MacMost: Video Podcast

Take a look at the new iPod nano. The latest iPod allows you to play music, video, view your photos, listen to and watch podcasts, listen to the radio and track your steps. You can also store files on it and use it for audio recording with the right earphones. But it is not an iOS device and has a limited feature set compared to the iPod touch.

By making one change in your iTunes preferences, you can use music in iTunes that is stored outside of your Music folder. This allows you to collect and organize your music on a shared drive and still have it play within iTunes. You can then have those same music file available to other Macs on your network.

Learn how to place an image behind your text in Mac Pages. In this excerpt from Gary Rosenzweig's new book, My Pages (http://macmost.com/j-mypages) he'll show you how to place an image in the background, adjust it to fill the page, lighten it so the text is readable, and also apply it to all pages in the document.

iOS 6 removes the old Google Maps app and replaces it with the new Apple Maps app. While this new app features flyover and spoken turn-by-turn directions, people miss Google Maps features like Street View and biking directions. You can get those back, plus the familiar Google Maps look by simply going to the Google Maps web site in Safari. You will get a iPhone-specific version of the maps site, and be able to access Street View and more.

Mac Mail has a feature that allows you to use colorful email templates. There are many to choose from, and you can buy more from third-party companies. You can also create your own through a variety of methods.

You don't need any special software to quickly and easily capture your Mac's screen. With some simple keyboard shortcuts you can grab the whole screen, or a portion. You can save it to have a file, or copy to the clipboard to paste into an email message or document.

Learn how to use Preview in Mountain Lion to merge two or more PDF documents into one file. You can also re-arrange the pages in a PDF document or delete pages.

Gary Rosenzweig has a new book about using Pages for Mac: My Pages. In this video, learn how to put your text into columns in iWork Pages on your Mac. You can switch between single and multiple columns using layout breaks. You can customize your columns with the Inspector.

Siri gains new functionality in iOS 6, including lots of ways to ask for sports information. You also can make reservations at restaurants, get movie times and reviews, and launch apps. Siri now works in the new iPad and will work on the new iPod touch.

While Facebook sharing has always been available on the iPhone using the Facebook app, you can now share photos and updates directly from several Apple apps. So now you can take a picture with the Camera app and upload to Facebook directly.

iOS 6 has a new Maps app that features turn-by-turn spoken directions. You can use it with the iPhone and the iPad if they are running iOS 6. Watch how turn-by-turn spoken directions gives you basically the same functionality as a built-in car GPS navigation system.

Take a look at the new features of iOS 6. There is a new Maps app that includes flyover view and turn-by-turn spoken directions. There is better Facebook integration, new Safari features, a new Passbook app and a Do Not Disturb mode. You can also take panoramic images and create shared photo streams.

The Lookup function can be useful if you want to automatically populate cells on one table with data from another, based on new data entered. For instance, you can enter products in one column and then have prices fill in automatically by having the Lookup function refer to a list of products and prices in a second table.

Compressor is an app that is usually thought of as an add-on to Final Cut Pro. But it can be purchased by itself in the Mac App Store and used to compress video and burn DVDs. You can take a single video and set some options, such as menu and title screen backgrounds, chapter names and start times and disc name.

Today apple announced several new products, including the iPhone 5 and a new iPod touch and iPod Nano. The new iPhone has a taller screen, new dock connector and a special panoramic photography mode. The new iPod touch meets most of the new iPhone's specifications. A whole new Nano has a larger screen and returns video and photos to iPod functionality. iOS 6 will be released on September 19, with the iPhone 5 following on the 21st. The new iPods will be out in October.

Mountain Lion offers four different ways to send web pages from Safari through Mail. You can send a plain link, as before, or send the page as HTML, a PDF or Reader content only. The trick is knowing where to select which of the four options you want.

In Mountain Lion you can now quickly search for apps by name in LaunchPad. This, in conjunction with the keyboard shortcut for LaunchPad, can make it quick and easy to launch apps. Organizing your apps in LaunchPad is limited, but the search function makes it irrelevant as you no longer have to look for apps by icon.

The best tool for building slideshows may be Keynote. You can easily import photos, arrange them, adjust the images, add shapes and text, and much more. You can combine multiple images on each slide and vary the transitions between them. You can use advanced techniques to make your slideshows unique.

Here are three key techniques that everyone who surfs the web on their Mac should know. But using tabs, browsing history and page search you can move around quickly and find what you want.

Most Mac users use the Dock many times per day. So it would be worth the time to optimize your Dock. Add your most commonly used apps and remove others. Arrange your apps to make them easy to find. Add folders and files to the right side and set them to appear the way you want. Change your Dock settings to get the most from it.