Archive for the 'Podcasting' Category

These days there are so many Screencasts for Mac. There are also a ton of tools to do Screencasts for Mac. Today I am going to be talking about a very popular one called Screenflick. A while back, our own Daniel Greg did a review of Screencast. Since then, they have changed the name to Screenflick, and added many new features.

If you’re using Apple’s latest keyboard, released in August, or if you’re fortunate enough to have a MacBook Air, you’re already enjoying the benefits of dedicated iTunes keyboard buttons.

However, not everyone is so lucky, which is probably why iTunes controller applications are so popular and plentiful.

An iTunes controller is a companion to Apple’s jukebox that allows you to play, pause, skip between tracks and adjust volume using either keyboard shortcuts or buttons in the menu bar. As more people listen to music while surfing the web, with a recent survey by Olswang finding about one in five computer users listen to music on their computers daily, there’s a big market for these apps.

As businesses and schools move more and more into the digital age, presentations and lectures are more commonly being recorded and stored electronically for future use.

I personally attend many presentations at work where someone is at the back of the room with a video camera running to capture the presenter, his/her presentation on the overhead and the delivery that goes with it.

While this adds immense value for reuse of the presentation, the quality is often poor, and in many cases, the presentation itself is illegible. ProfCast, from Humble Daisy, is a great application for capturing live presentation content and audio in a format that can be easily published and distributed via a number of open channels.
ProfCast is able to record either PowerPoint or Keynote presentations in-time with the presenters audio.

As rich media on the internet continues to evolve, text becomes a more mundane way of expressing yourself. This is where iShowU shines. iShowU is the easiest, and quickest way to record your screen, and share it with anyone around the world.

Video capturing applications have always been few and far between, because video is so much more complicated to deal with than still pictures. However, iShowU is able to overcome this difficulty, and provides a seamless experience for the user.

Screencasting is a growing phenomenon, with popular podcasts such as ScreenCastsOnline, and tutorial services like TeachMac being at its forefront. Due to their simplicity to put together and ease of how they convey information, many developers are now creating screencasts to show off their new applications.

Like so many other areas, screencasting is dominated by one or two apps (namely, iShowU and SnapZPro). I was therefore thrilled to see an announcement by the Araelium Group saying that they had developed an application to compete in this growing market.

The all-new big cat is in the wild, but it has a rarer Big-Brother that hasn’t received so much publicity. This is the new Leopard Server.

So what’s new? Well, quite a lot really. There are some special features; however, they are installed alongside some tools to make it an extremely easy server to setup.

Apple is calling it ‘The World’s Easiest Server‘ and claiming that no IT department is required. This could be a huge selling point, as most day to day tasks can be done from within one window: Server Preferences. Just like System Preferences in Desktop OS X, you can change users, setup and configure services available on the network, as well as see different information about what the server is doing.

WireTap Studio is being released to the world next week and I was lucky enough to speak with Andrew Welch to find out about all the new features in WireTap Studio and how Ambrosia went about incorporating them into the app. We also learn how Ambrosia Software began developing audio software and of some new features in Ambrosia’s upcoming programs. Don’t nod off because at the end of the interview Andrew leaves a surprise gift for one lucky MacApper reader.

First off, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this interview with us.

While Apple laptops have better speakers than most laptops, they could still use some help. Even most external powered speakers could use some improvement. The SRS iWow plugin for iTunes from SRS Labs can make your built-in speakers sound good or your good speakers sound great. The plugin uses SRS Labs’ technology to “provide amazing audio immersion and maximum thump for a personalized audio experience.”

SRS iWow is a plugin for iTunes and is powered by Rouge Amoeba’s iTunes Enhancer technology. After installing the SRS iWow plugin, its window opens up when you open iTunes. You have the option of keeping it open or closing it (which reduces its already low processor load).

If you’ve ever tried your hand at podcasting, you’ve undoubtedly been through your share of frustration with microphones, sound settings, recording applications, and Skype dropped calls. Well I can’t solve all your problems right here, but I think I can help with one.

SoundSource is a freeware app from the great developers at Rogue Amoeba. Quite simply, SoundSource sits on your toolbar at the top right of your screen, and allows you to switch between different audio input and output devices. It may seem unnecessary, but after trying to dig through numerous system preference menus just to switch between your built in mic and usb headset, SoundSource is a welcome simplification of the process. SoundSource is available from Rogue Amoeba for free.

There are quite a few apps in OS X that do a very decent job of converting/ripping audio to various formats, but few of them come as fully featured as Max by Stephen Booth. You might be thinking that iTunes contains everything one should need when converting audio, but Max really goes above and beyond what iTunes can do, and supports pretty much every audio format under the sun.

Max really is a powerful one-trick-pony, and that is precisely why I like it.

Well, Roxio have recently ‘bitten’ into the Apple TV market by announcing and Previewing Crunch.

Crunch is a new app to convert video into Apple TV, iPod, and iPhone friendly formats. On deck is the ability to painlessly convert your videos for all your Apple devices. Keyword being painlessly.

It is shown to use a familiar drag-and-drop interface, with both QuickTime and some non-QuickTime formats - Div-X and MPEG-2 are to be supported as well. Roxio are also allowing the conversion of unprotected DVD’s and their VIDEO_TS folders, so you can expect .VOB support as well. Crunch is very iTunes friendly - automatically exporting crunched content to an iTunes folder, which is then automatigically synced to Apple TV.

Conference Recorder is a small plugin for Apple’s iChat application that enables you to record video and audio conferences to your hard drive. Conference Recorder is a beautiful little addition to iChat and works flawlessly.

In order to record a video or audio conference with Conference Recorder, you simply have to set up your preferences for recording. The Conference Recorder preference panel is seamlessly integrated into iChat’s preferences and enables you to customize the size, frame rate, and quality of your capture. It also lets you hide picture-in-picture during video recording and lets you customize Conference Recorder’s recording controls. Once you have set up the Conference Recorder preferences you can launch a video chat and record right away.

There are many options available for launching applications on Macs. You could get another application suited for the job such as Overflow or LaunchBar, or go the manual route of opening up your applications folder, and searching for it. I’ve tried several of these types of applications before, but the one I found the most Mac-like was Trampoline.

Trampoline is a bit of an unusual app. It puts a fresh spin on application launching. Instead of presenting the applications to you in a list or chart, it has them spread out around the edge of a circle. To launch an app, all you do is move your mouse into that application’s area and click. The window disappears and the application opens.

I finally got around to installing some inline media controls for our bloggers and I thought I might air Alec Feld’s portion of the podcast done over at Victor’s Typical Mac User Podcast, a couple days ago. Alec was interviewed about our Macapper Switcher’s Story Contest and as far as I know this was MacApper’s first foray into anything other than text on a screen. Props to Alec for taking this on and Victor for setting it up. I would highly recommend heading over to TMU to check out the full podcast as it has a great format with a lot of interaction. Victor also has a pretty sweet radio voice.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is the widely used, XML based system for distributing syndication of many news sites and blogs. In order to use this popular technology, the use of an aggregator is required. There are many popular RSS aggregators available on the mac platform. In this post I will review and compare a few of the newest and most popular: NetNewsWire, Newsfire, Newslife, Vienna, and, OS X’s own built in web browser/RSS reader, Safari.

NetNewsWire Ranchero Software, $25.95

Pros: Free Lite version available, auto-collection, smart folders, search, synchronization with newsgator service, scriptable, built-in efficient web browser.