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After iLife '11: Alternatives to iDVD and iWeb
Over the weekend TUAW is going to be featuring in-depth reviews of the new iLife '11 suite -- or at least the three apps that were updated. As most of you know by now, iWeb and iDVD didn't receive an update at all. In light of that, we've compiled a list of several alternatives to iDVD and iWeb that you may want to try out. From a purely consumer standpoint, I don't think any of these apps offer the ease of use that Apple has so successfully built into iWeb and iDVD, but given that iDVD seems all but abandoned -- as should the MacBook optical drive be -- and the future is uncertain for iWeb, it's always nice to know you have some alternatives. iDVD alternatives: SmallDVD SmallDVD is a simple utility that lets you take any video files and add them to a DVD image ISO which can then be burned onto a DVD using Disc Utility. SmallDVD doesn't have many features, but it will appeal to those of you who want to create very simple DVDs with static background menus. It also has the added benefit of only creating the ISO file which can then be shared to DropBox or iDisk, and then downloaded and viewed on another computer using only the ISO -- no optical drive needed. SmallDVD is a free download.
Steve Jobs chilling with President Obama today
According to Business Insider, President Obama is scheduled to be flying into the San Francisco area this afternoon to attend an event for District Attorney Kamala Harris and to deliver remarks at a later dinner. What isn't on the President's public agenda, according to an anonymous source familiar with the matter, is a one-on-one meeting with the turtlenecked crusader himself, Steve Jobs. You may think that they'll be talking about several important issues regarding Apple's lead in the technological frontier, but we all know that the President probably just wants to have a little chat about iWeb not being updated. Somebody's in trouble...
After iLife '11 analysis: Uncertain future for iWeb, no future for iDVD
Yesterday's announcement of iLife '11 brought some cool new features across the suite... well, most of the suite anyway. As many people have noticed, only iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band were updated. iWeb and iDVD got no love besides small code changes that make them compatible with the new iLife '11 apps. So, what does this mean for the future of the two apps? iDVD Sorry, iDVD fans, but the app is as good as dead. The last time iDVD got a major upgrade was back in 2006 with iLife '06. A year later, iLife '08 brought minor changes to iDVD, restoring some themes from the first two versions of the software. Since then, two versions of iLife have come and gone, but iDVD has not changed one bit. Back in 2003 or 2004 (I don't remember which year exactly), my group at Apple was in a meeting with people from the iLife team. One of the project managers threw out a question to us. He asked why iDVD was so essential to the iLife suite, which at the time also included iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie. This wasn't just a question he was asking us either -- it was one of the interview questions for programmers that were hired to work on the iLife suite. The answer: iDVD was essential because it wrapped a user's digital life up into one tidy package. Music, photos, and movies could be edited and burned onto a shiny disc for distribution to friends and family. As an interesting side note, the programming manager told us that no one on the iLife team ever got the question right on their first try.
Apple will discontinue .Mac HomePage viewing Nov. 8
Apple has given final notice to those publishing content through the old .Mac service. A note was sent to MobileMe members today stating that as of November 8th, Web pages published using the obsolete .Mac service will become unavailable. Those publishing via iWeb will not be affected. If you're one of those still going about things this way, fret not. Your content will not be deleted. Instead, you'll find your content stored on iDisk and, should you wish, you can republished your content through MobileMe tools, like Gallery. Apple first warned of shutting down its legacy .Mac services over a year ago. A FAQ page pertaining to this can be found on Apple's support forums here. It's certainly the end of an era, but bigger and better things have arrived. Mark your calenders for November 8th and take a minute to remember just how far things have come. [Via TheLoop]
Rumor: iLife '11 to be 64-bit, iOS compatible
iLife, the software suite that is included on every Mac and is made up of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD, hasn't been updated to a new version since January, 2009. That, of course, is making many of us in the Apple world curious about when the next version of the suite will appear on the market. Many Mac pundits believe the next edition will be iLife '11, and we've already seen several of the rumored release dates fly past without sign of the new iLife. Now some sharp-eyed Apple fans have noticed that there's a book listed on the German Amazon site with the title "iLife '11: Digital pictures, movies, music and more" and a release date of December, 2010. The translated description notes that the suite is entirely 64-bit, and that iPhoto will receive integration with social networking. iWeb has been "rewritten" from the ground up, and iDVD is no longer included with the suite. There's mention of a "new application," but no word on what the function or name of the new member of the suite will be. The red banner on the cover mockup at left reads "iPhoto, iMovie and more, with Apps for Mac, iPhone 4, iPod and iPad," which implies that iOS versions of the applications will be available as well. At this time, of course, iMovie is available for iOS, and it would not be much of a stretch to assume that iOS-compatible versions of the other applications could be developed. After all, Apple made an iPad version of iWork available on day one. The book is written by Uwe Nerger, who has no other published titles to his name. That brings up the question how an unpublished author has been given access to a suite of applications that many published authors of Apple tomes have not seen. Take this rumor with a fist-sized grain of salt. [via AppleInsider]
iWeb updated to 3.0.2
The iWeb component of iLife '09 has just been updated to version 3.0.2. Apple hasn't provided much information on what the new 186 MB update will do outside of saying it addresses assorted minor issues and more serious issues when using it to publish to MobileMe, but it's available now via Software Update. So go grab the new iWeb update and tell us what you find. Note after posting: The iWeb update also cleans up support for searching podcasts and blogs. It requires 10.5.6 or better to run and outside of Software Update, you can download it from Apple's Support Website. Thanks Macworld UK for the additional information
Rumor: iLife '10 coming with new application
If rumors are to be believed, Apple's iLife suite will receive a major upgrade in a month's time and feature a brand new application. Apple-centric site Mac 4 Ever claims (Google translation to English here) that the newest incarnation of the collection will be released on August 7th. Rumored features include 64-bit compatibility and a "nouvelle application (mystère !)." Also among Mac 4 Ever's list of features are improved Faces and Places in iPhoto, a totally revamped iWeb and most interestingly the absence of iDVD. Perhaps the new application will replace it, or maybe it will be a download. Or maybe these are baseless rumors and who knows what will happen. Last week, we noticed an "iLife '10 for Dummies" book on Amazon France, which has since been pulled. Keep an eye out for the next few weeks and we'll see what happens. [Via Macworld UK]
Looking for free iWeb hosting? Here's how to use Dropbox as your host
Since iWeb comes with just about every Mac, it's surprising that it isn't used by more Mac users. For some people, coughing up US$99 a year for MobileMe hosting is the barrier, but there are other ways to get your iWeb pages out where the world can see them. Last night, while participating in a recording of the MacJury podcast, one of my gift ideas was to sign somebody up for a free trial of Dropbox and show them how to use it for syncing all sorts of things. While I was touting all of the things that Dropbox can be used for, I pulled up the Dropbox wiki for reference, and I noticed a link for Tips and Tricks. One of the tips was "Use Dropbox to host a website." iWeb is one of my personal specialties, so I immediately wondered if someone could use Dropbox to host an iWeb site. Within two minutes, I had my answer and an idea for a how-to post. Follow along as I show you how to publish your iWeb site on a free Dropbox account. Note: As our commenters point out, even though the suggestion for website hosting comes direct from the Dropbox wiki, the service is not intended for 'production' web hosting. A few personal pages or a testing site shouldn't cause you any grief, but Dropbox does reserve the right to turn off your public links if the system detects unusual levels of bandwidth consumption.
Quick and easy podcasting with an iPhone 3GS, GarageBand, and Posterous
I love podcasting. My first podcasts weren't really podcasts, just recordings that I made and uploaded to a website in the late 90's so that other people could listen to them. Unlike the podcasts we know and love today, there was no way to subscribe to all of the episodes that I recorded. When podcasting as we know it hit the world in 2004, I started hosting podcasts through one of my companies. Despite creating two long-running podcasts between 2004 and 2007, I finally gave up because of the time involved. Part of the problem was due to me being a stickler for perfection in my podcasts, while the rest was due to the fact that I was stuck with podcasting when I was near my iMac and could edit and update a feed file on a regular basis. Earlier this month, I decided that I wanted to start up a personal podcast again. Yeah, I talk about tech, but for the most part I wanted this to be a free-form podcast that could talk about photography one day, music the next, and the joys of being a cat owner the third. Since my calendar is already pretty well jammed, the only way I was going to be able to commit to doing a podcast every day was to get the podcast workflow down to as little time as possible.
Mac 101: Publish iWeb '09 sites to FTP
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Now that the winter holidays are almost upon us, we're thinking about sharing stories, photos, and movies with far-flung relatives and friends. There's a slew of ways to get this done, and this post focuses on creating a simple site in iWeb '09 and publishing it not to Mobile Me, but to your own host via FTP. If you're unfamiliar with iWeb '09, I'll say this: It does what it does well. If your goal is to share photos, movies and stories with minimal fuss and zero coding, iWeb will work. When I travel, I typically create an iWeb gallery and movie page. Yes, there are many other options, but this one works for me. If you'd rather not publish your iWeb site to MobileMe and have access to FTP, you're in luck. The setup is simple. First, create your site. Next, click the title of your site in the iWeb '09 sidebar (this doesn't work with previous versions of iWeb) to reveal the publishing options. In the first drop-down menu, select "FTP Server." Give your site a name and enter a contact email. Below that, enter your FTP settings. You'll need your server address, username, and password. Next, enter the path to the directory (http://mysite.com/paris, for example). Just make sure the directory already exists on your server or you'll get an error. It won't hurt to test the connection at this point by clicking the button that's available for just that purpose. Finally, enter your site's URL and then click Publish. Off it goes! If you set it up correctly, your iWeb-powered site will be uploaded to the proper place on your site. Subsequent updates require re-publication, so just hit that Publish button again when you're done making changes That's it! Have fun sharing your holiday experiences with iWeb '09.
Take Control of iWeb '09 with exclusive TUAW discount
With the introduction of iWeb '09, Apple pumped up the volume on its entry-level website authoring tool, making it more functional and flexible for novice users while adding enough power -- multi-site publishing options, FTP upload to unlock users from MobileMe, more capable RSS/podcasting tools and widgets, and links to social media sites like Facebook -- to merit a second look alongside midrange/prosumer apps like Sandvox, RapidWeaver, Flux & Freeway. Since the app is included in iLife '09 and bundled with every new Mac, it's likely to be the authoring app of first resort for many Mac users. If you want to get the most out of your iWeb '09 site, we're proud to say there's one guy who has your back: our own Steve Sande, who has revised his Take Control of iWeb ebook for the latest iLife version. The $10US digital title (also sold in printed form for $23.99) reviews all the new features, covers advanced tricks and techniques, and walks the reader through the creation of a sample site (online here). Steve did a great interview about the book on Chuck Joiner's MacVoices podcast last week. In the interest of sharing the iWeb love (and thanks to Tonya & Adam Engst at TidBITS Publishing), we've got an exclusive discount on Steve's ebook just for TUAW readers. Follow this referral link to place your order (be sure to click the big orange "Buy eBook" button) and you'll get a 30% discount off the ebook; it's normally $10US, but for you? $7. 143 pages + an appendix worth of iWeb goodness -- enjoy! If you just can't get enough of books from current and former TUAW team members, you can check out Steve's guide to making the most of your classic iPod, Scott McNulty's WordPress book, or multiple titles on iPhone development and maximizing your iPhone/iPod touch from Erica Sadun.
Apple announces end of .Mac HomePage
Apple has begun sending an email to MobileMe customers about a pending service change. Specifically, .Mac HomePage will be discontinued on July 7, 2009. While existing pages will remain live at their current addresses for MobileMe users, they'll no longer be able to edit them or add new ones. If you want to delete an existing page between now and then, simply visit the HomePage application. Groups will also be discontinued on July 7 when Apple shuts down all group email address, group HomePages, message boards and iDisk "Groups" folders. Your data will be safe, however, as Apple will move the "Groups" folder to a new folder on your iDisk called "Groups Archive."While I never used Groups, it's kind of sad to see HomePage go. I can remember building homepages on my old 333mhz G3 iMac. It was so easy to make a quick-and-dirty site for sharing photos, etc. with grandma. No, it wasn't the cleanest code ever produced, but it was fun back in the day.Of course, Apple recommends that customers consider MobileMe Galleries and iWeb as an alternative. You can get the full run-down here.
iApp updates ready for download
Earlier today, Apple released updates for iWork '09, iWeb, iMovie, iPhoto and iLife Support. As usual, the cryptic descriptions of each disclose very little about their contents. Along with the usual "...overall application stability improvements," the iWeb update fixes FTP issues (what those are we don't know) and iPhoto fixes issues with Faces, Places, photo sharing, and slideshows.You can grab them now via Software Update. They range in size from 1.4MB (iLife Support) to 88.8MB (iPhoto Update). A restart will be required. As usual, let us know if anything goes wonky after installation.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
TUAW review: iWeb '09
Along with the other changes to iLife '09, iWeb was quietly upgraded to version 3. While the changes aren't as dramatic as those seen in iPhoto and iMovie, they do move iWeb further down the path to being a good web design tool for beginning to intermediate users.I'm in the process of writing a new edition of an iWeb book, and I took a month to go through iWeb in detail during my research. Click the Read More link below to see what's new in iWeb '09.
Apple's handy "Find Out How" pages
Here's a useful corner of Apple's enormous website. The "Find Out How" pages feature tutorials on things like Mac and wireless basics as well as web, music and MobileMe tips.We've written about it before, but Apple has recently added tutorials for iLife '09 apps, including iPhoto and an iLife '09 overview. The tips are super handy, and even an old salt like me learned something new. For example, did you know you could publish to FTP with iWeb? I didn't (of course, I never use iWeb).Of course, you can check out our own Mac 101 series as well. Here's to education!
Education-oriented iWeb Themes
While it's a bit too late for our Back-To-School series, here's an announcement for those in education (student, teacher, parent, or administrator) who use iWeb to create school or personal websites. Jumsoft has announced five new iWeb themes specifically for education. The iWeb Education Themes run the gamut from Primary (at right) and Teens themes for younger students, Cool Class for everyone, and College and University for those in the post-secondary educational world. Each theme consists of a number of templates for the various page types found in iWeb: Welcome, About Me, Photos, My Albums, Movies, Blog, Podcast, and Blank.The themes are available for US$9.99 each, or as a package for US$29.99. iWeb 2 is required to use the new themes.
Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3
Although I've written a book about iWeb, I often tell my clients to avoid using it for their websites if they're planning on hosting anywhere but on MobileMe. Why? When you post to MobileMe from iWeb, you "Publish" and your site is uploaded. Minor changes to a site only take a few seconds to upload, since iWeb uploads only the changed files to your web server. That doesn't happen when publishing to other servers. Instead, you publish to a local folder, and then usually upload the entire folder to your web server. That can take a long time with a large site.Plyxim's Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3 fixes that problem. The shareware ($7 donation requested) application makes it simple to publish to any web host. It's an ftp client that takes the local folder you've published your iWeb site to, compares it to the folder on your web server, and then uploads just the files that have changed. I've found that Easy iWeb Publisher works much faster than most dedicated ftp clients when syncing iWeb files that have been changed, added, or deleted. Until Apple fixes iWeb '08 to make publishing easier for people who don't use MobileMe, this is a great way to work with your own hosting.
MobileMe and personal domains
According to Apple Support documents, personal domains will be kept intact with MobileMe. Blogger Sean Sperte noticed a "personal domain" option while watching the MobileMe quick tour. That prompted some investigation which led to this support document. Sure enough, it confirms that .Mac personal domains will remain untouched by the change:"...If you have a personal domain setup for your iWeb site, it will continue to work without changing any settings at your registrar."Thanks, Apple![Via Geek&Mild]
Take back your iWeb galleries in Firefox 3
Just as Firefox users were upgrading to version 3 last week, many people started to miss their iWeb-created galleries as they just disappeared. Well, one iWeb user has been doing extra work to fix Apple's? (erm... Mozilla's?) problem. Joshua Ochs has posted an in-depth article on his site describing exactly what is going on -- he also provides a fix in the form of a script to patch iWeb. Joshua says that the problem is neither with Apple nor Mozilla, but with a JavaScript library called "Prototype" which is used by iWeb. Right now there are two ways to fix the problem (neither of which are supported by Apple): you can use the information on Apple's Discussion Board, or you can download Joshua's script -- both seem to work and are free.[via ArsTechnica]
New iWeb themes from Jumsoft
iWeb 2 (the iLife '08 version, that is) comes with an assortment of 26 different themes, but if you're tired of trying to mod the Comic Book theme for your new blog, you may want to look at ten new iWeb themes from Jumsoft.There's a good assortment of styles in the Jumsoft collection. I personally find the Teddy theme to be a bit twee and Flowered World is too feminine for my taste, but YMMV. My personal faves from the new collection are the sparse and paper-like Simple Info, and the pastel and plastic Business. An installer app is included to make sure that your new themes end up in the proper place on your Mac. Jumsoft sells each theme for $9.99 or you can buy the entire pack of ten themes at a 30% discount for $69.99. If you're an iWeb fan and want some additional design options, take a look at the new themes.
