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]