Type of Article: MacNews Web Site

Filter Forge has released Filter Forge 2.0, an update of the plug-in for Adobe Photoshop allowing computer artists to build their own filters: textures, visual effects, distortions, patterns, backgrounds, frames and more.

With the second version of the software. Filter Forge 2.0 features full support for unlimited HDR colors, shadows via ambient occlusion, point and area lights, and dozens of new components to create filters from. Filter Forge is a Photoshop plug-in that lets users create a variety of realistic and abstract textures and effects.

Opera Software (http://www.opera.com/browser/next/) has released Opera 10.60, a new version of its web browser that’s purportedly more than 50% faster than its predecessor on selected JavaScript tests.

Houdah Software (http://www.houdah.com/) has updated HoudahSpot, their Spotlight front end for Mac OS X, to version 3.0. The new version adds a full set of tools for tagging files as well as for finding tagged files.

Tags are non-hierarchical keywords assigned to files. They serve a similar purpose than folders. The crucial difference being that a file may be assigned several tags and be located by any of them.

Agile Web Solutions has updated 1Password (http://1password.com), a password manager for Mac OS X, to version 3.2.5. The upgrade includes multiple bug fixes and important improvements.

These include a change to the auto-submit feature — which fills and submits login forms automatically — to prevent the form from being instantly submitted if it contains a text field, as found in the comment areas of blogs such as The Unofficial Apple Weblog and others. This has been an issue for blog commenters in the past.