Brand: MacNews

Mac OS X fan Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus offers some pointers for users who are looking to dive into Apple’s next-generation operating system in his latest Houston Chronicle column.

Opera today released Opera 5.0 Mac Beta 3 of its alternative Web browser. New features in this release include the ability to search bookmarks, autofill forms and upload files, as well as several bug fixes that improve the browser’s overall stability. Opera 5.0, by many measures, is the fastest Web browser available for the Mac OS.

During the past week, our friends at MacDesktops have posted eleven new pictures, including: In Memoriam (Miscellaneous), Cloud vortex (Art), Derrick Thomas (Sports), Matrixed (Movies), and Vancouver sunrise (Landscapes – Urban).

Handspring will introduce two new Visor PDAs next week: Visor Pro and Visor Neo. The Visor Pro features a 33MHz Dragonball VZ CPU, 16MB of memory, a 4-bit monochrome screen, built-in Lithium Ion battery, and Palm OS 3.5.2 — essentially the current Visor Platinum with twice the memory and a rechargeable battery.

Discreet today introduced combustion 2, a new version of its paint, animation, and 3D composition software, to the European market, after announcing the software one month ago.