Mac OS X Screencasts » English Videos: Recent Episodes
Andreas Zeitler
English screencasts about your favorite Mac and iOS apps. Our German Podcast is available on the website or the iTunes directory.
Infos: Mac OS X Screencasts creates tutorials, software reviews bundled with free license giveaways or discounts for all kinds of Mac and iOS specific Software. Visit our website at: http://www.macosxscreencasts.com/
Attention: Most of our videos are recorded in high quality. Unfortunately that means most of our videos won't play on an iPhone or iTouch Devices.
The new LibreOffice 4.0 has just been released with some new features. In this screencast we're going to show you the most important ones and how they are used so you can use the new LibreOffice more efficiently.
Changes in Write, Calc, and the new CMIS integration make LibreOffice not only more powerful, but the app is now also more attractive as business office alternative.
We were working on a little project for iwascoding over the last months. GarageBuy needed a nice app trailer/ad for its introduction.
GarageBuy is a powerful eBay search client. You can see the most important features in the video, but also some tips on using the app more efficiently afterwards.
The new year has just begun and now you are probably in the mood to clean your home from the cruft that has been accumulated over the last year. Your Mac isn't safe from your plans either! But how do you effectively clean up your Mac from big files and other stuff? Leftovers from long-gone apps and installers, etc.
We show you in this tutorial how what makes sense to clean up, what doesn't make sense and where it is advisable to stop (if you ever want to get finished).
Christmas is just around the corner. And you might take some pictures or record videos of your family. This year though, you're finally going to learn what to do with all this material.
Hazel by Noodlesoft has attracted many users over the years. Those who use it, like Mac OS X Screencasts, swear by it. Even so, many Mac users want a helping hand that teaches them Hazel, so that they can make better use of it‘s abilities.
The tutorial includes three chapters: basics, intermediate level, and advanced level. Chapter markers allow direct access to each of them. The video includes many useful illustrations to visualize complicated information. Additionally an ebook is included with many links and recommended readings. Presenting the information this way means that everyone can improve at Hazel at their own pace.
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Hazel Feature Description
- Interface Overview
- App Sweep
- Clean Trash
- Testing and Debugging Rules
- Set color labels
- Sort into subfolders by kind
- Chapter 2: Intermediate Level
- Filing Invoices — Matching Filenames
- Tokenized Renaming
- Examples: Clean Mail Downloads, Sync Folders
- Nested Conditions
- Examples: Simple On/Off, Any/All sub-files
- Chapter 3: Advanced
- Project Folder Setup
- Script: Convert to Markdown
- Script: Send links from iPhone to a Mac
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- All New Maps
- 3D View
- Turn by Turn Navigation
- Traffic
- Flyover
- Criticism: theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com
- Siri
- Siri is now “final”
- Facebook
- Integration with Notification Center, Game Center and the rest of the OS.
- Syncs birthdays and contacts from Facebook
- Upload pictures to Facebook
- Configure access in Settings
- Photo Stream
- Shared Photo Streams
- Like photos
- Comment on photos
- Passbook
- Boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons
- Check into flights
- See when coupons expire
- Locate seats in the concert hall
- Location reminders to check in on location.
- FaceTime: Works over cellular
- Phone
- When someone calls your can respond quickly like:
- Decline calls with message
- Make reminder
- When someone calls your can respond quickly like:
- Mail
- VIP’s: VIP’s sync over iCloud
- Add photos and videos to emails.
- Emails can now be rich text.
- Safari
- iCloud Tabs
- Offline Reading
- Media upload
- Fullscreen → iPhone/iPod touch in landscape
- Accessibility
- Restrict to one app
- Restrict touch input to certain areas on the screen.
- Camera with Panorama
- Only available on iPhone 4S, iPod touch 5 gen
- Find My iPhone
- Lost Mode keeps phone “alive”, but locked. A finder can be called right from the lock screen, without giving access to the rest of the phone.
- Data connection via WIFI or Mobile is required.
- Find My Friends
- Location reminders for friends. Like when a kid leaves their school.
- Better Stores
- iTunes, App Store, iBooks Store now share the same look and feel.
- App Store now has full-screen screenshots.
- German keyboard now has Umlauts
- Enalbe in Settings → General → Keyboards → German → Set to German (Not QWERTZ)
- iTunes Match
- Can now stream songs
- Doesn’t allow to download individual songs anymore
- Here’s how I handle iTunes Match on my phone. When the space runs out, I delete all music.
- Play position syncs over iCloud
- Limit Ad tracking
- Settings → About → …
- Do not Disturb
- Shortcuts sync over iCloud
- iPad now has Clock app
- Optimized for China
- Twitter:
- Photo Booth can set profile picture
- Facebook will come later
- Messages: iChat is now Messages
- Notification Center:
- Disable temporarily with ⌥-click
- Tweet from NC when Twitter account is configured in Sys Prefs
- NC will be disabled when presenting.
- Configure in System Preferences
- Growl
- Hiss
- Mountain Growl
- Growl 2 in beta
- NCbackgrounder
- Sharing:
- Shortcut to send: ⇧⌘D
- Set custom shortcuts per Keyboard Shortcuts
- Mail
- New options in Mail to send page, link, or PDF.
- Twitter from Notification Center
- AirDrop: AirDrop for older MacBooks
- Mail: VIPs
- iCloud: iCloud is everywhere
- TextEdit:
- Pinch to zoom
- Documents in the cloud
- Preview:
- Documents in the cloud
- Sharing
- Calendar:
- Previously named iCal
- The calendar list is back
- All “todos” have moved to Reminders
- Reminders:
- Is able to create location aware reminders
- Swipe between lists
- View multiple lists at once with ⌘-click
- Notes:
- Change default font
- Pin notes
- Safari:
- Do Not Track
- Smart search field combines search and address bar
- Offline reading list
- Saves articles for reading.
- Downloads articles over multiple pages.
- Syncs with iOS 6
- Tab view
- Pinch with two finger
- ⇧⌘\
- iCloud tabs syncs tabs with iOS 6 devices
- Finder:
- Inline progress for downloads and file copies
- Easy encryption of devices
- QuickLook with three-finger tap-gesture
- Game Center:
- Chess has Game Center integration
- Mac App Store:
- OS X updates integrated
- Apps push to other computer
- Notifications for updates
- Gatekeeper: Saves users from malware (hopefully)
- Time Machine:
- Backup to multiple locations
- Encrypted bakups
- Launchpad:
- Search is automatically highlighted
- Spotlight and Launchpad search for initial characters in apps, e.g. “ft” to find “FaceTime”
- Dock:
- New look
- Dragging icons inadvertently out of the Dock is now harder. Drag icon and hold it for a while until the “poof” appears
- Dictation:
- Shortcut: fn-fn
- Dictation Switcher
- Auto Save:
- Document management directly from the menubar
- Move To…: doesn’t move to trash
- Rename…
- Save To…: is back, but is called “Duplicate”
- Revert to…
- Accessibility:
- Summon Accessibility pane with global shortcut: ⌥⌘F5
- Other:
- Full screen on any display
- Drag app to display and press fullscreen
- Doesn’t work with two apps…
- Drag and drop files in screen sharing
- Screen saver
- Photo Stream screen saver
- New screen saver slideshows
- Photo picker allows to choose Faces
- X11 and Java install on demand
- Full screen on any display
- Exclusive for newer models
- AirPlay
- Mirroring requires “newer model” MacBook
- New H.264 video chip that is not built into earlier laptops is required.
- The chip is also found in the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and 3. They are responsible for encoding the mirroring signal there.
- Power Nap
- Only available for customers of “SSD” laptops. Also only for newer models.
- Installs updates and runs backups while Mac is sleeping
- QuickTime X
- High performance H.264 encoding
- Also only for newer models
- AirPlay
- This is not everything
- John Siracusa’s OS X Mountain Lion Review at Ars Technica
Ripping & encoding DVD’s is a process many beginner-level users have problems with. They search on Google and find references to apps that don’t even exist anymore or are highly illegal. MacTheRipper was one of those apps, which is not available anymore.
In fact since the early days the term “ripping” became popular a lot has changed and things came onto stage that made things a lot easier, e.g. VLC and HandBrake.
Together with Free Mac Software we’re going to show you how to easily rip DVD’s to disk and encode them for your AppleTV.
I’m glad to finally be able to share a project I’ve been working for a long time:
The Keyboard Maestro Markdown Library was made to help you write Markdown with every editor you’re using. These macros use Keyboard Maestro 5’s variables and actions.
Everything from formatting and link macros are included.
This page exists for the screencast, to show how they are used. For further information take a look at the page on GitHub.
This month we’re showing you calibre. calibre is an “iTunes for e-books”. Electronic books can be organized and, much more importantly, converted to many formats. This way you can read all your e-books on any tablet or an iPad.
Why does iBooks dictionary lookup not work? iBooks dictionary and highlight feature is only supported in “real ebooks”. Every PDF e-books has to be converted to ePUB — with calibre for example — before the features work.
AppInfos: * Download: calibre * Aktuelle Version: 0.8.52
Students often struggle writing their first, or even fifth, thesis. Free tools, like OpenOffice, are supposed to help writing these documents, but most of the times they cause more trouble.
The problem here is not OpenOffice necessarily, but the lack of understanding how these apps work. LibreOffice, OpenOffice, NeoOffice (and most other document writing apps) have built-in features to support writing – instead of hinder. They are able to create an automatic table of contents and a bibliography index, they can reference material throughout the document, they can handle tables and other media.
The problem though, without a basic understanding of the underlying mechanisms, documents are going to be a pain to write, with every chapter looking differently. Sometimes students even try to create their own table of contents by hand. This is all stuff these programs can do for you. We show you how.
AppInfos: * OpenOffice.org * LibreOffice * NeoOffice
Clementine is a free and open music player which offers vast support for many music services. The player allows you to access last.fm, Spotify, Magnatune, Digitally Imported and many more.
Not only can it play files from the internet, but also supports local MP3’s.
Produced in cooperation with:
Free Mac Software.
AppInfos: Download: Clementine
Aktuelle Version: 1.0.1
We continue our iCloud series. This time, we talk about the transfer of MobileMe to iCloud.
Current MobileMe customers wonder, what’s going to happen after June, 30th 2012 - that’s the day MobileMe will be “turned off” and with it most of the services it provided.
What are alternatives to MobileMe?
Raffle Raffle on Free Mac Software
Links * iCloud Transition * Dropbox * Blogging + WordPress + Tumblr + Posterous * Photo sharing + Picasa + Flickr * iDisk + DropDAV + Box.net + Cyberduck * Unrecommended sync of System Preferences and Widgets + Dropbox 1 + Dropbox 2
In this screencast we’re taking a closer look at a young cloud service named SocialFolders.
SocialFolders can best be explained as a social media backup and sync service. With it you connect to various social networks and the app is then going to download, upload, or sync data you generated there. This way you can easily upload any pictures taken on Twitter to Flickr, or just have a backup of your pictures and documents.
SocialFolders is free for up to three services, for $2 a month you can also get an unlimited premium account, and $10 get you premium for one year.
In this week’s sponsored screencast I’m reviewing NeoFinder. NeoFinder is an application that helps you to catalog archived media and then helps to search this archive even without any archive drives attached.
To see a list of current customers follow this link.
AppInfos: * Download: NeoFinder * Aktuelle Version: 6.0 * Betriebssystem: 10.5 * Price: $39.99
iCloud seems to confuse a lot of users. They ask: What happens in the background? Which thinking-paradigms can you use to understand the iCloud? Why does it “just work”?
In this screencast we try to explain iCloud’s features separately so you can use it more effectively. This is not one another fancy tech-demo showing you that iCloud works. We rather focus on the understanding of how does iCloud work?
iCloud features explained in the screencast * Calendar & Contacts * Bookmarks * Photo Stream * Documents & Data
Eternal Storms Software is sponsoring this week’s screencast with two of its apps: ScreenFloat and Yoink. Both are utility-type apps you might be missing in your current workflow.
Yoink is a drag-stack for files and folders. It sits on your screen edge and waits for files. Once you put them on Yoink you can use them wherever you want – Keynote, Full-Screen Mail, TextEdit, whatever.
ScreenFloat allows you take screenshots that are floating above other windows. Really useful for comparing two different setting windows in one particular app. It doesn’t look like much time spent in the screencast, but it took me over two minutes to accomplish something ScreenFloat can help with to do in under 20 seconds.
As promised in episode 1, episode 2 of Free Mac Software’s and Mac OS X Screencasts’s Browser Comparison is going to be all about WebKit, the browser engine Safari is based on.
Together with Free Mac Software we’re producing another series for you: Internet Browsers!
In the next episodes with Free Mac Software we’re going to show the most commonly used browsers and compare their differences.
To introduce you to the series we start off by showing you some of the browsers and explain which features browsers have generally in common.
Occasionally we Mac users still need to have access to a Windows or Linux operating system. Whether to start up that one last remaining piece of Windows software or to test a website in Internet Explorer.
Boot Camp is most of the times though, a bit too slow to access. Rebooting to Windows just for this?
Luckily there are virtualization solutions like [VirtualBox][]. This app allows to virtualize Linux and Windows computers so they are just a couple of clicks away.
This week Free Mac Software and Mac OS X Screencasts present another montage of some of the most recommended menubar apps.
flickery by Eternal Storms Software is an elegant Flickr client for your desktop OS X Mac. I’m using this app for quite a while now and it does all that I require from Flickr plus uploading photos from iPhoto/Aperture to Flickr is working flawlessly.
I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks with record an introduction tour for an app named DEVONthink.
DEVONthink is an app that keeps hold of all your important documents, it allows to easily find that information, you can add tags, you can scan PDFs, do an OCR. A really great application.
This screencast guides you through the main functions of DEVONthink and explains the differences of the Personal, Pro, and Pro Office versions.
It’s time again for some Useful Tricks for 0 Money. In episode 2 of this series we’re going to prepare ourselves for Lion, try out some gesture tools, discover a couple of hidden settings and two more tricks to optimize your workflow.
I'm sorry for being so quite at the moment. I am a bit sick and I bet you don't want to hear me with a cold.
I also have to finish writing my master thesis, which is due in May. Please cross all the fingers you have. I would appreciate it.
I also want to thank everyone who donated so far. THANKS!
You can't imagine the smile on my face when I get an email saying "Someone donated €5!"
Always makes my day.
That all said. I'll take a break from screencasting and plan to release the next ones in May.
Until then, you, take care.
Andreas
I've been busily working on some custom screencasts for a couple of clients. One of them has now the finally approved version ready for the App Store. In this special episode I wanted to show how custom screencasts usually look like. They are different from the screencasts you're usually seeing at Mac OS X Screencasts in terms of design. I'm always trying to find a solution that works best for my clients, i.e. using their fonts and adapting to their corporate design.
Audanika is the creator of a music app for iPad and iPhone. Their Pro version is able to send MIDI signals using CoreMIDI. There's also going to be a free version, in case you want to try things out first.
Weekend is coming and you want to party with a couple friends but have no idea how? Then Mixxx is the right solution for you! Open up the Mac App Store and download Mixxx. It is free and open source.
A handy app that allows amateur and pro DJ's to rock a party!
Sorry for this rather brash introduction, but I guess you have to write that way when DJing is involved.
Anyway, the DJ app Mixxx allows nearly everyone who wants to DJ to do so. It even integrates with some MIDI Controllers. In case you don't own a MIDI Controller, simply use your iPad or iPhone (extremely cool!) to remote control the app.
Prizmo is an OCR application for Mac OS X and iOS. The app describes itself as "OCR for everyone". OCR is short for optical character recognition. An algorithm that extracts characters from an image back to regular text. This way you can use handwriting or photos taken with your camera and use the information anywhere else.
I've been using Prizmo for a couple months now and it's been residing in my Applications folder ever since. I'm using my iPhone camera to take pictures of books that I need to read for my master thesis. Then when I'm back home. All I have to do is transfer the pictures to my Mac, fire up Prizmo and I have text that I can use as references in my writing. Such a useful program!
AppInfos: * Download: Prizmo * Aktuelle Version: 1.5.4 * Betriebssystem: 10.5.8 * Price: $49.95 * Download: Prizmo iPhone * Aktuelle Version: 1.1 * Preis: $9.99
This week we cover all things Dropbox!
Dropbox has been mentioned in so many blogs, so many times, that it seems ridiculous to brag even more about it. But, we do! Because, Dropbox often just gets described by its basic functions, not the really neat stuff you can do with it. That's why Free Mac Software and Mac OS X Screencasts teamed up and bring you this Dropbox Pro screencast.
[box type="info"] Produced in cooperation with:
Free Mac Software. [/box]
Shownotes * MacDropAny * ImageSnap * Hazel * Hazel Recipe Forum * MultiMarkdown to HTML by practicallyefficient * Dropbox Wiki * Dropbox Apps Directory
Dropbox iPhone Apps * Trunk Notes * GoodReader iPhone * GoodReader iPad * 1Password iPhone * 1Password iPad * 1Password Pro * PlainText * Elements * iAwriter * Droptext * Textastic
Decloner finds duplicates on your Mac so you can regain disk space by ridding out unnecessary files.
The unique difference of Decloner is its searching algorithm which uses SHA-1 to identify duplicates. This basically means that Decloner looks at the contents of a file and not just a file's name or creation date.
AppInfos: * Download: Decloner * Aktuelle Version: 1.2 * Betriebssystem: 10.5 * Price: $19.99 (Mac App Store)
Free Licenses & Discount Those who tell us until Februar 27, 2011 what their favourite Decloner is (1 point) or retweet us on Twitter (2 points) or write a blog linking back to us (4 points) will get the chance to win 1 of 5 free licenses for Decloner.
Alternatively 50 people can use the following coupon code to get 50% off Decloner:
LGGKMHFWAEKZ270L
The winners will be chosen randomly, after the giveaway has expired. The winners will be notified via email. Therefore, please use a valid email address!
Please remember, your address will, under no circumstances, be given to third parties -- except you've won something.
A short little announcement this time. We have two news for you.
First of all we are quite happy to say that Mac OS X Screencasts is now faster than ever before due to a switch away from the webserver software Apache to NGinx.
Second, we got a little survey running at the moment which you can participate in. So in case you have a couple of minutes please go here and answer the short 6 questions. Thank you.
http://mosx.tv/mosxsurvey2011-1