Miro's search bar now lets you search all its engines at once.
(Credit: Participatory Culture Foundation)The open-source, DRM-free video platform called Miro (download for Windows and Mac) has just released an upgrade with two small but useful improvements. A new search feature lets you search all available sites simultaneously, and torrent support has been greatly improved.
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With Macworld in full swing, throngs of people are flooding the streets of San Francisco to check out the latest offerings from Apple and all the other vendors exhibiting their wares at the expo. But some Mac-related stuff is only indirectly related to what's happening on the showroom floor or how thin the new MacBook Air is.
One thing I've noticed as a Mac software editor is how, when Apple has its biggest show of the year, the majority of Mac software developers figure it is the best time to release an update for their apps. I've rounded up my Top 5 popular programs that have updated in the last few days so we can all take advantage of this flood of major updates for top Mac software. A few of these will be old favorites, but all are worthy downloads if you're looking to try something new on your Mac.
As more movies become available, iTunes movie rentals are sure to make waves in the industry.
(Credit: CNET Networks)I obviously could have chosen any number of new updates from Apple, but the biggest of the week is probably iTunes. With the announcement of the addition of Movie rentals and added features for Apple TV, the latest version of iTunes is a must-have for all Mac users. I already wrote about the latest update for iTunes in my last post, but after talking with some of my Mac-using friends, we wonder what the real impact will be on other movie outlets. Let me know in the comments how you feel about iTunes movie rentals and whether you think Apple can compete with Netflix or Blockbuster.
Professional layout and illustration tools are easily accessible and affordable with this app.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Freeverse software has always been a favorite publisher of mine for creative and funny games and made-for-Mac apps. Though Adobe's Illustrator CS3 is probably the king of the vector graphics and layout apps, the price tag of $599 is prohibitive to most casual users. Freeverse's Lineform is a slimmed-down, affordable vector graphics and illustration program with expert typesetting, gradients, free-flowing text, and much more. At only $79, this app is definitely worth checking out for illustration projects.
Create complex motion paths across a photograph with varying zoom levels for a dramatic effect.
(Credit: CNET Networks)If you're wondering what to do with all your great holiday photos, check out Photo to Movie. Updated this week, this little app lets you take a digital photo and turn it into a dramatic presentation by using intuitive zoom and pan features. You'll be surprised with what you can create using a digital photo and your favorite MP3 as background music. Even better, it's compatible with iDVD, iMovie, and Final Cut. Photo to Movie is great for custom screensavers, too.
Create channels to browse all the videos from a particular feed.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Included in my Best Mac software of 2007 post, Miro received an update this week making the streaming video app even better. Set up like an RSS feed reader, Miro lets you subscribe to video podcasts and search popular sites like YouTube for all the video content you could ever want. This weeks big update adds better torrent support so videos get to you even more quickly. It also doesn't hurt that this great app is free.
The addition of ATSUI for text rendering greatly improves handling of all types of characters.
(Credit: CNET Networks)I've often touted the importance of a good text editor, and this weeks update for TextWrangler was one of my first Macworld downloads. From Bare Bones Software, the makers of BBEdit, this free, slimmed-down text editor has a documents drawer and navigation bar, which make it easier to switch between multiple documents while conserving screen real estate. Even though it was made with markup coders and programmers in mind, TextWrangler is great for anyone who needs a place to take notes and manipulate text quickly.
Did you download a useful program update this week that is not on this list? Let me know in the comments!
The Participatory Culture Foundation's universal video player has finally left the development world with its first non-beta release, Miro 1.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. There are very few changes to distinguish this version from the previous beta versions that have come out in the past two months. Beside the fact that you can now delete a video while it's playing with impunity, all the changes are minor bug fixes to sort out stability concerns and other small tweaks.
The biggest crash issue that was fixed on the Windows version was a bug where video thumbnail regeneration was causing the app to die. Another problem, where the Avast antivirus program was incorrectly flagging the Miro beta as spyware, seems to have been resolved, too.
Poised to become the ultimate desktop video app, Miro handles every major video format we tried, including MPEG, Quicktime, AVI, H.264, Divx, Windows Media, Flash Video, 3GP, and others. It downloads torrents and has a wealth of settings geared for user customization: You can e-mail videos, auto-delete, auto-download, set favorites, organize your video collection, and more. Also, by arranging content feeds into "channels," Miro has shown that there's no need to reinvent television terminology when it's useful.
With most of the stability issues resolved, Miro has jumped from a good idea with unfortunate usage problems to one of the strongest desktop user experiences combining the influx of Web-based video content with an open-source sensibility.
Miro is a repository of free video programming, similar to Joost. It also might tell this fur seal where its bucket lies.
(Credit: Participatory Culture Foundation)
Miro Public Preview 3 has been unleashed for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It seems like this is the version of the freeware Internet TV channel player and aggregator that we've all been waiting for. Crashes seem to be a problem mostly of the past. The smart player, able to download content on the fly as well as play nearly any video on your machine makes Miro's appeal hard to resist.
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