Offered: Twice a Month Listen To These Podcasts

Subscribe to this: (Click the above links to open this Podcast in the listed podcast sites.)

Click Stars to Rate: Review this title

ScreenCastsOnline Video Podcast Desktop Edition

About Podcasting:
For those of you new to podcasting, Click Here to read our "Introduction to Podcasting" Article.

Be the First to Review ScreenCastsOnline Video Podcast

Podcast Feed URL:

(Copy the above URL into your Podcast Application. Click Here to learn more.)

Special Audio Announcement

Author: ScreenCastsOnline
Fri, Feb 15, 2008

A special announcement about the free show.

Download File - 2.5 MB
Listen To This Podcast (Streaming Audio)

[Sampler for Extra Show] By popular demand, this weeks show is all about Bento by FileMaker. Bento is a very flexible and elegant database package that many people consider to be the application that was missing from iWork.

It's a very powerful application that harnesses the power of database creation and sophisticated data manipulation in a very stylish and easy to use package - the epitome of a mac application!

As well as allowing you to create your own databases (or libraries in Bento terminology) from scratch or via imported data, Bento also gives you direct access to your Address book data, along with your iCal tasks and events to design your own forms to view and manipulate your data. Eye candy is plentiful with the use of pre designed themes and the ability to create your own special views of your data via easily customisable forms.

This weeks show takes you through the basics of Bento and even if you've no database experience, should give you enough information to start creating your own databases with ease. The show is an Extra members show and covers:

â—¦ Introduction to Bento
â—¦ The Bento Interface
â—¦ Core Concepts - Libraries and Collections
â—¦ Address Book Integration
â—¦ Records & Table View
â—¦ Form Views
â—¦ Creating a Library
â—¦ Adding Fields
â—¦ Form Customisation
â—¦ Themes
â—¦ Advanced Find
â—¦ Smart Collections

More than enough to get you started! This is the first of a two part show on Bento and we'll look at some of the more advanced features in part two.

[Full Free Show] It's been a while since I first found PDFPen, a great utility for editing PDFs. With the introduction of Version 3, however, the application now has some amazing features allowing you to edit the embedded images and text in the PDF itself!

Add in the ability to create and insert text, images, signatures and scribbles into a PDF and even create your own libraries of often used material, no longer do you have to spend hundreds of dollars on Adobe Acrobat!

This show is sponsored by Smile On My Mac, the publishers of PDFPen and covers:

â—¦ Introduction to PDFPen
â—¦ Manipulating PDF pages
â—¦ Working with Text
â—¦ Editing original PDF text
â—¦ Working with Columns
â—¦ Copying Text
â—¦ Searching for Text, Notes and Comments
â—¦ Working with Images
â—¦ Editing original PDF images
â—¦ Adding your own Images
â—¦ Filling in PDF Forms
â—¦ Adding Your Signature
â—¦ Making Transparent Images
â—¦ Applescript Support

On top of all that, this weeks show also contains a special ScreenCastsOnline discount code to save 20% off the usual price of PDFPen - The code is SCOPDFPEN

[Trailer] 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 from the ScreenCastsOnline Forum, 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!

No proper show this week due to my attendance at Macworld in San Francisco. I thought I'd post a short sights and sounds video of Macworld to give you a flavour of just what it's like attending the show.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

[Trailer] It's been a good few months since I did a Rapidweaver related show so I thought I'd do one on a tool I get a lot of requests about.

We all know that Rapidweaver is one of the simplest, yet most powerful web creation tools available for the Mac but one of its strengths is also one of its weaknesses. It's a template based package and uses themes to give your Web site its look and feel. Now unless the theme developer gives you lots and lots of options, your creativity might be a bit stifled by sticking to a particular theme...."If only I could just insert my logo just there in that header!"

Well with RWMultiTool, the underlying graphics of virtually every theme are made available to you to alter or even replace if you want to!

Insert your own images or overlay extra graphics on your Rapidweaver theme headers or anywhere else in your theme really easily and quickly. No coding is required, just drag your images on to the existing theme elements, one click and your new graphic is instantly part of the theme. You can even see the changes instantly to your Web site in Rapidweavers Preview mode.

The best part is that RWMultiTool is available in both free and Pro versions and the show will give you a brief comparison between both versions.

RWMultiTool Site

[Full Free Show] 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 (inlcuding running through the different installation routines for all of them) The software icludes:

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.

[Trailer] Last show of the year so I thought I'd go out with something special!

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a software package called Remote Buddy which allows you to use your Apple Remote to do all sorts of clever things with your Intel Mac. Included in the package is a very clever piece of software which is basically a fully featured Ajax web server that allows you full control over iTunes from a browser.

Add in an Airport Express to allow you to transmit your music from your Mac to a remote set of powered speakers or a HiFi over Wifi and you have an incredible system for creating multi room audio throughout the house.

But it gets even better when you add in an iPhone or iPod Touch which allows you to access the Remote Buddy Ajax Web server and control your audio system via WiFi. Not just control the playback, but control the volume, search your iTunes library, select your Airport Express and even view the album art of the currently selected track on your iPhone.

This weeks full show covers all these elements in 20 minute including:

Installing and Configuring the Airport Express
Configuring iTunes
Installing and Configuring Remote Buddy
Using the Remote Buddy Ajax Web Server
Controlling iTunes via your iPhone/iPod Touch

Time for a product update this week. It's been over 12 months since I covered 1Passwd, the brilliant password manager and web form filler from Agile Web Solutions.

This is one of the must have applications for the Mac and makes managing and using passwords and web identities a breeze. Since the last screencast ( SCO0078 ) , the product has been re-launched as 1Password and has had a significant re-write with lots of new features and is now even better!

In addition to the new features built in to 1Password, the guys have come up with a unique feature to enable to securely copy all your 1Password information in encrypted form to your iPhone or iPod touch. So now you can have all your data with you on the go!

This weeks show covers:

1Password Basics
Using 1Password for Authentication
New 1Password GUI
New 1Password Identities
New 1Password Wallet Items
Sync to iPhone and iPod Touch

For a limited time, you can get 17% off the usual price of 1Password by accessing this special ScreenCastsOnline offer page at the 1Password store - 17% Discount for ScreenCastsOnline viewers - This offer has been extended up to 31st January 2008.

[Trailer] 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 incl.
Exporting
Publishing
Subscribing
Syncronising Calendars incl.
.Mac Sync
iPhone Sync
Third Party Integration
BusySync
Spanning Sync

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.

Featuring an excellent CD/DVD labelling utility this week, and that's DiscLabel 5 from SmileOnMyMac. As well as CD and DVDs, DiscLabel 5 also allows you to create stunning covers and inserts for all types of cases and boxes.

As well as a whole library of templates and clip art, DiscLabel is fully integrated with iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD and other digital content packages to provide both artwork and automated track listings easily and quickly.

This weeks show is sponsored by SmileOnMyMac and they've kindly provided a special ScreenCastsOnline discount code for 20% off the usual price of both the standard package plus the family pack. Check out the screencast for full details.

[Trailer] - 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. 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
Setting up To Dos

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

This week's sponsored show features OmniWeb, the feature packed web browser from the Omni Group.

OmniWeb is unusual in that it's one of the few browsers that you have to buy, it's not free! Consequently, it has to be something special to compete against exceptionally strong competition, but you'll be glad to know that it delivers a brilliant browsing experience.

The shows covers all of the advanced features of OmniWeb including:

Using Tabs & Thumbnails
OmniWeb Workspaces
Web & Search Shortcuts
Bookmarks
Site Preferences
RSS Support

A 30 day trial of OmniWeb can be downloaded from the Omni Group Web site

[Trailer] - 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:
â—¦ New Menu Bar
â—¦ Recreating Rounded Corners
â—¦ Turning off the Translucency
â—¦ Configuring New Screensavers
â—¦ Customising the 3D Dock
â—¦ Stacks Overview
â—¦ Fixing Stacks Visuals
â—¦ Creating a Recent Items Stack

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:
â—¦ Time Machine Basics
â—¦ Using The Finder in Time Machine
â—¦ Spotlight Integration with Time Machine
â—¦ iPhoto Integration with Time Machine

The Extra! members section also includes:
â—¦ Using Storage on Other Macs for Time Machine
â—¦ Setting up Personal File Sharing on Leopard
â—¦ Sneak Peak at Screen Sharing
â—¦ Sneak Peak at Using Leopard Server for Time Machine

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

This weeks show is a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member show so this is a trailer on the free feed all about this weeks show! 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

As a respite from the bombardment of Leopard news, reviews, hints and tips that are bound to be coming your way this week, I thought I'd slip in a handy utility to manage all those pesky duplicate tracks that invariably end up in your iTunes library.

The utility is called Dupin from Doug Adams over at Dougs Applescripts for iTunes.

Dupin is a standalone application that makes identifying and removing the duplicate tracks from your iTunes library a breeze. If I have to squeeze a Leopard reference in it's really useful for freeing up some disk space before you backup you drive prior to installing Leopard!!

A relative short show this week, mainly to allow me some time on friday to play with Leopard as soon as it arrives!

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's 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

Struggling with finding the optimum email solution to use with your iPhone? Do you have multiple email accounts that you'd like to process in a single universal inbox? Would you like to have all your email synchronised and available from any device and from any location?

If so this weeks show may be for you.

It's my personal journey from traditional POP based email clients through web based solutions to finally a scheme that gives me the flexibility and control to access my email from anywhere. It's all about IMAP and harnessing the power of IMAP to give you the best of all worlds when accessing your mail.

Even if you're not an iPhone user, the recently expanded .Mac service gives you some huge benefits over more traditional POP or web based solutions.

This week show covers:

Introduction to POP email
Introduction to Web based email
Utilising GMail Mail Fetcher
Introduction to .Mac Mail
Configuring POP, GMAIL and .Mac
Creating a single universal Inbox

More iWork 08 goodness this week as I take a look at some of the new features in Keynote 08, Apples fantastic presentation application.

Keynote 3 was great but Apple have added in some additional features that really take Keynote to the next level. It's one of those applications that make you thankful you're a Mac user and might even just make those business users sitting on the fence make the final leap!

There is already a full ScreenCastsOnline tutorial on Keynote 3 covering some of the basic functionality so this week's show focusses on the new and improved elements within Keynote 08. The show also takes a more advanced approach on how you can configure the new features to create even more sophisticated and impressive effects!

This weeks show includes:

Introduction & New Effects
Smart Builds
Integrating Smart Builds with Bullet Points
Instant Alpha
Creating Animations
Presenters Display Setup & Usage
Adding an Audio Narration
Exporting & Printing

For more details on becoming an Extra! member to get this show plus over 110+ other screencasts all in HD plus the next six months worth of shows, just visit http://www.screencastsonline.com/extra

To co-incide with the Launch of Pixelmator, I've released this weeks show in all three resolutions. This version is 960x540 and will need to be converted in iTunes to play on an iPod. You can also download the full HD version of this show (1280x720) from the ScreenCastsOnline website.

A special free show this week all about Pixelmator, the beautiful new image editing application. Pixelmator is a low cost yet but extremely powerful image editor built especially for Mac OS X which utilises many of its core technologies.

As well as being a fully featured, layer based image editor in its own right, it also supports editing and saving of PhotoShop files removing the financial barrier many of us have in achieving PhotoShop compatibility.

The show covers many of the functions available in Pixelmator including:

â—¦ Pixelmator User Interface
â—¦ Using Pixelmator Tools
â—¦ Using Layers in Pixelmator
â—¦ Using a Clipping Mask
â—¦ Applying Filters to Layers
â—¦ Using a Layer Mask
â—¦ Using Filters and Effects in Pixelmator.

The beauty of the application is that you don't have to be a graphics pro to access some very advanced features and at only $59, Pixelmator is ideal for anyone on a budget.

You can order Pixelmator for download from the Pixelmator website from Tuesday, 25th September 2007.

It's an Extra! members show this week so this is a trailer. The full show rounds off the two part tutorial on Apples iMovie '08, and looks at some of the more advanced aspects of movie creation using this unique software application.

The full 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 show are some details about next weeks Podcast and New Media Expo I'll be attending next week. If you're going to be attending, say hello!

For more details on becoming an Extra! member to get this show plus over 110+ other screencasts all in HD plus the next six months worth of shows, just visit http://www.screencastsonline.com/extra

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.

As mentioned in the show, I'd really appreciate it if you could complete the new ScreenCastsOnline survey form at:

ScreenCastsOnline Survey

An Extra! members only show this week so I've inserted a trailer into the free feed. 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

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.

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

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.

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 weeks 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!

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!So 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 weeks 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