One of the most useful applications I use every day on the Mac has now arrived for Windows. That’s right Windows-using writers Scrivener is now available to you.

No matter if you’re writing the next great American novel (something for National Novel Writing Month perhaps?), research paper, script or any long-form text document that involves more than hammering away at the keys until you’re done, Scrivener, made by the fine folks at Literature & Latte, can help you get your work done. The multi-featured program excels at helping you collect research, bring order to fragmented ideas and avoid shuffling index cards in search of that elusive structure.

Scrivener can help you from the moment an idea comes into your imagination until the final finished pages are output. In short, it pretty much does everything for you except the actual writing.

Unfortunately, that will still be up to you. The rest you can leave to Scrivener.

As someone who uses this app daily (the Mac version) I can safely say it really helps me get my work done. Without it, I would be back to posting index cards to cork boards and trying to make things work that way. I like the 21st Century’s technological advancements and I like Scrivener.

Scrivener requires Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32 or 64 bit). 1GB RAM; 1ghz Processor; 100mb disk space; 1064 x 786 screen.

The nice folks at Feral Interactive who make sure cool games get to the Mac announced this week they will be bringing one of our favorite games to the Mac platform. That game? Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Sure, those of you who’ve played it already on PS3 or XBox 360 may scoff and say “Who cares?” But those who love the Mac and don’t have a console gaming system (yes, those people exist) will now be able to enjoy one of the cooles games around on their beloved Macs.

The game features a story by Paul Dini, Batman writer and Emmy Award winner. It also features the voice talents of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, who reprise their roles as The Joker and Batman from the animated TV series.

The game will reportedly cost $39.99 and will be available in stores or via download. Recommended system requirements for the game are as follows:

2.8 GHz or faster Intel-based Mac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later and a graphics card with at least 512 MB. Nvidia 7xxx series, ATI 1×00 and Intel GMA graphics chips are not supported.

Batman: Arkham Asylum will be available for the Mac on October 13th.

Well, that didn’t take very long, did it? Today Apple released an update to its operating system for Macs which brings it to version 10.7.1. The 10.7.1 update is recommended for all users running OS X Lion and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability and compatibility of your Mac, including fixes that:

• Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari
• Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out
• Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections
• Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4764.

We’re going to try it right now on a few of The Flickcast’s Macs. We’ll let you know if we run into any issues. Meantime, if you take the plunge, let us know how it goes in the comments.

Even if you’re not a professional fim or television editor, you’ve probably heard of Apple’s pro editing software Final Cut Pro. It’s become quite popular with editors over the years and has been used on projects ranging from Cold Mountain to True Grit and The Social Network.

Now, as of yesterday, Apple has released a brand new version of the software, dubbed Final Cut Pro X, to a mixed and often hostile reaction from some users. It is currently available in the company’s Mac App Store and priced at $299.99. The companion Motion and Compressor apps are $49.99 each.

Even though FCP X is a completely new version of the editing app with many improvements, it has still drawn criticism from users for the features and capabilities Apple has seemingly removed including XML support and the lack of backward compatibility with previous versions of the software.

Some of the new features include the Magnetic Timeline, clip connections to link effects/title elements to primary footage, raw video keyword tagging and improved content management tools. In addition, the app is now 64-bit, entirely Cocoa, fully parallel and all-around faster (it now leverages the GPU for effects and can render in the background).

An update to the software offering more of the “pro” features users were hoping for is expected from Apple in the coming months. In the meantime, it might be advisable to wait before upgrading or buying the new software — especially if you’re used to FCP 7 and its features.

Click through for the full press release from Apple. Final Cut Pro X is available now in Apple’s Mac App Store.

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Even though we try not to use very many products from Microsoft around here (we’re Mac users mostly, after all) that doesn’t mean we don’t have to jump into Microsoft’s Office Suite once in awhile. Now on its 2011 version, Office for Mac has become a pretty darn good program.

Soon, Microsoft will attempt to make it even better with the release of the inevitable Service Pack 1, which will reportedly be coming out next week. The update will reportedly include performance enhancements, as well as security and stability fixes, but it will also include major changes for Outlook for Mac.

After applying the service pack, users will be able to sync their Outlook calendars, tasks, notes, and contacts with Apple’s Sync Services, and it includes support for CalDAV calendar, which Apple is implementing in May. The update will also add a new redirect and resend buttons. iPhone and iPod touch devices will also stay in sync as well.

So, if you’re an Office for Mac 2011 user and think the suite could use some fixes, mark your calendars and get ready for some help next week.

Have you ever wanted to video chat with your iPhone using friends but don’t have an iPhone yourself? Well, if you’ve wanted to use Apple’s FaceTime from the iPhone and only had a Mac, you were out of luck. That is, until this week.

The video chat service from Apple left Beta yesterday and is now a full fledged and polished App available at Apple’s App Store. This update was timed, it would seem, to come out at the same time Apple was refreshing its MacBook Pro lineup.

Now that it’s out of Beta, the App sports a new price, which is only 99¢. In case you’re not familiar with FaceTime, its an Apple provided service that allows Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and soon, iPad users to make video calls for free over land-based Internet connections.

The service itself is free and the App is bundled with any of Apple’s recent iOS devices such as the iPhone. However, as we said above, it cost just under a buck if you want the App for your Mac. However, the App is now pre-installed on all new MacBook Pro models so that’s a nice thing.

As if new, updated MacBook Pro computers weren’t enough, Apple also decided that today was the day to unveil details on the next version of its flagship Mac operating system OS X. The update, known as OS X 10.7 (aka Lion) is now available to developers. Hopefully, that means a release to the rest of us is only a short time away.

In a press release today touting the developer release, Apple writes that Lion “takes some of the best ideas from iPad and brings them back to the Mac.” Some of the new features we can expect with Lion include Mission Control, Launchpad, and multitouch gestures as well as several others including:

• New Mail application (thank goodness): widescreen layout like the the iPad and Conversations, which automatically groups related messages into one easy to read timeline, more powerful search and support for Microsoft Exchange 2010
• AirDrop: copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup
• Versions: automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions
• Resume: brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app
• Auto Save: automatically saves your documents as you work
• New FileVault: provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously
• Mac OS X Lion Server: makes setting up a server easier than ever and adds support for managing Mac OS X Lion, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices

Apple is expected to release the Lion sometime during the Summer. In the meantime, check out the full press release detailing the update after the break.

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As of a few minutes ago, Apple released its Mac OS X 10.6.5 update to its flagship Mac operating system. Some of the bug fixes, improvements, etc. in this release include:

• improve reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers
• address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture
• address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
• resolve a delay between print jobs
• address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme
• resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal
• address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide
• resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary
• improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems
• resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts
• improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays
• resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

Some good improvements there to be sure. Also, be on the lookout for an update to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch pretty soon in the form of iOS 4.2, coming soon . . .

If you update today be sure and let us know if you have any issues. We’re firing up Software Update as we speak. Or, you can always wait for the combo update if you feel like it. Should probably be along shortly.

Happy news VOIP and Mac fans as today Skype announced a new beta version of its chat software, Skpe 5.0 beta, is now available. According to Skype this software has several new features including:

• New call control bar — Hang up, mute and more from a mini Skype toolbar that sits on top of any web pages, documents or photos you’ve got open

• Search chat content to easily navigate past conversations

• Offline IM so that you can send and receive instant messages even if the recipient is offline

• Personalise contacts via user profiles

• Quickly rejoin calls if your Internet connection fails momentarily

• Floating Contacts Monitor to see your online contacts and contact groups

As users of Skype pretty much every week we think this is pretty cool. Check out a little video showing how cool after the jump.

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Love it or hate it Microsoft’s Office suite of applications which include Word, PowerPoint and Excel are pretty much the go-to for most offices these days. Fortunately for the Mac users out there the Redmond Giant, and specifically its Mac Business Unit, have been putting out versions of the suite for the Mac as well that mostly have feature parity with the Windows versions.

With the Windows version of Office already at the 2011 milestone, we can now announce that Office 2011 for the Mac is available and shipping. Like its Windows counterpart, the Intel only Office for Mac has all the usual applications including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

But wait, there’s more. Not since the days of OS 9, the suite also includes Microsoft Outlook, which replaces the Entourage email client. Finally, right?

Office for Mac 2011 pricing breaks down as follows:

Microsoft Office for Home and Student 2011 (single license): $109.99 – $149.99

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business (single license): $174.99 – $279.99

With the inclusion of Outlook, the Office suite is now a good deal for Mac using companies or individuals in a Windows dominated environment. Kudos to Microsoft for finally doing the right thing here.

We’ll give you three guesses what will be announced at this event Apple will be holding on October 20th and the first two don’t count. That’s right, if you can’t tell from the obvious animal peeking out from behind the Apple logo what the company’s got up its sleeve, you need to turn in your amateur detective decoder ring.

Having a bit of trouble? Okay, we’ll give you some hints. That animal, it’s a lion. So, that means the next version of OSX will probably be called Lion because, in case you re not aware, Steve Jobs likes cats and all of the version were named after some sort of cat. The most recent, of course, being Snow Leopard.

So, it follows that the next one, aka OS X 10.7,  will be called by a cat name as well. Oh, we can also assume this event will focus quite a bit on the Mac itself, at least judging from the tag line “Back to the Mac.”

Whatever happens, we’ll bring you all the news. In the meantime, let the predictions begin. . .

With iPhone 4 pre-order frenzy in full effect at Apple and AT&T stores (and even taking AT&T’s order network down)another new item has quietly had a refresh. Today, Apple released a new version of its compact Mac the Mac Mini with a host of improvements and enhancements.

The new Mac Mini is made out of a solid chunk of aluminum and comes in two flavors:

Regular:
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM
320 GB hard drive
$699

Server:
2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
Dual 500 GB hard drive
$999

Both models have been updated with NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics, the same integrated GPU in the MacBook and MacBook Pro. They also sport a new HDMI port (finally) and the “Server” Mac Mini allows you the option to not have an optical drive in favor of an additional hard drive.

Apple has also made the Mini a bit easier to upgrade, at least in terms of adding more RAM. Instead of a completed procedure involving several kinds of tools and a trip to Home Depot, the new mac Mini has simple twist off panel on the bottom to allow for RAM upgrades. No word yet on if this makes it easier to upgrade the hard drive but since the new Mac Mini is available today, word on that should be coming shortly.