Early Tuesday, Mozilla.org released version 3.5.2 of its Firefox web browser.
The new version, a 17.5 megabyte download, sports the following fixes and changes:
* Several security issues.
* Images with ICC profiles now render properly on all monitors.

Firefox 3.5.2 is available in more than 70 different languages and requires a G3, G4, G5 or Intel-based Mac, Mac OS X 10.4 or later and 128MB of RAM to install and run.

If you’ve snagged the new version and have any feedback to offer about it, let us know in the comments.

Last Friday, Adobe released version 9.1.3 of Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, the company’s Portable Document Format reader and creation utility.

Adobe Systems has updated Acrobat and Reader to version 9.1.3. Both updates are available through the Adobe Updater application or for download through Adobe’s Web site.

The new versions of Acrobat and Reader both address “critical security vulnerabilities while providing more stability,” according to Adobe’s documentation.

Both Adobe Reader 9.1.3 and Adobe Acrobat 9.1.3 require Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

Michael Tsai’s must-have shareware program, SpamSieve, has just been updated to version 2.7.5. The new version, a 5.9 megabyte download, makes the following fixes and improvements:

* Made various accuracy improvements.
* Fixed a problem where Apple Mail (running on pre-release versions of Mac OS X 10.6) could freeze at launch if you had a rule involving address book groups.
* Rewrote the Setting up a Spam Filtering Drone instructions.
* Added Why does the Spam mailbox appear empty when there’s a number beside it? to the frequently asked questions.
* Updated the Automatically Deleting Old Spam Messages instructions to include Entourage.
* The search fields are now scrollable.
* The Apple Mail plug-in is better at detecting when SpamSieve’s Dock icon is hidden.
* Worked around a problem where Mail could crash if you had installed two copies of the SpamSieve plug-in at the same time.
* Fixed a bug that could cause SpamSieve to freeze when applying a whitelist/blocklist rule involving certain regular expressions.
* The crash reporter works better with pre-release versions of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
* Fixed a bug that could prevent SpamSieve from launching.
* Updated the Dutch, Japanese, and Korean localizations.

SpamSieve is available for a US$30 registration fee and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to run. The new version can either be downloaded directly from the web site or brought up to the current version via the program’s built-in update feature.

Prosoft Engineering has released Drive Genius 2.1.1, an updated version of its drive repair and recovery program for Mac OS X.

The new version, a 33.3 megabyte download, offers the following fixes and features:
* Now supports Snow Leopard.
* Improved defragmentation functionality.
* Improved repartition performance and other improvements.

Drive Genius retails for US$99 and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later installed to work. The application is a Universal Binary and functions natively under both PowerPC and Intel-based hardware.

On Monday, Microsoft released updates for its Microsoft Office 2008 suite as well as its Open XML Converter applications.

The Office 2008 update (which functions as a second service pack), is a 297 megabyte download that offers the following fixes and changes with a full description of the changes available here:

• Stability is improved: This update fixes an issue that causes Office 2008 applications to exit unexpectedly when you open or use the applications.
• Setup Assistant displays a message when an invalid product key is used: This update fixes an issue that causes Setup Assistant to loop when the user enters an invalid product key. The Setup Assistant now displays a message and asks the user to enter a valid product key.
• Spell checking is improved when International System Preferences is set to Austrian or German input methods: This update fixes an issue in which the spell checking feature is disabled intermittently for Austrian and German languages.
• Text box and the custom tab stops on a ruler align on a PowerPoint slide: This update fixes an issue that causes the text box and the tab stops on the ruler not to line up appropriately.
• New controls for changing the alignment of text on chart elements: This update includes new controls for setting the vertical position, orientation, and custom angle of text in chart elements. It also includes controls for data label positions.
• Improvements for Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac: Stability is improved when you use Mail Merge with pictures.
  This update fixes an issue that causes Word to crash when you use the Mail Merge Manager to insert a record with pictures from an external data source into your main document.
• Notebook Layout View recovers audio notes after Word closes unexpectedly: This update fixes an issue that causes users to lose their audio notes when Word closes unexpectedly. When you restart Word, the AutoRecover file does not include the audio notes. This issue is fixed now.
• Performance is improved: This update fixes performance issues that occur in the following scenarios:
  When you use the Outline View.
  When you use Japanese characters and the Formatting Palette Styles functionality.
• Section indicator is included in the Word status bar: This update reintroduces the Section indicator to the status bar. The Section indicator provides the section number that you are currently viewing in your document.
• Reliability is improved with display redraw issues: This update fixes various display redraw issues that might occur when you scroll through a document that contain bullets and numbering.
• Compatibility with Word 2007 is improved: This update fixes an issue that causes a Word 2007 document that has table borders not to be displayed correctly when the document is viewed in Word 2008 for Mac.
• Reliability is improved when you copy a numbered list: This update fixes an issue that causes a numbered list to lose its formatting when it is copied into another document.
• Improved editing when you use Korean characters: This update fixes an issue that causes Korean characters in a document to display incorrectly when you press the arrow keys.
• Compatibility is improved with SpellCatcher X: This update fixes an issue that improves compatibility with SpellCatcher X.

Microsoft Office 2008 12.2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later to install and run.

Per the Open XML Converter 1.1 update, Microsoft released the 44.7 megabyte updater file for download. The new version of the utility (which lets you convert Open XML files that were created in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac or 2007 Microsoft Office for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac) boasts currently unspecified fixes and changes.

The application requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to and Microsoft Office X 10.1.9 or Microsoft Office 2004 11.4.0 or later to install and run.

Both updates can be located and installed with the Microsoft AutoUpdater application.

Over the weekend, Hulu released Hulu Desktop 0.9.6, a lean application for Mac OS X allowing users to navigate Hulu’s library via the Apple remote control. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled.

The application, a 2.2 megabyte download, is currently available as a public beta and requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or later with a 2.0 GHz or faster Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, 2 Mbps Internet connection and Adobe Flash Player 9.0.124 or later to install and run.

Late Thursday, Elgato Systems released version 3.1.2 of its EyeTV software application, which finds and tracks all television programming you want to see and allows users to pause live television and save content to file.

The new version, which can be found here (and can also be found through EyeTV 3.0′s update feature), adds the following fixes and features:

• For EyeTV Hybrid (US 2009 and EU 2008 models), as well as some older devices, when capturing analog video, the timeshift setting in Preferences > Devices is now applied while recording. When timeshifting is off, recordings will use less CPU, and will display with a lower latency.
• Quit and Sleep commands were added to EyeTV’s overlay menu.
• Pressing the “Stop” button on the infrared remote control while playing back a recording in the EyeTV overlay menu now features an option to delete the recording.
• Added support for widescreen (16:9) analog capture for all recent Elgato branded hardware. To enable widescreen capture, select “Stretch” from the View > Aspect Ratio menu. This feature is for capture of sources set to output 16:9 pictures squeezed into a standard definition output, usually set top boxes and DVD players. The output device should be set to 16:9 or “wide” output (as if it were feeding a widescreen TV).
• To cycle through EyeTV’s different aspect ratio options, select View > Aspect Ratio > Rotate or press Command-Option-5.
  For NTSC set top boxes connected via RF modulation, EyeTV now supports channels 2 through 69 instead of 3 and 4.
• To aid in solving problems downloading TV Guide data, EyeTV now features a Gemstar Program Guide Diagnostics window, accessible from the Help menu. In order to obtain the most current TV Guide data, EyeTV now additionally downloads data for the second and seventh day out.

New Hardware:

• Support was added for the Devolo dLAN TV Sat, a DVB-S2 network tuner.

Bug Fixes:

• A problem where EyeTV for DTT was not recognized by the EyeTV Setup Assistant has been resolved.
• Problems detecting channels on DVB-S and DVB-S2 transponders with very high data rates have been resolved.
• Teletext highlighting now work when viewing in transparent mode.
• A crash at launch with corrupt preferences has been fixed.
• Crashes while using the auto-update feature have been eliminated.
• Invalid TitanTV Remote Scheduling account settings were not being reported correctly.
• For improved compatibility with Remote Buddy, direct AppleScript access to some overlay menus was added.
• The Apple Remote can no longer put the Mac to sleep while EyeTV is recording.
• A problem where EyeTV would not wake up for recordings if the Energy Saver System Preference contained scheduled sleep/shutdown times has been fixed.
• Problems exporting recordings with multiple Dolby Digital audio tracks have been resolved.
• Several crashes while exporting have been fixed.
• Added support for Eastern European ISO-8859-2 and ISO-8859-5 encodings for channel names and programming guide data.
• EyeTV no longer cancels downloading the programming guide when encountering minor errors.
• EyeTV now displays the file size number formatting in the international display format selected by the user.
• Teletext in subtitle (“transparent”) mode no longer inhibits the timeshift overlay.
• EyeTV now correctly sorts SmartGuide results by the “Where” column.
• France 2 HD and Arte HD are now automatically assigned to tvtv.
• A hang while quitting EyeTV in the middle of a program guide download has been eliminated.
• The EyeTV MPEG Support Component has been updated to fix an incompatibility with Perian and other MPEG-4 decoders that resulted in the first frame always being green.
• Exports to H.264 now include the QuickTime color info extension and the field info extension when the source is interlaced. This resolves dark playback in QuickTime Player.
• EyeTV now supports DivX 7.
• EyeTV is now compatible with the latest release of Flip4Mac Windows Media QuickTime components.
• The overlay menu now responds to infrared commands after changing inputs.
• A problem with white stripes at the edges of Apple TV exports with close captioning has been resolved.
• EyeTV no longer crashes at launch when there is a corrupted text-to-speed voice installed.
• After automatically updating to the latest version, the old version of EyeTV is always moved to the Trash.

EyeTV 3.1.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run. The program retails for US$79.95.

Software developer Mark/Space announced the released of Missing Sync for iPhone 2.0.2 on Wednesday. The Mac client of the application allows you to synchronize notes, documents, and tasks and archive text messages and call history from your iPhone onto your Mac (and vice-versa wherever it applies).

Version 2.0.2, a 13.2 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

• Added support for iPhone OS 3.0.
• Improved stability with importing Apple Notes, SMS and Call Log information.
• Fixed a problem that prevented the Check for Updates feature from installing the downloaded update.
• Fixed an issue where importing Apple notes could cause duplicate notes.
• Fixed an issue on Tiger (Mac OS X v10.4.x) where the client id we generated for Sync Services was too long (> 63 chars).
• Fixed a problem that could cause a crash when syncing Notes with Entourage.
• Added an “Import Apple Voice Memos” checkbox to the Notes plugin settings sheet that’s enabled only when syncing to Notebook. If checked, any recordings the user has made with the “Voice Memos” app are placed into a “Voice Memos” category in Notebook.
• Added an “Import Voicemails” checkbox to the Notes plugin settings sheet that’s enabled only when syncing to Notebook. If checked, any voicemails the user has on his iPhone are placed into a “Voicemail” category in Notebook.
• iTunes 2.8 has the option to encrypt backup files. If the option to encrypt backup files is enabled in iTunes, The Missing Sync cannot read call log, sms messages, voice memos, voicemail, or import Apple iPhone notes.

Missing Sync for iPhone 2.0.2 retails for US$40 for a single user license and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

Late Tuesday, virtualization softare maker VMWare released version 2.0.5 of its Fusion software for the Mac.

Similar to other virtualization software packages, VMWare allows users to run alternate operating systems such as Windows and Linux distributions on Intel-based Macs at native speeds. Other features, such as Unity, allow users to run and minimize Windows applications from the Mac OS X Dock.

The new version, a 289 megabyte download, offers the following new features and fixes:

• Supports Mac OS X Server guest operating systems on Macs with Intel Xeon 5500 and 3500 Series processors (based on Nehalem micro-architecture).
• Provides experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server as a guest operating system (32-bit only).
• Provides experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as a host operating system (32-bit only).
• Supports Ubuntu 9.04 as a guest operating system, including features such as VMware Tools pre-built modules and Easy Install.
• Reduces CPU usage when a virtual machine is idle under VMware Fusion.
• Contains fixes for more than 80 bugs.

The software requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run and retails for US$79.99.

CrossOver, the popular emulation program from CodeWeavers, has been updated to version 8.0. The new version, which is available as a demo, offers the following fixes and changes:

New application support:

• Quicken 2009
• Internet Explorer 7
• Photoshop CS2

MS Office 2003:

• Non-English language service packs should now apply.
• Word 2003: ‘Insert Field’ should now work properly.
• Word 2003: Table calculations fixed.
• Word 2003: Insert… Picture… From File improved.
• Outlook 2003: NTLM proxy authentication fixed.
• Excel 2003: Insert Picture improved.
• Outlook 2003: Problem with dropping into ‘disconnected’ mode is resolved.

MS Office 2007:

• Service Packs 1 and 2 now apply.
• Enterprise, Pro, and Corporate editions should now install.
• Word 2007: Fixed misbehavior when using the ‘insert image’ function.
• Several other Office service packs and add-ons should work better.

QuickTime 7:

• Intermittent hanging bugs should be fixed.

Several other general fixes.

• Outlook 2000: e-mail attachments should now work.
• Acrobat 5 and 7: “Save As” dialog no longer causes crashes.
• FrameMaker: Handling of PPD files improved on systems without CUPS.
• Word XP: “Combine Documents” fixed.
• Equation Editor should install and run.

Other crossover improvements:

• A ‘symbol’ font as been added. This should improve Equation Editor behavior.
• A couple of improvements were made to dual-monitor support on the Mac.
• Fixed problem with resizing windows on dual-head linux systems.
• KDE systray on SUSE 10.1 fixed.
• KDE Printer improved.
• Fixed a problem with demo registration and gksu version 2.0.2.
• Improved copy and paste.
• Added better 64-bit support in the RPM package.
• Updated many components to fix behavior on the upcoming Snow Leopard release of OS X.

CrossOver 8.0 retails for US$59.95 and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.