Hold down ⌥ while starting iTunes to choose another Library. (Also works for iPhoto)
My favorite GTD app OmniFocus is now available on the iPad. Watch this screecast about the iPad version.
Hold down ⇧⌃ while hovering the Dock to temporarily disable magnification.
Usually preference windows can’t be resized. One of the exceptions is the Extensions tab in Safari.
That’s really handy in case you have installed too many Extensions.
Hold ⌥ while clicking the Sound symbol to quickly change inputs or outputs.
Don’t do this in your screencasts: The yellow circle in this picture hides all the text. Not very helpful for your audience!
In Mail, touch and hold the Compose button to switch to your last saved message draft.
box.net gets BoxSync
This screencast is a perfect example why you shouldn’t use (audible) click effects all the time.
They are useful when they help describing something, but they get quite annoying after a while. Especially when they are so loud like in this example.
What I like:
What could be improved:
How to Make a Screencast on Linux
ScreenFlow from Telesmith: ScreenFlow is my main editing and recording environment. It has nearly everything I need…
Send in your screencasts and become a member of the Macgasm team.
Not a new technology: Press ⌘D in Safari to create a bookmark.
Added bookmarks can be searched by their name or address with the location bar. (⌘L)
Bad screencast examples: One of my first screencasts
I know it’s easy to poke on other people’s, so why not talk about my own.
The only reason why people still watch this video is its content. I still get emails from people saying “Wow, I didn’t know that is possible. This has dramatically changed how I produce music with Ableton Live!”
Content is king!
A few days ago I was curious if people have more apps installed on their iPhone, now they are able to put everything into folders. So I started a poll on Twitter to get app installation statistics. Turns out, not (very) surprisingly, people indeed have more iPhone apps installed on iOS 4 than on iOS 3.
According to these two polls, people have about 10 more apps installed than on their previous iPhone OS.
Minimum and maximum numbers are also looking interesting. On iOS 3 the minimum was 2, whereas it’s 20 now on iOS 4.
The person, presumably the same one in either poll, had 223 apps installed on iOS 4 and “only” 210 on iOS 3.
Does that mean people use their phone more often? I don’t think so. It just means we have more clutter on our beloved phones, if you ask me.
Quickly delete entries from a list by swiping. That will reveal a delete button.
Write symbols quickly on the iPhone by tap-and-holding the symbol key. Then move your finger to a symbol.
New to Git? I would recommend watching Scott Chacon’s (@chacon) Git Screencasts.
Sometimes a bit too fast, but still pretty good. Don’t expect any fancy edits. This is really just a coding Podcast (and I like it).
Bad screencast examples: UITableView tutorial
Even if you’re showing code, talk to the listener! Tell him/her why or what you are doing.
If you see a table (view) in an app on the iPhone. Tap the Status Bar at the top (where the clock is) to scroll to the top fast.
Used in Mail, Safari for instance.
Acorn from Flying Meat Software: Acorn is my favourite image editing app. It’s ability to crop something quickly (Just press C and Acorn tries to figure out what can be cropped). Definitive timesaver when I create callout effects or a thumbnail for a new article.
To write a . on the iPhone press the space bar twice.
It’s possible to assign shortcuts to menu entries in pop-up menus. (Like the one in Save as PDF)
To assign a shortcut go to System Preferences → Keyboard. Click the + and choose:
* Application: All Applications
* Menu Title: Save as PDF…
* Keyboard Shortcut: Whatever you like. Mine is ⌃⌥⌘P
Click on Add and you’re done.
Wordpress has feeds for everything. Add /feed to the end of a URL to get the comment feed, for instance.
To always open a specific file with an app. Right-click on the file, hold ⌥ and choose an app in “Always Open With”
Screencasts we like: This screencast about the Firefly URL shortener is actually not that bad. It has some nice customized overlays. Only pity is that Ariejan, the screencaster, refuses to speak by himself.
Never do that: Speak! Even if you’re a foreigner: Speak! The people love voice.
⌘-click opens a link in a new tab in Safari. ⇧⌘-click brings that tab to the foreground. Change behavior in Preferences → Tabs.
Hold ⌘ while clicking a link in Mail.app to open it in the background.
To take a screenshot on the iPhone/iPad press the Home button together with the Sleep/Wake button.
Keynote by Apple: Creates wonderful overlays without having me to worry about the “low-level stuff”.
This person has definitely spent a lot of time producing this thing. For a “first take” it’s quite good though.
Hold down ⌘ while clicking an app in the Dock to let Finder reveal it.
I was always tempted to use BoinxTV for screencasting, but never got the hang of it, because it’s main downside for me is it doesn’t allow any editing.
This guy proves I could have used BoinxTV. ;)
To resize two or more windows to an exact size I’m using either Mercury Mover or Keyboard Maestro.
I also like two functions in both tools:
Want to add a PDF to iBooks without a Mac? Open the PDF in Safari and a button Open in iBooks will appear.
Save disk space on a TimeMachine volume by deleting old backups.
Many people don’t know that ⌘, opens almost every apps’ preferences.
Invert a Finder selection by holding ⌘ down while making a “new” selection over your selection.
Press ⌃T to switch two letters in a text field.
Speed up your Finder navigation with ⌘↓ (into folder/open item) and ⌘↑ (out of folder).
Find duplicates in iTunes by going to File → Display Duplicates. Hold down ⌥ to Display Exact Duplicates.
Get a file listing quickly by opening TextEdit, switch to Plain Text, then drag files from Finder onto TextEdit.
Press ⌘⌥F to get quickly to the search field in Safari. ⌘L, btw, highlights the adress bar.
Press ⌘1 to open up the first bookmark from Safari’s title bar. Works for other bookmarks accordingly.