MacMost: Patreon Video

OBS has to be one of the coolest pieces of free Mac software out there. I'm not using it for anything in particular, but I thought I could show it off here anyway. It allows you to combine media inputs (camera, screen, audio, etc) and stream live or save to a file. Kind of like a TV studio. It is very easy to use. I did use it in the past to do some live Facebook streaming. I could, if I wanted, record the MacMost episodes with it.

Thought I'd show you a Safari extension I've been using to help with some of my web development work.

Playing around with multitasking in iOS 11 on the iPad today as I'm updating my My iPad book. I like this far better than iOS 10 multitasking. Take a look.

A quick look at what's to come in High Sierra. You'll be able to share files directly in iCloud Drive. I mean with another person, not just another Mac you own.

I like trying out new iPhone keyboards. Anything that can give me the potential to type faster on that little screen. Google has a free one called Gboard. It allows you to swipe-type. See the video for a demo. I also like that you can search for emoji. I can never remember which emoji to use, so being able to search for keywords to narrow it down helps. There are some other useful features as well.

Say you want to play your music to your Mac's speakers and also to a set of Bluetooth speakers in the same room at the same time. You can do it using Audio/MIDI Setup, an app that comes with your Mac. This creates a special "output" that you can use to combine both speakers at the same time.

I use SwitchResX to set my display to a pure 1920x1080 size when I make my tutorials. This means when I am showing the full screen in the tutorial, it is pixel-for-pixel the same as the resolution when viewing in YouTube in 1080p. Pixels aren't stretched or blended with each other.This is hardly a big deal, since most people view the videos at less than 1080p, but I think it helps with overall image quality.

I was playing around with the idea of using a YouTube Live video as a screen saver. It wasn't actually that hard to do, thanks to a screen saver module I found.

I thought I'd share with you the exploration process as I start putting together one of my videos. I had an idea to create an episode on customizing shapes in Pages, but I hadn't played around with that feature yet. So I recorded my screen and talked as I was experimenting.

I was recently asked about tips for using ScreenFlow. That's the Mac app I use to record the MacMost episodes. It is a great app for screen capture and tutorial-building. It enables me to capture from my camera and the screen at the same time, even from my iPhone and iPad too. I can then edit right in ScreenFlow, which includes a bunch of tools useful specifically for screen tutorials. So watch me as I go through the editing process on a future episode.

Apple released small updates to Pages, Numbers and Keynote this week. New features include a library of clipart, new preferences, and linked text boxes in Pages. But one notable feature was removed from Numbers.

I found out recently that on one major airline you can use your miles to buy in-flight Wi-Fi.

I've installed the developer beta of iOS 11. The iPad is starting to look a lot more like a Mac than an iPhone. We've now got a Dock, drag-and-drop, a Files app that looks like the Finder, and spaces. Also, look at the new keyboard and Live Photo options.

Through trial-and-error I figured out that you can apply the same title, description and other properties to multiple photos in the Mac Photos app.

If you'd rather keep your photo files in a folder structure of your own, you can still use the photos in the Mac Photos app. Just turn this preference off first, and import with a drag and drop. Could be useful for those that have a need to keep the original files accessible via the Finder.

I've been playing around with Automator Print Plugins and made a simple process that will produce a watermarked PDF. Could be useful for work projects and the like.

When I need to post the new MacMost episode to four different social media networks, I use the Open In New Tabs function in Safari to open four webpages at once. This way I am quickly able to post the new episode without much hassle.

Each video at MacMost has that special poster frame image that you can see on the website and YouTube. It includes a title and two screen grabs from the video. Watch how I create those using a simple template I made in Acorn.

A simple Terminal command can be used to keep your Mac from sleeping.

So I spent some time at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo today. It is supposed to be the busiest intersection in the world. Each time the walk signs turn green, a ton of people cross from all directions and fill the street,. I had to take some video of that.Of course I was just there with my iPhone 7 plus and nothing like a tripod. I just held the phone up and tried to be as steady as I could. But the result was still shaky. So here is a test I did in iMovie on my Mac afterwards. First, I sped up the video 4X since it takes a full minute to see the crossing. And the speed makes it look more exciting. Then, I copied and pasted it so it repeated. The first time is normal, but the second time I applied iMovie's image stabilization at 100%. It doesn't get rid of the movement completely, but it does smooth it out. It makes it easier to watch, I think.