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

ScreenCastsOnline Survey

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.
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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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You've reached the end of the page but not the end of the screencasts!

There are plenty more available, in fact, over 140+ screencasts are available on all sorts of topics!

The last 26 weeks worth of screencasts are listed above but all of the others are accessible simply by clicking the link below:

View a list of all ScreenCasts sorted by Category

Once you have the list you can click on the individual shows to view the description and view the video.

If the video is more than 12 weeks months old, it's possible that it's only viewable by ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members, as indicated by the button at the end of each show description.

You can become an Extra! member yourself for an incredibly low price (!) and get access to the entire library of over 130+ screencasts plus the next 26 screencasts, all in HD and all accessible via a special members website or delivered to you automatically via iTunes using special member only feeds.

For more information on becoming an Extra! member and to learn about all the benefits, just click on this link.

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 all my email from anywhere. It's all about IMAP and harnessing the power of IMAP using .Mac Mail to give you the best of all worlds when accessing your mail. But IMAP is just part of the solution. You need to have a way of channelling all your mail into a single inbox.

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

Update - As of today (24th October 2007 - a couple of weeks following this shows publication) Google are slowly introducing IMAP support into gmail accounts. This removes the need to forward GMail into .Mac for the IMAP capabilities of .Mac. Of course, if you still want the advanced facilities of .Mac under Leopard. This solution is still valid.

If you're an Extra! member and would like to download the presentations as mentioned in this weeks show, you can download them from this page.

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

ScreenCastsOnline Survey

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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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

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.

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 special free show this week all about Pixelmator, the beautiful new image editing application. Pixelmator is a low cost, yet extremely powerful, image editor built especially for Mac OS X. It utilises many of its core technologies including Core Image, Open GL, Automator, ColorSync, Spotlight and many more!

As well as being a fully featured, layer based image editor in its own right, it also fully supports the 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:

• Pixelmator User Interface
• Using Pixelmator Tools
• Using Layers in Pixelmator
• Using a Clipping Mask
• Applying Filters to Layers
• Using a Layer Mask
• 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.

Downloading and Viewing the Show
The easiest way to download this weeks show and receive all future shows is to subscribe to the weekly show in iTunes. Just click this link to subscribe to the free feed in iTunes. To get the HD versions each week plus the Members Only shows plus immediate access to the 140+ shows in the ScreenCastsOnline archive, read all about becoming a member here.

As a special treat, and to celebrate the launch of Pixelmator, I've included links to all three resolutions of the show on this page as well. Just click on the icons below to start the show streaming to your browser, or right or ctrl click the icons to download to your computer for local playback:

	Free Resolution (22MB)	This is the usual resolution for all free shows.
	Enhanced Definition (32MB)	Normally reserved for Extra! members and is great for viewing on the desktop. All shows (and the shows in the ScreenCastsOnline archive are available in this resolution for members).
	High Definition (62MB)	Again, usually reserved for Extra! members, this resolution is superb for viewing on your Mac desktop or on your Apple TV. All shows (and the shows in the ScreenCastsOnline archive are available in this resolution for members).

Discussing the Show
Along with the show, there's a very active ScreenCastsOnline forum which you're more than welcome to take part in. As well as threads and sections on all things Mac, you'll also find a separate thread for each published show allowing forum members to comment on that specific show, add extra hints and tips or to put me straight if I've made a mistake! You can find the discussion thread for the Pixelmator show here.

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omni

Rounding off the two part tutorial on Apples iMovie '08, this week's show looks at some of the more advanced aspects of movie creation using this unique software application.

The 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 30 minute show are some details about next weeks Podcast and New Media Expo which I'll be attending. If you're around, say hello!

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.

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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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

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.

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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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.

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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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

I'm really pleased how this weeks show turned out and judging by some of the comments on the ScreenCastsOnline forum, I'm not the only one....

"I just don't know how you do this; it is brilliant.  I probably got my iLife a day earlier than yours (I have a son who is a director in Apple!!) and I have spent a couple of hours with it but your skill in absorbing a brand new product and communicating its essence is really something special.  You have just saved me 'hours' of work!! .....
 
Again Don, just a wonderful show and an abolute eye-opener in Numbers.....
 
Great app, great show!! many thanks."

Ron - A ScreenCastsOnline Extra! Member

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.

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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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 week's 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!

This is a full free show (but only in 640x360 with no chapters for non members). As mentioned in the show, I'll try and do at least one show a month on one of the new versions of the iLife apps (and iWork) but they won't all be free shows. To get the full set, you'll need to be an Extra! member.

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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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! 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 week's 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 minimal configuration. It's also useful for finding pages that still have the default RapidWeaver settings. In this weeks show, I take you through an expalination on how to configure the product and demonstrate the results!

This week is also the start of the revised scheme for Extra! members in that there will now be an Extra! members show every two weeks instead of one a month, and this is the first such show. If you're not an Extra! member, you'll only get the first 5 minutes or so of this weeks show but as a consolation, it will be in HD. Back to a full free show next week but if you'd like to get all the shows in future plus get immediate access to a library over 100+ screencasts, just follow this link to get full details and instructions to sign up.


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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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