Southern Stars, the leader in astronomy applications, launched today its latest version of SkyFi, a patent-pending wireless USB telescope controller for its award-winning SkySafari app. Using SkyFi, astronomers of every stripe can harness the WiFi capabilities of their Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod Touch to aim their telescope at the same astronomical objects they have selected in SkySafari.

“SkyFi is the only Wi-Fi device on the market specifically designed for telescope control,” said Southern Stars founder Tim DeBenedictis. “Now that telescope manufacturers like Meade and iOptron are adopting USB, we wanted to make sure SkyFi was USB-compatible. With SkyFi, our customers can use our apps to direct the latest personal telescopes on the market.”
To celebrate, SkySafari 3’s basic version, normally USD $2.99, will be free for the duration of MacWorld (Jan 26-28, 2012). The Plus and Pro versions will be on sale at prices up to 50% off.

To download SkySafari 3 from the iTunes Store click here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skysafari-3/id437108143?mt=8

SkySafari 3 is the only astronomy app that can correctly reproduce eclipses, transits, and many other astronomical phenomena. With SkySafari 3, you can browse hundreds of astronomical images from NASA and the world’s foremost astro-photographers, and explore an encyclopedia of professionally written astronomical content.

SkySafari 3 Pro features an immense database of 15 million stars, 750,000 galaxies, and 550,000 solar system objects – including every comet and asteroid ever discovered. With SkySafari 3 Pro, you can watch near-earth asteroids rumble past the Moon through a backyard telescope, controlled from an iPad.

Southern Stars will demonstrate all versions of SkySafari 3 as well as its desktop offering for Mac OS X. SkySafari’s interface has been redesigned from scratch for Mac OS X, using 100% native Cocoa controls. For anyone who wants to experience cutting-edge astronomy software on Mac OS X, SkySafari has no equal. And it’s available at a fraction of the cost of traditional astronomy software packages costing hundreds of dollars.

To download SkySafari for Mac OS X from the Mac App Store, click this link:
http://www.southernstars.com/products/skysafari_mac/index.html

Joining SkySafari for Mac and iOS at MacWorld is our brand-new Android version. SkySafari for Android now truly makes it mobile astronomy for everyone.

To download SkySafari from the Android Market, click this link:
https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Southern+Stars

To find out more about SkySafari for iOS, Mac OS X, and Android, visit Southern Stars in booth #945 at the San Francisco MacWorld Expo, January 26-28, 2012 – and experience the future of astronomy software today.

DownloadBuyer, one of the leading online software superstores, has announced that they have over £10,000 worth of software for Windows and Mac OS X to giveaway throughout December 2011 in their Christmas Lucky Dip promotion.

DownloadBuyer.com is committed to offering customers a diverse range of the most popular award winning software titles, at very competitive prices. The company is dedicated to offering a service that is second to none from the minute the customer first enters the site, to dealing with any technical questions and advising on best products, right through to the checkout.

Jon Silvera, managing director said “DownloadBuyer.com continues to see strong growth.  To celebrate, we pulled together a massive prize pot donated from participating vendors and are both proud and excited to pass these on to our customers as a thank you over the Christmas period.  So along with many half price offers over Xmas there’s 50/50 chance to pick up a totally free product on top!”

iChemLabs, a developer of chemical software for professionals and students, announces that ChemDoodle 4 is now available. ChemDoodle has quickly become one of the most popular applications for chemical drawing and publishing, used by thousands of institutions in over 50 countries. ChemDoodle is the only chemical publishing software application that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is available for download today. Trials are free and can be downloaded with a single click.

In addition to the upgrade to the ChemDoodle desktop software, two other ChemDoodle products have seen updates in the last week as well. The critically acclaimed ChemDoodle Web Components is an open source HTML5 library for creating powerful and interactive scientific websites. ChemDoodle Mobile, for iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone) and coming soon for Android, is a free app and mobile companion to the desktop software, allowing you to transfer structures between your desktop and mobile devices as well as perform calculations on the go.

ChemDoodle 4 is available for download immediately. Registered purchasers of ChemDoodle get ChemDoodle 4 for free. New users can request a free 30 day trial.

LumaPix, publisher of the acclaimed FotoFusion album layout software, is very pleased to announce the release of LumaPix::FotoFusion for the Mac. This new version of FotoFusion responds to the overwhelming demand for a version of FotoFusion that runs natively on OSX ; it includes many of the features that will eventually become part of FotoFusion v5. The software can be purchased at http://www.LumaPix.com; a discount is available for users upgrading from earlier versions of FotoFusion.

WHAT IS FOTOFUSION?

LumaPix::FotoFusion is a stand-alone professional photography software package used to create wedding albums, photobooks, portraiture, and other complex image layouts. It includes power tools to automatically arrange images into multi-page albums, to non-destructively edit those layouts and the images they contain, and to output the results at any resolution – from email up to large-format output.

“The most important tool for any digital photographer is his/her digital camera. The second most important tool is the LumaPix::FotoFusion layout software; it is the keystone software in our digital production workflow. It’s unbelievable the ease, speed, simplicity, and time savings that FotoFusion brings to your digital designs! It is the only album design tool you will ever need.”

— David Ziser, Kodak mentor and internationally-renowned photographer and lecturer

MAC NATIVE

Mac users do not need to purchase parallels, vmware, or other software in order to run FotoFusion; the software is simply installed and run. The only system requirements are an Intel chipset and X11 (which is installed on most Mac systems, and available from the Apple install CDs that came with the Mac if not).

WHAT DOES THE NAME “FOTOFUSION V5 MAC BETA” MEAN?

• Beta: This release is production-ready, but does not yet include all of the UI changes that the final v5 build will include; the priority was to deliver a stable, fast Mac version with functionality equivalent to the PC version.
• V5: this is not a free upgrade for existing v4.x users. It is the first release of v5, and includes several important new features in addition to Mac support.
• Mac: this build is available for Mac users only; additional features will be added to the final v5 release, which will be available for both PC and Mac.

NEW IN THIS RELEASE

Mac Support

• FotoFusion now runs on any Intel Mac running Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion.

Text

• In-canvas what-you-see-is-what-you-get text editing
• Per-character text attributes (size, kerning, rotation, etc)
• Text effects (blur, emboss, inner shade, etc)
• Text in shapes (diamond, circle, etc)

Output

• PDF export now supports layers and vector text

Editing

• Layout Mirroring
• Text Search – find text anywhere in the project

User Interface

• Completely rebuilt Home Zone
• Rebuilt contextual menus

Stability & speed

• Two years of polishing performance and stability from YearbookFusion now available in the FotoFusion product.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Visit http://www.LumaPix.com for a free software download.

New licenses of LumaPix::FotoFusion v5 Mac Beta are available immediately for OSX 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 for $119.95 to $299.95, depending on features selected.

Existing users are invited to upgrade at a discount ($59.95 to $219.95) at the LumaPix website.

• Mac users who purchased FotoFusion v4.5 on or after April 21 2011 should email support@LumaPix.com to arrange their free upgrade; the LumaPix standard 90-day purchase protection policy applies for the Mac platform.
• PC users purchasing v4.5 on or after July 21 2011 will receive v5 final at no charge, when it ships.

Upgrades from v3.x and v4.x:

• Ranges from $59.95 to $219.95 – See here.

LINKS

Free Download: http://www.lumapix.com/?redir=DownloadNow
Press Kit: http://www.lumapix.com/corporate/corp_collateral_text.shtml
Product Images: http://www.lumapix.com/corporate/corp_collateral_graphics.shtml

Shedworx, an experienced video software company, has released Smart Converter, a multi-purpose free video converter, onto the Mac App Store.

Within 48 hours of release, Smart Converter has shot to Number 1 on the Mac App Store Free App listings for most of the large countries. With 5 star ratings around the world and rave reviews, Smart Converter has become the go-to video converter for Mac users the world over.

Smart Converter has an edge over the plethora of video converters on the Mac App Store in that it analyses video files before converting begins. This allows Smart Converter to be smart about the way it does the conversion, which usually means that it is up to 20 times faster than regular converters. Smart Converter’s conversion approach also gives a better quality and more reliable result than traditional approaches.

Smart Converter is the first general-purpose video converter from Shedworx. A Pro version is in the works.

Amac Software, a leading provider of monitoring software solutions, has released Amac Keylogger for Mac 2.0. Amac Keylogger enables Mac OS X users to monitor their Mac computers thoroughly by providing comprehensive features of logging and recording.

Amac Keylogger for Mac is designed to monitor Mac computer activities including keystrokes typed, websites visited, chat conversations and desktop screenshots. Amac keylogger can be used for parental control, employee monitoring, catching a cheating spouse and getting back a lost/stolen Macbook.

In addition to being a Mac keylogger to log almost everything on the Mac, Amac Keylogger also provides remote logs delivery functions, including sending reports to email and uploading logs to FTP space, which enable users to check the logs anywhere with their mobile phones or any other devices with email support.

Amac Keylogger runs at the Mac start-up automatically in stealth mode. It is protected by passwords and secret hot-keys. Amac Keylogger is hidden from the Dock and system Login Items, which makes it hard to be found.

Amac Keylogger can be installed for all the user accounts on the same Mac with only one click. Install once and all the user accounts on the Mac will be monitored, this is a great feature for parental control.

Amac Software sees a tremendous opportunity to help Mac OS X citizens do following jobs by applying a smart and stealthy approach.

Parental Control
Amac Keylogger for Mac helps parents find out what their kids doing online. It supports multiple-user monitoring and logs almost all the activities.

Catch a Cheating Spouse
Amac Keylogger for Mac is a practical program for Mac users to acquire the trail of a cheating spouse.

Employee Monitoring
Amac Keylogger for Mac will assist Managers with staff supervision. With Amac Keylogger, company managers will be able to log keystrokes, chats, websites, programs and screen snapshots on the employee Mac computers.

Get back a lost/stolen Macbook
Amac Keylogger is built in with IP address tracking function, which enables the users to track the location of a Macbook and get it back if it is lost or stolen.

Amac Keylogger for Mac is completely different in character from virus. It requires physical access and privilege to the Mac for installation and configuration. Reports from authoritative download labs such as Softpedia, CNET confirm that Amac Keylogger is clean from virus, trojans and malware.

Amac Keylogger Free Trial Download: Download Keylogger for Mac Free Trial

Amac Keylogger is compatible to Mac OS X 10.5.X(Leopard), Mac OS X 10.6.X(Snow Leopard) and above.

Founded in 2005, Amac Software provides pieces of monitoring software and keyloggers for Mac users around the world. Amac Software devotes to developing Safe and Clean software with Powerful features. Its products have been installed on almost 2 million computers and customers range from individuals to companies.

For more information about Amac Keylogger, please visit: http://www.amackeylogger.com/

Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system with more than 250 new features and 3,000 new developer APIs, will be available to customers in July as a download from the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99. Some of the amazing features in Lion include: new Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software, built right into the OS; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

“The Mac has outpaced the PC industry every quarter for five years running and with OS X Lion we plan to keep extending our lead,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The best version of OS X yet, Lion is packed with innovative features such as new Multi-Touch gestures, system-wide support for full screen apps, and Mission Control for instantly accessing everything running on your Mac.”

New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations built into Lion let you interact directly with content on the screen for a more intuitive way to use your Mac. New gestures include momentum scrolling, tapping or pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, and swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps. All Mac notebooks ship with Multi-Touch trackpads and desktop Macs can use Apple’s Magic Trackpad.

Full screen apps take advantage of the entire display and are perfect for reading email, surfing the web or browsing photos, especially on a MacBook Air® or MacBook® Pro. With a single click your app fills the display and you can swipe from one window to another, between full screen apps, or back to your Desktop, Dashboard or Spaces® without ever leaving full screen. iWork® and iLife® apps, as well as Safari®, iTunes®, Mail, FaceTime® and others, all take advantage of Lion’s system-wide support for full screen apps.

Mission Control combines Exposé®, full screen apps, Dashboard and Spaces into one unified experience for a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps and your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a tap.

The Mac App Store is built into Lion and is the best place to discover great new Mac apps, buy them with your iTunes account, download and install them. Apps automatically install directly to Launchpad, and with Lion’s release, the Mac App Store will be able to deliver smaller “delta” app updates and new apps that can take advantage of features like In-App Purchase and Push Notifications.

Launchpad makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single Multi-Touch gesture, all your Mac apps are displayed in a stunning full screen layout. You can organize apps in any order or into folders and swipe through unlimited pages of apps to find the one you want.

Lion includes a completely redesigned Mail app with an elegant widescreen layout. The new Conversations feature groups related messages into an easily scrollable timeline, intelligently hiding repeated text so the conversation is easy to follow, and retaining graphics and attachments as they were originally sent. An incredibly powerful new search feature allows you to refine your search and suggests matches by person, subject and label as you type. Mail includes built-in support for Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Additional new features in Lion include:

• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• Auto Save, which automatically and continuously saves your documents as you work;
• Versions, which automatically records the history of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, revert and even copy and paste from previous versions; and
• AirDrop, which finds nearby Macs and automatically sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection to make transferring files quick and easy.

Pricing & Availability Mac OS X Lion will be available in July as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard® from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (US).  Lion will be the easiest OS X upgrade and at about 4GB, it is the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store®. Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $49.99 (US).

Lion requires an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM. The Lion upgrade can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs.

The Mac OS X Lion Up-To-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchase a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and the date when Lion is available in the Mac App Store will have 30 days from Lion’s official release date to make a request.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Global Marine Networks, the leaders in advancing satellite data speed and services, today announced the immediate availability of XGate for Mac with Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro GSPS data service support. XGate is the world’s first software to enable IsatPhone Pro data access with Apple Macintosh computers. XGate is a software application that keeps families and work groups in touch over satellite phone data services through email and web acceleration, one-touch blogging, and GPS vessel tracking, all optimized for use with satellite phone data service.

“Mac users get all of the benefits of the Apple experience while accessing the newest satellite phone data service available. XGate for Mac works seamlessly with Apple Mail or the included email program, all while accelerating satellite phone email throughput by up to 15 times.” said Dr. Luis Soltero, CTO of Global Marine Networks. “XGate is the benchmark for speed that Inmarsat used for development and testing of data over the IsatPhone Pro. Not only does it work on a Mac, it was developed on a Mac, by longtime Apple developers.”

XGate for Mac OS X features can be found at http://www.globalmarinenet.com/isatphone_mac_email.php , and include:

• Individual or crew email access
• Web browsing with acceleration
• Automatic detection, setup and dialing of the IsatPhone Pro for easy use
• Dropped satellite transfers automatically pick up where they left off, saving time
• Compatible with any Intel-based Macintosh Computer running Apple Macintosh OS X versions 10.4 or newer
• Works with any email program, web mail, or the included email client.
• Virus Scanning and Spam Filtering
• Full DES/PGP Encryption for optimum security

Other versions of XGate are compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Linux.

The Inmarsat Solution document “Email and Data Using IsatPhone Pro:
How to Set Up IsatPhone Pro to Access Email and Transfer Data Using XGate” is available at http://www.globalmarinenet.com/isatphone_mac_email.php to provide Inmarsat-certified instructions for IsatPhone Pro data users.

XGate for Mac Email is designed specifically for narrowband satellite data services with handheld satellite phones like the IsatPhone Pro, Iridium 9555 and Globalstar GSP-1700. It also increases data transfer speeds for broadband satellite services such as Inmarsat FleetBroadband, BGAN, Iridium OpenPort and VSAT services, or any IP-based data service.

XGate software and services are available from Global Marine Networks directly at http://www.globalmarinenet.com/xgate.php , and through selected satellite airtime service providers and dealers under the XGate name or as a branded solution.

SecureMac.com is pleased to announce MacScan 2.8, the latest version of its award-winning anti-spyware privacy and security software for Apple’s Mac OS X. This new version of MacScan enhances protection against the latest threats for Mac OS X, adding usability enhancements and bug fixes. MacScan 2.8 has been updated to offer compatibility with Firefox 4 for removal of blacklisted tracking cookies as well as web files such as browsing and download history to ensure better internet privacy and security. Additionally, MacScan 2.8 contains an improved user interface plus the latest spyware definitions and tracking cookie blacklist.

MacScan retails for $29.99 and can be purchased using Paypal or credit card, either through the built-in registration system, or via the MacScan webstore at .

Upgrades from previous versions of MacScan 2 are free, and can be obtained by either selecting “Check for Updates” under the “MacScan” menu, or by downloading the demo version from http://macscan.securemac.com and entering your serial number.

MacScan Family Pack lets you install the popular MacScan anti-spyware software on up to three computers for only $49.99. Existing users of MacScan can upgrade the single license to the MacScan Family Pack allowing installation on up to three computers for the difference of the original price and the Family Pack price.

About MacScan
MacScan quickly detects, isolates and removes spyware from Apple Macintosh computers as well as enhances Internet privacy and security by cleaning up Internet clutter. It is designed for Mac OS X version 10.2.4 and higher including Apple’s latest Snow Leopard (10.6).

Seagate has introduced a new collection of GoFlex for Mac external drives. The new collection is designed to make it easy for those who use Mac OS X and Time Machine to backup, shuttle, or share their digital content.

These new external drives are compatible with  Apple Time Machine, while maintaining the ability to work across both Windows and Mac OS X computers.

GoFlex for Mac drives can also be used with computers running Windows by simply downloading an HFS+ driver for Windows from Seagate, which will provide full read-write access to the drive from a Windows computer.

The new line-up of GoFlex for Mac external drives include:

* GoFlex TM for Mac ultra-portable drive — a 2.5-inch portable drive is now designed for use with Apple’s Time Machine out-of-the-box. Pricing starts at $199.99 for 1TB, and $249.99 for 1.5TB.

* GoFlex TM for Mac Limited Edition ultra-portable drive — this ultra-portable drive includes 1TB of storage into the standardized 2.5-inch form factor, making it the slimmest high-cap drive available on the market. Pricing is $199.95 for 1TB.

* GoFlex TM Pro for Mac ultra portable — designed with advanced performance in mind for graphic artists, musicians and videographers, the 7200RPM, 2.5-inch drive includes a FireWire 800 cable to achieve transfer speeds up to three times faster than USB 2.0. Pricing is $149.99 for 500GB; $179.99 for 750GB.

* GoFlex TM Desk for Mac drive — a 3.5-inch high-capacity external drive that backs up files using Apple’s Time Machine. Pricing ranges from $219.99 for 2TB and $279.99 for 3TB.

In addition, each GoFlex for Mac drive can be used with other devices in the GoFlex Storage System such as the GoFlex Net media sharing device and the GoFlex TV HD media player, allowing users to access content on their iPad or smartphone.