Tag: keynote

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Keynote Tweetless

Loose Change

Today I was presenting a keynote at the RSC Wales Conference in Cardiff. I had finished my presentation, however on the train I took the decision that the audience probably would be on the Twitter and therefore this was an opportunity to engage with my audience and get them discussing through Twitter. It would also be an easy way to add value to my Keynote presentation with links to relevant blog posts, news items, wikipedia articles and images.

So I went through the presentation and added the [twitter][/twitter] comments in the presentation notes.

It was only after I had done all this that I wondered if the recent Twitter API change would make a difference, so I tested the process and it didn’t work.

It had worked seamlessly before, but wasn’t working now. The main difference between then and now was the change in the Twitter API.

I checked my settings and then went through the process I had used before that was outlined on this blog post. I checked, and went through the whole authorisation process, but to no avail.

As a result I didn’t have the time to set up another solution, so my presentation was in the end tweetless.

For the future I think I will need to find another solution, what I liked about Keynote Tweet was the seamless way it worked with Keynote allowing individual tweets to be “sent” from individual slides.

If you know of a possible solution let me know in the comments.

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iWork ‘09

Apple have released a new version of iWork with new versions of Keynote, Pages and Numbers.

Keynote has always been my favourite application in iWork and there are some new features which look interesting. Doesn’t seem to be a huge number of new features though, main ones which will make me upgrade are the integration with the iPhone (or iPod touch) and the web show functionality.

Haven’t got a copy yet, but will get the family edition so I can install it onto all the Macs in the house and the possible future MacBook I am thinking about getting.

I may also get iLife ’09, in the main as it usually integrates better with the newer version of iWork.

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Dragging images into Keynote 08

One of the nice features of Keynote is the ability to drag a series of images in from Finder and for Keynote to add them as individual slides.

If you are dragging lots of images into Keynote, unless Finder is in column view, Keynote will “mess” with the order.

If you forget and Finder is in list view and you drag the images into Keynote, changing to column view doesn’t appear to fix it and your images will still be in the wrong order. As well as changing from list view to column view, change from the image folder to a different folder and then back to the column view. Now when you drag the images into Keynote, they will be in the correct order.

Don’t know if this dragging issue is still the case in Keynote 09 as I haven’t yet purchased a copy, but will check once I do.

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iPhone 3G available 11th July

Apple announced iPhone 3G on Monday in a keynote by Steve Jobs at the WWDC in San Francisco. It will be available in the UK on the 11th July via O2.

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

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.

Though O2 do say they will be offering it on a Pay As You Go contract in addition to the Pay Monthly contract they had with the old iPhone.

Overall I am tempted by the new iPhone, it’s certainly a much

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Download MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote

Steve Jobs MacWorld 2008 Keynote

Sometimes depsite all your planning, it all falls apart.

Not living in San Francisco, actually I don’t even live in the US, I knew it was going to be impossible to attend the MacWorld 2008 Keynote in person. Though I didn’t realise until listening to MacBreak Weekly that it’s like an iPhone launch if you want to actually get in there in person, it starts at 9am, but you really need to start queuing at 4am – now that’s dedication.

So I couldn’t be there in person, like I was ever going to get there!

I didn’t really want to “view” the keynote by watching the Macrumors’ feed, or refreshing Engadget on a regular basis, or watching multiple tweets on Twitter (which I believe went down during the Keynote). I do like watching the stream (as though it was “live”. I subscribed the Macrumors spoiler free link. However fifteen hours after the Keynote, no e-mail giving me the link, I thought to myself, either there is no stream (there had to be, it said it was going to be made available on the Apple website) or (more likely) the Macrumors e-mail service had failed! It hadn’t completely failed, the e-mail telling me about the steam eventually arrived eighteen hours after the start of the Keynote!

So I went to the Apple website, obviously saw the MacBook Air on the front page and thought ah well, and clicked the link for the Keynote stream.

Now maybe it was my connection or my computer, but could I get the Keynote to stream? No.

I tried on two different connections with no luck. I tried on about four computers with no luck.

Probably too many people trying to access the stream.

I am not a great fan of streaming, as too often (with long videos) I want to pause the video as real life gets in the way, you know phone calls, coffee, e-mails, etc… I have found with some streaming, if I pause the stream it never restarts, so I need to start the whole stream from the beginning.

I even tried to find online a place to download the Keynote with no luck.

I was resigned to the fact that I was not going to be able to watch the Keynote this year. Ah well I had found out what was released and I had seen the sixty second version.

So imagine my surprise when looking at the top podcasts in the (UK) iTunes Store when there was the MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote.

Well I am downloading all 900MB of that then!

I am surprised that not only was it available, but that Apple hadn’t really mentioned it on their main website.

Still downloading, and you know about everything that was mentioned, so leave me to enjoy that distortion field which is Steve Jobs.

One more thing…

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Digital Video Tools

Here are some of the digital video tools I use.

iMovie

Part of the iLife suite which comes pre-installed on every Mac. It is a quick and easy video editing application.

I have not used the latest version (part of iLife ’08) however it should be noted that this new version has a very different workflow compared to previous versions.

iMovie ’08 makes viewing and working with video as intuitive as enjoying your photos. A built-in library automatically organises your video, so all the clips you’ve captured and movies you’ve created are just a click away. With its revolutionary interface, iMovie makes it quick and easy to browse your library and create new movies. And iMovie is built for sharing. In just a few steps, you can add movies to your website, publish them on YouTube, and create versions for iPod and Apple TV.

I also like Keynote which is the Mac presentation software, presentations can be saved as movies or can even be sent direct to YouTube.

I have used Final Cut Express, but for quick videos I prefer the simplicity of iMovie.

Windows Movie Maker

This is part of Windows XP (and Windows Vista) which allows simple video editing.

With Windows Movie Maker, you can use your computer to create and edit home movies with a few simple drag-and-drop moves. Then you can share your movies through the web, e-mail, your computer, or CD.

Generally I use this only if I don’t have access to my Mac, or the files are all in WMV format.

Exporting can be somewhat slow.

VisualHub

An excellent tool for converting video into various different formats, very useful if converting video for mobile devices and Windows PCs, note this is Mac software.

VisualHub bridges the gap between numerous complicated video formatting standards, and people that just want to get the job done.

Roxio Toast

Primarily a DVD burning application, it also have video conversion functionality.

Media-convert

Online video conversion tool that doesn’t require you to install anything. I have also been recommended zamzar.com, however due to the plethora of pop-ups and the fact you have to give an e-mail address means that I for one would not use it.

YouTube

The infamous video website that allows users to upload and share their video.

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Send Keynote to YouTube

One of the features of Keynote that I have always liked is the ability to save a presentation as a movie file. As once a movie file it can be converted in many different ways.

In version 4.0 of Keynote (part of iWork ’08) you can now send your presentation direct to YouTube.

This avoids the need to export the file and then upload to YouTube, you can upload direct to YouTube quickly and easily.

I’ve not yet tried it, but I can see after attending a conference I could upload my presentation and then embed it into my blog or the organisers could embed into their website. It also avoids the problems that you can have with Keynote files as not everyone has Keynote and even if you export as PowerPoint, not everyone has PowerPoint.