The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Joe also mentions an upcoming application, called My Eyes Only Photo, which brings My Eyes Only security to photo storage and browsing. There are screenshots of the soon-to-be-released application up on the Software Ops site. Check out the video to hear the developer's take on these apps.

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ScreenSteps 2.6 is out, and has added two very useful features: the ability to export to Microsoft Word or Pages, and the ability to embed videos into your documents for online publication. We've covered this screen-based documentation application since its initial release, and it continues to be a personal favorite for me and an incredibly efficient way to create and maintain documentation for clients, employees and users.

The video embedding is a huge deal for my workflow. I've found through years of working with clients that a PDF or online document and a video serve two very different audiences. Some folks, myself included, have a learning style that does not work with video tutorials. We require text and examples we can scan, search and bookmark. The other half are in a reverse situation; videos jibe with their learning style, but pages of text just cause a logjam in their brains. Ultimately, because I can rarely predict the learning style of a client, I end up creating both; documenting a procedure step-by-step, and then demonstrating it while I record the screen, using the manual I just created as a script. With ScreenSteps 2.6, I can now add a shorter video to each step or lesson, allowing me to serve both audiences a little more efficiently.

Embedding video is as easy as copying the embed code from any video service which provides it, choosing the Step > Set Video Embed Code menu option and pasting your code. At this point, the "video embed" is a PR-speak way of introducing a feature which really has much more advanced possibilities. Quite simply, this feature allows you to embed anything you want, and -- at least in HTML exports -- have it interpreted within the documentation as Javascript/HTML. I plan to use this freedom to embed bookmarks in my videos using YouTube's Javascript API. You can also use it to insert code examples with HTML pre and code tags. The sky's the limit.

On to the new export formats ... I really should say format, as it's a single option to export a Office Open XML format. This format can be read by and edited in most modern word processors, including Apple's Pages and Microsoft Word. As with ScreenSteps' other export formats, users can customize templates for their OOXML files, allowing strict adherence to standards within organizations with such requirements. It allows for some pretty darn good-looking Pages documents, too.

A trial version of ScreenSteps 2.6 is available for download from Blue Mango Learning Systems. See the product page for further details. Pricing comes in two levels: $39.95US for the standard version, or $59.95US for the Pro version (which is required for the video embedding and OOXML export features). As noted by the developers in the comments, video embedding works in both Standard and Pro versions.

Ross Carter of Cocomot has a pretty cool new word processor, Pagehand, in the works. It reads and writes in PDF format, so you don't have to think twice about sending a document to anyone; they may not be able to edit it -- depending on the software they're running -- but you're pretty much guaranteed they'll be able to see it exactly the way you did on your screen. That's important because Pagehand's features are heavily geared towards making correct and beautiful typography easy for everyone, and providing many of the advanced features you'd only find in applications such as InDesign or Quark. Ross demoed the word processor for me at WWDC. Check out the video for a brief overview of the application and some of the philosophy behind it. While it hasn't been "officially" released yet, it's available for download and trial in its 1.0 incarnation.

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We seem to be mentioning both Parallels and Kerio pretty frequently, and they keep coming up with cool stuff. Kerio announced today that it will be offering its mail and collaboration platform, Kerio Mailserver, as a Virtual Appliance for Parallels on the Mac, news that will be of interest to a lot of folks looking for an even easier way to get away from Exchange.

The Virtual Appliance comes with a preconfigured version of CentOS 5.3 Linux, optimized for Kerio Mailserver. It looks like an ideal solution for businesses that need to run more than one OS, allowing hardware to be shared and making efficient use of server power.

I'm guessing you'd want an XServe or high-end Mac Pro if you're planning to deploy multiple Virtual Appliances, but I would think that the KMS Virtual Appliance should run on any Intel Mac which can do a decent job of running Parallels to begin with. If you missed it, check out the WWDC video of a tricked-out Mac Pro running Leopard and two installs of Vista with Parallels.

The Kerio Mailserver Virtual Appliance comes ready-to-run (if you have Parallels Desktop or Server) as a 30-day trial. Pricing starts at $499US for ten users, with an option to add integrated McAfee Anti-Virus for an extra $100US ($599).

We, of course, had lunch with our favorite Canadian developers at WWDC. Talking with Dave, Roustem and the rest of the crew from Agile Web Solutions is something I look forward to anytime we're all in San Francisco. I didn't film the whole lunch; being filmed eating is almost as awkward as eating alone in the cafeteria, I think. So here's a quick -- but very interesting -- clip of Dave Teare explaining how cut-and-paste in iPhone OS 3.0 is going to be used in 1Password. If you're a 1Password user, you'll probably want to check it out!

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The guys from Black Pixel stopped by to demo 2 upcoming games they're working on, both for kids: one for very young children, and one targeted at a slightly older set, which I assume ranges up to at least 30, given that it has me pretty excited. I'm neither young (by my standards), nor a gamer, but the game currently codenamed Tatooine has me ready to go running through the streets swinging my iPhone around and firing it like a phaser, baffling innocent onlookers. Check out the video after the jump, you'll get the idea.

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Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels, was gracious enough to sit down with us to talk about his take on the Keynote, WWDC in general and some enhancements which were announced at the Parallels shindig at Jillian's. The acoustics in the room were very echo-y and I picked up a lot of air noise and fire trucks. The rescued soundtrack has some spooky artifacts but is completely audible.

The direct access we talk about is shown in detail in the Jillian's video linked above, and is a very impressive step forward for virtualization. Continue reading for the video.

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We featured the work of Adrian Kosmaczewski last year, when he helped out WWDC '08 attendees with a script he whipped up to convert the AJAX-based schedule to an iCal .ics file. Now a full-time iPhone developer, we caught up with him at WWDC '09 to talk about iPhones and iPhone development from San Francisco to Switzerland.

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We'll be posting an interview with Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov shortly, but here's a peek at what Parallels can do on a Mac Pro. The video shows some impressive 3D rendering happening inside of two separate Vista virtual machines running simultaneously with OS X 10.5. The essence of the pitch is Parallels' ability to directly access hardware, in this case the video card, to improve performance within each virtual machine. Cool stuff.

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I was excited to speak with Jon Gotow of St. Clair Software, creator of Default Folder X, which is an invaluable tool to me. He is also an important voice in the OpenMeta debate and evolution happening right now, which will get its own article in the near future. He attended WWDC with his son, Ben Gotow, and had a lot to say about the state of Apple and looking forward. Continue reading for the video.

Update: This video has been moved to YouTube and is now watchable.

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