Belight Software, the creators of Swift Publisher kindly gave us 3 licenses to give away to 3 lucky readers. Thank you everyone who provided feedback as your suggestions will help Swift Publisher become a better product in future releases.

The three lucky winners are…

Paul, Luke and kirkrr.

Congratuations to those lucky three for winning – watch your inbox for an email from the guys at Belight soon. And to those who didn’t win, be sure to stay subscribed to MacApper’s RSS Feed for updates on more contests, reviews, interviews and more.

Fluid treats your favorite web apps just like normal apps; each getting an icon in the dock, appearing in Spotlight, etc. The default dock icon is the favicon of the website which is only a 16×16 image, making for a very low resolution icon. To get around this minor issue, users have created a Flickr pool of Fluid icons for common web apps. The pool is small, but maybe some of our readers can help it grow.

Fluid isn’t going to replace the web or become the new browser, but is going to make it much easier to access our favourite web services from our desktop. This concept of running web apps on your desktop was inspired by Prism (made by Mozilla Labs). Fluid uses WebKit to render the pages (versus the Gecko engine for Prism), but the concept of how it works is very similar to Prism. Mozilla Labs, the developers of Prism say that “unlike Adobe AIR or Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not trying to build a proprietary platform to replace the web.”

Fluid, which is currently in beta, can be downloaded for free from the developers website.

Let’s take a quick look at Swift Publisher and at the end of the review you’ll all have a chance to win 1 of 3 licensed copies from the generous folks at Belightsoft.

Swift Publisher starts out like most desktop publishing apps and asks you to select a document type or allows you to begin with a blank page. The program ships with 130 really polished themes so you should have no problems finding something suitable for your project. The publishing process is handled by a 2 layer system, which I found to be really powerful. Items or elements that you want to appear on every page are put in the background tab, while things like text and images that are page specific go into the foreground. Creating a Master Page will make the same backround appear on every page of the document, while things like text and images that are page specific can be added to foreground. Once you master this method wrapping text around images and keeping your documents looking consistent is really a piece of cake.

Images are great, they can really spruce up pretty much any document, and Swift Publisher has over 23,000 of them. To add a personal feel to the images there is over 100 masks to apply, which can help make them fit in to the over 130 themes. And they don’t just stop at masks or borders, for example, you can alter tint, control the transparency, hue and much more. If the 23,000 royalty free graphics aren’t enough or you need something you’ve taken yourself, the iPhoto integration comes in handy. As great as it integrates with iPhoto it also has the ability to use Art Text power for creating anything from web banners to web 2.0 style buttons (You must own Art Text, however, Art Text Limited edition is built right into Swift Publisher for free). Another great feature is the ability to search Google Images from right within the app to grab the image you need.

If you want something looking top-quality, you may not have to go out and buy an expensive application like InDesign or Quark XPress because honestly, Swift Publisher can give you much better results without spending hours learning how to use it. Not only is it easy and fun to use, it’s affordable. At $49.95 anyone can benefit from the power and simplicity here and end up with documents that look stunning. Swift Publisher is loaded with hundreds of features which in my opinion make it more powerful than Apple’s Pages to create professional layouts that are sure to impress anyone.

Belight Software, the developers of Swift Publisher have kindly offered us 3 licenses to giveaway to our readers exclusively at MacApper. In order to enter this giveaway simply comment on this post with a suggestion of a feature that you would like to see in Swift Publisher.

The contest will end at midnight EST on December 28th, with the winner announced shortly after that date. Good luck to all and be sure to subscribe to MacApper’s RSS Feed for more amazing giveaways!

I’ve never been much of a gamer, but Runic is a game that really anyone of any age can easily pick up. The game is very simple, with only a mouse and the space bar needed to play. If you remember Arkanoid, the game plays very similar to that. As simple as it is, the concept is not oringal, but it makes up for that with many added enhancements to the gameplay. Here is a look at the game in action, below.

After every level of smashing anything from bricks to flying skeletons, you have the option to spend your money on a variety of potions at the Magic Shop. With different potions, you can use recipes to create spells which can range from flying fireballs to exploding magic.

Runic has over 100 levels which will never tire you out. Although it does lack a multiplayer option, it is a highly addictive and polished game that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for some fun time wasting on their Mac.

According to the developers Runix requires a minimum of a PowerPC 400MHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later, 256MB RAM and 32MB VRAM. Runic has a demo available, ships as a universal binary, and the full version is just $14.95.

MacintoshGUI is a site that showcases one Mac goodie everyday, either an icon, desktop, theme or any other GUI enhancers you would like to submit which you can use to customize your Mac. With ratings, user submissions, and a linear archive system, it’s really easy to share your favourite Mac-design related GUI goodies.

As the co-creator of the site, I created it because I felt there wasn’t a site which you could dedicate a whole day to your Macmod fantasies. There are some very skilled designers creating icons, screensavers and mods for the Mac, and I wanted to give them a chance to shine.

Unlike most design related sites and blogs in general, it has a very minimal and elegant design. Since it showcases one goodie per day, the content isn’t overwhelming. Without unnesessary settings, and bad content, I’m hoping some of you guys find it useful.

You’re not expected to remember everything said to you, and that’s where QuickJot really comes in handy. QuickJots are the next generation of stickes. By toggling them with a desired hot key, access to them is as easy as you’d think it would be. This relates back to my desk, do I just quickly throw everything in there? No. I’ve got a folder which I sort everything into for quick access. Well, with Shovebox you’ve got something even better, automatic sorting! Yea that’s right, it organizes everything for you. Feel in control with your clutter by having the ability to, flag, label, delete, or export your clutter.

Now, that text saying, “Clean your room!” just doesn’t always do it. However pictures do and that’s why I’m loving the iSight support. WonderWarp Software states that its great for taking down whiteboards, but I’ve cluttered a lot more with this feature. When I’ve needed a haircut or clean my room, I can organize it immediately without having to worry about misplacing it.

There are also endless other forms of clutter that ShoveBox can catch for you. “Oh that is such a nice torrent website*! Let me open, hmm where is my web archiving app? Ahh! It’s taken down by the RIAA!” Avoid this and take advantage of the Web Archive feature. As a blogger and podcaster, I need to record information as it happens, and ShoveBox has saved more time and information than it would take to find that important file in my big junk folder…

ShoveBox is available at WonderWarp Software for just $24.95. What do you shove in your ShoveBox?

* MacApper does not condone nor encourage any attempts at copyright infringement. You do so at your own risk.