Business applications for small and medium-sized businesses shared floor space with the Apple Mini and iPod shuffle demonstrations at Macworld.SAN
FRANCISCO—Tucked away in discreet corners beyond the Apple Mini and iPod shuffle
demonstrations at the Macworld conference here are business applications for
small and medium-sized organizations.
Among the more prominent new products
introduced at the show is FileMaker Inc.'s Recruiter 2.0 application, which is a
ready-to-use FileMaker Pro 7 package that helps corporate and professional
recruiters identify and track candidates or communicate with clients and hiring
managers.
Steve Jobs introduces the Apple and iPod mini. Click
here to read more.
Recruiter 2.0 was heavily redesigned to
work with the features in FileMaker Pro 7, which was introduced in spring 2004.
New features in Recruiter 2.0 include
built-in security with predefined access privilege sets, the ability to import
data from e-mail client address books and a quick view of outstanding actions on
the home page, such as contact interactions, group interactions and searches.
Owners of Recruiter 1.x can upgrade to
the new version for free. First-time buyers can acquire Recruiter 2.0 for $299
at FileMaker's Web store.
Third-party application developers also
demonstrated their software at FileMaker's booth. For example, Base Builders LLC
of Reno, Nev., introduced the full-feature version of its Praesto Jr.—a project
scheduling application based on the FileMaker Pro 7 database.
FileMaker Pro 7 is an eWEEK Labs Analyst's
Choice winner. Click here to read the review.
The full edition is based on Praesto
Jr. that Base Builders produced under contract to FileMaker. FileMaker worked
with Base Builders to produce a starter project management application designed
to work with creative professionals, such as advertising agencies, fashion
designers, Web site designers, video producers, graphic artists and
photographers.
Like all project management software,
Praesto Jr. allows users to track project schedules, milestones, tasks, clients
and contacts in the fast-paced creative services market, which sudden changes
and schedule updates are the rule rather than the exception.
Praesto Jr. is part of the Creative Pro
Starter Kit, a free bundle of five ready-to-use database applications designed
to help creative professionals with scheduling, billing, job tracking and
creating digital libraries that store images, sounds and video clips.
Also at Macworld, App4Mac introduced
xTime Project 3.0, a general-purpose project management package for Mac OS X.
The new version includes a redesigned interface running on a new project
management engine for improved performance.
The new interface makes it easier to
view and manage conflicts between resources. It also makes it easier to manage
multiple projects.
The new version also provides improved
import-export support for Microsoft Project documents. App4Mac,
based in Millbrae, Calif., has
also improved the ability to export project documents to Web folders along with
better HTML management.
Softobe Inc., a producer of office
automation software for graphic studios and publishing companies, is
demonstrating at the show PowerCube, a three-dimensional real-time animation and
presentation design package for Mac OS X.
The Softobe package is
designed enable designers to create intricate 3-D animations with the simplicity
of a 2-D presentation package by dragging and dropping images, movies, text and
audio clips onto the PowerCube screen.
All of these elements can be embedded
into preprogrammed 3-D geometric objects, such as cubes, rectangles, cylinders
and spheres, which the designer can animate at will.
PowerCube includes a sprites console
that allows designers to control the timing of all graphic objects by dragging
and resizing each spring along its channel. Other controls enable designers to
control audio timing and volume to conform to actions on the screen.
Furthermore, designers can organize
sprite channels into hierarchical tables to enable them to create groups of
objects that exhibit independent behaviors assigned to individual objects or
groups of objects.
Meanwhile Recosoft
Corp. is demonstrating
PDF2Office, a utility that converts Adobe Systems Inc. PDF documents into files
that can be fully edited in Microsoft Word, AppleWorks, RTF and HTML formats.
PDF2Office forms paragraphs; applies
font styles; extracts images; preserves tables; and processes headers, footers,
endnotes, footnotes and independent graphic elements as they appear in the PDF
document, said Paul Chadha, vice president of engineering and product
development with Recosoft, based in Osaka, Japan.
The package includes a batch conversion
feature that allows users to convert entire folders of PDF files at once, Chadha
said. The package also converts PDF pages into multiple formats, including JPEG,
Photoshop, PNG or bit map, he said.
PDF2Office works closely with Microsoft
Word X/2004, so users can directly open PDF documents in Microsoft Work, Chadha
said.
Document Management 
