Since Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)'s release last Friday, we've received a great deal of email looking for updated versions of two of our Freebies, SoundSource and MemoryCell. Happy Halloween - those updates are now available!

If you haven't used these Freebies before, SoundSource is a great way to adjust your System audio devices (without needing to go to the System Preferences), while MemoryCell provides a quick overview of how much RAM the foreground application is using. As Freebies, they can be of course downloaded and used free of charge.

With today's update, we're pleased to announce that all of our software has support for Leopard. Preview versions of Audio Hijack Pro 2.8, Airfoil 2.1, and Nicecast 1.9 are all awaiting full releases, but they lack only the Instant Hijack functionality. Let us know of any bugs you find in Leopard, and keep watch our Status Page for information on updates to those applications.

We've got two more updates today for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) compatibility, with Radioshift 1.0.3, and Audio Hijack Pro 2.8 Preview. With these updates, all of our commercial products now feature preliminary Leopard support (Audio Hijack Pro, Airfoil, and Nicecast) or full support (Fission and Radioshift).

Radioshift 1.0.3 has full support for Leopard, as well as several other minor improvements. That's a free update for all registered users, so download now. If you haven't used our tool aimed at helping you listen to and enjoy Internet radio on your schedule, check it out on the Radioshift homepage.

Meanwhile, in addition to preliminary support for Leopard, the Audio Hijack Pro 2.8 Preview has a few changes including interface tweaks. Like Wednesday's updates, this is another Preview release for early adopters of Leopard. This is a free update for all registered users of Audio Hijack Pro 2.x and can be downloaded from our Status Page.

We'll be releasing official final versions of Audio Hijack Pro 2.8, Airfoil 2.1, and Nicecast 1.9, as well as updating our Freebies, in the coming weeks. Let us know of any bugs you find in Leopard, and keep watch our Status Page for information on Leopard compatibility of all our software.

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is shipping tomorrow, so of course, it's time to ship an update for Airfoil For Windows! Version 2.0.2 is now available, and includes improved sync with local speakers as well as improved connectivity with AirPort Express units.

If you're not familiar with our tool for sending any audio to Apple's AirPort Express, click to get information on the Windows or Mac version. If you're using Airfoil For Windows already, this is a free update, so download 2.0.2 now.

For the soon-to-be-Leopard users out there, be sure to watch our Status Page for information on Leopard compatibility of all our software.

We've got two updates today for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) compatibility, in the form of Nicecast 1.9 Preview and Airfoil for Mac 2.1 Preview. Both can be downloaded here. These free updates are recommend for users on Leopard and include feature updates as well as improvements specifically for Leopard.

These are Preview releases for early adopters of Leopard, and we'll have final versions of Nicecast 1.9 and Airfoil for Mac 2.1 out shortly. These Preview releases must relaunch applications to pull audio from them, as the Instant Hijack component is not yet supported on Leopard. We'll have final releases shortly after Leopard ships with full support for Instant Hijack as well.

We'll have more updates in the next few days, so watch our Status Page for information on Leopard compatibility of all our software.

Steven Frank: "The third-party software that you're paying for, depending on, and hoping to run on Leopard, we cannot test on the final release build until we can run down to the Apple Store and pick it up, hopefully at least a few minutes before you do."

We want to ship as many 10.5 updates as we can before Leopard itself ships. However, we can't be sure that our 10.5 updates are truly complete, because we won't have Leopard until the same day as our customers. Although I don't expect any major changes between the last seeded version of OS X 10.5 and the GM version that ships on Friday, the uncertaintly about it isn't fun.

Fission 1.5.2 is now available, bringing Leopard support along with several other minor updates. This update to our audio editor is free for all previously registered owners, so download it now.

If you haven't tried our easy-to-use audio editor, you can learn more on the Fission web page then download it and try it out. Once you've tested Fission, it can be purchased for just $32 from our online store. Visit the Fission page now and get started!

You can track Leopard compatibility of all our applications on our Status page. We'll have more updates in the next few days.

One of the professional hazards of being a programmer is the cold sweat which comes when you suddenly realize that some code you've written has a terrible bug. It's worse when you realize that the bug has already been there for months.

A few months ago I set out to redo our license key system. The old system (RASN) generated a single unique license key based on the name of the purchaser. This had the potential to cause problems when two (or more) people with the same name purchased our software, as they would each receive the same license key.

For the new system (RASN2), we decided to add a unique number to each code to make it different from others generated for the same name. However we didn't want to make our codes any longer, so I had to cram more information into the same space. RASN used hexadecimal, a 16-digit number system using the digits 0-9 and the letters A-F. By adding in the rest of the alphabet, then eliminating letters and numbers which are easily confused, such as 0 (zero) and O (oh), RASN2 was able to have 27 different digits. This opened up enough room to squeeze in a short unique number next to the rest of the license data. We started using the new system a few months ago and it has worked well for us, well enough that nothing user-facing changed.

A sample license key

The cold-sweat moment came the other day as I was entering a license key into a copy of Fission. The way some of the letters lined up almost looked like a word, how funny. Hey, you could even get a whole license code made up of four-letter words. Four. letter. words. Oh. S---!

Then I thought, this can't be that bad. After all, the chances of generating some bad word at random must be really low. But I ran the numbers anyway just to be sure. It turns out that the chances of a random license containing the word F--- is actually one in 65,000. That's pretty common, and it's even worse if you count instances split between two groups with a dash in the middle. And of course there are several bad words we can generate, and these odds apply to each one separately.

It turns out that one day in the not-too-distant future, our random number generator gets filthy. On that day, one out of every 128 licenses generated will start with the F-bomb.

Once I recognized the problem, the solution was easy. We built a list of inappropriate words (a list Paul referred to as "my favorite list ever") and now check the code portion of each key against the list before sending it out. If there's a match, we generate a new code automatically. This was quickly put in place and new purchasers can be assured that their license code will never tell them to F***-THIS-S***. Problem solved.

This could also be a marketing opportunity for us as well. Would you pay an extra $2.99 for a vanity code, containing your favorite four-letter word? We think there are enough depraved individuals out there that this could be the latest in upselling innovation! Some day, perhaps. Some day.

In our last Hear All About Us, we linked you to several reviews of Radioshift. Today, we've got a pair of Podcasts I took part in recently.

I appeared on MacVoices with Chuck Joiner a week ago. We spoke extensively about Radioshift, including its origins and many of its features. This is definitely the most in-depth I've gone on it thus far, so you may find it interesting.

I also appeared on the MyMac.com podcast with Tim Robertson. You can check that out here. We discussed Radioshift, as well as some of the day-to-day aspects with running Rogue Amoeba, from how we design updates to naming our products.

Check out both these great podcasts now! Incidentally, these are just two of hundreds of podcasts made with Audio Hijack Pro.

And one final note, Radioshift was a Pick Of The Week last week on MacBreak Weekly Episode 60, along with MarsEdit from friend-o-the-amoeba Daniel Jalkut at Red Sweater. Check them both out, along with MacBreak Weekly itself.

For a couple years now, we've had stuffed plush toys of our mascot, Ammo the Amoeba. We sell them on the site, and also give them away to friends of the company. One such friend is Macworld's own Dan Frakes, who sent me an email recently.

I have one of your Ammo the Amoeba dolls here; I think I got it at the Expo in January? My daughter liked it at the time so we took off the gun (sorry!) and added it to her collection of stuffed animals. She's now 20 months old and talking quite a bit, and she often surprises by saying words we didn't realize she'd learned. Last week, one of those was "amoeba" (!). She uses it regularly now, which is a bit odd, especially for visitors who have no idea that she has a stuffed animal by that name; they just see a 20-month-old girl walking around saying "amoeba".

In other words, thanks to you, our daughter is probably one of the (very) few 20-month-olds that actually know the word "amoeba"

I thought this was great fodder for this very weblog, and asked Dan for a picture to include with the post. He did me one better, as you can see below:

As Dan said in his email title, Ammo is educational!

We've had plenty of feature suggestions Radioshift, our new Internet radio recorder, and we're planning for plenty of new features in the coming months. Today, however, we've got another minor update. Radioshift 1.0.2 improves support for several types of radio streams, as well as fixing several minor bugs.

You can learn about how Radioshift can help you record Internet radio and download the free Radioshift trial right now. Version 1.0.2 is a free update for existing customers (just download and replace the existing version). New customers can purchase a Radioshift license key for just $32.

A glider is a light plane with no engine. It gets towed into the air by a tow plane, then released. It then glides (hence the name) on rising thermals, often for hundreds of miles, before eventually landing.

Our own Mike Ash is a glider pilot in his spare time, and had a bit of an adventure yesterday. You can read all about it in the Northern Virginia Daily (Screenshot here). My favorite bit has to be this:

"You are looking for basically flat [land], no tall crops and no cows," he said. Cows can actually eat parts of the glider, Ash added.

Outstanding. Mike was quite safe (and can assure any and all that an emergency glider landing really isn't a big deal), and is still working hard on the next release of Airfoil. How apropos!

It's time once again for Mac users to vote in the Macworld Readers' Choice Awards. Brent Simmons, of NetNewsWire fame, was kind enough to include our new Radioshift in a list of his favorite new apps.

Radioshift's a bit too new I think and my votes go to Coda and NetNewsWire, both of which I use daily. But perhaps our own most popular apps (That'd be Audio Hijack Pro and Airfoil) are among Mac users' favorites in general. You can vote in the Forum thread right here

It's been just a little over a week after the release of our newest application Radioshift, and the response has been great. If you haven't checked it out yet, perhaps one of the following reviews will convince you to take a look.

Playlist (and Macworld) columnist Chris Breen had previously written about RadioTime, the power behind Radioshift's Radio Guide, but as he correctly notes, the Mac offerings were lacking. As he says, Radioshift has a few rough edges, but it's also got "...more than a load of potential for those who enjoy radio on their schedules rather than the schedules of their local radio station".

Adam Engst was even more bullish on Radioshift in his TidBITS post. I was happy for the chance to provide a full demo to Adam at C4[1] this year, and in his own words, "my only real criticism of Radioshift is that it opens up a whole new world of high quality, free content (sounds terrible, doesn't it?)". Not too shabby!

David Chartier, in his new digs at Ars Technica had a minireview of Radioshift that's got quite a bit of depth. He correctly notes that live recording in Radioshift is clunky at best right now (our 1.0 was aimed at timed recording) but concludes that "Radioshift is a great 1.0 app that should bring smiles to those who already love or are just getting interested in Internet radio".

Finally, Danny Gorog's article for APC Magazine asked "Is Radioshift the next killer app?". We certainly hope so, though I don't know if we're there just yet. Stay tuned for plenty of updates and new features in the future!