attempt

Jun 12 2008

Fireball dares promote MacHeist after fierce criticism. Bundle sweetened!

dfmacheist 20080612 192650 Fireball dares promote MacHeist after fierce criticism. Bundle sweetened!

In an attempt to save the sadly flopping MacHeist Retail Bundle promotion, the heisters have reinvented it by added few awesome new items to the list.

If you were watching the MacRumorsLive coverage of the WWDC keynote on Monday, you may have noticed the MacHeist banner. I did. And when I clicked it I found that Vector Designer (normally USD$69.95), TextExpander (normally USD$29.95)
and Sound Studio (normally USD$79.99) had been added to the MacHeist bundle. Also, if you happened to have clicked that banner and purchased on Monday, you also would have received VoodooPad (USD$29.95) as a thank you for being a MacRumorsLive reader.

Why am I telling you this after the deal has expired? Because the deal has been re-offered in a way that I don’t quite get: now it’s being offered to readers of Daring Fireball.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Daring Fireball or its readers. It’s a smart blog and its readers show their smarts by reading it. But here’s where I’m stumped and maybe you can help me out with this. Daring Fireball has historically criticized MacHeist and scrutinized the promotion by published its earnings scorecard. These stories raised a stink that caught the attention of Slashdot and started a bit of an anti-MacHeist blog buzz. (important note: Gus Mueller, the author of the article I just linked is also the developer behind Voodoo Pad, the application being offered by MacHeist as a thank you to Daring Fireball readers)

Then, earlier this year, like all was well and good, Daring Fireball took MacHeist on as a sponsor and took a little bit of heat for it. That’s fine: a post explained that advertisements aren’t endorsements. Bills need to be paid. Understood. I don’t agree, but I understand.

But now Daring Fireball is actually part of the action. There is a specific MacHeist page for Daring Fireball readers and Daring Fireball’s own post about MacHeist mentions how its readers can get the extra app. I personally think this crosses the line into endorsement. What do you think?

Did I miss something? I have always liked both Daring Fireball and MacHeist, so I’m happy to see them working together. I just wonder how they went from bitter enemies to bosom buddies so abruptly.

Anyway, if you already bought the MacHeist Retail Bundle, you should go avail yourself of the new apps. And if you haven’t, you might want to look over the new expanded selection of software and see if the miniscule USD$49 price tag is worth it for the apps you actually anticipate using. The new bundle is on sale until 2PM EDT on June 24th, 2008.

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Jun 3 2008

Monopoly on the iPod. (dibs on the race car)

monopoly 20080603 195523 Monopoly on the iPod. (dibs on the race car)This morning the classic board game of all classic board games was released for the iPod–Monopoly. As a dyed in the wool, “no money for landing on Free Parking,” Monopoly purist, I have yet to find a computerized interpretation of this real estate conquest game that comes anywhere close to the sense of nostalgia that comes with the ritual of rolling the dice, buying up properties and hoarding wads of cash in neat stacks under your edge of the board. It’s a difficult thing to capture but this attempt by Electronic Arts aims to try by replacing “wheeling and dealing” with “click wheeling and dealing” and by allowing multiplayer play by requiring the iPod to be passed to the next player.

It may not be the ideal board game playing experience, but for USD$4.99, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better alternative for those long family road vacations this summer.

[ Via Macworld ]

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Mar 28 2008

Freeway 5 released to the open road

fw5 pro solo 20080327 210451 Freeway 5 released to the open road

Softpress Systems has released Freeway 5, the latest version of their web design software. The software uses a traditional page layout approach in an attempt to make it easy to create dynamic websites without the need to write code. Both Freeway 5 Pro and Freeway 5 Express are now available for sale and 30-day trials.

Alongside Freeway’s existing features (Master Pages, Freeway Shop, etc.), Freeway 5 has a wide-range of new functionality including:

  • CSS menus
  • Personalized Blogger templates
  • A suite of Google Actions to allow users to add Google content
  • script.aculo.us Actions (fade, blind, pulsate and more)
  • Accessibility provisions, including reports and views to ensure your target audience gets exactly what they need.
  • Many other new features and improvements, including sliced background images, background effects, new graphic effects, nested HTML lists, Save Archive, iPhoto import, color labeling, and more.

Full versions of Freeway 5 Pro can be purchased for USD$249, and Freeway 5 Express is USD$79.Purchasers of Freeway 4 after January 1st, 2008 are entitled to a free upgrade to Freeway 5.

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