The Mac is generally a pretty good citizen of the multi-platform world. It will integrate with little or no hassle into networks of Windows or Linux/Unix machines and happily share files, printers and other devices. There remains, however, the occasional blind spot. The ability to work with local disks formatted in Window’s NTFS format is one. While OS X has been able to read NTFS disks without problem for a long time, the ability to write to them still eludes the default install.

Erik Larsson has released version 1.5012 of his Mac port of the NTFS-3G open source NTFS file system driver. Two versions are available from the NTFS-3G blog (linked to below), one stable, the other built for speed with a few caveats attached. We went for the former. The MacFUSE user-space file system framework is also required. Two restarts later we had NTFS-3G fully installed and working. A firewire hard drive with an NTFS partition was connected and the icon promptly appeared on the desktop, giving us full read/write access.

If you find yourself in the position of needing full access to NTFS disks, NTFS-3G is your only non-commercial option. The good news is that it works reliably and comes with great, detailed documentation. A must have all round.

• The NTFS-3G Blog
• MacFUSE

iKana Touch — the iPhone language learning application from Aberystwyth-based ThinkMac Software — has just been updated to version 1.1 and is likely to hit the App Store any minute now.

iKana Touch is ideal for anyone trying to gets to grip with the Hiragana and Katakana forms of written Japanese. It includes handy flash cards to help fill your spare out-and-about time with useful revision, along with tests to see how well you’re progressing. These include timed tests of how quickly you can recognise a character and writing tests where you trace the strokes forming each symbol. There is also a browsable list of kana, with spoken pronunciations provided for each.

iKana Touch costs £4.99 and is available from the App Store via the link below.

• iKana Touch in the App Store
• ThinkMac Software

There are precious few applications which I couldn’t live without. A web browser, of course. These days that’s probably as important as an operating system, if not more. And a decent news reader. Got to find stories to regurgitate from somewhere. And now we can add to that exclusive list Shatner Facts by DSG Web Design.

Shatner Facts is a Dashboard widget. Remember Dashboard? Yeah, as technology goes it’s a bit 10.4, isn’t it. About the only time most of us will be reminded of its existence is when we accidentally hit F12. But I don’t think that I’m overstating matters when I say that Shatner Facts could single-handedly save the Dashboard from going the same way Sherlock did.

Shatner Facts is simplicity itself. Start Dashboard and up pops the widget with one of 115 facts about William Shatner on display. Shatner Facts is available free from the link below.

• Shatner Facts

Textco BioSoftware has just shipped a minor revision to their Gene Construction Kit application — revving it to version 3.0.1 — which is all the excuse we need to take a quick look at it, and to bring you up to speed with the progress of Apple Eclectic’s biological weapons programme.

Gene Construction Kit allows for the graphic manipulation of DNA sequences and supports a number of sophisticated plasmid drawing options. It does not, however, include a Spore-like creature creator, which we found disappointing. Constructs can be viewed either textually or graphically, and in either a linear or circular manner. On-line searching of the KEGG, PubMed, PDB, GO and EntrezGene databases is supported, and GenBank and EMBL files can be imported. You can also perform automated shotgun cloning experiments, but these aren’t nearly as exciting as they sound. And you can, of course, view predicted electrophoresis patterns of restriction digests, including (naturally) partial digests. With all these features, it’s hardly surprising that Gene Construction Kit has been voted “Best Plasmid Mapping Software” by the Biotechnology Software and Internet Journal for four straight years.

On the bio-weapons front, our last attempt to produce the ultimate rabid Apple fanboy — by splicing together DNA obtained (please, just don’t ask how) from Daniel Eran Dilger and John Gruber — was not nearly as successful as we hoped. The result was a small, skinny creature which would sit hunched in the corner of the room, arguing with itself about who loves “the precious” most. It’s currently working as an intern at MacWorld, reviewing iPhone cases. We’re currently following a very promising line of enquiry involving iJustine and a clipping from Woz’s beard.

Now, as soon as someone ships a full-sized cloning vat with OS X drivers we’re all set.

• Gene Construction Kit

I shall not be resorting to the one about waiting for buses. Oh no.

The Apple Blog’s Darrell Etherington is reporting that Apple today unleashed a small wave of new e-mail applications for the iPhone. This is news, following as it does Apple’s earlier decision to ban G-mail app MailWrangler on the grounds that it duplicates functionality already found on the iPhone and could thus confuse users. But as Etherington points out, none of the applications released today is actually a full e-mail client. Instead they are designed to allow e-mails to be composed in landscape mode — a more comfortable way of working on the iPhone for many and one which the built-in Mail app does not support — before handing them off the Apple’s Mail for delivery.

Etherington goes on to suggest that their appearance en masse is due to some roadblock in Apple’s vetting process which had them all held up until it was decided whether this particular type of application was to be allowed. We can only assume that the decision was yes. This will certainly give those of us trying to second guess Apple’s unspoken rules concerning what they will or will not allow into the App Store a few new points of data to work with.

• Compose
• TouchType
• Sideways
• Lettera
• Wide Email
• via The Apple Blog

Agile Web Solutions yesterday released another upgrade to their incredible internet security system 1Password. If you haven’t already tried 1Password and found all the benefits it has to offer, now would be a great time to do so.

1Password keeps you safe on the Internet by providing a secure vault for all of your passwords and credit card details. It will automatically generate super-strong passwords for you, so that you aren’t tempted to use the same one over and again for all those sites you’re signed up to. 1Password also handles automatic form-filling and offers anti-phishing protection. And it supports every web browser you’ve ever heard of, plus a couple which we’re sure they’re making up.

1Password costs $39.95 for the Mac version, while the iPhone version is currently available at a limited-time price of free from the App Store.

• iPassword for Mac
• 1Password for iPhone in the App Store

I’ve already told you all how much I really love cooking, and just how much fun cooking with my Mac is. Well now recipe4all.com has decided to help me make it even more fun yet!

Recipe4mac — in the form of shiny new version 1.4 — helps you to quickly search the thousands of scrummy recipes stored on recipe4all.com. You can search them by name, ingredients, or by which part of the world they come from. And if any of the words you find confuse you, help from the glossary is only a quick click away.

Recipe4mac is totally free. And I’m getting hungry just writing about it!

• Recipe4mac

Podcaster — the iPhone application banned by Apple for duplicating the functionality iTunes wants to have when it grows up — is now available for download again via the Cydia software installer for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. And the news just keeps getting better: Podcaster now costs only $4.99, half of its original asking price. It can be purchased via the Next Day Off store (link below).

• Almerica’s Blog
• Next Day Off
• iPhone Dev Team (home of the QuickPwn jailbreaking tool)

Those of us with an interest in all things Mac Developer will know Steve “Scotty” Scott of the Mac Developer Network (who is not to be confused with Scott Stevenson of Theocacao — these guys are NSTextAttribute and NSAttributedText in human form). Last year Scotty’s company Mamooba entered the Mac marked through the purchase of TrackTime, an app which runs in the background and records the time you spend using different applications. Well, now TrackTime has changed hands again.

The new owners are Apokalypse Software of Crawfordville, Florida. TrackTime joins an already impressive stable of applications aimed at the productive freelancer or small business owner: POS system Merchant Wisdom (nee Simply Elegant Sales), desktop timer Clockwork, and digital notebook Mori.

We can only hope that Scotty has made this move in order to spend more time with his podcasts, and not because he’s seen the error of his ways and is running back to Windows.

• Apokalypse Software
• Mamooba
• The Mac Developer Network
• tip from prMac

Mac makers of all things audio, Rogue Amoeba, have just revved their Radioshift application to version 1.1, which is all the excuse we need to give this unique bit of code a quick mention.

Radioshift is a one-stop shop for Internet streaming radio. Its comprehensive directory lists over 50,000 stations from around the world — fully searchable by keyword, genre or good-old location — making finding something new and interesting to listen to easier than ever. Once you’re tuned in you can subscribe to a station and — this is where the magic starts to happen — have Radioshift regularly record the live stream for listening to at a latter date. This updated version now includes a recording indicator in the menu bar, helping to prevent accidental interruptions. Once recorded, radio shows can be passed to iTunes for organising or putting on your iPod.

Radioshift costs $32.

• Radioshift