Every time I attend some interesting event, I regret only having two hands and one camera at my disposal. Sometimes, I simply leave my camera aside and treasure the memory of that event, especially when others don't bug me to come and take some shots for their collections. Anyway, no matter what I do, I always dream of having at least five or six cameras at my disposal, and a serious piece of software to manage them all... as well as being able to handle various additional tasks!

The live event production software we'll talk about today made me laugh, but not because there's something really wrong with it. I always enjoy finding funny names, and right after Sausage Software, Boinx Software gets a very good mark from me simply because the well chosen and interesting name. Leaving food aside, this company makes me think about "boing, boing, boing," and some jokes that come with it.

No, no jokes today, because Boinx Software is really serious with BoinxTV, although this piece of code only reached version 1.3. Jointly developed by Boinx Software and TheCodingMonkeys, BoinxTV allows you to create Live to Internet, Live to Disk, and Live to Stage video, and it doesn't stop here, since it also comes with advanced sharing features.

Some of the most important features and changes found in BoinxTV 1.3 can be checked below:

- Resize Documents
- Improved device A/V sync
- Automatically create device sources
- Veescope Softlyght keyer
- Image adjustments filter
- New additional parameters to adjust font kerning of title and subtitle (Lower Thirds)
- Transparency is now supported (Placer with Transition)
- Improved performance (Presenter)

Of course, the above is only a small slice of a huge pie, so if you have an Intel-based Mac with discrete graphics from ATI or NVIDIA, or at least the latest PowerMac G5 with a ATI graphics and a minimum of 2GB of RAM, you can give BoinxTV a try.

The free demo license allows you to run it for as long as a month, and the single license is priced at $499. On the other hand, those on a budget can try the BoinxTV Sponsored Edition for $199, this one requiring a credit for BoinxTV in every video created with it.

A download manager for Macs, Windows PCs, or Linux systems is NOT what I would like to be in need of, and the reason should be obvious - as long as your connection speed is good, you don't need such a thing. On the other hand, the previous statement is false, because no matter how fast your connection may be, there's always some large and naughty file that may fail downloading properly when reaching 99% completion, so... there's still some use for download managers these days, no matter what some or others may say!

Before moving on to the topic, let me add that, if you really want to avoid installing a download manager, you should use a Web browser that comes with a built in one, although most of them can't resume interrupted downloads or accelerate your download using multiple streams. OK, now...

... let's see what's new with Speed Download, a download manager for Macs that has just been "overhauled from top to bottom," according to the company behind it, namely Yazsoft, shall we?

As you probably expected, Speed Download is a very easy to use piece of code, also able to provide powerful download management features. It has been expressly designed by its creators to be "the mother of all downloads," easily handling almost any downloading or file transfer activity you can think of.

The key features of version 5.1.4 include

- New: Optimized and turbo-charged for Mac OS X 10.5.7
- New: Optimized and turbo-charged for Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5
- Updated: Tweaked SD plugin performance
- Updated: Enhanced the resuming functionality for even broader compatibility with new servers
- Updated: More tweaks to FTP connectivity and compatibility
- Fixed: Addressed issue with saved FTP servers not remembering their local path in SD
- Misc: Various internal tweaks

Currently available in US English, French, and Polish, Speed Download 5.1.4 requires Mac OS X 10.4.11, 19 MB of drive space, and - obviously - some kind of Internet connection and Mac OS X Web browser. Priced at $25 a single user license, Speed Download is also available for a limited time in a discounted promo bundle, together with ShareTool.

If I would be forced to choose between losing my left leg and using an iPhone for office tasks, I don't think the choice would be that easy. While losing a leg can be really bad, working on a tiny screen with tables and large text documents is even worse, at least to me. Anyway, for those of you who really need to do such things, here's the iPhone document viewer from Readdle, namely ReaddleDocs, released right on the 13th of May...

... when it reached version 1.5, and now you can get it for a 50% discount, but this offer ends on the 17th of the month. OK, so you have about three days left to take advantage of this deal, but why should you buy this piece of code, anyway?

Well, ReaddleDocs is more than just another iPhone document viewer. After all, you can't ask $4.99 just for that, right? Well, you can, but you won't get too far with it, especially since the competition is so strong when it comes to software for the iPhone, so ReaddleDocs brings together a network file server, a web storage client and a Web browser, as well as a file manager and the powerful document viewer you were expecting to get already. Now, that's much better!

Available as a free upgrade for existing users, ReaddleDocs 1.5 can view iWork '09 documents saved with preview, as well as upload files to systems using the WebDAV online file storage, like the MobileMe iDisk.

These being said, there's only one more thing to say - availability. Unfortunately for those who aren't crazy about the App Store, this program is an App Store exclusive, and you can only get it from here...

Being an employee, it happens to be monitored by the company you work for in some cases. Nothing bad here, as long as they tell you about it first. While this is a two headed monster, since it can increase productivity, but it can also kill it, it's not only companies that need Mac surveillance. After all, it gets harder with each day for kids to be safe in the online labyrinth... but before moving on, I have to tell you this: surveillance is OK, but only as long as the one being targeted knows about it!

The Mac surveillance tool we have here today comes from Altomac, and has just made its debut on the Mac software market, being labeled as version 1.0. Its name is User Monitor, and acts like a surveillance camera pointed straight at the desktop of any Mac, but with a lot of smart features, especially the ability to record user activity based on the application running at a certain time, for example only when he/she goes online using Safari.

While being focused on being easy to use and non-intrusive, as any Mac surveillance tool should be, User Monitor takes screenshots while working silently in the background, and I think this isn't the best approach to user surveillance, especially since it could end up filling all the available hard drive space with screen captures, and - because I am sure some people/companies will use it without telling the one(s) being watched - a smart user will surely figure out what's happening, sooner or later.

The feature highlights go below:

- Real Monitoring - Monitors the use of the computer by taking screen shots
- Easy to use - No special skills are required
- Password protected - No one can run User Monitor other than the administrator
- Nonintrusive - Doesn't interfere with other running applications
- Built-in Image Viewer - The Administrator can save on-disk images they need to keep
- Easy to install - Requires no special skills to set up

The minimum requirements of this program aren't scary at all, the producer only naming Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or later, 3.5 MB Hard Drive space, and (a lot of) disk space needed to store screenshots, but from my own experience with such programs, I can also tell that you need a pretty fast Mac. Taking screenshots and saving them to the disk doesn't just happen without any CPU/disk activity, that's obvious, so...

... I think that $47.95 is a bit too much for such a basic Mac surveillance tool, but if you really think there's no other way than this, you should first talk to the naughty users in your company/school/etc., and only after that, move on and buy User Monitor.

The easiest way to get some cell phone dating is to use your phone to call someone you already know and ask her/him out. I don't believe in "online dating," and the reason should be obvious - it doesn't work! I know quite a few couples that met online while looking for people sharing same hobbies & so on, but none of them were looking for a date, that's the idea. One can get a date online, but not when looking for one...

... but if you're really into browsing sites with pictures and lies about frustrated people hidden behind a screen... it's your choice. Your time, your hopes, your right to waste your energy on meaningless things, and because I know most people into online dating simply won't quit looking for the perfect match, here's something for them - cell phone dating for iPhone!

BumpChat 1.1 has just been released by Bump Mobile, turning location-aware mobile dating into reality. Next to that, you also get chat capabilities, just as any serious "online dater" should have. Riight?

Here's the full features list of this program:

- A full descriptive dating profile for people (age, gender, sexual orientation, etc) and high quality profile pictures
- Search by distance from your location
- Text and send pictures anonymously to other people
- Sort search results by last log-in time or distance from you
- Filter search results by gender, age range, sexual preference, distance from your, or partial name
- Maintain a hot-list of friends and when they last logged in
- Block people that you don't want to see or them to see you
- See people's online status and last time they logged into the application

Requiring any iPhone or iPod Touch using at least OS 2.2.1, BumpChat is currently being offered free of any charge, and it doesn't even have ads! Beware that this is a limited time offer, so step in and grab it via the iTunes App Store while you still can!