MacKiev
Latest
The Print Shop v2.0 Released
If you're an old-school Machead like me, chances are you've had more than one encounter with The Print Shop, an older but easy-to-use desktop layout program for the Macintosh. It used to be distributed by Broderbund, but disappeared for awhile during Apple's migration to Mac OS X. The software development company MacKiev picked up development of the title and released a very nice Mac OS X version of The Print Shop a year or so ago. And now they've just released The Print Shop v2.0.Version 2.0 has quite a few new features, including new DVD case layouts, drag-and-drop functionality with iPhoto, duplex printing, matching support for iDVD versions 3, 4, and 5, and also transparency and tint settings. They've more than doubled the number of graphics and photos included with the software and have significantly enhanced the toolsets to incude rulers, grids, guides, and snap-to functionality.The Print Shop v2.0 retails for $59.95 and will run natively on Apple's Intel Macs when they ship next year.I'm glad to see this software title is still being developed. Just last week, my sister was asking for an easy-to-use desktop publishing program to create cards, certificates, and brochures. I was going to recommend Swift Publisher (though I have very little experience with it), but I think I'll give The Print Shop a go. It's looking very good.
3D Weather Globe & Atlas
While on the Expo floor I wandered into the MacKiev booth (one of the biggest on the show floor) and gave 3D Weather Globe & Atlas a whirl. This is a nifty program that lets you spin the Earth around and look at various countries. This, in and of itself, is fun but not all that interesting. The really cool part is that you can overlay real cloud data on the globe, add night/day, have cities represented as points of light, and get the weather for a number of cities.Playing with it made me feel a little like a James Bond villian; I wanted to target my weather machine at all the major cities of the world and demand the UN pay me 1.5 billion dollars to ensure their citizens would be safe.I was asked to leave the booth after I started laughing manacially.
