Making screencasts on your Mac

I have been looking at screencasting software for the Mac.

Screencasting is a way of capturing what you do on the screen as a video file. The more advanced applications allow you to record an audio track on top, whilst others also allow you to annotate and add text to your screencast.

They are a very useful way of explaining how an application works, how a website works, how to do something or explaining a process in an application.

They can also be used with presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Keynote, to create videos of your presentations which can then be converted into video files. These video files can then be converted by learners (or practitioners) into formats which work on mobile devices, or home DVD players, etc…

One of the original applications for this kind of activity is Ambrosia’s Snapz Pro X.

Snapz Pro X allows you to effortlessly record anything on your screen, saving it as a QuickTime movie or screenshot that can be emailed, put up on the web, or passed around however you want.

Snapz Pro X works for me and I do use it quite a bit.

Snapz Pro X

ScreenFlow is pretty good too, but Leopard only.

It looks fantastic and unlike Snapz Pro X the resulting capture can be edited, annotated much more easily.

ScreenFlow is a complete workflow for creating screencasts: powerful enough to capture your desktop, video camera, microphone & computer audio at the same time.

Screenflow

IShowU is suppose to be very good. I did give it a go and seemed pretty easy to use.

Need to show something to someone? iShowU is your answer! iShowU is designed to record anything on your screen, instantly — both audio, and video!

I wasn’t too impressed with the results of capturing video, ScreenFlow and Snapz Pro X seeme better at that. However IShowU does have a range of capture option choices depending on what you want to show the video on.

IShowU

CamTwist can be used too, though the focus here is on web based video chat type video, so not something for high quality video or presentations. However for the web (ie via something like Ustream) it is ideal.

CamTwist is a software package that lets you add special effects to your video chats. It’s also possible to stream your desktop and still images.

CamTwist

One final option is to use screenshots (images) and iMovie. Capture a series of screenshots and then insert into iMovie and edit accordingly - though from experience this takes a lot longer than the above applications.

iMovie

Overall there are many choices in screencasting on the Mac and of course with Parallels you can also now screencast Windows using the same software.

This is how I did the following screencast of Photostory.

Personally I like Snapz Pro X, but I think I might have a good look at ScreenFlow.

Apple announce new 3G iPhone

Apple announced iPhone 3G yesterday in a keynote by Steve Jobs at the WWDC in San Francisco. It will be available in the UK on the 11th July.

New features include:

• 3G-capable. 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
• GPS built-in
• Thinner
• Better battery life - 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time 10 hours (as opposed to 5), 5 hours of 3G talk-time (competition is 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
• Flush headphone jack

Other new features are:

• contact searching
• complete iWork document support
• complete Office document support (now includes PowerPoint)
• bulk delete and move for Mail
• save images you receive
• scientific calculator in landscape mode
• parental controls
• language

I wonder if the Keynote (iWork) and PowerPoint support also allows you to show the presentation via an AV cable in the same way you can do at the moment with video and images.

It will be interesting to see also if iWork (or even Office) support includes editing and creating support, or is it just going to be reading, I suspect the latter.

Of course there are also all the features announced when the iPhone SDK was released earlier this year which include:

• Exchange and ActivSync support
• Applications
• VPN

I do like the fact that an educational institution can put apps on the iPhone (or the iPod touch) without needing to go through the Apple checking process and the iTunes App store.

Downside is that you now need to activate the phone in store, so now unlocking just became a lot more expensive as you will have to buy into a phone plan as well as the phone.

Nokia working on iPhone’esque mobile phone

Nokia has confirmed it is working on a new phone which it hopes will match and exceed the functionality and capability of Apple’s iPhone.

The Register reports

Nokia has confirmed that it’s developing a touchscreen-equipped handset to take on the Apple iPhone, and has shown off pictures of the upcoming phone to drooling onlookers.

It looks like it will support Java and Flash and include a DVB-H digital television tuner as well.

It seems like every new phone released with a touch interface is touted as the iPhone killer, however nearly all (well all) don’t live up to the hype.

My experiences with the LG Viewty certainly demonstrate to me that it is not an iPhone killer, it will be interesting to see if this Nokia “Tube” can meet the challenge.

Apple release SDK for the iPhone and the iPod touch

Today Apple announced and released the SDK for the iPhone (and iPod touch).

Lots of other sites have covered the event and the SDK is now available to download…

Well at this point in time. no it is not possible to download, obviously everyone else is trying to download it!

iPhone, iPod Touch SDK event on March 6th

Crave and Reuters reports that Apple has sent out invitations for an event on Thursday morning detailing the iPhone Software Developement Kit (SDK):

“Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features,” Apple said in an invitation sent to reporters.

Source

University of the future?

Abilene Christian University (ACU) have announced that they would be issuing iPhones or iPod Touches to incoming freshman for use in their college courses and day to day lives.

At ACU - the first university in the nation to provide these cutting-edge media devices to its incoming class - freshmen will use the iPhones or iPod Touches to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors’ offices, and check their meal and account balances - among more than 15 other useful web applications already developed, said ACU Chief Information Officer Kevin Roberts.

YouTube Video Links

For those who have inadvertently blocked YouTube

Mobile Learning - Abilene Christian University

What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone? Connected is one possible vision. This fictional day-in-the-life account highlights some of the potential benefits in a higher education setting when every student, faculty, and staff member is “connected.” Though the applications and functions portrayed in the film are purely speculative, they’re based on needs and ideas uncovered by our research - and we’ve already been making strides to transform this vision of mobile learning (mLearning) into reality.

Links

ACU first university in nation to provide iPhone or iPod touch to all incoming freshmen - Abilene Christian University

An Apple iPhone or iPod touch will become a central part of Abilene Christian University’s innovative learning experience this fall when all freshmen are provided one of these converged media devices, said Phil Schubert, ACU executive vice president.

Apple Working to Deploy iPhones at Universities - Mac Rumors

Abilene Christian University (ACU) announced yesterday that they would be issuing iPhones or iPod Touches to incoming freshman for use in their college courses and day to day lives.

New Apple products announced

Those who know me will know that I am a bit of a fan of Apple products, not exclusively, but I do like good design and stylish kit.

Yesterday in San Francisco at MacWorld Expo, Apple announced some new products and upgrades for the iPod touch and iPhone.

Key new product announced at the keynote was the MacBook Air, a small light MacBook.

I do like small computers, great fan of the 10″ Sony VAIO laptops, however this is slightly bigger than I would like, and I can’t see how that would survive travelling by air or train.

Don’t get me wrong I think it’s very stylish, well designed, but doesn’t meet my needs for a small portable computer for use at conferences, on the train and in coffee shops.

No rumoured touchscreen, nor a Blu-ray drive either (actually no optical drive, though cleverly you can use your other Mac’s drive wirelessly, which is a very clever piece of software and something I would like to use with Windows UMPCs).

There was also upgrades for the iPhone and iPod touch announced which provide additional applications, annoyingly free on the iPhone and a £12.99 upgrade for the iPod touch.

Huh!

Probably worth it for the e-mail and notes applications which make the iPod touch a more interactive device.

Also announced was a new Airport Extreme base station which comes with a 500GB or 1TB drive for Time Machine backups.

On the Americans get the opportunity to rent films, here in the UK we don’t.

iTunes U, now more than University

Apple have expanded their iTunes U service to cover other educational broadcasts beyond Universities.

Ars Technica in their reporting say:

Apple has now created an entire new section of “the U” just for you active learners, however. In a section coined “Beyond Campus,” Apple has begun hosting podcasts from educational sources other than academia. In a Chronicle article Apple VP of iTunes Eddy Cue says that lots of people are happy to share this educational content, but that they just didn’t have a means until now. 

Looking like their could be some more useful content available.

SDK for iPod touch too

Yesterday I mentioned that Apple were going to allow third party applications for the iPhone. What is nice is that they are also going to allow developers using their software developers kit (SDK) to create applications for the iPod touch as well.

Apple in their press release said:

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.

Excellent, this means that developers will be able to create applications for the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Thanks Gary.

Apple to allow iPhone third party applications

Anyone who has been following the iPhone (despite it not been available in the UK until November 9th) will know that one of the complaints about the iPhone was the lack of third party applications.

Now some clever people managed to “hack” the iPhone to allow third party applications, this was recently broken by an update from Apple.

It is now been reported that Apple have announced that they will be allowing third party application development.

Apple boss Steve Jobs has said that outside developers will now be allowed to make add-on software for the iPhone.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” said Mr Jobs.

This will be useful for those who are interested in using the iPhone for educational purposes as now educational or learning applications could be created.

I wonder also if such applications could work on the iPod touch, I am guessing no.

Photo source