SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA, January 9, 2006: On the opening, pre-keynote day of Macworld Expo, Karelia Software today announced the first public beta release of its pioneering website building application, Sandvox.
"For years, Macintosh users have been clamoring for an easy, elegant way to get their content -- photo albums, weblogs, just basic sites -- published on the Web. We created Sandvox because there were no other applications that 'got it,'" said Dan Wood, Sandvox co-creator (along with Terrence Talbot, a long-time Cocoa developer).
Sandvox was developed with individuals, students, families, and small businesses in mind. It features drag-and-drop website assembly; live editing without a preview mode; two dozen stylish designs; and innovative Pagelets (TM), small areas of content that reside within a web page's sidebar.
Sandvox is weblog- and podcast-ready. Any collection of pages can be organized as a weblog, with automatic RSS generation. Uploaded media, such as MP3 files and QuickTime movies, become an iTunes-compatible podcast without any additional effort.
In addition, Sandvox sports a helpful setup assistant for hassle-free publishing. Websites can be placed on the user's local machine and uploaded to remote hosts via FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV, including .Mac.
"We have been hearing rumors of a Web-building application that Apple may be announcing tomorrow," said Wood. "We wanted the Macintosh community to get a chance to see what we have to offer and compare it to whatever Apple is may be introducing. We're only a small company, but based on our past experience, we think that our product will compare quite favorably to any competition from Apple."
Sandvox is scheduled for full release later this quarter, in both standard and "pro" configurations. Pricing will be announced shortly.
In commemoration of Macworld Expo and the tradition of "Show Specials," Karelia is offering a special discount on Sandvox purchases for Macworld attendees (and their colleagues) who sign up for email updates. Sign up with this special URL <http://www.karelia.com/?refid=270886>, or go to the Karelia.com website and enter "Macworld" where asked "How did you hear about us?". For this discount, you must sign up before Friday night (Jan 13, 2006) at midnight (Pacific Time).
More information about Sandvox is available at Karelia's Website (created with Sandvox, of course): <http://www.karelia.com/>.