We revisit one of OSXs most misunderstood features this week and that's the latest version of Automator in Leopard.

Automator is a way of creating special applications or plugins that allow you to "automate" repetitive tasks. Each workflow is built up from a number of predefined actions that are bundled in with most of Apples own applications and an increasing number of third party applications. Initially introduced in Tiger, Automator has received a significant make over in Leopard with the introduction of some brand new features, mainly the ability to record tasks using the new "Watch Me Do" feature along with the introduction of user and system generated variables to use in your workflows.

So if the thought of AppleScript sends shivers down your spine, check out some the new features of Automator.

The show covers:

• Automator Basics
• The revised Interface
• Creating a Sample Workflow to resize images
• Creating a Sample Workflow with Text and Speech
• Saving Workflows as Applications
• Saving Workflows as Plugins
• Creating a Sample Workflow with "Watch Me Do"
• Creating and Scheduling an iCal Plugin

This weeks show also includes an Extra! section only available to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members:

• Variables in Automator
• Creating a Sample Workflow including Variables

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Preview is one of OS X Leopards hidden gems. So much so, that most people are only aware of a fraction of its somewhat surprising range of features and capabilities!

Preview received a complete makeover with the release of Leopard, providing you with lots of additional power and flexibility. The great thing is, it's free and it's on all Macs so you never have to falter to make that image correction when your favourite shareware or freeware application isn't installed on someone else's Mac.

In this show, I'll take you through all the basic features of the latest version of Preview including:

• Image Capture
• Viewing Single and Multiple Images with Preview
• Slideshow Views
• Managing Images within Preview
• Color Correction
• Image Annotation
• Image Conversion and Resizing
• Opening and Re-arranging PDFs
• Annotation and Mark Up of PDFs
• Searching
• Bookmarks

See, I told you there was a lot to Preview!

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Busy, busy week! Apple finally released Leopard 10.5.2 and in a flash, put right a lot of the issues and complaints people were having with the User Interface. So this week I take a look at some of the changes in the new update and the best way to install it.

Also, I've been holding off doing a show on Spaces, the virtual desktop management system in Leopard, as I must admit, I did find it a little buggy! Hopefully 10.5.2 has fixed that so the second part of the show is all about Spaces. In this section I cover:

• Spaces Concepts
• Setting Up Spaces
• Moving Between Spaces
• Visualising Spaces

This weeks show is the first that contains an Extra! section just for ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members. In this additional section I cover:

• Moving Apps & Objects Between Spaces
• Organising Spaces by Task

Some major changes to the show format this week in that I've introduced a brand new theme and and transition clips. The new theme was commissioned from Geoff Smith, podcast theme maker extraordinaire! To celebrate, I spent some time putting together a new opening sequence, a new chapter marker and a new ending. All in motion graphics. I hope you like them!

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Thought I'd break myself back in gently by putting together Part 2 of the mini series - Setting up your Mac.

In this weeks show, I make a couple of slight alterations from Part 1 as suggested by pman and wastern, then it's straight into a section on configuring your new shiny aluminium keyboard to get the most out of it.

Then onto a list of some of the top freeware and donationware applications to install on your brand new Mac (or existing Mac if needs be!)

A few suggestions on commercial software I can't live without, topped off with an announcement on the new ScreenCastsOnline 2007 DVD now available (members only - sorry!).

Finished off with news of a groovy prize draw for all those people who buy a DVD before the end of February.

You know what, I didn't break myself in gently at all!

Some links for products mentioned in the show:

iStat Menus - Website
VLC - Website
Adium - Website
Onyx - Website
AppTrap - Website
AppZapper - Website
Hazel - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode
1Password (Affiliate Link - 17% Off!!) - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode
Launchbar - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode
Rapidweaver - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode
SpeedDownload - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode
SpamSieve - Website - ScreenCastsOnline Episode

Discussions: Forum

Extra members get access to full versions of the show in AppleTV (HD), ED and iPod resolutions.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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For the first show of the new year, I thought I'd offer a helping hand to all those new Mac owners fortunate enough to get a new Mac for Christmas. The theme of this show was suggested by a viewer and I enlisted the help of the guys and gals over at the ScreenCastsOnline forum to assemble a list of best practices and essential software for the new Mac user.

The resultant list is just too much for a single show so I'll make it into an occasional mini series of shows for the new Mac user.

This first show looks at several different aspects of setting up a brand new mac from the view point of a new Mac user. I look at:

• Basic Dock Customisation
• Converting to a Standard Account
• Using Parental Controls
• Switching on the FireWall
• Setting a Screensaver Password
• Pointers to Using Time Machine

In addition to these common tasks, I also recommend six free software packages to get you up and running as quickly as possible (including running through the different installation routines for all of them) The software includes:

• Firefox - Web Browser (although I do recommend at least trying Safari for a short while)
• TextWrangler - A Fully Featured Text Editor
• Paintbrush - A simple bitmap graphics tool based on MS Paint
• Perian - Some essential video codecs to allow you play many different types of video
• Flip4Mac - Windows Media Playback
• The Unarchiver - Free unarchive utility for many formats

These are just the start and we'll look at many more useful utilities and applications in the following episodes.

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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Another Members show this week and it's part 2 of the iCal tutorial. In this weeks episode, I look at some of the more advanced capabilities of iCal that make it such a powerful planning and sharing tool. In addition, I also take a look at some third party tools that enable you to extend the capabilities of iCal and also integrate and syncronise with Google Calendar.

The show covers:

• Time Zone Support
• Sharing Calendars including
• Exporting
• Publishing
• Subscribing
• Syncronising Calendars including
• .Mac Sync
• iPhone Sync
• Third Party Integration
• BusySync for sharing iCal calendars
• Spanning Sync for integration with Google Calendar

Don't forget that the members version of the show has embedded chapters so you can go straight to the section that you want or easily skip sections.

LInks mentioned in this weeks show:

ScreenCastsOnline Forums
The MacBites Podcast
BusySync - See update below
Spanning Sync
UK Affiliate Link for .Mac

Update 31/12/07 - In case you were not aware, BusySync has just been upgraded to sync across the WAN (ie via Macs connected across the Internet not just the local LAN). The press release can be found here. If you're interested in learning how to configure the new WAN features, see this section of the user's guide.

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 120+ 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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I've been holding off doing a show on iCal for a while now, but I'm glad I did. Leopard and the iPhone has brought a new lease of life to iCal, the calendar application included with Mac OS X.

Under the hood, there's a ton of cool and really useful features that now make iCal a credible and reliable tool to help you plan, organise and share your busy schedule.

In fact, there's so much stuff to cram in, I've had to split the show into two parts! In this first part, I cover:

• iCal User Interface Basics
• Creating and Managing Calendars
• Calendar Groups
• Creating and Editing Events
• Setting up Mail for iCal invitations
• Using Invitations to Setup Meetings
• Mail Integration
• Using Data Detectors in Mail
• Setting up To Dos via Mail

Part 2 will be along shortly looking at some of the more advanced features of iCal.

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 120+ 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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This weeks' show is the last Leopard related screencast for a couple of weeks, and it's all about a couple of the most controversial aspects of Leopard, and that's the Leopard Desktop and Stacks.

These two areas seem to have been the most contentious, what with the missing rounded corners, the translucent menu bar and the perception of the 3D dock as being just eye candy! Not to mention the dubious visual metaphor of Stacks using the foremost icon in the dock - very confusing!

Well in this weeks' show, we'll examine all these features and look at some resolutions using some free third party applications. So this weeks show covers:

• New Menu Bar
• Recreating Rounded Corners
• Turning off the Translucency
• Configuring New Screensavers
• Customising the 3D Dock
• Stacks Overview
• Fixing Stacks Visuals
• Creating a Recent Items Stack

As promised, here are the links to the various utilities used in this weeks show:

OpaqueMenuBar
Displaperture
Leopard Docks
Stack Overlay Icons
mac OSX Hints

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 120+ 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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The first full show on one of Leopards most unique features - Time Machine!

We all know what Leopard is supposed to do but in this show I take you from the basics of using Time Machine with the Finder, through iPhoto integration and even take a peek at Time Machine support in OSX Leopard Server. This weeks show is a free show, but I've included a special Extra! members only section at the end of the full show covering some of the more advanced features.

This week's show covers:

• Time Machine Basics
• Using The Finder in Time Machine
• Spotlight Integration with Time Machine
• iPhoto Integration with Time Machine

The Extra! members section also includes:

• Using Storage on Other Macs for Time Machine
• Setting up Personal File Sharing on Leopard
• Sneak Peak at Screen Sharing
• Sneak Peak at Using Leopard Server for Time Machine

Look out for more Leopard related screencasts in the coming months.


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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Yes, it's finally here - this week is the Leopard install show! If you've been hanging on and haven't installed Leopard yet, now you can learn all about the final preparation, a cool way to create a backup of your Leopard DVD plus the different options and customisations available when you install the big cat!

This week's show covers:

• Considerations Before Install
• Creating a bootable image of your Leopard Install DVD (optional)
• Using iPartition to dynamically resize partitions (optional)
• Final preparations
• Removing APE to prevent installation hangups
• Leopard Installation - Upgrade
• Leopard Installation - Archive and Install
• Leopard Installation - Erase and Install
• Using Migration Assistant

LInks to this weeks Software:

Special Pre-Order Discounts for Leopard:

US
Mac OS X 10.5: $109 (Save $20)
5-License Family Pack: $189 (Save $10)

UK
Mac OS X 10.5: £79.98 (Save £5.02)
5-License Family Pack: £119.98 (Save £7.02)

Links to the software used in this weeks show:

SuperDuper
iPartition 3

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 120+ 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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At last! The launch date has been announced, the DVD printers are churning out copies of Leopard and all we have to do now is pre-order and wait for the big day!

Well we could sit and wait, but there's lots of things we can be doing in the meantime to ensure that our Macs are fit and ready to receive Leopard. More importantly, there are things we can do in advance to make sure that the installation or upgrade goes smoothly and that we are in a position to recover if things don't go as well as planned.

Yes, this week's show is all about preparing for the Leopard install and what sensible steps you need to do in advance.

One of the major things is ensuring that you have a good bootable backup of your Mac BEFORE you even think about upgrading. In this episode, I take you through some of the options for getting an external hard disk that can dual as both a bootable backup of your current system and also be configured to act as your Time Machine backup at the same time! I also cover some simple housekeeping steps to weed out the data and applications that clutter up your hard disk. The show covers:

• Selecting an External Hard Disk
• Partitioning your new disk
• Creating a Time Machine volume
• Creating a Bootable Backup using Superduper
• Testing your Bootable Backup
• Disk Housekeeping
• Identifying large files with Grandperspective
• Removing Applications with Appzapper
• Updating Applications with AppFresh

LInks to this weeks Software:

Special Pre-Order Discounts for Leopard:

US
Mac OS X 10.5: $109 (Save $20)
5-License Family Pack: $189 (Save $10)

UK
Mac OS X 10.5: £79.98 (Save £5.02)
5-License Family Pack: £119.98 (Save £7.02)

Links to the software used in this weeks show:

Carbon Copy Cloner
SuperDuper
GrandPerspective
AppZapper
AppFresh


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 120+ 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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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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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.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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To give you (and your wallet!) a rest from all the cool applications I've been featuring recently, I've gone back to basics and produced a primer for the OS X Terminal.

OS X Terminal gives you direct command line access to the Unix shell on which OS X is built on. While it may seem intimidating to some people, there are lots of really useful and immensely powerful tools available to you from Terminals command line interface.

This weeks show looks at:

Running Terminal
Customising the Terminal Window
Some Basic Terminal Commands
Man Pages
Navigating Your Directory Structure
Using Pipes
Network Diagnostics
Remote Login using SSH

The show barely scratches the surface of what you can accomplish with Terminal so please head over to the ScreenCastsOnline forum and leave your favourite Terminal hints and Tips here!.

If we get enough, perhaps I'll do a more advanced show to follow up.

Discussions: Forum

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This weeks shows gives you some basic information on how to share folders and files either on the same mac, between macs on your home network and also between Macs and Windows PCs.

As an experiment, the show is split into 3 sections:

Part 1 - For Everyone - Basic Filesharing
Part 2 - For Extra! Members - Using Sharepoints and more advanced file sharing
Part 3 - For Extra! Members - A short section covering the recent beta release of Parallels introducing some amazing new features.

Parts 2 & 3 are only available in the versions of the Extra! versions of the shows (in High definition) made available via the RSS feeds for Extra! members. Slight change this week in that the Extra! membership has been simplified to just 1 option - Premium Extra! Membership. See here for details.

Part 2 also includes information on installing and configuring Sharepoints - A great donationware application that makes the whole process of setting up File Sharing Only users and shares on the mac.

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Following on from the recent show (SCO0071 - Using an Internet Hosting Provider) I'm pleased to say that ScreenCastsOnline viewers have been setting up SiteGround accounts using the ScreenCastsOnline Affiliate Link!

Thank you!

This will be the last SiteGround related show for a month or two, but people have been asking about setting up the email system with OSX Mail application. So this show teaches you how to create email accounts in Siteground and configuring your mail in OSX. As this is a fairly standard procedure, you may fins that this is applicable to other hosting providers too! The show also covers some great tips on organising your mail accounts. So this week we look at:

Setting up single and multiple email accounts in Siteground
Configuring the OSX Mail Application
Forwarding multiple emails to single mailbox
Configuring multiple emails in a single mailbox
Organising your emails using Rules
SiteGround WebMail

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Back to the usual format this week. The recent WWDC keynote inspired me to cover one of the unsung heroes of OSX and that's the Mail application. It's been a while since I did a switcher show so I thought, why not!

This weeks show is in two versions, the usual free show and a special "enhanced" version for Extra! members which includes a separate Extra! section.

In the free show I cover...

Setting up Mail with .Mac, Mail User Interface, Mail Preferences including Rules, Organising your Mail Preferences incl Rules, Mailboxes and Smart MailBoxes

The Extra! section covers:

Migrating Data from Outlook to Mail, Setting up Mail with GMail, Installing a 3 pane view plugin

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Something useful for new mac users and regular users alike!

OSX is an extremely stable and low maintenance operating system but if you aren't able to keep your machine booted 24x7, there are some simple actions you can do to keep your mac in top condition. This screencast gives you some guidance on how to keep your mac spruced up for top performance.

Please leave all comments about this ScreenCast on the SCO Forum Message Board. This link will take you straight to the thread discussing this show.

If you're not already registered on the forums, you'll need to register when you click the link but it's free and very simple to do! Once you are registered, future clicks on this link or for future shows will take you straight to the forum.

Duration: 10:37
Size: Desktop & iPod:30MB HiDef:35MB
Platform: mac
Level: Easy
Links:
MacJanitor
Disk Optimisation with OSX
Cocktail

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This is the third in a series of screencasts especially for mac switchers. This episode covers the amazing Expose functionality built right into OSX

Future episodes will cover all aspects of OSX tiger to give switchers (and potential switchers) a really good start in mastering their mac.

Please support ScreenCastsOnline by letting newbie friends and colleagues know about this useful resource and leave all comments about this ScreenCast on the ScreenCastsOnline Forums

Duration: 09:45
Size: 30MB
Platform: mac
Level: Easy

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This is the second in a series of screencasts especially for mac switchers. This episode covers the Finder in OSX and gives hints and tips on navigating around the mac environment

Future episodes will cover all aspects of OSX tiger to give switchers (and potential switchers) a really good start in mastering their mac.

Please support ScreenCastsOnline by letting newbie friends and colleagues know about this useful resource!

Duration: 22:31
Size: 37MB
Platform: mac
Level: Easy

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This episode covers the Dock in OSX and demonstrates how to master both simple and advanced built in functions of the dock.

Future episodes will cover all aspects of OSX tiger to give switchers (and potential switchers) a really good start in mastering their mac.

Please support ScreenCastsOnline by letting newbie friends and colleagues know about this useful resource!

PS - I'm assuming all switchers will be using a two button mouse so there are references to right click throughout - If you're a switcher and you haven't got a two button mouse then go and get one immediately!


Duration: 13:07
Size: 25MB
Platform: mac
Level: Easy
Links used in the ScreenCast:

Beamup Media

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A quick overview of Spotlight - one of the new features of OSX Tiger. This tutorial covers basic usage of the spotlight search functions within Tiger along with some more advanced hints and tips you may not be aware of!

Duration: 10:21
Size: 16MB
Platform: mac
Level: Easy
Links used in the ScreenCast:

Apple Spotlight Tips