macXchange

Chris Breen, Senior Editor, at Macworld explains how to use the open source software HandBrake to convert movie DVD videos for delivery on iPods, iPhones, and the Apple TV. Chris details the features of HandBrake which allow the user to change the movie’s resolution, bit rate, and formats (H.264, MPEG-4, and AVI to name a few).

Apple-of-my-i.com has put together a video screencast that gives an overview of available Mac screencast tools as well as step-by-step instructions for creating a director’s account at YouTube. The YouTube director’s account offers special placement of uploaded videos and page customization. The screencast begins by giving an overview of YouTube and the advantages it offers as a video host and platform for distributing video. The remainder of the video cover the types of software tools and and needed for creating a typical screencast. The screencast software tools reviewed include:

-Apple’s iMovie and QuickTime for editing and tweaking the screencast.

-ShinyWhiteBox’s screen recording product, iShowU, which will record both audio and video from your Mac computer screen.

-La Chose Interactive’s program DooDim which allows the user to dim or blackout everything on the Mac screen except for the front most program.

-Boinx Software’s MousePosé program which dims the screen and puts a spotlight on the area around the mouse pointer, guiding the audiences attention to an area of interest.

-Flying Meat’s FlySketch program which places its main drawing window above all other windows in the system allowing you to trace, draw over, and highlight just about anything that shows up behind FlySketch, very much like a telestrator.

Apple-of-my-i.com’s screencast has a runtime of 24 minutes and 42 seconds. If you want to skip some of the YouTube information, advance the video to 11:25.

My friend Jon Jones, who like me is a board member for the North Coast Mac Users Group (NCMUG), created this great video that explains the concept of video editing with multiple layers:

For a reason I have yet to discover, I have had an issue for the past year that when I click a link in Safari to play a QuickTime movie, the QuickTime window appears and I can hear the audio of the movie, but the video doesn’t display. Typically the QuickTime window in Safari looks like the screen capture below with the audio playing , but no visual:

I recently came across the solution to this problem in the Apple.com support forums. By throwing away the file QuickTime plugin.webplugin file and restarting Safari, the problem is solved. Here’s the steps to finding the file and fixing the problem.

The QuickTime plugin.webplugin file is found at the following path: HD/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/plugin.webplugin.

1) Be sure to quit the Safari browser if it is running and then Open your boot drive and double-click the Library folder to open it:

2) Inside the Library folder you will find a folder named Internet Plug-Ins. Select and double-click the folder to open it.

3) Inside the Internet Plug-Ins folder you will find a file named QuickTime plugin.webplugin.

4) Simply drag the QuickTime plugin.webplugin file to the trash and restart Safari. Navigate to the web page with the problem QuickTime movie and it should now display properly.

Ross Carlson explains how to install Vista on a MacBook Air using Imagex:

1) Create a partition for Windows using Bootcamp (I created a 55GB one since I’m going to use Windows 90% of the time)
2) Reboot from the standard Vista install DVD. Format the partition you created and complete a normal Vista install. You’ll need to do this so the boot sector is written properly. I’ve tried stopping right after you format it, and have even killed it right after the file copy starts (neither worked) so I’m guessing the boot loader gets written at the end of the process.
3) When you reboot be sure to press and hold the mouse button after the Mac bootup “ding” sound. When the disk ejects quickly put in your WinPE DVD with imagex.exe and the image you’d like to install. You may have to boot back into OS X first. If so restart the Bootcamp assistant and choose install Windows.
4) Pay close attention as it boots so you can “press any key” to get WinPE going.
5) Once you boot into WinPE you’ll need to reformat the disk (which doesn’t mess with the boot sector). So run the following commands:

diskpart
select disk 0
select partition 3
format fs=ntfs quick
assign letter=c
quit

6) Now you’re ready to put the image on the machine. For this you’ll run:

imagex /apply IMAGENAME.wim 1 c:

7) Now go get a cup of coffee (or several) while it puts the image in place. When that’s done reboot and go get dinner (and then maybe breakfast) as Vista starts up the installer for the image.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Other World Computing (OWC) not only has a great selection of Macintosh hardware products at decent prices, but they also have taken the time out to produce some easy-to-follow videos on installing the hardware in your Mac.

Here is an example of a video showing how to install memory (RAM) into G4 AGP ‘Sawtooth’ and ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ Macintoshes:

Installing Macintosh Memory

Here’s a list of computers which have videos for installing memory (linked to the medium resolution videos):

How to install memory in G3 Blue & White and G4 PCI Graphics Macs
How to install memory in G4 AGP ‘Sawtooth’ and ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ Macs
How to install memory in a G4 Cube Mac
How to install memory in a G4 ‘QuickSilver’ & ‘QuickSilver 2002′ Mac
How to install memory in a G4 ‘Mirrored Drive Door’/'FireWire 800′ Mac
How to install memory in a G5 Mac
How to install memory in a Mac mini (G4)
How to install memory in a G4 PowerBook ‘Titanium’ (all models)
How to install memory in a G4 PowerBook ‘Aluminum’ 15″
How to install memory in a MacBook Pro 15″ (intel)
How to install memory in a Mac mini (intel)
How to install memory in a MacBook 13.3″ (intel)
How to install memory in a Mac Pro (intel)

Other World Computing (OWC) not only has a great selection of Macintosh hardware products at decent prices, but they also have taken the time out to produce some easy-to-follow videos on installing the hardware in your Mac.

Here’s an example of a video showing how to install a Parallel ATA hard drive into G4 AGP ‘Sawtooth’ & ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ Macintoshes:

Installing a Macintosh Hard Drive

OWC offers each video in various different resolutions (High Quality, Medium Quality, Low Quality, and Modem Quality). Depending on your bandwidth restrictions, I would suggest the highest quality video, since the video is easier to view. The video above links to the medium quality video.

The only drawback to using video to explain how to install hardware is that if you only have one computer, you cannot watch the video while you are installing the hardware. I typically watch the video from my PowerBook G4 while doing the hardware installation on another computer. Using the video pause button, allows you to stop the video, while you complete the step just explained to you.

Here’s a list of computers which have videos for installing hard drives (linked to the medium resolution videos):
How to install a hard drive in G4 AGP ‘Sawtooth’ & ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ Macs
- Parallel ATA& PCI Card Installation
How to install a hard drive in G4 AGP ‘Sawtooth’ & ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ Macs
- Serial ATA & PCI Card Installation
How to install a hard drive in a G4 Cube Mac
How to install a hard drive in G4 ‘QuickSilver’ & ‘QuickSilver 2002′ Macs
- Parallel ATA & PCI Card Installation
How to install a hard drive in a G4 ‘QuickSilver’; & ‘QuickSilver 2002′ Macs
– Serial ATA & PCI Card Installation
How to install a hard drive in a G4 ‘Mirrored Drive Door’/'FireWire 800′ Mac
- ATA/133 Connection
How to install a hard drive in a G4 ‘Mirrored Drive Door’/'FireWire 800′ Mac
- ATA/66 Connection
How to install a hard drive in a G5 Mac
How to install a hard drive in a Mac mini (G4)
How to install a hard drive in a G4 PowerBook ‘Titanium’ Mac (all models)
How to install a hard drive in a MacBook Pro 15″
How to install a hard drive in a Mac mini (intel)
How to install a hard drive in a MacBook 13.3″ (intel)
How to install a hard drive in a Mac Pro (intel)