Eridanus has released Baker 1.5 for Mac OS X, a US$30 utility to simplify the task of downloading files from Usenet newsgroups.
Baker eliminates the hassle by automating much of the process, Mike Trivisonno of Eridanus said. It sports such features as automatic assembly and decoding of multipart files, even if the parts arrive out of order, days apart or on different servers, Trivisonno said.
In previous releases of Baker, certain files were saved to default folders inside your Baker folder. For example, after downloading a file, Baker would save it to the Raw Files folder for further processing by other parts of the program. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to specify the location of the Raw Files folder. It was always created in the same folder as the Baker application. This same rule was applied to many of the other Baker-created folders. However, in Baker 1.5 you get a preference that lets you configure where Baker saves these files.
Each Baker document now includes a slider control that increases or decreases the amount of system resources Baker will request. You can use this to make your Baker documents run slower or faster. The setting is saved between sessions and is configurable on a document-by-document basis.
Baker now provides faster list processing, Trivisonno said. Users should notice marked improvement especially when process lists that are larger than 10,000 items, he added.
Baker and the Baker Mac OS Help Center Book can be downloaded from the Eridanus Web site. Version 1.5 is a free upgrade to current owners.