I use the Camera app on my iPhone to record normal things: friends and family stuff. But when I record something for work, I go with a separate app. One reason is to get the extra features such an app usually has. A second reason is so I don't need to change my video recording settings each time I switch between business or personal video recording. A third reason is so the videos are saved separately from my Photos library and I can transfer them to my Mac when I want. The app I use is ProMovie Video Recorder + <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/promovie-recorder/id1184204602" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/promovie-recorder/id1184204602</a>
A recent forum question asked about a chore chart with a scoring system. It is an interesting problem that can be solved many ways. I did it here with a second header row in one table, and a second table to keep score.
I was curious as to how much I could customize my touch bar on my MacBook Pro. Turns out you can do quite a lot with this popular third-party app. <a href="https://folivora.ai" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://folivora.ai</a>
I wanted to play around with my new shotgun microphone and try making a video of a different sort. So here's the story of my time at Drexel University with my first Mac, a Macintosh SE.
So my mission was to find a way for two people to video chat that didn't involve them signing up for anything, installing any apps, and it must work on both Windows and an iPad. The solution I found was a rinky-dink site called Talky.io.
Apple released new versions of their three office apps for Mac. Here's a look at the new features.
One annoyance if you use Dark Mode on your Mac is that most web pages still display the same bright white versions of themselves. Hopefully in the future more sites will support a native dark mode. But until then, you can always get a Safari Extension from the Mac App Store to make things look a little better.
In tomorrow's regular episode, I'll be showing you how to use Mac Messages to screen share and then use that to read a book to a child that you may be separated from during this pandemic. This is a good idea, but it lacks two things. First, you can't SEE the child, nor can they see you. It is audio-only with screen sharing. Second, if all they have is an iPad, it won't work. It needs two Macs. So in this video I try it with Zoom. I'm just using a free account on the reader's end, and no account at all on the child's end. This works with audio AND video on both ends! So you can see the screen and the people. Plus, on the child's end I'm using an iPad. Doing this with a free account limits you in time, number of participants, and some pro features. But it works well.
My friend Jay, who many of you may remember from past appearances with MacMost, just posted a video review of one of those external eGPUs for Mac. This is one of the ones Apple sells. You can use it as a way to "dock" a MacBook to a desktop screen and setup, or as a way to super-power a Mac mini.
This is a free and unbelievably robust tool for creating all sorts of charts and diagrams. Check it out at draw.io (or <a href="https://www.diagrams.net" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.diagrams.net</a>).
So you may have heard about this app you can install that gives your excess CPU power to scientists to help them do disease research. I don't know much about it, but I decided to install it and screen record it so you can see screen record trying it out so you can see what it is about. The site is: <a href="https://foldingathome.org" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://foldingathome.org</a> Let me know if you have tried this too, or what you think about apps like this.
Here's a Numbers spreadsheet I created to make sample names and addresses. I needed some sample for a future tutorial, so instead of coming up with fake names I built this tool to make up as many as I need.
So in tomorrow's regular video, I talk about creating nice-looking photo slideshows in Keynote. Here's a different way to do it that makes it look like all of the photos are on one "canvas" that moves around. You can use this same technique for mixed media presentations too.
You can use Shell Scripts to run one or more Terminal commands, but as a single file you can easily double-click to run. In this example I create one that opens three files and launches an app all with one action. Then you have to set the permissions for the Shell Script file and set it to run in Terminal. An alternative is to embed Shell Scripts into an Automator app.
Every year Backblaze publishes the stats on their drive. So many drives! And so big. I didn't realize you could get 16TB drives now relatively cheap. Anyway, the report is at <a href="https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2019/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2019/</a>
While playing around with building organizational diagrams in Pages, I took a detour to make diagrams that actually perform calculations using one-cell tables in Numbers. It is kinda neat. I'm calling them "Flowsheets." Take a look at this example. I'll attach the document too.
Remember back in the 1980s when computers were things that you would buy and then use to learn how to program? You turned on the Apple II and you were greeted with a command line and could start programming in BASIC right away. This is how I started. You can't really do this on a Mac, but you can do something kinda like it. The <strong>Script Editor</strong> app can be used to get started with JavaScript in a similar way to how the Apple II let you learn BASIC. And JavaScript is related and similar to so many modern programming languages, so it is a good place to start. So I decided to try to recreate a simple BASIC learning workbook, but using Script Editor and JavaScript. I'm not sure if the result is good or not. It certainly is long, at 25 minutes. Or, maybe that is short for what it covers. I'm thinking of doing this in a more polished way as a regular MacMost video. In the meantime, here's my first attempt at such a tutorial.
I'm a huge fan of RTS (real-time strategy) games. Back in the heyday of RTS games, titles like Age of Empires and Rise of Nations were my favorites. But those games are so old they don't work on modern Macs. I miss them. I was surprised to see a new game appear, and not from a major studio or developer. And is is definitely built for modern computers with way better graphics, etc. Take a look.
There's a special mode in iMovie that lets you edit and export vertical video. I hate to mention it though, because I don't want to encourage people to shoot vertical video. But it is good to know, nonetheless.
When I'm done making each tutorial, I spend a few minutes making the poster that you see at YouTube and the MacMost site. This includes the title, a graphic like an icon, and usually me looking excited/authoritative/goofy in front of a background. I create these in Pixelmator with a variety of techniques. I use two selection tools to cut myself out of the image and then put myself in front of the background and template with a subtle shadow. My hope is that by including a face in the poster it makes it more "visible" in places like YouTube so get some new people watching my tutorials.
