If you weren't fortunate enough to participate in MacHeist's latest escapade, you can at least reap the rewards of those who were. They have an amazing bundle of software available at a RIDICULOUS price. Not only that, but for every bundle sold they'll contribute a percentage to the charity of your choice (provided you choose from their list of pre-selected charities). They've already managed to raise almost $100,000 for charity and there's still 9 days to go on the sale. So head over, check out the deal, get yourself some fantastic apps, and boost your karma points all at the same time.

The ever-industrious folks over at MacZOT.com have discovered another gem of a product. Imagine, if you will a version of Apple's Spotlight that actually works the way you want it to. Well, that's what HoudahSpot claims to do for you. I took it for a spin and I must say I was pretty impressed. Not only does it use the same technology that Spotlight is based on [read FAST!], but it takes it to heretofore unimaginable places in the depths of your hard drive. You will find files you had long since forgotten or simply never knew existed. Maybe Apple will include this kind of functionality in Leopard. But until then I'll keep my finger on the HoudaSpot!

NOTE: You can head over to MacZOT to get a Free copy of HoudahSpot while supplies last. HURRY!

The fine folks over at BLOGZOT 2.0 on MacZOT.com have a fantastic offer for anyone interested in the collaborative software SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys. For every blog post matching specific criteria they will reduce the cost of a single license for SubEthaEdit to possibly as little as $0.00. If they reach that point MacZOT and TheCodingMonkeys will award $105,000 in Mac software, that's 3,000 copies of the program. I've had some limited experience with this software and can only say good things. And with an offer like this you can go wrong. Douglas Adams would be so proud.

It finally happened! the Mozilla group released an updated version of Firefox optimized for the Intel Macs. I would have mentioned it sooner but I've been giddy with browsery goodness!

Here's what's new in Firefox 1.5.0.2:
Universal Binary support for Mac OS X which provides native support for Macintosh with Intel Core processors. Firefox supports the enhancements to performance introduced by the new MacIntel chipsets.

So I finally got one of the coveted MBPros and have spent the last several days getting my feet wet on this new architecture. There's already been A LOT of anecdotal reviews on the new "PowerBook" so I won't bother to go into that here. However, in the process of updating as many of my apps to Universal Binary as possible I've had occasion to try out an alternative browser or two. Don't get me wrong, Safari is a fantastic browser, and Apple has done an increasingly bang-up job with this program. But I moved over to Firefox last Summer and really never looked back. However, until Firefox releases a UB I need to consider other options that don't force me to endure the SPoD so frequently. Enter Camino. I tried this browser out once or twice back when it was Chimera and it just didn't cut it, especially compared to the competition. However, with its 1.0 release it has really come into its own. The operative word is "fast!". Even with Safari being UB, Camino just blows it away in the launching, loading, and rendering categories. I'll miss my precious Firefox extensions and will hopefully return to the fold soon (please Mozilla team!). But until then, I think I've found my new, second-favorite browser. You can read more about it here, here, and here. Or just check it out for yourself.

The Slacker's Guide over at The Mac Observer has a nice write-up on one of the best available spam filters available for OS X.

...there's no fighting a marketing scheme that allows literally millions of people to be reached with a message for almost no money. Of course, some solutions are more effective than others. Enter SpamSieve.

We've been using this program for well over a year now and it successfully filters a good 98% of the spam that hits our numerous email accounts every day. Read the review or skip straight to the download and see for yourself. The best $25 you'll spend this week.

The Slacker's Guide - The Best Mail Filter Available: SpamSieve [MacObserver]

It's ironic that it took Microsoft discontinuing support for the Mac version of Windows Media Player to finally get a decent one. The folks over at Flip4Mac have released a WMV player that works within QuickTime. While by no means comprehensive, I've used it on a number of different WMV files and it seems to work very well. Unfortunately, MS has purchased the company so it remains to be seen if the product will remain in production. Here's hopin'! You can download your own FREE copy here.