Great show! I am in the process of switching my home use and some of my teaching from MS Office to iWork. The one item I really want to use is Keynote (Numbers is cool, but it doesn’t really replace Excel for an accountant). I have a Windows Tablet PC and one great thing is that I can draw on the slides with the tablet during the presentation. So if I am teaching a class and have to show calculation steps I can write it on the screen. If I get a pen input device, can I do this in Keynote?
Very insightful show. Especially the extensive use of Keynote. Also, the comments about the wide variety of things iWork can do. I’m still stuck in a daytime Windows words where Word is for word processing, Excel is for spreadsheets and Lists, PowerPoint is purely slide presentations.
I would love to see some visual things with this show. Whether it is a screencast or full on movie would be great. I would love to see how you guys use stuff. I understand this is a extremely techie show but some things are better done visual, like i would love to see the presentation that was made for Stanford(I believe that is the right school) cause as I peruse becoming a teacher, I could use this great info to enhance learning and even teach it when relevant.
Keep up the good work. I think you guys should do a show on bonjour, because all i know is that kenji says its cool, and that my epson printer can speak bonjour, i think its old name was rendezvous.
I can’t seem to figure out how to create the alpha channel in video exported from Keynote. I believe Craig said to use “None” as the background and John said to use “Black” as the background.
I tried a number of backgrounds and a few different codecs. In all cases, FCP said there was no alpha channel.
I know you can simulate the alpha with luminosity by using either the “Multiply” or “Screen” blend modes, but then the content areas are affected.
Sweetness, guys. Please get those show notes up; listening on the way in to work this morning I remember hearing 3 or 4 things I want to look up… of course, I have no idea what they were now.
Exporting with alpha is tricky. You MUST get all of these:
#1 set the slide backgrounds to none
#2 check the transparency box when you hit the first export screen after you choose QT as the export type
#3 Go into the custom settings, choose Animation (or PNG, though that makes even bigger files than Animation) as the codec
#4 MAKE SURE you choose Millions+ as the colors. If it’s on Millions or something lesser, it still won’t work.
as for writing on Keynote slides, with Keynote 3, Apple added a function where you could allow things in front of your slides (like Dashboard, etc). Several of the screen writing companies modified their apps to work with Keynote, but I don’t have any of the names handy.
Brian Peat (Keynoteuser.com owner and MacBreak Tech fan)
Great show. I’m definitely going to have to play with the Instant Alpha feature in the iWork apps.
Your comments towards the end of the show about the dynamic guides made me think of the various apps from The Omni Group, specifically OmniGraffle, which has had dynamic guides like the ones you describe for a long time. I’m not sure about the ones in Apple’s apps, but the ones in Omnigraffle are incredibly useful. Have any of you used any of Omni’s apps? Have you thought about doing a show about them?
It was great to hear this podcast. I recently built a small promotional video using Keynote as the base layer and then inserting some video and voiceovers on top in Final Cut.
The only problem I had is that because I use Final Cut Express, there seems to be a either a bug in FCE or I’m missing something, but the frames per second of the quicktime file from Keynote didn’t seem to be recognized properly and I ended up having to making the keynote quicktime at 25fps and extend everything by 10% to make it sync with the 30fps video. Wierd stuff and probably a great reason for me to get Final Cut Pro.
Great stuff, command key to relieve guides, that’s a hot tip. Keynote is such natural place to just lay things out and see what sticks. iWeb is a little stale for my taste so I pimp out Keynote to show basic web layouts. You can sign me up for Keynote Pro as long as they improve flash export, it’s way overdue.
“Using the tool in a way that wasn’t made to use the tool.” That hit home. Thanx!
I listen to and enjoy several other Mac-related podcasts but really look forward to yours the most. Seventeen days is really too long between shows. I hope you haven’t decided to call it quits.
Also, I echo the comments above regarding show notes for the Alt iWorks show. There’s a lot in there I would like to refer to.
I just realized, MBT is the only PXC/TWiT show where the shows own website draws the most discussion compared to the placeholder at PXC central.
Note to Dan: They have not quit, i do agree that 17 days is a bit long between shows, and i too look forward to macbreak tech the most, but they are recording two shows today (wednesday 26th march) which should be out soon.
two things… the show has a scheduling problem and I’m working on ways to fix this. I’m adding other people to the list. and we’ll have knowledge guest more often. this breaks the herding cats problem we have right now.
we tell people on the show to use the website and not the pixelcorps.tv site. there were so many problems with the drupal CMS when we started a year ago that I wanted a backup plan.
I’d also like to chime in with a request for more, more, more! Such a great show, and I think my favorite out of the seemingly infinite related podcasts, TWIM, TWIT, MacBreak Daily, MacBreak Monthly, MacBreak 5 Minutes Ago, etc.
A late accolade but this episode is my favorite conversation already in progress yet. iWork has been sitting more or less neglected in my dock for months, but you guys peeled it open in multiple revelatory ways. I’ll be listening to the episode again. Many thanks.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Great show! I am in the process of switching my home use and some of my teaching from MS Office to iWork. The one item I really want to use is Keynote (Numbers is cool, but it doesn’t really replace Excel for an accountant). I have a Windows Tablet PC and one great thing is that I can draw on the slides with the tablet during the presentation. So if I am teaching a class and have to show calculation steps I can write it on the screen. If I get a pen input device, can I do this in Keynote?
March 7th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Guys, you CAN play movies in Preview’s slideshow view as it uses Quick Look
March 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Very insightful show. Especially the extensive use of Keynote. Also, the comments about the wide variety of things iWork can do. I’m still stuck in a daytime Windows words where Word is for word processing, Excel is for spreadsheets and Lists, PowerPoint is purely slide presentations.
Overall the show had great value to me, thanks.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I would love to see some visual things with this show. Whether it is a screencast or full on movie would be great. I would love to see how you guys use stuff. I understand this is a extremely techie show but some things are better done visual, like i would love to see the presentation that was made for Stanford(I believe that is the right school) cause as I peruse becoming a teacher, I could use this great info to enhance learning and even teach it when relevant.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Guy Kawasaki’s presentation rule: 10/20/30
10 slides
20 minutes
30 point font (Min)
So that is clear, I think you had it reversed…
Agree with the above, would like to see examples of your work - did I miss links in the previous show notes…?
March 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
102030 … 302010 once again… proof that we work without a net.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Keep up the good work. I think you guys should do a show on bonjour, because all i know is that kenji says its cool, and that my epson printer can speak bonjour, i think its old name was rendezvous.
Shash
March 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I can’t seem to figure out how to create the alpha channel in video exported from Keynote. I believe Craig said to use “None” as the background and John said to use “Black” as the background.
I tried a number of backgrounds and a few different codecs. In all cases, FCP said there was no alpha channel.
I know you can simulate the alpha with luminosity by using either the “Multiply” or “Screen” blend modes, but then the content areas are affected.
What am I missing?
March 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Sweetness, guys. Please get those show notes up; listening on the way in to work this morning I remember hearing 3 or 4 things I want to look up… of course, I have no idea what they were now.
Cheers!
March 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
One time I taught a client how to make T-Shirt designs in Pages…
March 10th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Exporting with alpha is tricky. You MUST get all of these:
#1 set the slide backgrounds to none
#2 check the transparency box when you hit the first export screen after you choose QT as the export type
#3 Go into the custom settings, choose Animation (or PNG, though that makes even bigger files than Animation) as the codec
#4 MAKE SURE you choose Millions+ as the colors. If it’s on Millions or something lesser, it still won’t work.
as for writing on Keynote slides, with Keynote 3, Apple added a function where you could allow things in front of your slides (like Dashboard, etc). Several of the screen writing companies modified their apps to work with Keynote, but I don’t have any of the names handy.
Brian Peat (Keynoteuser.com owner and MacBreak Tech fan)
March 11th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Great show. I’m definitely going to have to play with the Instant Alpha feature in the iWork apps.
Your comments towards the end of the show about the dynamic guides made me think of the various apps from The Omni Group, specifically OmniGraffle, which has had dynamic guides like the ones you describe for a long time. I’m not sure about the ones in Apple’s apps, but the ones in Omnigraffle are incredibly useful. Have any of you used any of Omni’s apps? Have you thought about doing a show about them?
Keep up the good work.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
It was great to hear this podcast. I recently built a small promotional video using Keynote as the base layer and then inserting some video and voiceovers on top in Final Cut.
The only problem I had is that because I use Final Cut Express, there seems to be a either a bug in FCE or I’m missing something, but the frames per second of the quicktime file from Keynote didn’t seem to be recognized properly and I ended up having to making the keynote quicktime at 25fps and extend everything by 10% to make it sync with the 30fps video. Wierd stuff and probably a great reason for me to get Final Cut Pro.
You can see the video at: http://www.dmg-photography.com/clients/waterwise/WWW-Draft-4-review.mp4
Great podcast! Thanks for the tips and ideas.
March 19th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Great stuff, command key to relieve guides, that’s a hot tip. Keynote is such natural place to just lay things out and see what sticks. iWeb is a little stale for my taste so I pimp out Keynote to show basic web layouts. You can sign me up for Keynote Pro as long as they improve flash export, it’s way overdue.
“Using the tool in a way that wasn’t made to use the tool.” That hit home. Thanx!
Keynote sample: http://www.ginasaro.com
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 am
I listen to and enjoy several other Mac-related podcasts but really look forward to yours the most. Seventeen days is really too long between shows. I hope you haven’t decided to call it quits.
Also, I echo the comments above regarding show notes for the Alt iWorks show. There’s a lot in there I would like to refer to.
Thanks,
Dan
March 26th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I just realized, MBT is the only PXC/TWiT show where the shows own website draws the most discussion compared to the placeholder at PXC central.
Note to Dan: They have not quit, i do agree that 17 days is a bit long between shows, and i too look forward to macbreak tech the most, but they are recording two shows today (wednesday 26th march) which should be out soon.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
two things… the show has a scheduling problem and I’m working on ways to fix this. I’m adding other people to the list. and we’ll have knowledge guest more often. this breaks the herding cats problem we have right now.
we tell people on the show to use the website and not the pixelcorps.tv site. there were so many problems with the drupal CMS when we started a year ago that I wanted a backup plan.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:25 am
You might have misunderstood me, i LIKE the way that macbreaktech.com is the main site. Drupal is messed up…
March 31st, 2008 at 11:42 am
I’d also like to chime in with a request for more, more, more! Such a great show, and I think my favorite out of the seemingly infinite related podcasts, TWIM, TWIT, MacBreak Daily, MacBreak Monthly, MacBreak 5 Minutes Ago, etc.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
A late accolade but this episode is my favorite conversation already in progress yet. iWork has been sitting more or less neglected in my dock for months, but you guys peeled it open in multiple revelatory ways. I’ll be listening to the episode again. Many thanks.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Thanks guys. Just starting to use Final Cut Express, and your Keynote trick makes it a lot easier to add text and simple animation