A poster on the MacRumors forums has posted a screenshot from the setup of Parallels version 4, which indicates that an app will soon be available that allows a user to control their Parallels installation from their iPhone, remotely.

I switched to Fusion a while back myself, but this would be a very nice feature to have, methinks. I might install Parallels again just to try it. Oddly enough, there is very little information available online about this feature.

As of this writing, the Parallels app is not available in the App Store.

American Fork, UT - Izatt International today announced the launch of the iRivalz website and free iPhone applications for the BYU vs. Utah Rivalry Week. BYU and Utah football fans can now go to the iRivalz website or use their iPhone to vote for their team during rivalry week leading up to the traditional end-of-season contest that has Mountain West Conference Championship and BCS Bowl-berth implications.

Fans simply download the free iRivalz-BYU or iRivalz-Utah application from the App Store. Tapping the school logo plays the selected school’s fight song and registers a vote with the iRivalz website. All other fans can vote by going directly to the iRivalz website. iRivalz will tally all votes leading up to game time. If totals exceed 100,000 votes by kickoff, iRivalz will make a $1000 donation to the winning school’s athletic scholarship fund. In addition to voting, iRivalz also allows fans to sound off by featuring a link to the SmackBoard where fans can comment on the rivalry contest.

iPhone application features:
1) Play the school fight song
2) Vote for school
3) Post comments to the SmackBoard
4) Open iRivalz.com in Safari to see vote totals
5) Open SmackBoard in Safari to see others’ posts

Izatt International
iRivalz
Download iRivalz-BYU
Download iRivalz-Utah

Izatt International is an iPhone/iPod Touch application development company in American Fork, UT. Izatt develops applications internally as well as accepts outside development projects. Copyright 2008 Izatt International. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Oxford, UK - Softpress Systems today released Freeway 5.3, a free update to its award-winning web design software. The release offers a new solution to the problem of displaying Flash Video (FLV) content on the iPhone by placing both FLV and iPhone-friendly QuickTime formats of the movie on the page, and serving the appropriate one for the viewer’s device.

Additionally, Softpress has announced a special Black Friday promotion. From today until December 7th, anyone purchasing full-priced copies of Freeway Pro or Freeway Express directly from the Softpress Store will receive an iTunes gift certificate via email. Certificates are fully transferrable, and make great holiday gifts. Freeway Pro buyers will receive a $50 certificate and Freeway Express buyers will receive a $20 certificate. More information can be found on the Softpress website.

“The absence of Flash video support on the iPhone has been a headache for many designers,” Softpress US Marketing Manager Ian Schray said. “With Freeway 5.3, web developers can use Flash movies in their sites, and be confident that iPhone owners won’t be left out.”

New Features:
In addition to the ground-breaking features in its initial release (CSS menus, Google Actions, Blogger templates, script.aculo.us Actions and dozens more), Freeway 5 now includes iPhone Actions to create QuickTime reference movies of varying qualities, automatic device and connection type detection, and the ability to serve the most appropriate content to each individual user.

Also, Freeway now allows website developers to employ iPhone redirects - iPhone or iPod Touch user can be redirected to a page that has been designed specifically them. The very useful “Building websites for the iPhone with Freeway” document can be found on the Softpress website.

Pricing and Availability:
Freeway 5.3 is a free download for all registered owners of Freeway 5. Updates can be downloaded from the Softpress website. Freeway 5 Pro and Freeway 5 Express are both available for purchase and immediate electronic delivery directly from the Softpress Store.

Full versions of Freeway 5 Pro can be purchased for $249 (USD), and Freeway 5 Express is $79. Upgrades from Freeway 4 Pro to Freeway 5 Pro are $99, upgrades from Freeway 4 Express to Freeway 5 Express are $59. Owners of Freeway 5 Express can upgrade to Freeway 5 Pro for just $169.

For a limited time, owners of Dreamweaver CS4 or GoLive 8 or later can purchase Freeway Pro at a huge discount. See the Silver Lining page on the Softpress website for more info.

About Freeway:
Freeway, famous for its ease-of-use and clean standards-compliant code generation, is the tool of choice for professionals and home Mac users who prefer to focus on design issues, not on coding!

Softpress Systems
Freeway 5.3
Download Trial
Purchase Freeway
Building websites for the iPhone
Black Friday Sale

Softpress was founded in 1993 to address the emerging needs of professional publishers and designers for cross-media authoring tools. Freeway, and its extensive feature set, result from Softpress’ ongoing efforts to identify and meet the real needs of web designers in today’s environment. Softpress creates tools that many people rely on for their day-to-day business, so they listen carefully to their customers. Future upgrades and product offerings will continue to demonstrate Softpress’ commitment to quality, leading-edge innovation and customer service.

Omaha, Nebraska - Macware, a leading Mac software publisher, announced today the release of two new expansion packs for Logo Design Studio Pro, the best selling logo design software (based on retail sales reported by The NPD Group). The Big Concept 1 and Alphabet Art 1 both install directly into Logo Design Studio Pro for instant use and feature new vector based logo templates and graphic objects, something no other vector design application offers.

“The royalty-free vector designs packed into each new expansion pack give Macware customers incredible value,” states Jason Hogrefe, Macware’s Product Development Manager, “especially when you consider that outsourcing your logo design can easily run you hundreds of dollars for only a handful of concepts. The new templates and objects work perfectly with Logo Design Studio Pro and provide all the necessary tools to create and package a look that expresses your own unique identity.”

The Big Concept 1 adds a completely new set of unique logo design artwork and templates based on general conceptual design, and can be used for any industry or interest. The Big Concept 1 includes over 150 new logo templates and 1100+ new logo objects created by graphic art professionals in vector format. By offering the new objects in vector format, every layer of each object can be changed to show a unique look; this gives a creative jumping off point towards designing countless new looks from a single object.

Alphabet Art 1 adds completely new designs to the Logo Design Studio Pro library with unique artwork, graphics and templates based on every letter of the alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet (from A to Z) and every number (0 to 9) offers unique design variations, giving you over 1000 eye-catching graphic objects. Alphabet Art 1 also includes over 150 new logo templates to give your designs a creative jumpstart.

The new expansion packs for Logo Design Studio Pro are now available for download on the Macware website for only $29.99 (USD) each. You can buy both expansion packs for only $39.99 (USD) until December 5, 2008 using the special promo link.

Macware Website
The Big Concept 1 Info
Download Big Concept 1
Alphabet Art 1 Info
Download Alphabet Art 1
Download both for only $39.99

Macware, Inc. develops and publishes award-winning intuitive software designed for both the creative professional and home user. Launched in late 2003, Macware’s extensive software line instantly generated wide appeal from Mac users who demand the best from the world’s greatest personal computer. Fueled by successful partnerships within the Mac community and a growing retail presence for Mac software, Macware has achieved phenomenal growth, and captured leading positions in many Mac software categories reported by The NPD Group. Macware is a Summitsoft company. The company’s headquarters and primary distribution center are both centrally located in Omaha, Nebraska. Macware products are available through major retailers in North America, as well as Australia, Japan, Europe and the United Kingdom.

Amsterdam - ConvenienceWare(TM) / AssistiveWare(R) today announced that GhostReader with American English or Parisian French voices is available as part of the Give Good Food to Your Mac promotion that runs until 30 November 2008. Mac users can put together a meal of their own taste by choosing from a menu with over 60 great Mac applications. Discounts are as follows: 20% off for 3 applications, 30% off for 4 applications, and 50% off for 5 or more applications.

Brought to you by Aquafadas and 50 Indie developers, Give Good Food to Your Mac probably also has a number of items that fit your taste. Try our GhostReader document and selection reader with natural sounding voices as your starter!

GhostReader can be used to:

Save time
* Convert documents to audiobooks to listen to on an iPod or iPhone
* Convert text from news sites and emails to audiobooks to listen to on an iPod or iPhone

Overcome reading difficulties
* Listen to selected text in any application with word or sentence highlighting
* Point the cursor at text in Safari to hear the paragraph below the cursor
* Open Text, Word, HTML, PDF and RTF files in an interactive reader window

Proofread
* Listen to your own text to proof spelling and composition

Improve pronunciation and reading comprehension of foreign languages
* Listen to text on foreign web sites using natural sounding voices
* Type foreign text in a new reader window to hear the pronunciation

Create podcasts
* Create personal podcasts by converting your text to audio files or iTunes tracks

GhostReader includes high quality voices in one language of choice. Additional language packs are available too! Available languages: American English (available through this promotion), British English, Czech, Finnish, French (available through this promotion), Canadian French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Turkish and Swedish.

Give Good Food to Your Mac Website
GhostReader
Download GhostReader
Purchase Link during Promotion
App Icon
Regular purchase link

AssistiveWare is the worldwide leader in innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X that gives people back their lives. This includes award-winning KeyStrokes(R) and TouchStrokes(R) virtual keyboards, SwitchXS(R) scanning on-screen keyboard, LayoutKitchen(R) panel editor, and Proloquo(R) multi-purpose speech solution. The ConvenienceWare product line makes the advanced technologies developed by AssistiveWare available in cool and convenient applications that can make the life of Mac users easier. AssistiveWare and ConvenienceWare are trade names and trademarks or registered trademarks of Niemeijer Consult. VisioVoice, SwitchXS, KeyStrokes, TouchStrokes, LayoutKitchen, GhostReader and Proloquo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Niemeijer Consult. Infovox iVox is a trademark of Acapela Group. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg - publicspace.net is pleased to announce the immediate availability of The Big Mean Folder Machine 1.6, their easy to use file/folder management utility. This latest release of “The Big Mean Folder Machine” adds the ability of storing frequently used settings in “droplet” mini-application and re-applying them to source folders via simple drag & drop.

With a familiar assistant-styled interface, The Big Mean Folder Machine is an essential tool for anyone who works with large file collections, including digital photographers, content creation, post-production, system administrators, and other creative professionals.

Featuring an industrial-strength copying engine, The Big Mean Folder Machine brings structure and organization by walking the user through each decision. All operations may be performed without worrying about file name collisions; BMFM resolves name conflicts automatically. Unify entire file collections from various locations into a single folder. Or alternatively, split files into several folders based on a range of criteria.

Usage Scenarios:
* Splitting large file collections into 4Gb “chunks” for backup onto DVD.
* Splitting a photo collection into multi-level folder hierarchies by file type.
* Splitting music collections by artist and album.
* Splitting the User Documents folder into one subfolder per file type.
* Merging several file collections into one.

Features:
* Easy-to-use Assistant Style interface walks the user through each decision.
* Industrial-strength, database-backed, copying engine.
* Full preview before anything is done.
* Multiple folder naming schemes.
* Automatically resolves file name conflicts.
* Comprehensive EXIF time stamp reading support.
* Support for reading id3 tags in mp3, m4p, m4a and m4b music files

System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 1.2 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
Single User Licenses for The Big Mean Folder Machine may be purchased for $14.95 (USD). Small Business, Family, Business and Enterprise licenses are also available.

publicspace Website
The Big Mean Folder Machine
Direct Download Link
Purchase Link
Screenshot

Headquartered in in Luxembourg City, publicspace.net was founded by Frank Reiff in 1996 with the aim of producing affordable best-of-breed software for the Macintosh. In the past decade, their A Better Finder series of file utilities and MacBreakZ personal ergonomic assistant have become familiar fixtures of the Macintosh community. publicspace.net is also active in the Windows software market. Copyright 1996 - 2007 publicspace.net. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Odessa, Ukraine - Computer Systems Odessa announces its 15th Anniversary providing Information Management, Project Management and Business Diagramming solutions to organizations and individuals. Founded in 1993 as a provider of complex custom business and personal productivity software solutions for individuals and businesses for both the Mac and PC, the company has focused on the development of its own product line known as ConceptDraw since 1997.

With the mission to design, build and support progressive software that enables users to better support and leverage individuals, teams, data, and resources to work smarter, faster because of better information visualization tools, clear data presentation and improved collaboration capability, CS Odessa has hundreds of thousands of registered users across all industries, around the world.

“We consider CS Odessa a customer-oriented company that strives to enable our customers to move their business forward,” states Gregory Zhukov, President at CS Odessa, “Based on market trends analysis and feedback we received from hundreds of thousands of our users, we are constantly developing innovative technologies and highly functional productive solutions.”

Today, CS Odessa is a leading software development company that builds critical business tools for the desktop. They maintain its leadership in a competitive market with new innovations in its product mix. CS Odessa has extensive knowledge in developing highly functional cross-platform productivity tools, based on its 15 plus years of global market experience:

* ConceptDraw Office - Ultimate productivity tool for knowledge workers
* ConceptDraw PRO - Business diagramming and drawing software
* ConceptDraw MINDMAP - Brainstorming tool using standard mind mapping techniques to help organize ideas and tasks
* ConceptDraw PROJECT - Professional project management software

With the recent, and much anticipated, launch of the comprehensive information technology product suite, ConceptDraw Office, CS Odessa has enabled knowledge workers to interact with data in a visual manner, as well as obtain and provide critical insight from all types of data. ConceptDraw Office reflects the entire collective CS Odessa expertise in developing leading market business applications, data visualization technologies and project management tools.

With a strong technical support team and a dedicated sales group, the concept of real customer care is apparent. The unique individual approach to each customer is one of the many reasons CS Odessa customers are loyal and satisfied fans of ConceptDraw products.

With over 15 years of global market experience, CS Odessa has gained an extensive knowledge in developing highly functional cross-platform productivity tools. For the last 15 years, CS Odessa has demonstrated a consistent excellence with their products and services. Their success is due very much to their vision, corporate culture, and a business approach that is always centered on providing quality products and services to their customers.

CS Odessa
Celebrate 15 years of history

CS Odessa sells products internationally both directly and through resellers in over 25 countries, and is headquartered in Odessa, Ukraine with an established US office in San Jose, California.

Aarhus, Denmark - My Apple Space is excited to announce “The New Blog” on the popular social networking website for Apple enthusiasts. On My Apple Space developers are meeting reviewers and customers, media is finding new readers, gamers are setting up tournaments and switchers are finding new Apple friends to help them make the important leap to the fantastic world of Apple. WIth “The New Blog” the reader can also become the writer. The perfect place to test your blogging talent.

My Apple Space gathers every members blog posts into one collective RSS feed and presents them into one collective blog. Clicking a headline will take you directly to the writers own blog on their profile page. This gives The New Blog as many writers as there are members on My Apple Space. It also gives the blogger the best from two worlds while both being part of a big and active blog from day one, but at the same time the articles still point to the writers own blog on their Home page. This means that you can still build up a base of regular readers who can subscribe to your blog on your Home page.

“Have you ever been to a blog with that many writers?” asks the founder Brian Floe “it’s the perfect place for the upcomming blogger to test their talent, because they can take a day off without the collective blog comming to a halt.”

In “The New Blog”, the reader becomes the writer and so the blog gets its name after the concept of new blogs appearing within the collective blog - with each new blogger being born on My Apple Space. The community have already begun publishing articles on My Apple Space, offering the common mans perspective. It’s citizen journalism with a focus on anything Apple. My Apple Space is very excited about offering this opportunity to the community

Anyone can sign up and start bloggin in a matter of minutes and all Apple users are welcome, from iPhone users, to iPod and Mac users. On My Apple Space the future belongs to the bloggers, and Apple users from all over the world are signing up every day.

My Apple Space
Register Free
The New Blog
Community

Located in beautiful Aarhus, Denmark, My Apple Space was founded by Brian Floe in 2008. My Apple Space is aimed at providing Apple users around the globe a place to connect, cultivate relationships and build a strong community. Copyright 2008 My Apple Space. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Jenkintown, PA - Managing Editor Inc. (MEI), an Adobe premier development partner and a leading provider of software solutions for the publishing industry, today released an in-depth case study that describes how National Geographic, the flagship publication of the National Geographic Society (NGS), made the transition to managing its editorial and design workflow with the vjoon K4(TM) Publishing System. The installation of the K4 software and implementation of a revamped workflow have helped National Geographic achieve 25 to 45 percent improvements in its production time.

NGS’s K4 implementation involves more than 100 editorial, design and production personnel, producing 12 monthly issues, plus additional map supplements and occasional special editions. National Geographic has a worldwide circulation of 8 million.

In addition to the core K4 Publishing System components, National Geographic uses MadeToPrint Auto from axaio software, the server solution integrated with K4 for automating production of PDF proofs and Adobe(R) InDesign(R) packages for prepress. National Geographic also designed and built its own intranet portal for reviewing content in production. K4 continually updates the portal with previews and proofs of layouts and articles at any given moment.

As a result of upgrading to K4, National Geographic transformed a lengthy paper workflow into a streamlined digital one, shaving three to seven weeks off what had been the magazine’s typical 15-week production time. More details are available online in MEI’s National Geographic case study.

To learn more about publishers using K4 in the Washington, D.C., area, visit MEI’s “Finally, Something Works in Washington!” customer spotlight.

About K4
The vjoon K4 Publishing System, integrated with Adobe InDesign and InCopy(R), allows publishing professionals to manage design and editorial workflow and to control the entire production process. With its multi-level security controls, open SQL architecture and robust customization options, K4 supports a transparent and secure production workflow for individual workgroups or entire publishing enterprises. K4 is a product of vjoon GmbH (formerly SoftCare) of Hamburg, Germany. With more than 300 systems installed in publishing houses, agencies and magazines worldwide, K4 has already revolutionized the editorial workflow for more than 16,000 users. MEI is the exclusive distributor of K4 in the Americas, with 140 installations managing nearly 9,000 users.

National Geographic Case Study
MEI’s "Finally, Something Works in Washington!" customer spotlight
MEI Home Page
K4 Product Page

Managing Editor Inc. is an industry leader in the development of quality, proven software solutions for the evolving publishing industry. The Page Director Series of Advertising and Classified Layout Systems, K4 Publishing System, Integrated Production Suite (IPS) and IPS AdTrac deliver automated pagination, workflow and digital asset management solutions to newspaper and magazine publishers, as well as to other print and electronic publishing markets. MEI is an Adobe premier development partner and has twice been named a laureate of the Computerworld Smithsonian Collections. Additional information regarding MEI’s products and services can be found on the company’s Web site.

Berkeley, CA - IT Professional book publisher Apress, Inc., today announces the publication of its first iPhone development title, “Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK”. The unparalleled success of Apple’s iPhone and the release of the iPhone SDK have left developers clamoring to make use of the device’s unique features.

“Beginning iPhone Development” sees veteran Mac developers Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche take the reader from the basic downloading and installing of the free SDK, right through to building applications that make use of advanced features such as iPhone’s MultiTouch Gestural Support and Accelerometer.

There is coverage of common interface elements such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, sliders; information on how to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES; and guidance on how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone’s built-in database management system.

Chris Stewart, founder of iPhoneDevSDK.com, says that “Jeff and Dave have done an exceptional job exploring the iPhone SDK. This book is far and away the single best resource for iPhone SDK development. Developers will latch on to this book and find it useful as they create the next great iPhone application. If you’re a developer with an interest in this amazing new platform, this is a must buy.”

The book is the first of the titles recently acquired from Spiderworks that Apress has published. It will followed by “Learn Objective-C on the Mac” (ISBN-13: 978-1-4302-1815-9) on December 15, and “Learn C on the Mac” (ISBN-13: 978-1-4302-1809-8) on December 29.

Dave Mark is a longtime Mac developer and author and has written a number of books on Macintosh development, including Learn C on the Macintosh, the Macintosh Programming Primer series, and Ultimate Mac Programming.

Jeff LaMarche is a longtime Mac developer and certified Apple iPhone Developer. With over 20 years of programming experience, he’s written on Cocoa and Objective-C for MacTech Magazine, as well as articles for Apple’s Developer Technical Services web site. He has experience working in Enterprise software, both as a developer for PeopleSoft starting in the late 1990s, and then later as an independent consultant.

Title: Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
Author: Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche
ISBN-13: 978-1-4302-1626-1 | ISBN-10: 1-4302-1626-3
Pages: 536 | eBook Price: $27.99 (USD) | Printed Book Price: $39.99 (USD)

Apress Website
Book Information Page
Cover Image

Apress Inc., part of Springer Science + Business Media, is a technical publisher devoted to meeting the needs of IT professionals, software developers, and programmers, with more than 700 books in print and a continually expanding portfolio of publications. Apress provides high-quality, no-fluff content in print and electronic formats that help serious technology professionals build a comprehensive pathway to career success.