• VLC media player – 0.9.5 – The de-facto, plays-anything, multi-platform media player get a small bump that plugs three security holes (CVE-2008-4686, CVE-2008-4654 & CVE-2008-3964), enhances closed caption parsing and fixes a few bugs. I’m still somewhat disappointed that VLC does not make it possible to make your built-in drive “region free” on newer Intel Macs, but it’s important to install the update, if only to keep your system defenses as sharp as possible. Details: Free! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• Audacity – 1.3.6 – This very handy audio-editing utility has a small version update which greatly reduced the footprint of saved projects and increases support for MIDI content. Audacity’s temporary/working directory is now more easily accessible by less technical OS X users (yay!) and FFmpeg has been updated to the latest release. Details: Free! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• 1Password – 2.9.3 – Agile has done a minor bump to their password management utility with some enhancements to 1Password’s desktop app’s ability to sync successfully with its iPhone counterpart along with other small changes and bug fixes. Details: $39.95 [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• Bee Docs Timeline – 2.2.1 – While I am normally a pretty responsible netizen and do submit bug reports to software developers, I failed to do so for an item that was fixed in this update to Bee Docs Timeline. I really like the 3D timeline generator but noticed that you had to actually enable tick marks for timelines to render properly in 3D. This update fixes this bug and also lets the “era” date format map better to localization setting and date/time preferences. Details: $40.00/$65.00 [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• Screenium 1.0.4 – While there are many options for screen recording in OS X, Synium’s Screenium has really been growing on me ever since the betas. There have been several updates since October 1st which have improved functionality and smashed a number of bugs. It’s a steal at $20.00 and I highly recommend checking it out if you have not done so already. Details: $20.00 [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• Garmin WebUpdater – 2.0.4 – Most folks who have been waiting patiently for Garmin to really show some love for OS X will admit that the efforts to-date have been less than exemplary. To their credit, Garmin does seem committed to providing tools for Mac users and this minor revision to their WebUpdater fixes crashing issues when attempting to upgrade certain GPS models and also resolves an issue that caused downloads over slow links to fail. Details: Free! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]
• Today – 1.3.2 – Office users may have “My Day”, but you can realize the full task-management potential of Apple Mail, iCal and Address Book with secondgear’s highly useful little utility. You get an at-a-glance view of what you have “goin’ on” and can use the app to create events and tasks without having to deliberately jump-start iCal. Well worth the $15.00 investment if you rely heavily on Apple’s built-in toolset. Details: $15.00 [10.5-ONLY; Intel/PPC]
• Flow – 1.1 – While I am a die-hard user of ExpanDrive, Extendmac continues to impress me with the slick UI in Flow and I consider it a must-have utility if you do any work with Amazon S3. Version 1.1 removes the need to use the Finder when uploading/downloading, provides a mechanism to use external editors, enhances their nifty QuickLook functionality, interfaces with public iDisks, tosses some nods to better security, and makes use of multi-touch on Macs that support it. A very nice job by Brian and crew, with a ton of features added for just a dot-release. Details: $29.00 [10.5-ONLY; Intel/PPC]
• Microsoft Office 2008 – 12.1.4 – Since one can never have too many Microsoft Office updates, the MacBU folks have given us a “fix to the fix”, as it were. 12.1.4 fixes an issue that prevented Exchange accounts in Entourage from sending meeting invitations and responses, especially when an Entourage identity is configured with more than one mail account. It is a highly-recommended update by Microsoft. Details: Free! (well, the update is, but Office 2008 prices vary) [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC]

Remember, toss your alpha/beta or pre-release invites my way. If I test or am a regular user of your software, you’ll make it to the list as I only mention what I use or try.

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• AIM for Mac – Beta 1 – Much to the surprise of many, AOL decided to release a new beta of their instant messenger for OS X. The big question, as a result, is “Why?”. After testing it out, I can find no compelling reason to switch from iChat or Adium and no features that would make this a “must-have” application, but I welcome your thoughts in the comments. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Gimp.app – 2.6.0 – Hot on the heels of the official Gimp release comes the OS X native (non-X11) release, complete with enhanced toolbars/docks, full panning beyond the image border, much-improved free-select tool and snazzy improvements to brushes. Much of the enhancements were under-the-covers and provided a foundation for future crunchy-goodness by integrating GCEL (Generic Graphics Library), a powerful graph-based image processing framework (think “undo”) and support for a wider range of color models and pixel storage formats when reading or saving images. The developers also improved plug-in support.
  
  The interface is not exactly perfectly Mac-like and feels awkward and clunky at times, but it is definitely usable and has a good feature set. Would you use it over Photoshop or even some of the newer Flash-based online editors? Let me know your thoughts! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• ReceiptWallet – 2.0.8 – This minor update will make folks in Switzerland happy (fixes an issue with that locale), but also fixes a couple of other annoyances (a “Cancel” button one that was – on occasion – catching me) and a few bugs. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] US$39.95
• Apple iTunes – 8.0.1 & Apple TV – 2.2 – As you saw on TAB, iTunes and Apple TV received updates this past week. The former improves music playback during Genius playlist creation (along with other improvements), and the latter provides support for HD TV shows and tosses a Genius into the tiny box for good measure. [10.3.9 (Apple TV update)/10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Editra – 0.3.80 – Entering a candidate into the text editor fray on OS X takes guts. You are competing with the likes of BBEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler and many others, each of them having a loyal and vocal user-base. Editra is aimed squarely at the developers out there as it has most of the goodies you’ve come to expect (line numbering, commenting, indenting, syntax highlighting, etc.). The interface is straightforward enough, but it is obvious that the “0.x” version numbering is accurate since there is much room for many refinements. It already supports plug-ins (written in Python) and has the benefit of being cross-platform (it is written with the wxWidgets library), so you can use slide between platforms without losing your editing mojo. This application is definitely something to keep on your radar and in your RSS feeds. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Perian – 1.1.1 – The self-dubbed “Swiss-Army knife for QuickTime” releases a two-dot update that I would have missed since the “update” button in the PrefPane did not work (and I just happened to hit their site from the other button in the PrefPane). This minor update fixes a problem with H.264 in AVI files, corrects a frame skipping issue, adds some codecs and incorporates a few additional bug fixes and feature tweaks. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Schnippselchen Pro – 2.0.1 – I’ve been slowly getting back into software development (that may or may not be obvious from my posts) and came across this code-snippet saver which allows you to store, track and fully manage your bits of useful source with full support for syntax highlighting and drag-and-drop to Xcode or TextMate. The Mail-like interface should be quite accessible to everyone and the builtin search makes it pretty simple to find what you are looking for (especially if you’ve commented the snippets well). You can add a custom icon to each snippet and backup, export or share your library. The manual states that the app “will only store the data as long as [it] is running” but all my test snippets have been available across multiple launches. [10.5; Intel/PPC] Free?

Remember, drop me a note on Twitter (@hrbrmstr) or in the comments if there is something you’d like me to try!

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• Bible-Discovery – 2.2 – I’m always on the lookout for better Bible study tools and came across Bible-Discovery a little while ago. Intially, I was skeptical of a Java-based application (having written plenty of Swing-based apps in my time) but seeing that Miklos Zsido was up to a 2.x release series, I decided to give it a try. Despite the lack of more modern translations, I found the software to be pretty easy to navigate. Searching works well, window layout is pretty sane (if you’ve ever used complex Bible software, you know that this is a big problem in most programs) and it was easy to use without digesting a large user manual. For ~US$80.00, it’s a bit steep given that you could do most of the work online for free. Users of commercial software such as Accordance (my offline tool of choice) will also find little reason to switch. Requires Java but runs on almost any platform.
• OmniPlan – 1.6.1 beta 1 – I manage a decent number of large-scale projects and could not do my job without OmniPlan. Microsoft Project is overkill for my needs and OmniPlan has a great Mac look-and-feel on top of being very functional. This beta release makes HTML exports and fixes two bugs. If you try it, please remember it is beta, so keep backups and provide feedback! Available for 10.4/10.5, Intel/PPC. US$150.00
• Trek Trivia – 1.1 – Yes, I admit it. I’m a Star Trek geek. We own the series’, collect the action figures and have all of the movies as well as the animated series (shudder). How, then, could I not have Trek Trivia? Esoteric facts that will mystify your friends are at your fingertips, and you can challenge you own personal databank as you learn new details. This version adds the now-expected auto-update functionality plus facts control by series. The best feature is the ability to copy the facts to the clipboard so you can spam all your IRC-mates with your l33t knowledge. Available for 10.4/10.5, Intel/PPC and free.
• MacSword – 1.4.3 – Taking a page from Apple, MacSword releases “bug fixes” to their staple Bible study tool. Available for 10.4/10.5, Intel/PPC & free.
• Camino – 1.6.4 – I keep a copy of most web browsers around most for testing of how they render pages. Camino has a great OS X look-and-feel while using the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine. Unfortunately, this means it must (or should) be ugraded each time security patches make it into the Mozilla codebase. This version updates Gecko (including security fixes), changes (restores, actually) behavior in certificate handling, modifies how it reads Keychain data and adds enhancements to how it blocks unwanted content. Available for 10.4/10.5, Intel/PPC and free.
• Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 7, Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 2 – Apple releases security, compatibility & bug fixes for Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 and Java 1.4 on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and later. This release updates J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_16 and Java 1.4 to version 1.4.2_18 and Java SE 6, J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.5. Definitely need to upgrade once you finish your app-compatibility testing.
• OmniGraffle Pro – 5.1 beta 3 – One of my all-time favorite programs gets a beta update release which fixes a ton of bugs as well as improves the functionality of the sidebar. If you are still on Tiger, this app is worth the upgrade to Leopard alone. Again, it is beta, so all bets are off where your data is concerned and the Omni folks would appreciate your feedback. Pro version will set you back USD$200.00 and worth every penny.
• VLC media player – 0.9.3 – The Swiss Army tool of cross-platform audio/video receives an update which fixes many bugs, some specific to OS X. The full screen controller now has a new time label and remembers the position across media opens. Available for 10.4/10.5, Intel/PPC and free.

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• TrailRunner – 1.6v228 – A recently released-as-freeware program to track runs/hikes. If you have a GPS and do any type of walking, running or hiking, TrailRunner is an awesome program to keep you motivated. (I really need to do a general review of Mac fitness programs) Version 1.6v228 is pretty much just bug fixes.
• Office 2008 SP1 + 2004 Security Patch – Office gets and update (and fills us with hope and promises for a better, VBA-filled future)
• Flash Player 10 Beta – Adobe kicks Flash up a notch (on all platforms)
• NewsFire – 1.5 (v73) – Prior to NNW, NewsFire was my news reader of choice (even when it was commercial). I still think it’s prettier and more Mac-like than NNW (in some ways) and keep up with the updates to see if it’s something I should go back to. This version is pretty much bug fixes.
• Skype – 2.7.0.330 – Having moved away a continent’s width away from most everyone we know, Skype is one of the best cross-platform tools for keeping in touch for us. This update improves NAT-PMP & uPnP support as well as support for authenticated proxies. There are also (as is the case with all Skype updates) a plethora of bug fixes.
• VisualHub – 1.33a – VisualHub (iSquint‘s big brother) makes my bus commute far more tolerable and Techspansion has fixed a few bugs
• MacSword – 1.3.5 – A great, free, multi-translation Bible tool for OS X (and other operating systems). This version fixes a problem with CSS style loading that broke after the 3.1.1 Safari/WebKit update.
• Bee Docs Timeline – Standard Edition – 2.1 – One of the best timeline makers for OS X fixes some minor bugs. Watch for an upcoming Timeline 3D review.
• BurnAgain FS – 1.0 – Re-packaged and feature updates version of BurnAgain DVD that adds native OS filesystem burning support for mutli-sesion media.
• Evernote 1.1 – Your personal memory manager adds support for PDF files, including a “Save PDF to Evernote” print/PDF dialog option (it even indexes the PDFs!), full Spotlight integration, new view panes & modes + the ability to encrypt portions of notes (don’t forget to check out our review of the initial release). Sounds like a new review is order as well!
• Acorn 1.2 – I missed this in the last update and really felt the need to include it since there are a slew of impressive updates. New filters, layer options (and a nifty drag & drop way to create layers), JPEG 2000 support and more. Photoshop: watch out.

Tell us your picks for the best updates/releases (or keep me honest by pointing out something I’ve missed) this previous week by dropping a note in the comments.

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• VMware Fusion 2 Beta – this popular virtualization tool adds enhanced graphics & printing capabilities plus more diverse import options
• OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta – one of the most comprehensive (only?) open source office suites adds native OS X Aqua support plus many enhancements to importing files, charting & layout viewing plus new spreadsheet collaboration options
• Transmission 1.20 – a full-featured BitTorrent client which has added support for https tracker connections, IP blocking via Bluetack Level 1 blocklist, better support for mutli-tracker torrents, faster UPnP startup port mapping, statistics resetting and updated Dock badge images
• CoverStream 2.0 – the application that brought CoverFlow to your Desktop has dramatically reduced its memory and disk footprint while also increasing speed twofold and adding new filtering & browsing features along with support for Apple Remotes and integration with Last.FM
• Parallels Desktop 3.0 Build 5600.0 – that other virtualization tools which has fixed many bugs and included support for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 & XP SP3
• OmniGraffle 5.0.1 beta 1 – the drawing tool for OS X smashes a slew of bugs & crashers
• OmniPlan 1.5.1 – this simple & efficient project management tool has also smacked a ton of bugs, enhanced AppleScript support and enhances security (the app is now code signed)
• Audacity 1.3.5 – this great, open source audio tools gets even better with the ability to record onto the end of existing tracks, updates to suppotig libraries, enhanced user interface elements and many bug fixes
• NetNewsWire 3.1.6 – the “gold standard” in feed readers fixes a nasty memory leak
• Vidnik – a new tool from the fine folks over at Google that lets you use the built-in camera on your Mac to create movies and upload them to YouTube
• Ascent 1.9.2 – this amazing GPS-enabled cyclist/runner/hiker application adds support for new devices, better track manipulation functionality and enhanced drag/drop features
• GPSBabel 1.3.5 – a handy GPS “Swiss Army knife” squashes bugs, adds support for new devices, enhances the user interface and improves document support/compatibility

Full disclaimer: I either regularly use these apps and updated them or deliberately gave them a go this past week. I’m always on the lookout for new toys/tools, so drop me a note if you release new stuff!

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks