser. It even works in many Carbon apps. In addition, ICeCoffEE adds a Services submenu to many contextual menus—no more digging through the application menu to access Services. The only drawback is that it doesn't work in all OS X apps, but that's not the fault of Mr. Riley, many Carbon applications haven't yet been updated to take advantage of OS X's text engine.
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NetNewsWire Lite 1.0
Ranchero Software
OS Compatibility: X; Price: free
If you're tired of surfing multiple sites and blogs each morning to collect the news NetNewsWire may be for you. This newsreader will collect content from multiple sites into a three-paned browser window, similar to Mail, with sites on the left, headlines at the top, and summaries at the bottom. (You can also access headlines from the Dock icon menu.) NetNewsWire comes preconfigured with several popular sites and includes a directory of ones you can add with a single click. (If you know the RSS URL for a site, you can add a site manually.) NetNewsWire can help you scan a lot of news sites or blogs quickly.
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Pop-Up Zapper 2.2 and Pop-Up Zapper Lite 1.6
Batista
OS Compatibility: 9, X; Price: $20
Pop-Up Zapper Lite was up and running on our computer in the time it takes for a subscription window to open in a browser -- and it does work to keep out those pesky subscribe windows and ads for products you'll never use. Users have the option of keeping a counter window open to see how many pop-ups were intercepted by the software. It's satisfying to watch the number tick upward, although the window does not list the offending parties, which would be useful in helping users to tweak their preferences and surfing habits The only complaint is browser support—the OS 9 version only works with Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 7, while the OS X version only works with IE.
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Proteus 2.0
Justin Wood
OS Compatibility: X; Price: $10
If one of your biggest instant-message bugbears is trying to remember which one of your pals is on what specific message service and whether or not you can use your instant-message application to talk to them, Proteus comes to the rescue with a slimmed-down application that lets you connect to AOL IM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo Messenger. Even better, Proteus lets you group your contacts by message service type, which comes in handy for sorting who's available and how. Getting up and running is easy and intuitive. The only downside? No out-of-the-box support for iChat yet.
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Searchling 1.1
Michael Thole
OS Compatibility: X; Price: free
Searchling is the ultimate use-anywhere Google search tool. Searchling lives in your menubar, and presents a small one-line Google search box when clicked. Enter your search terms, hit return, and your default browser opens up to the Google results page. You can make Searchling even more powerful by defining a hotkey to launch it, and specifying that the entry box appears next to the mouse cursor, as seen in the screenshot. Now you can search with a quick keyboard combo and no mouse movement! Searchling also includes searches for sites such as Slashdot, eBay, VersionTracker, and macosxhints.
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Share My Desktop 1.2
Mike Bombich
OS Compatibility: X; Price: free
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SharePoints 3.0
Hornware
OS Compatibility: X; Price: donations requested
Like version 2.0 (review reference TK), SharePoints 3.0 lets you create additional Personal File Sharing sharepoints, create and manage OS X groups, and customize the File Sharing server in OS X. However, version 3.0 adds the ability to easily set share permissions, create additional Windows File Sharing shares, and customize OS X's built-in Samba (Windows File Sharing) server. You can edit your Mac's workgroup and NetBios names, chose specific files to conceal from Windows users, and even force home directories to show up in Windows share browsers (usually Windows users must know the exact name of your shares).
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Snak 4.9.2
Kent Sorensen
OS Compatibility: 9, X; Price: $20
Long before iChat and AIM, there was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a series of networks allowing tens of thousands of people worldwide to chat (and even exchange files) in any number of themed channels—and one of the best ways to participate in IRC on the Mac is with Snak. It offers a clean interface with docking windows, AppleScript and ircII scripting support, automated actions to respond to a wide variety of events (such as joining a channel or accepting a specific file type)—and best of all for those new to IRC, a great HTML manual. And since chat is a global pursuit, Snak is available in nine languages.
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Spam Vaccine 1.3
Matterform Media
OS Compatibility: 9, X; Price: $9 (lite version), $19 (pro version).
This simple utility can save you a lot of heartache if you've got a Web site with a lot of pages containing e-mail addresses—the kind of pages that are harvested frequently by spammers looking for new victims for their evil deeds. When you set Spam Vaccine on individual pages or entire Web sites, it rewrites all your e-mail addresses as JavaScript code that's not easily processed by spammers. The Lite version can inoculate one page at a time the Pro version lets you convert entire sites at once.
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SpeedChimera 2.0
Reed Martin
OS Compatibility: X ; Price: free
SpeedChimera unlocks many hidden features In the Chimera Web browser, including the ability to block images from servers other than the current Web page's, Favicons, HTTP pipelining (which can increase performance), browser history, and custom browser identification. In addition, you can manually edit any Chimera preference, and even add custom preference entries (like those at www.efritz.net/chimeratricks.html).
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VNCThing 2.2
OS Compatibility: X; Price: free
The Virtual Network Computing (VNC) protocol was developed by AT&T Laboratories as a way to view and control a computer's display remotely, across platforms. Any computer running a VNC server can share its desktop with any other connected computer (over the Internet, on a local network) running a VNC client. Share My Desktop is an OS X VNC server that can be set up with a single click (a few more if you want to customize settings). If you want the server to run continually (useful for tech support, or just supporting your less-computer-savvy family members), it can even be configured as an OS X Startup Item (which means it will run invisibly in the background). VNCThing is a free client that allows you to view and control the desktop of any computer running a VNC server. You can use it in full-screen mode, or view the remote computer in a resizable window. You can even create bookmarks to frequently accessed servers. The combination of Share my Desktop and VNCThing is similar to commercial utilities like Timbuktu Pro, but with fewer features and a much lower price (free). It works surprisingly well—well enough for me to have written this review on my desktop Mac, typing from my iBook.
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