It’s not just the big companies that are unveiling software for Mac OS X, as three new product announcements/updates make clear.
Softmagic has shipped SendStory, a XML content creator running on Mac OS X. The first of Softmagic’s cross-media publishing solution, Project-M purportedly makes it possible for writers and editors in different languages and regions to do both offline and online publishing.
SendStory communicates with Apple’s online file sharing facility, iDisk, and any TCP/IP networked server to send and receive the structured XML story that conforms to the industry standard DTDs or to the customized DTDs designed with SendStory. Its way of synchronizing the document structures of the multilingual documents is designed to make it an easy choice for any international company dealing with the documents in many languages.
SendStory also converts XML to HTML based on the pre-defined style mapping mechanism, making it a useful tool for writing Apple Help files and Web pages. A structured XML story created with SendStory can be interfaced to a content management system for re-purposing of the data.
SendStory is now available for Mac OS X for US$99. To download a free evaluation copy or to purchase SendStory online go to the product Web site.
Meanwhile, Catchy Software has unleashed Quitling; the dockling “that strikes fear into any misbehaving Mac OS X applications.” With Quitling, you can instantly quit or force quit any application or process. It can be used to terminate crashed applications, applications you launch by mistake, or software that’s simply misbehaving.
You can add a program to the AutoKill list and it will never get a chance to even start, according to MacTech magazine. With the AutoStart feature, Quitling will make sure that any server software, mail programs or other processes you need running continuously will immediately restart if anything bad happens, MacTech said.
It can be downloaded from the Quitling Web page. It’s a US$10 shareware utility. The full, registered version contains a number of convenience features disabled in the unregistered one.
Finally, shareware author Erich Rast has released version 1.3 of his password management tool, ForgotIt? for the Mac. The tool is a multi-document application for managing passwords and Internet addresses. It uses Blowfish or Rijndael (AES) encryption and SHA1 hashing to protect password lists and launches even multiple URLs that belong to a password entry. Version 1.3 has been Carbonized for Mac OS X.
The update also offers drag & drop re-ordering of password lists, built-in compression of password lists for higher security, and an option to hide passwords in the main view for higher security. ForgotIt? 1.3 beefs up support for external encryption schemes (with free plug-ins included). Passwords can now be pasted to the clipboard directly from the main view.
It’s available for download as a self-extracting archive in Macbinary format or as a self-mounting, Macbinary encoded disk image.