We've all been there - You need to organise a meeting between a group of people and end up with an avalanche of emails from people who can make this day but not that. Or change their availability three times in a week. As for trying to arrange something across time zones with daylight savings time thrown into the mix - absolute nightmare.

Well recently I've been in just that position trying to schedule recording sessions for the Mac Roundtable! 10 very busy podcasters across 4 different time zones all trying to synchronise our activities and come up with a shared free slot to record.

In this age of Web 2.0, I thought there must be a service somewhere that could come to our rescue and sort out this complex organisational task.

So a quick bit of research and I found it! - ScheduleOnce

After using it for a day or so I was so impressed I thought I'd spread the word to help out ScreenCastsOnline viewers who are also tasked with sorting out meeting schedules. So I abandoned my plan for this week and did a show all about ScheduleOnce, especially as its completely free to use.

As a web based service its totally cross platform, you don't need to register and did I mention it's free. You don't even need to know what time zones all the participants are in.

It's simply a matter of setting up a meeting notice (which takes 2 minutes) and emailing a special link to your invited participants. They respond using the link, and the system gives you a view of all the responses and allows you to select the optimum time and email them with the confirmed date and time, all formatted in their local timezone.

This weeks show takes you through setting up a meeting, let's you see what the invitees receive and show you the responses and how you process them!

I hope this makes your life easier as it did mine!
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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[Extra Members Show] 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
SeyDoggy Rapidweaver Themes

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

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 130+ 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.
Click here for more details on becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member

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Time for a product update this week. It's been over 12 months since I covered 1Passwd (not a typo - it used to be called 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.


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 week's sponsored show features OmniWeb, the featured 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

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

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Another indispensable Mac application this week to help you manage your Internet logins and passwords securely. I don't know about you but I have so many logins and passwords for the various web services I subscribe to, that it has become a major effort to keep them all in check. The easy option is to use simple passwords or even to use the same password for different services but this is really dangerous if your password gets compromised. Mix in the multitude of browsers we also have available to us and things get very complicated.

This week, I look at 1Passwd from Agile Web Solutions. This is a fantastic application that allows you to manage all your Internet logins and passwords using a single master password, securely encrypted in a special keychain. What's really cool is that this is integrated across most (all?) of the major Mac browsers enabling you to switch between browsers and still have access to all your logins and passwords. What's even better is that it's integrated with .Mac so you can backup all your logins and passwords using .Mac and even sync them to multiple machines.

1Passwd also has an automatic form filler built in that allows you to complete web forms with a single click - It even has the ability for you to store multiple "Personalities" that con hold different types of information to allow you to pick the right set of information for the required form.

This is all accomplished very easily, so checkout the screencast for information on installing, configuring and using 1Passwd.

Discussions: Forum

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This week is another Extra! members only show. The free version on this site and included in the free feed will give you a taster of the full 30 minute show. If you want to get the full version of the show in glorious HD (1280x720 or 960x540) you'll need to sign up as ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member, or you can purchase the individual show from the link at the bottom of this post.

Flickr is a superb web based application which allows you to store, search, sort and share your digital photos.

Acknowledged as one of the premier Web 2.0 applications, Flickr has all the elements common to the new wave of powerful web applications including tagging, AJAX interfaces, social networking, groups, full RSS support and many other impressive features. One of the newer features is the ability to geotag your photos with location based information and the screencast covers this new function in detail. Other features covered in this weeks show:

Differences Between Free and Pro Accounts
Uploading Photos using Flickr Uploader
Creating PhotoSets
Adding Notes to Photos
Adding Photos to Groups
Posting Flickr Photos to Blogs
Geotagging Flickr Photos
Creating Flickr Badges
Exploring Flickr
Creative Commons Licences
........and much more

The show also announces the winners of the September Extra! members draw for all new and renewing Extra! members for September. Special mention and thanks to GBM Digital Technologies for donating the ScreenCastsOnline Extra! Members Draw prize for September - An Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse.

The full show is available automatically to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members in high definition as part of the 6 monthly membership along with another 6 Extra! only shows available for immediate download - over 3 hours additional content - See here for details

Promo Show: Duration: 14:38 | Size: 23MB
Member Only Show: Duration: 30:42 | Size: ??MB
Discussions: Forum


Watch Promo Show Now | Free Subscription via iTunes | Extra! Membership

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I'm really excited about this application as it provides amazing functionality as standard.

It's Flock Beta 1 which I had a chance to play with over the weekend. I was so impressed I just had to do a screencast to spread the "Flock goodness" around.

Flock is an astounding browser built on FireFox and features integration with...

* Delicious & Shadows - for social bookmarking
* Flickr & Photobucket - for photo sharing
* Blogging - Has a built in blogging tool for virtually any blog tool
* RSS Reader - Fully featured RSS reader

It's available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux and is a must try application.

Highly recommended! If you want to checkout the "My Own Reality" blog featured in the screencast, here's the link

Note: I've purposefully included the higher resolution Enhanced Desktop version in this weeks free feed. If you like it you can get this resolution every week (and an even higher resolution) by becoming a ScreenCastsOnline Extra! member!

This weeks show is available automatically to ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members in high definition as part of the 6 monthly membership - See here for details

Duration: 30:44 | Size: 60MB | Discussions: Forum

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A 8 minute screencast demoing Google maps and looking at a cool Google maps hack - gMap Pedometer

Using the hack we work out how far John Lennon would have had to walk to visit Paul McCartneys house when they were living in Liverpool, UK !!!


Duration: 8:00
Size: 19MB
Platform: mac or pc
Level: Simple
Links:
Google Maps
gmapPedometer

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Ok, so you've heard about RSS but don't really know what it is or how it might benefit you?

This short screencast gives a quick overview on how you can use RSS to automate your web surfing and remove the tedium of manually checking websites and blogs. The screencast is based on mac applications but the basic principles are the same on the windows platform so please check it out if you are a windows user!


Duration: 6.17
Size: 8MB
Platform: mac
Level: Simple

Applications: Safari 2.0, NetNewsWire 2.0.1

PS - I forgot to mention to use the Spacebar in NetNewsWire to view unread posts consecutively - much easier!

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