First Look: JoeSoft's Stox stock tracking app...

Stock trading is becoming increasingly popular as a way for individuals to make money for large expenditures, while some individual investors even make a living from the practice either professionally or privately. As Mac systems become more popular, the need for Apple's platform to fit in with all aspects spurred ProSoft Engineering to unveil a new stock monitoring application called Stox. The software, which is published under its consumer brand, JoeSoft, is designed to allow users to track stock portfolios as well as trading transactions. Stox also supplies users with pertinent information about the past, present, and potential future of chosen investments. [corrected, updated]

Refurbished aluminum iMacs from $1,049

Apple's online store is offering refurbished current-generation aluminum iMacs for as little as $1,049 with a standard one-year warranty and free shipping. The Cupertino-based company has listed its reconditioned aluminum iMac 20-inch 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 1GB of memory, a 250GB hard drive, an 8X SuperDrive CD/DVD burner, and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics card for $1,049. Two other aluminum iMacs -- the 20-inch 2.4GHz model and the 24-inch 2.4GHz model priced at $1,299 and $1,549, respectively -- are also available with 1GB of memory, a 20GB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive CD/DVD burner, and an ATI Radeon HD2600 PRO graphics card. Apple's online offerings also list a Mac mini 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with 1GB of memory, a 120GB hard drive, and a SuperDrive CD/DVD burner for $679.

Apple files for GUI, podcast related patents...

Apple has filed a new patent detailing a means of easily modifying desktop backgrounds as well as several patents related to podcasts and the company's popular iPod player. Apple's background patent, titled 'Manipulating Desktop Backgrounds,' describes a graphical user interface to help users change and transform a desktop pattern. Users can select a desktop image and immediately crop, rotate, or perform numerous other modifications directly in the background selection area.

Apple, Zune web traffic surge on Christmas...

Traffic to the websites for Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune has made major strides on Christmas day, according to new information published by stats tracker Hitwise. The Zune in particular saw major gains, with traffic nearly tripling at 299 percent compared to the Christmas before; the increase was also a 392 percent spike versus the 24th. Most of the visits are connected to downloading the necessary Zune software and to sign up for the Zune Social service that lets users share their music tastes online, Hitwise says.

Apps: 3ivx; Speed Download; MBS REALbasic plug-ins

• 3ivx MPEG-4 5.0.2 ($7) is a video codec usable in any application QuickTime supports, such as Final Cut Pro; it is said to maintain the same quality as Apple's MPEG-4 files, but with smaller file sizes and faster encoding. The v5.0.2 release fixes an exploit in the Filter suite, and adds compatibility with both Mac OS X 10.5 and QuickTime 7.3. Mac OS X 10.3.9 and QuickTime 7 or later is required. [Download - 960KB]


• Speed Download 4.1.19 ($25) is a download manager that features an FTP client, auto-resuming transfers, and integration with web browsers. The latest patch includes an updated SD plug-in, which can now open partial SD files, and better handle multiple web links. Leopard support now includes Bonjour compatibility, and performance tweaks for the v10.5.1 OS update. [Download - 7MB]


• MBS REALbasic plug-ins 7.8 ($286) extend REALbasic with over 900 classes and 18,000 functions. Among the changes in v7.8 are an upgrade to Mac KRM 1.0.7, NSControlMBS and NSButtonMBS classes, a QTSoundOutputMBS.Finished event and a WebViewMBS.dashboard behavior. The plug-in runs with REALbasic 5.5 or later, and needs at least 300MB of hard drive space. [Download - 79MB]


• BurnAgain DVD 1.2.2 ($24) is a multi-session burning app that can copy without creating a unique volume for each session; is is purportedly the only Mac software that can do this with CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-RW discs. The latest edition solves CD and DVD-RW burning problems with specific drives, and makes some minor interface adjustments for Leopard. Users must have Mac OS X 10.3 or greater for CD burning, or v10.4 or higher for DVD-RWs. [Download - 1MB]


• iWisdom 1.60 (free) organizes quotes and other insights, allowing users to search them by categories such as year and author. Files can also be exported to the web and/or RSS feeds. Version 1.60 improves the Import function, allowing it to spot duplicates and merge them together instead of creating a second entry. The software requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, as well as Java 1.4.2. [Download - 3.3MB]


• xSort 1.5.4 ($30) models card-sorting exercises, and presents the results using statistics and clustering algorithms. This lets web developers, for instance, gauge how to organize a site so that users can most easily find what they are searching for. The v1.5.4 patch enables exports to HTML files, and quashes a bug which prevented reports from displaying in their entirety. xSort runs on Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher. [Download - 6MB]

Apple takes kudos in Amazon Best of 2007...

Apple has placed multiple times in Amazon's Best of 2007 rankings, the latter company has announced. While no Apple product was a bestseller, the MacBook Pro has been named the "Most Loved" -- highest-rated -- computer, while Mac OS X Leopard has been picked as the favorite piece of software. The 4GB, third-generation iPod nano, meanwhile, was the "Most Wished-For" product under Electronics, and was joined under the "Most Popular Gift" categories by the basic MacBook.