The Mind of Dr. Mac

Touch Arcade has done it again. Here’s a link to their article pointing out four games – Return to Mysterious Island, Galcon, Radio Flare, and Mecho Wars — currently on sale for a fraction of their “list” prices.

The only one I’m familiar with is the adventure game Return to Mysterious Island, which I’m reviewing for iPod Observer and happen to like a lot. I’ve recommended it when it was $4.99; at $0.99 it should be a no-brainer if you like puzzle/adventure style games.

Read about it (with links to the iTunes App store) here: $0.99 Sales | Touch Arcade.

One of my favorite plug-ins for GarageBand is on sale for 50% off until August 31st.

For more info, click here: NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Tone Up for Summer

I just read a cool article at pocketgamer.co.uk called The 20 best free iPhone games. While I haven’t tried all 20 the ones I have tried are indeed really good… I plan to check out the remainder if I ever get caught up on my iPhone game reviews for iPodObserver.com. 

Also, just got a note from the nice PR person at Astraware® informing me that the Handmark® Games Studio just reduced the prices of several premium games at App Store for a limited time. The games are Astraware Sudoku, Hellfire, Westward, and Platypus and they’re all reduced to $2.99.

Haven’t tried these yet but they look pretty good and cheaper is always better, so….

I guess it’s the time of year but I’ve come across yet another incredible bargain: The MacUpdate Holiday Bundle includes ten excellent and useful applications that would normally cost a total of $447.69, but for the next nine days you can get all ten of ‘em for just $49.99. 

We’re not talking shovelware here, folks… we’re talking ten truly terrific programs:

	Drive Genius 2.1: Optimize/repair/test/resize and clean up your Mac’s drives.  I recommend this program at its retail price ($99) all the time. It would be worth buying this bundle for Drive Genius alone…    .
	RapidWeaver 4.2.1: Create template-based websites rapidly.  This is the program I used to create my  Web site (www.boblevitus.com).  It was a bargain at its retail price ($79) and it’s a steal as part of this $49.99 bundle.  .
	Default Folder X 4.1: Enhances Save and Open dialog boxes.  Default Folder is one of  my all-time favorite utilities. It makes the Open and Save dialog boxes much better and usually costs $34.95.   .
	VirusBarrier X5 10.5.5: Kill the latest viruses. I’m not presently running an anti-virus program but if I was, this is the one I’d be running. (A $69.95 value.)  .
plus:	MacGourmet Deluxe 1.0.5: Easily create, build, and share your recipe collection. Little Snitch 2.0.4: Alerts you to outgoing network connections. iVolume 3.1.4: Improves the built-in ‘Sound Check’ function of iTunes. KeyCue 4.3: Displays all menu shortcut commands. MacPilot 3.2.1: Enable over 700 hidden features in Mac OS X & other apps. WhatSize 4.4.1: Helps find out what files are taking up all your HD space.

This bundle is a fabulous bargain even if you think you only need one or two of the included programs. But trust me when I say these are all really useful programs and that there isn’t a single clinker in the bunch.

You can even download and try the entire bundle if you like.

For complete details on this amazing offer, just click here.

As much as I love shopping at the Apple iTunes store, I like buying music at Amazon MP3 even more. For one thing, songs purchased from Amazon MP3 can be played on any MP3-capable device. Of course they can be played on iPods, but they can also be played on Zunes, Zens, RAZRs, BlackBerrys, and any other music playing device that supports MP3 files (which is almost all of them ever produced).

Another thing I really like is that Amazon MP3 files are free of digital rights management (DRM) software, so you can burn your songs to CDs, play them on all your computers, and transfer them to all your devices with no embedded limitations.

Finally, all songs are encoded at 256 kbps, which means better audio quality than songs purchased from the iTunes Store.

That’s why I think Amazon MP3 rocks.

Now, at the risk of turning this blog into “Dr. Mac’s Discounts & Deals,” check out this awesome deal from Amazon MP3. 

Amazon MP3, Amazon’s music download store, is pleased to announce a cross-promotion with our CD and Electronics stores where purchases of $25 or more of qualifying CD’s or Electronic items from Amazon.com gets customers a $5 credit at Amazon MP3. This promotional offer is only applicable to U.S.-based customers with a U.S. billing address and is valid from now through December 25, 2008. 

Click here for complete details.