Trailer for “The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2”

Trailers – This trailer for the second season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” looks interesting. The first season was very well received and earned an 8.6/10 on IMDB. The synopsis for the series per IMDB:

Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship.

I don’t subscribe to Hulu, so I have not seen the first season, though I have heard and read many good things about it. If you do have access to Hulu this looks like a good series to try.

macOS New App Release – Typinator 7.4

Product Announcements – Ergonis Software of Perg, Austria has released Typinator 7.4, an improved version of their highly acclaimed text expander for macOS. Typinator’s primary use case is to type an abbreviation and get the expansion inserted into your document. But finding good, short, and still unique abbreviations can be a challenge, in particular when you have hundreds of similar items. Instead of inventing and remembering hundreds of abbreviations, Typinator’s Quick Search feature helps to find all items that match certain keywords or phrases. But until now, the list of matching items was limited to the height of the screen and therefore contained only the most relevant items. Typinator 7.4 removes this limitation and displays all matches in a scrollable list.

The new version now also works with text entered via Keyboard Viewer. With a long list of more than 30 further usability and compatibility improvements, version 7.4 is a must-have upgrade for every Typinator user. Visit Ergonis Software’s website to learn more about the changes in this release and to download and try the new version.

Typinator is a powerful, yet elegantly simple solution that boosts your productivity by automating the process of inserting frequently used text and auto-correcting typing errors. Across all applications, it detects specific sequences of typed characters and automatically replaces them with text snippets, graphics, URLs, dates and special characters.

System Requirements:

• Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer
• Compatible with macOS High Sierra

Typinator 7.4 can be purchased securely on the Ergonis Software website. The upgrade to Typinator 7.4 is free for Typinator 7 license owners and for anyone who purchased a license for Typinator 6 in or after January 2016. Upgrade paths are available for owners of older licenses. For information about purchases, including enterprise licenses, volume discounts, and upgrade pricing offers, see the company’s web site.

macOS New App Release – Keep It 1.2

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See my new macOS Software Directory and find what is available for the Mac!

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Product Announcements – Reinvented Software of Swansea, United Kingdom has released Keep It 1.2, their notebook, scrapbook and organizer for macOS, which adds icon view, improved Files app support, custom styles for notes, and improvements to search, tag filtering, imports, and more. Keep It is the successor to Together, a brand new app that preserves the very best of its predecessor, but recast for today and the future.

Keep It is a notebook, scrapbook and organizer, ideal for writing notes, saving web links, organizing documents, and finding them again. Available on Mac, iPad and iPhone, Keep It is the destination for all those things you want to put somewhere, confident you will find them again later.

Keep It 1.2 adds icon view to show items as resizable thumbnails, and each list can be set to either use list or icon view. Keep It uses iCloud to make these thumbnails available to Keep It for iPad and iPhone, along with the Files app on iOS 11.

This version also adds custom styles for notes, so that combinations of fonts, paragraph settings and colors may be easily applied to text, and these styles are also made available across all Macs and iOS devices via iCloud.

It’s now possible to set a default import destination; a folder or bundle that can be used as an inbox for un-filed imports, which appears at the top of the list of folders and bundles in the sidebar with a special icon for convenience.

Keep It 1.2 makes improvements to search, so it’s now possible to negate individual search terms (e.g. to find items that have one tag, but not another) and choose what is searched when using free text. The Tag Filter can now be used to show untagged items, and animates on Mac as on iOS.

Other improvements include the ability to find text within PDFs, and save web pages either as web archives or PDFs, improvements to the appearance of various toolbar items and the Favorites Bar, and performance improvements when importing large numbers of files.

ABOUT KEEP IT

Like its predecessor Together, pretty much anything can be added to Keep It, including notes, web links, rich and plain text documents, PDFs, images, or any other kind of file, using drag and drop, its share extension, the Services menu, or a browser bookmarklet. Keep It can also create new files of any type from stationery, and uses iCloud to make everything available across your devices, and to share items with others.

Keep It has all the organization tools you could need, including folders, tags, colored labels, and bundles. Keep It stores everything you add as files in folders that you can access in the Finder on Mac or the Files app on iOS 11, and open in other apps for editing. Saving files to these folders will automatically add them.

Building on Together, just about everything in Keep It has been improved or streamlined to work consistently across Mac and iOS, while taking advantage of each platform’s unique strengths. Keep It’s innovative tag filter that can drill down through combinations of related tags, and works in conjunction with search, which offers suggestions and makes it easy to combine terms. Keep It’s Compact Mode reduces the app to a single column, ideal for using as a floating window, or alongside another full screen app in split view, as you would on iPad.

System Requirements:

• macOS 10.12 or later
• 64-bit processor
• 8.2 MB

Keep It for Mac 1.2 is available as a 15-day trial. A license for Keep It costs $49.99, and will include all Keep It Version 1.x updates. Together 3 users can purchase a $24.99 upgrade, or get a free copy if Together 3 was purchased during its final 6 months on sale. Keep It is also available on the Mac App Store, also with a free trial, and a choice of one-time purchases to buy Keep It, upgrade from Together, along with monthly or yearly subscriptions.

Trailer for “Tomb Raider”

Trailers – The second trailer for the reboot of the Lara Croft movies is out and the new “Tomb Raider” looks to provide the excitement and action we are used to in the franchise. The synopsis per IMDB:

Lara Croft, the fiercely independent daughter of a missing adventurer, must push herself beyond her limits when she finds herself on the island where her father disappeared.

I liked the two prior Lara Croft movies. I hope that this one does indeed live up to the taste we have been given in this trailer. We will be able to see it in the theaters in mid March.

macOS New App Release – CyberByte Antivirus 2.1.1

Product Announcements  – Independent development team CyberByte of Bucharest, Romania has released CyberByte Antivirus 2.1.1, an important update to their antivirus and internet security application for macOS computers. The comprehensive security app provides protection against threats by scanning for and removing viruses, malware, and adware. The utility also scans any local network for all connected devices, allowing users to ensure that no unknown devices are connected to their network.

CyberByte’s malware research team personnel are certified in malware analysis and incident response. The team updates the app’s malware patterns daily, based on currently developing malware campaigns. In addition, the app monitors the Mac Download folder, and alerts users if a downloaded file contains potential malware.

“While the Mac is generally considered to be safe and secure, there are still plenty of viruses, malware, adware and other threats lurking on the internet, ready to attack a user’s Mac,” says CyberByte CEO Calin Popescu. “My team at CyberByte has observed a 120 percent increase in Mac malware over the last year, which is why we developed CyberByte Antivirus for the Mac.”

CyberByte Antivirus is designed to be as easy as possible to use by home users, even if they don’t have much experience with computers. The app runs quietly in the background, monitoring for viruses, malware and other threats by constantly monitoring the Mac Downloads folder, ready to identify any malware that attempts to sneak its way onto the machine.

In addition to real-time monitoring for viruses and other threats, CyberByte Antivirus also offers the ability to manually scan any Mac for malware threats. Scanning for viruses by some apps can eat up large amounts of precious computing resources, slowing the computer and taking long periods of time to scan for threats. This can cause busy users to be reluctant to manually scan for threats. CyberByte’s solution quickly scans the Mac’s hard drive for possible threats, while the user can continue to work on projects and tasks, as usual.

Manual malware scans can be made in the form of a “Quick Scan,” which quickly checks critical locations on the Mac for any signs of a threat. A “Full Scan” indexes and searches the computer’s entire hard drive for malware. Meanwhile, the app’s “Adware Scan” function searches for any adware threats that could affect the macOS operating system and browsers.

Free Version Features Include:

• Virus Scan
• Adware Scan
• Network Scan
• Update Malware Patterns

Premium Version Features Include:

• Remove Virus
• Remove Adware
• Active Live Protection
• Premium Customer Support

An exclusive feature not seen in other antivirus tools is CyberBytes Antivirus’ ability to scan a local network, mapping the entire network and all of its connected devices. This ensures a hacker hasn’t taken advantage of recently discovered vulnerabilities in wireless network that allow the bad guys to hijack a network, stealing a user’s personal and business information, which can include passwords, banking and credit card information, and much more.

The “Network Scan” feature scans the network and reports back how many devices are connected to the network, returning information about the connections, including IP addresses and MAC addresses. By viewing the information, informed users can detect if an unknown device or computer has logged into their wireless network. For example, if a user knows they only have 3 devices attached to their network, (say, a Mac, 1 iPhone, and an Apple TV), they’ll be able to tell at a glance that a rogue network connection has been made.

“We here at CyberByte know you’ll find the new version of CyberByte Antivirus a valuable addition to your Mac’s protection arsenal,” continues Calin. “Our company provides security consultancy to large companies around the globe, and we give the same personal attention to our small business and home users. We look forward to receiving feedback about CyberBytes Antivirus, as we continually work to improve the app’s malware protection capabilities.”

CyberByte Antivirus will receive the OPSWAT certification of genuine antivirus solution later this month. The certification signifies the app has met all of the criteria designated for OPSWAT-certified desktop security applications.

System Requirements:

• macOS 10.10 or higher
• macOS High Sierra compatible
• 64-bit processor
• 181.6 MB

CyberByte Antivirus 2.1.1 is free, and is available worldwide exclusively from the CyberByte website. A premium version of the app, which offers additional features is also available for $24.00 USD (or an equivalent amount in other currencies).

macOS New App Release – PDF Studio Viewer

Product Announcements – Qoppa Software of Atlanta, GA, USA has released PDF Reader, called PDF Studio Viewer, which is certain to interest professionals in all industries, especially those working on Mac or Linux platforms. Based on the same proprietary PDF technology found in Qoppa’s advanced PDF tools and already used by more than half a million users worldwide, the new PDF viewer works on all platforms (Mac, Windows and Linux) and comes with a comprehensive set of PDF viewing features.

“We are excited to release this very solid PDF viewing application that works exactly the same on all platforms. Considering all the advanced viewing features, we expect it to be a big hit for students and professionals working on Mac and Linux, especially in the Engineering / Architecture, Marketing or Print industries. Users on these platforms have long been without a good and reliable PDF reader.” says Gerald Holmann, Founder of Qoppa Software.

Below are some of the functions that users can perform using PDF Studio Viewer on Windows, Mac and Linux:

Easily navigate through any PDF and its interactive objects using the Navigation Toolbar and Side Panels that display thumbnails, annotations, bookmarks, digital signatures, file attachments, and layers.

Search through PDFs using the Advanced Search Dialog which has options to look within the current document, all open documents, all recent documents or recursively through documents contained in a folder. It is possible to search text within the document content or within interactive objects, including form fields, annotations, meta data and filenames.

Read and navigate through PDF documents using the touch of a finger on tablets and touch screens (such as Microsoft Surface) thanks to Touch Mode that comes with larger icons, navigation buttons and enlarged fonts in navigation panels. High DPI screens (4k and up) are also supported.

Verify & Validate Digital Signatures, including those from Adobe Sign (formerly Echosign) and DocuSign, using the certificates contained in the operating system store or those imported by the user.

Inspect even the smallest details using the Loupe Tool, a small rectangle window that can be dragged over a document to magnify a portion of the page.

Zoom within pages of a document with the Pan & Zoom Tool which opens a second window that displays both the whole page and the current view as a red rectangle.

Take a screenshot of the page and save it to an image file or to the clipboard with the Snapshot Tool.

Preview and Print PDF documents with advanced options for page range, position, multiple pages per sheet or booklets using PDF Studio powerful Print Dialog.

PDF Studio Viewer is free for personal and commercial use. It comes packaged as a single file installer for all platforms and supports 5 languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. It is compatible with the latest operating systems: macOS High Sierra, Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 & 17.10.

For those needing more editing features, PDF Studio is also available in Standard and Pro editions with advanced functions for OCR, Content Editing, Page Manipulation, Permanent Redaction, File Optimization, Interactive Form Designer and more. These paid editions of PDF Studio are affordable alternatives to Adobe® Acrobat®, can be purchased with a one-time fee and do not require a subscription commitment.

Trailer for “Mortal Engines”

Trailers – The post apocalyptic film “Mortal Engines” will be in theaters in December of 2018. It is based upon the series of books written by Philip Reeve. The “Mortal Engines” series is called the “Hungry City Chronicles” in the United States. The synopsis per IMDB:

Many years after the “Sixty Minute War,” cities survive a now desolate Earth by moving around on giant wheels attacking and devouring smaller towns to replenish their resources.

Based upon the trailer, the movies has possibilities. It is difficult to say how good it is going to be, though with Peter Jackson a producer there is hope for it.

macOS New App Release – Default Folder 5.2

Product Announcements – St. Clair Software of Denver, Colorado has released Default Folder X to version 5.2 today. This release of its award-winning utility for enhancing Open and Save dialogs delivers a number of user interface improvements, including adding color toolbar icons to make them more quickly recognizable. It also improves support for iCloud Drive, makes creation of zip archives more flexible and addresses a number of interface and reliability issues.

Default Folder X’s custom keyboard shortcuts put your favorite and recent folders at your fingertips. Pop-up menus let you quickly navigate your folders and open Finder windows. Previews, file information, Spotlight tagging and comments are there when you need them. Open, save, and get back to work: Default Folder X speeds your workflow by making file management fast and efficient.

The changes in Default Folder X 5.2 include:

• Default Folder X better supports iCloud Drive’s various configurations and nuances
• There is now a preference to choose between color and black & white icons for Default Folder X’s toolbar
• The Compress command can now archive multiple items within any subfolder in a file dialog’s file list
• The prompts guiding users through authorizing Default Folder X in System Preferences have been greatly improved
• Application-specific folders on iCloud Drive are now badged with the application’s icon
• A number of bugs, memory leaks and crashes have been addressed

For a complete change history, visit the URL listed below.

System Requirements: macOS 10.10 through 10.13

Default Folder X 5.2 is a free update for existing version 5 users. New licenses are $34.95 (USD) and upgrades from version 4 and prior are $14.95. Please see the St. Clair Software web site for screencasts, screenshots, a full change log, and additional feature information. St. Clair Software strongly recommends that anyone using Default Folder X install this update.

macOS New App Release – Battery Health 4

Product Announcements – B-Eng of Fehraltorf, Switzerland has released Battery Health 4 iOS, a dedicated Mac app to read relevant battery data of iPhone battery. Most battery apps have been pulled for the App Store, and none of the few that are still available are able to read load cycles for the battery. At a certain point Apple decided to not make these statistics available anymore. With Battery Health 4 iOS, B-Eng presents a simple and easy to use work around using a Mac Computer. Once connected to a Mac, relevant battery statistics of the iPhones battery can be gathered after starting Battery Health 4 iOS once the app on the Mac is started.

“We had one of the most powerful battery apps available in the App Store, but had to cripple it to comply with the App Store guidelines. Specifically, we were not allowed to show battery loading cycles anymore, which caused a lot of complaints by customers. With rumors about certain iOS version being slowed down on devices with older battery that show signs of wear these numbers have become even more important. Battery Health 4 iOS is a solution to gather these data using a Mac computer.” as Christian Schaffner, General Manager of B-Eng, explains why he thinks that Battery Health 4 iOS is a must have app under certain circumstances.

Battery Health 4 iOS is available in the homepage of B-Eng for $4.99 USD (or similar amount in foreign currency). This useful utility menu item uses only 661kB of Disk Space, and runs on any Mac with 64bit and MacOS 10.10 or newer.

Trailer for “Stargate: Origins”

Trailers – This trailer for the upcoming “Stargate: Origins” looks intriguing. The synopsis:

Young Catherine Langford embarks on an unexpected adventure to unlock the mystery of what lies beyond the Stargate in order to save the Earth from darkness.

I really like that the Stargate Universe is being resurrected. I watched all three of the TV series. The only thing I dislike about it is that it will be behind the MGM digital platform Stargate Command firewall. It is (at present thru May 15, 2018) only a $20 one-time fee to access all Stargate TV episodes – more than 350 episodes from television series “Stargate SG-1,” “Stargate Atlantis” and “Stargate Universe,” as well as the three movies, “Stargate,” “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” and “Stargate Continuum.”

The 10-part Stargate: Origins will be added to the available programs in mid February. Keep in mind that these are only 10 minute episodes, so it will not greatly expand the Stargate Universe.