Archive - Dec 2006

With the release of VMWare beta of Fusion and recent betas of Parallels Desktop, the market for virtualization software on the Mac is heating up. Both are excellent products and each has their strong points. Here's a look at how they compare.

Parallels has released a beta 3 of Parallels Desktop. There are a lot of features and enhancements introduced in this Beta, such as:

• NEW! USB 2.0 support - “Plug and play” popular USB devices like external hard drives, printers, and scanners, and use them at full native speed.
  

Ive been a long time fan of Virgin Mobile, (they where my first cell phone provider it was the original VOX) I have quit this company for awhile opting for my two contract phones (cingular, and Nextel..... I lower case cingular because i hate the company and they dont deserve a capital letter). Well being the cell phone whore i am i went into Bestbuy and saw the OYSTR on sale for $14.99, so i figured why not. Now im back, VM has changed a lot i see they offer pay by the month plans and texting packs. Also there website is a hell of a lot nicer now (beats their old static linking. Also i like their incorporation with MTV and Comedy Central and a program called Sugar Momma which involves taking video and text surveys and answering questions and receiving money towards your account.

Just in time for holidays, IOSPIRIT GmbH releases the first release candidate of Remote Buddy, which allows the Wii remote to be used with Bluetooth-enabled Macs.

If you have found a Wii under the christmas tree, you can now remote control your Mac as well! Among the other new features in this release is the ability to browse local and shared iTunes libraries and select and play individual tracks, albums and playlists. And we have something for movie fans, too: they can now select and launch VIDEO_TS folders directly from within Remote Buddy in either DVD Player or VLC. Thanks to Spotlight, Remote Buddy finds the respective folders itself and without any configuration. Another new feature is "Custom actions" - which is the ability to create and manage your own, executable actions directly within mapping tables. With ease! Furthermore, a brand-new, multi-threaded driver architecture does now guarantee exact timing and higher performance under the hood.

The staff of MacMegasite would like to wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, or any other holiday they wish to celebrate. We probably won't be posting any news for several days, but as always we're open for story submissions.

As a present for our readers, we've created a Mac news aggregator, Planet Mac, which brings your favorite news sources to one convenient location.

VMWare has posted a public beta of their Mac virtualization product codenamed Fusion.

Fusion allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X. It is built on VMware's rock-solid and advanced desktop virtualization platform that is used by over four million users today.

Tempe, Arizona - ShapeShifter developer Jason Harris has assembled A Holiday Cocoa Duel (cocoaduel.com), a website featuring prominent Mac developers for a programming competition to help raise money for various charities.

Parallels has released beta 2 of Parallels Desktop for Mac, with several enhancements and fixes.

BeLight Software has released Art Text, a new software to create high-quality headings, logos, icons, banners and more. The program features pre-designed styles, shapes, icon art images, shading materials, other advanced visual effects for anyone who wants to make his text works look catchy. The software is priced at $29.95. Read more at:

Artwizz to Announce New Product Releases in Las Vegas

Wichita, KS, December 21, 2006 –Artwizz, manufacturer of high-quality Mac and PC peripherals today announced new product offerings and CES show specials will be released during the 2007 International CES. Produced by The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) the 2007 International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, will return to Las Vegas January 8-11, 2007 to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary.