After reading about this little diddy on TUAW I had to check it out myself. Outer Level’s LicenseKeeper 1.0 is a US$20 software license manager that stores all the pesky serial numbers and license files that you undoubtedly have cluttering your hard drive in one neat place. (You do have licenses for all your software, don’t you?)

If you’re anything like me you probably keep your software licenses in a Microsoft Excel file, or worse just stored in email, which you then rely on Spotlight searching to find.

The problem is that not every application uses a simple serial number methodology. Some programs use license files and/or receipts to register themselves and LicenseKeeper has these covered as well. Inside the application you can attach an email, document or application to each record, so you’ll never have to hunt around for that license file next time you upgrade your hard drive or change computers and need to re-install your apps.

Outer Level : LicenseKeeper 1.0

technorati tags:license, keeper, software, serial, number, database

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Palm Inc., the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple’s new iPhone.

The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago at Palm on a line of new products, a company spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment further on the project.

Mr. Mercer, 39, joined Palm with two employees from Iventor, the independent design firm that he headed in Palo Alto, Calif., but Palm did not acquire the company, said the spokeswoman, Marlene Somsak. Palm is based in nearby Sunnyvale.

Palm Responds to the iPhone – New York Times

technorati tags:palm, treo, apple, designer, iphone

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On Monday, Carbon Copy Cloner, the shareware favorite for drive cloning operations by Mike Bombich, has released a version 3.0 beta. The new version, a 1.9 megabyte download, adds the following changes:
-Support for block-level disk-to-disk clones.
-Support for backing up across the network.
-The ability to drill down into folders to select exactly what gets copied and what doesn’t (you can drill down indefinitely).
-A more responsive interface and the ability to stop the clone.
-More accurate feedback during the clone.
Click the jump for the full story…

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Apple justed aired their first television commercial for iPhone on the ABC network during the Oscars.
The iPhone ad can be found here.
PowerPage reader Arthur Greenwald lists all the actors in order.
I’m sure of all but about three of them…. can anyone fill in the blanks for #10, 11 and 16?
1. Lucille Ball (TV)
2. Jackie Gleason (TV)
3. Humphrey Bogart
4. Marlon Brando
5. Jerry Lewis
6. Marilyn Monroe
7. Clark Gable
8. Peter Sellers
9. Steve McQueen
10. Richard Dreyfuss ?
11. Roy Scheider ?
12. Betty Rubble (animated)
13. Robert Redford
14. Michael J. Fox
15. Harrison Ford
16. Man at desk (Keanu Reeves?)
17. Audrey Tatou
18. Kevin Spacey
19. William H. Macy
20. Dustin Hoffman
21. Will Farrell
22. Sarah Jessica Parker
23. Jeff Bridges
24. Billy Crystal
25. Carmen Diaz
26. Samuel L. Jackson
27. John Travolta
28. Robert DeNiro
29. Ben Stiller
30. Michael Douglas
31. Mr. Incredible (animated)

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Democracy Player, the popular open source media player program in the vein of VLC, has been updated to version 0.9.5.1.
The new version, an 8.9 megabyte download, repairs bugs between the program’s python code and Mac management favorites such as Growl and Camino.
Other repaired bugs included a Linux error that prevented preferences from being saves and a Windows bug in which the player window couldn’t be resized.
In addition to acting as a media player, Democracy also acts as an RSS-enabled television program of sorts, chasing after preferred updated content and putting it aside in an iTunes playlist fashion for the user.
Democracy Player requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later and QuickTime 7 to run. The program is donationware, so if you like it, chip in a few dollars online to the authors.
If you’ve had either positive or negative experiences with the new version, let us know.

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UK-software firm Kandalu has released the first version of its Kandalu X Cube software utility.
The program allows users to copy music on their iPod over to their computer and vice versa via iTunes. Users can also create a CD cover from selected iTnes songs in Microsoft Word featuring the artist, track and album information found in their iTunes music library.
Kandalu X Cube is available for a US$28 shareware registration fee and is a 4 megabyte download courtesy of MacUpdate.
The program is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.
Give it a try and if you have an opinion about what you see, let us know.

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NoodleSoft’s Hazel (US$16, free trial) is great little application that I read about on TUAW that sounded right up my alley. From their product page:

Hazel works on whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface similar to that of Apple Mail so you should feel right at home. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they need to be.

As you can imagine, I download a heck of a lot of things daily and since Flock/Firefox can’t seem to remember my downloads location preference < !> I end up with a cluttered desktop that I have to clean daily before it gets out of control. Like David Chartier, I created a simple rule that combs my desktop and puts in their correct locations. This application is gold I tell you, gold.

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Bare Bones Software‘s BBEdit, long the poweruser favorite as a text editor and HTML generation tool, has been updated to version 8.6.1. The new version, a 14.3 megabyte download, brings new features such as syntax coloring for Mac OS X’s .strings file format, a reversible documents drawer and support for the LaTeX command “\verb”.
Users will also find improved notices about whether a site license or KeyServer license has been used to activate their copy of BBEdit and fixes to the “Apply Text Factory” command to help the program function as a text editor.
A slew of listed bug fixes can be found on the current notes page.
BBEdit requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to run and retails for a US$125 purchase fee and US$30/US$40 ugrade fee from older versions.
The program is a Universal Binary and functions natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.

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Prosoft Engineering has released Drive Genius 1.5.3, an updated version of its drive repair and recovery program for Mac OS X.
The new version, a 17.5 megabyte download, allows for a Mac OS X 10.4.8 boot CD capable of booting the most recent Macs.
Drive Genius retails for US$99 and requires a G3, G4, G5 or Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later installed to work. The application is a Universal Binary and functions natively under both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.
If you’ve tried the updated version and have had good or bad experiences with it, let us know.

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Hendrik Holtmann’s smcFanControl freeware utility has reached version 2.0 and added additional functionality.
Once exclusively a small program centered around controlling the fan speed of Apple’s Intel-based laptops, the new version allows full control of every Intel-based Mac, including desktop units.
Like the original version, smcFanControl 2.0 allows users to specify the minimum speed in the system’s built-in fan without reducing the fan speed to a level where heat builds up and damages internal components.
The new version offers the following changes:
-The software’s interface now resides in the menu bar as opposed to the Dock for easier access.
-Version 2.0 allows users to configure different settings and quickly activate them.
-Laptops can have different fan settings configured and these settings can be autoapplied when power sources change, such as a user removing the power adapter and running solely off the battery.
-The new version can be added to Mac OS X’s login items.
-The new version now uses standard Mac OS X authentication.
smcFanControl 2.0 is available for free and is a 568 kilobyte download.
If you’ve had any experiences with the software, good or bad, let us know.

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