Rounding off the two part tutorial on Apples iMovie '08, this week's show looks at some of the more advanced aspects of movie creation using this unique software application.

The 30 minute show covers various topics including:

• Sound Adjustments to Project Clips
• Adding and Manipulating Background Music
• Pinned and Floating Music
• Adding Sound Effects
• Adding Voice Overs
• Adding Titles & Transitions
• Advanced Tools
• Keyword Management
• Sharing Your Video

Also in this weeks 30 minute show are some details about next weeks Podcast and New Media Expo which I'll be attending. If you're around, say hello!

This weeks show is an Extra Members show and is available in Apple TV HD format (1280x720), Enhanced Desktop ED Format (960x540) and iPhone/iPod resolution (640x360). For full details on how easy it is to become an Extra! member and get this show along with the next six months worth of weekly shows PLUS access to over 110+ Mac based tutorials, just follow this link.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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A break from iLife and iWork this week with a look at the spectacular additions to an already powerful RapidWeaver plugin.

This week I take a look at the latest release of the Blocks Plugin from Yourhead software. Blocks allows you to create free form pages within Rapidweaver turning it into a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web creation tool, limited only by your own creativity.

You can can check out the previous screencast on Blocks here (SCO0066) or check out all the Rapidweaver related screencasts via this page RapidWeaver Category

This new version of Blocks brings you:

• Blocks Library - Create your own library of Blocks and Blocks Pages to re-use and share
• Smart Blocks - Create and Install specially designed Blocks that prompt you for data.
• Master Pages - At last, a way to create dynamic master layout pages that are linked to child pages. Change the master page and all the linked child pages change automatically. This one you have to see!

YourHead have kindly extended a special discount to ScreenCastsOnline viewers of 25% off both the upgrade and full price of the Blocks plugin.

Visit the Yourhead store and use the code SCO25 to get your discount. The code is valid up to the 15th October 2007.

Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 1 is available here
Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 2 is available here
Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 3 is available here
All Rapidweaver related tutorials here

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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As promised, this week's show is an in-depth look at iMovie '08, the latest addition to the iLife '08 suite of applications from Apple.

Apple have re-written iMovie '08 from scratch and it shows! Ideal for new users or anyone who wants to edit video in record time.

But iMovie '08 is more than just a video editing package, it's a whole new way to organise, store and share video.

This week's show is Part 1 of what may turn out to be an extended series of tutorials on iMovie '08 and covers:

• iMovie '08 User Interface
• Understanding Clips & Storage
• Video Formats & Importing Video
• Basic Clip Organisation
• Creating & Assembling Projects
• Video Adjustments

This weeks show is an Extra Members show and is available in Apple TV HD format (1280x720), Enhanced Desktop ED Format (960x540) and iPhone/iPod resolution (640x360). For full details on how easy it is to become an Extra! member and get this show along with the next six months worth of weekly shows PLUS access to over 110+ Mac based tutorials, just follow this link.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Time to take control of your messy folders and do a bit of Housekeeping! This weeks show features a great utility for managing your files, folders, trash and un-installs. All in one easy to use, yet exceptionally powerful package.

This week's show is sponsored by NoodleSoft and features their recently upgraded application - Hazel.

Hazel is a utility that resides in your preference pane (and optionally your Menu bar) and constantly monitors the folders that you instruct it to. By applying rules, you can make Hazel move, sort, colour, re-arrange, file... well pretty much anything with your files and folders. The really cool thing is it does it all automatically once you've created your rules.

For example, simply create a a rule for Hazel to monitor your desktop and automatically move completed downloads from your desktop to a sorted folder structure. Hazel does it for you automatically.

Add in some neat features to manage your Trash effectively and finish off with App Sweep to help you cleanly un-install applications.

App Sweep is built into Hazel and cleans your mac by sweeping up the miscellaneous files that a standard uninstall leaves behind, and you've got a pretty fully featured package that makes keeping your mac in tip top shape a pleasure.

Also this week, we have a special ScreenCastsOnline Discount code to get 10% off the usual price of Hazel. Just use the code:

SCO2007

when making a purchase from the online store.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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You've reached the end of the page but not the end of the screencasts!

There are plenty more available, in fact, over 140+ screencasts are available on all sorts of topics!

The last 26 weeks worth of screencasts are listed above but all of the others are accessible simply by clicking the link below:

View a list of all ScreenCasts sorted by Category

Once you have the list you can click on the individual shows to view the description and view the video.

If the video is more than 12 weeks months old, it's possible that it's only viewable by ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members, as indicated by the button at the end of each show description.

You can become an Extra! member yourself for an incredibly low price (!) and get access to the entire library of over 130+ screencasts plus the next 26 screencasts, all in HD and all accessible via a special members website or delivered to you automatically via iTunes using special member only feeds.

For more information on becoming an Extra! member and to learn about all the benefits, just click on this link.

Straight into the good stuff this week with an in-depth look at all the major features of Numbers, the spectacular new spreadsheet application included in Apples iWork '08 suite.

This weeks show covers all the bases including:

• Introduction to Numbers
• Data Entry and Formatting
• Charts, Text and Shapes
• Images, Masking & Instant Alpha
• Printing
• Exporting to iWeb

I'm really pleased how this weeks show turned out and judging by some of the comments on the ScreenCastsOnline forum, I'm not the only one....

"I just don't know how you do this; it is brilliant.  I probably got my iLife a day earlier than yours (I have a son who is a director in Apple!!) and I have spent a couple of hours with it but your skill in absorbing a brand new product and communicating its essence is really something special.  You have just saved me 'hours' of work!! .....
 
Again Don, just a wonderful show and an abolute eye-opener in Numbers.....
 
Great app, great show!! many thanks."

Ron - A ScreenCastsOnline Extra! Member

This weeks show is an Extra Members show and is available in Apple TV HD format (1280x720), Enhanced Desktop ED Format (960x540) and iPhone/iPod resolution (640x360). For full details on how easy it is to become an Extra! member and get this show along with the next six months worth of weekly shows PLUS access to over 110+ Mac based tutorials, just follow this link.

Discussions: Forum
Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Well it's finally here, along with iWork 08, and surprise, surprise, you don't need Leopard!

Apple have released iLife 08 and I couldn't resist quickly running through some of the main changes to all the applications, even though I'd only had a few hours to play with it.

In this week's show, I take you through the installation with some extra tips for iWeb users. Once installed, there's a quick introduction to all of the apps with a little more in depth look at iMovie 08.

The good news is that there is tons of material here for new screencasts so expect to see more detailed screencasts on all the iLife 08 applications along with iWork 08 over the next few months!

This is a full free show (but only in 640x360 with no chapters for non members). As mentioned in the show, I'll try and do at least one show a month on one of the new versions of the iLife apps (and iWork) but they won't all be free shows. To get the full set, you'll need to be an Extra! member.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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Some significant updates have been released to applications I've previously covered on ScreenCastsOnline. Mix in a new website design on the ScreenCastsOnline website plus installing and configuring a cool Rapidweaver template to provide automated site maps and you have the basis of a pretty packed show this week! I'm pretty jazzed about the new website design so I thought I'd share it with you as I know the majority of ScreenCastsOnline viewers get all the shows via iTunes.

Objective Development have released a new version of one of my favourite Mac apps and that's Objective Development (actually 4.3.1 came out just after finishing recording). LaunchBar is much more than an application launcher as it enables you to search, switch and launch and gives you compete control over your mac with just a few simple keystrokes. LaunchBar has introduced some additional features in this release that extend its power considerably and without getting too much into the QuickSilver vs LaunchBar debate :-) I've found that LaunchBar is a killer app for the mac!

Yes, I know we only did the introduction of Rapidweaver 3.6 a short few weeks ago, but RealMac Software have just released RapidWeaver 3.6.2 which further extend the usefulness and ease of use of what already is an amazing product! A quick run through and demo of the new features in included in this week's show.

One of the new features I introduced with the new ScreenCastsOnline site is the introduction of some SiteMap pages. SiteMaps are great for allowing users to see the entire contents of your website on a single page and easily find and navigate to content. SiteMaps are also incredibly useful in ensuring that your SEO or "Search Engine Optimisation" is in good health. Google and other search engines use sitemaps to fully crawl through your website and ensure all your content is indexed and searchable. Rather than attempt to do this by hand, I stumbled on SiteMap by LogHound. This is an inexpensive RapidWeaver plugin that does it all for you with minimal configuration. It's also useful for finding pages that still have the default RapidWeaver settings. In this weeks show, I take you through an expalination on how to configure the product and demonstrate the results!

This week is also the start of the revised scheme for Extra! members in that there will now be an Extra! members show every two weeks instead of one a month, and this is the first such show. If you're not an Extra! member, you'll only get the first 5 minutes or so of this weeks show but as a consolation, it will be in HD. Back to a full free show next week but if you'd like to get all the shows in future plus get immediate access to a library over 100+ screencasts, just follow this link to get full details and instructions to sign up.


Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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So Macs don't crash that often (but let's face it they do sometimes!) but more often we may get a rogue application that decides to go AWOL and take up all of your precious CPU cycles. And let's not mention the "spinning wheel of doom" that occasionally appears if an application decides not to play nicely.

The good thing is that these occurrences don't happen that often but when they do, we need to be able to track down the culprit and stop the app so we can carry on working.

Step up to the mark, Activity Monitor.

Activity Monitor is a free Mac OS X application installed on every Mac and is just the job for seeking out misbehaving applications and some other really useful information. It even allows you to selectively quit individual processes that may be causing problems on you Mac.

This week's show gives you a run down on the major features of Activity Monitor and describes how you might use it to find out more about your Mac and to help sort out any process issues you may come across. Activity monitor also has a number of features and displays that enable you to continuously monitor the health of various aspects of your Mac via separate windows or even via the dock application.

If you want an alternative to Activity Monitor, this weeks show also has a quick demo of a super donationware package that lets you monitor many aspects of your macs health direct from the menubar. That's iStat Menus

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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You'll really need to concentrate for this weeks show! I covered this topic many moons ago and it was in fact, the very first pseudo members only show but before we had the Extra! membership scheme!

This week is all about searching, accessing and downloading from the amazing wealth of content that's available from the UseNet binary groups.

There's an awful lot packed into this week's show so you'll need your wits about you. The show covers:

Usenet - All about UseNet
GigaNews - A commercial UseNet host service
NewzBin - A Commercial UseNet Indexing service
iGrabNews - A brilliant newsgroup reader with support for NZB files
MacPar Deluxe - A great par checker and unpacker
Split & ConCat - A concatenation utility

By the end of the show you'll have a good idea on how to harness the power of the UseNet binary groups and fully understand how to access and download tons of content.

As promised, here are the links for the various services and software packages described in the show:

GigaNews
NewzBin
NB Since the original show was published, NewzBin have temporarily stopped taking new members. This may have changed again by the time you read this update! If you can't join NewzBin, check out the ScreenCastsOnline forum post for some alternatives.
iGrabNews
MacPar Deluxe
Split & ConCat



Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Imagine being able to sign on to hundreds if not thousands of websites with a single username and password. Usually, this would be frowned upon as it could be a highly risky strategy with most standard websites. But there is a safe, secure and free solution to the holy grail of single sign on and thats OpenID OpenID .

Wikipedia describes OpenID as " ... a decentralized single sign-on system. Using OpenID-enabled sites, web users do not need to remember traditional authentication tokens such as username and password. Instead, they only need to be previously registered on a website with an OpenID "identity provider", sometimes called an i-broker. Since OpenID is decentralized, any website can employ OpenID software as a way for users to sign in; OpenID solves the problem without relying on any centralized website to confirm digital identity.
OpenID is increasingly gaining adoption among large sites, with organizations like AOL acting as a provider. In addition, integrated OpenID support has been made a high priority in Firefox 3 and Microsoft is working on implementing OpenID 2.0 in Windows Vista."

Don't worry, it's really easy to use as can be seen from this week's show!

I'll take you through signing up for a free OpenID identity and demonstrate just how easy it is to use various OpenID enabled sites!

Some useful links as mentioned in the show:

A simple explanation of how OpenID works
A List of OpenID Indentity Providers
The Nitty Gritty!
JanRain Website
MyOpenID Website

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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As Mac users, we're faced with a tremendous choice in the various browsers available to us! If you're like me, it's really hard to stick to one so we're constantly switching between browsers or trying new ones as they get updated.

Wouldn't it be great if you could manage all your browser bookmarks centrally and them have all browsers use the same set of bookmarks seamlessly!

If you've a number of macs, how about being able to syncronise not only between browsers on the same machine, but between multiple browsers plus your desktop and laptop?

And what about the iPhone? Sure iTunes will sync your Safari bookmarks but what if you're a Firefox or Camino user on your desktop machine?

Well this weeks show will provide you with the solution to all these problems with a single piece of software and that's Bookit from EveryDay Software. Bookit is a low cost application that allows you to do all these things.

The show explains in detail:

• Installation
• Initial Configuration
• Bookmark Syncing on a Single Mac
• Bookmark Syncing between Multiple Macs using .Mac
• Other Bookit Features

Also this week is a special Extra! members section only available in the Extra! members versions of the show. This special section covers a free utility designed to provide fully PC compatible zip files using drag and drop. Also included is a really neat way of configuring the Finder to accomodate drag and drop applications in a very cool way!

The special session is only available to Extra! members, full details on how to become an Extra! member and access the special versions of the shows including HD and Apple TV versions (1280x720) can be found on this page - ScreenCastsOnline Extra! Membership Special Offer

Membership also gives you access to over 100+ previous ScreenCastsOnline shows - over 24 hours of premium content!

Links for shows and information contained in this week's show:

SpeedDownload
1Passwd

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Back to basics this week and hopefully it'll relieve the pressure off the credit card for our US based friends who may have maxed out buying the iPhone!

This week I cover one of the most misunderstood, under appreciated and under utilised functions with OS X and that's OSX Services.

OSX Services are like mini utilities that help you manipulate, format and transfer text into all sorts of applications. I'll be looking atService Scrubber which is a donationware application which allows you to enable and disable services, restructure your services menu and assign keystrokes to service actions.

Also, I take a look at some of the more useful services and touch on how to use the TextExpander service. It's possible to download and install services and I take a look at WordService and TinyUrl , both extremely useful OSX services.

Finally, I take a look at configuring QuickSilver to access your OS X Services directly instead of via the menu.

All in all, a pretty packed (and hopefully informative) show!

This week's show is an Extra! members only show so subscribers to the free feed will only get a sampler of the full show. To get more information on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member, visit the Become a Member page.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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Yes, it's only just been released, but I thought you might like a quick overview!

This week's show takes a look at the new YouTube integration delivered for free to your Apple TV. Instead of crouching over your Mac watching postage stamp sized, badly encoded video clips, you can now watch them in your living room on your HD TV in h.264 goodness.

OK, so it's not quite HD quality but it's a much improved user experience.

Take a look and see if it's enough to make you finally decide to get the Apple TV - This is the first of many upgrades and additions that are slated to occur over the next two years following Apples recent change in accounting practice. This means that can add functionality to existing devices without having to charge for it and still remain within the bounds of corporate governance (or something like that!).

Also this week, my good buddy Victor over at the Typical Mac User Podcast has asked me to co-host this weeks live podcast with him on Talkshoe - the interactive podcast. If you've not used Talkshoe before, it's a great service that allows you to host a fully interactive podcast to a live audience and includes a live chat room and the ability to telephone in and chat with the hosts. This weeks show is on Sunday 24th June at 5pm PST, 8pm EST and 1am for me over in the UK. I'll be staying up late with some strong coffee and I'd love for as many ScreenCastsOnline viewers to join in.

The screencast gives a quick overview of Talkshoe and shows you how to get setup for Sunday.

If you don't want to participate directly (or if it's too late for you!) you can listen live or download the podcast once it's finished.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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Another premier league Mac application this week, it's the fantastic Comic Life from Plasq.

If you've recently bought a new mac, chances are you've already got this super application already installed on your hard disk!

Comic life is a really easy way to turn your boring old digital photos into mini works of art. It's great for turning your holiday or family snaps into funny comic books that you can print, email or publish to the web using iWeb or .Mac. As well as its entertainment value, Comic Life can have a serious purpose in creating informative, easy to follow how to guides as well as being a great desktop publishing package. You'll find kids will love its flexibility and because it's so easy to use, Comic Life has carved out a special niche in the education market as a super educational tool for all ages.

In this week's show, I'll take you through the basics of Comic Life including:

◦ The User Interface
◦ Creating a Simple Comic
◦ Styles and Attributes
◦ Publishing and Exporting
◦ Some Sample Uses of Comic Life

Thanks to Cris over at Plasq for supporting ScreenCastsOnline by sponsoring this weeks episode.

Some links mentioned in this weeks show:

Comic Life Website
Educational Resources

Don't forget to also check out the Education Forum

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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Yes, as alluded to last week (thanks Cynthia!), this week's show is all about the new release of RapidWeaver - version 3.6.

It's the first paid upgrade for a while, so this show takes you through the enhancements and new features of the premier template based web creation tool from RealMac software, the sponsors of this weeks show.

The show covers:

• Changes to the UI
• New Site and Page Inspectors
• New Theme Styles and Colour Pickers
• New Categories and Tags within Blog pages
• New InLine Comments within Blog Pages
• Signing up to HaloScan
• Enhancements to the Photo Album Pages
• Displaying EXIF data
• New Photo Slideshow Visual Effects
• Adding Sound to SlideShows
• Snippets
• HTML List Formats
• RapidWeaver Add-Ons

A pretty comprehensive list of new features and pretty much well worth the $25 upgrade from fully paid previous versions!

RapidWeaver can be obtained from : RealMac Software

Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 1 is available here
Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 2 is available here
Rapidweaver Tutorial Part 3 is available here
All Rapidweaver related tutorials here

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
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Take control of your email inbox with this great free Mail plugin!

This week's screencast covers one of the utilities I use everyday to help me keep my email organised and at least feel as though I'm in control.

It's a simple mail plugin that allows you to create special rules which you can then assign to simple keystrokes. The rules can be as simple or as complex as you'd like allowing you to easily colour code your email, move email messages to folders or basically anything you can do with a standard email rule but under your control. The screencast even shows you how you can assign multiple rules to a single keystroke and build in a level of intelligence in how the messages are handled based on the content.

Mail Act-On Link

This weeks show is for Extra! members only but you can see a trailer for the show from the ScreenCastsOnline website.

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
The free show (or trailer) is at a much lower resolution.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member