Educators and professionals who need to record and podcast lectures often turn to Humble Daisy's ProfCast, a tool for adding enhancements to PowerPoint or Keynote slideshows to create powerful podcasts.

ProfCast today received a major update to version 2.3. The original app allows recording of live presentations, syncing slides with an audio track, and full RSS feed generation and publishing support. The new version incorporates several improvements, the most significant being support for PowerPoint 2008.

The app now automatically detects whether Keynote or PowerPoint is being used for a presentation, and then begins the process of recording and publishing the lecture with all slide timing and voice narration.

Humble Daisy also killed a number of bugs from the previous version of ProfCast, and version 2.3.0 is a free upgrade to existing owners of the application. The program is $59.95 for first-time buyers, and educational discounts are available. ProfCast can be purchased from the online store.

If you're new to the Mac or just bought an iPhone you could pore through the "Switch 101" series on Apple's site, you could browse our Mac 101 or iPhone 101 series, or you could spend a few bucks and get trained fast. We checked out "It's About Time" products at this year's Macworld (remember back in the beginning of 2008, where Steve Jobs made his final appearance?). As a former teacher and trainer, I think these are great for hitting the basics and in a short time you'll know what to do with your fancy new machine.

Seems like the perfect companion to a gift this year, doesn't it? To help you out we're giving away 10 licenses of "It's About Time to Learn the Switch to Mac" and 10 Licenses of "It's About Time to Learn iPhone" (that's 10 winners, everyone gets one of each program), courtesy of the folks at It's About Time products. Rules below, good luck!

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us if you are a "switcher" (moved from a PC as your primary machine to a Mac).
• The comment must be left before December 29, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: License of "It's About Time to Learn the Switch to Mac" ($29.95) and "It's About Time to Learn iPhone" ($29.95) for each winner.
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

UPDATE: Video demo when you click to read more.

With Macs growing more popular on college campuses, why not get the college student in your life something they'll actually use? This gift guide is filled with things that any Apple-loving college student should want/need.

For the dorm
If your dorms are like most, then you might be sharing a room with up to four others. With limited space, you shouldn't have to sacrifice with limited computing/entertainment. The Griffin Simplifi is a great place to start. The Simplifi does tripple duty as an iPhone/iPod dock, USB hub, and media card reader. With the Simplifi, you can have one USB cable to plug into your Mac (or PC) and get instant access to iPhone/iPod syncing, downloading pictures from your media cards (it supports SD, Media Stick/Pro, SDHC, xD, and CF).

If you like rocking out in your dorm, then look no further than the Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere 2 speakers. These speakers have a great sound and look. They also don't take a ton of space, come with a portable case, and they have a remote control. The speakers are compatible with all iPods/iPhone with the 30-pin dock connector on the bottom.

For the walks between classes
You can easily brighten the long walks in between classes with an iPod nano (or any of the other numerous iPod/iPhone devices). Sure, you could use the plain old earbuds that come with the iPod/iPhone, but you might also want to take a look at the Coosh headset for iPhone/iPod. This headset is perfect for the walkers/runners in your life, because the loop on the headset keeps the earbuds from popping out of your ear and breaking. You also get good sound, without sacrificing the fashionable white earbuds. If you're look for some good, cheaper sound-isolating in-ear headphones for iPhone, look no further than the Radtech ProCable headset.


Other goodies that college students love:

• We can't express how great iTunes Gift Cards are. You can pick them up almost anywhere (including online), and they can be used to purchase music, movies, TV shows, and iPhone/iPod touch applications and games.
• If you are regularly missing your favorite TV shows, then it might be worth it to invest in an Apple TV and hack your Apple TV with Boxee. You can also install Boxee on your Mac and save a few hundred dollars.

The Pulse Smartpen has been around for a while, but until late last month the desktop software from Livescribe was Windows-only. The pen captures what you write, and the desktop app allows you to store and playback your writing and captured audio on your computer. I had a chance to test drive the Pulse and the beta version of the Mac app, and now we're giving that demo unit to one lucky TUAW reader. Details on the giveaway at the end of the review.

I was informed that some of the folks who had a hand in creating the Mac app for Livescribe were honest-to-Jobs former Apple employees and the app is written in Cocoa -- a refreshing change of pace in a world beset by hasty Mac ports. Livescribe Desktop on the Mac certainly looks and behaves as a Mac app should, but unfortunately the Mac version doesn't yet have all the features of the Windows version. Now there's a familiar refrain.

On the Mac, you can print your pages but to save as a PDF you drop into the Print dialog. That's pretty normal. You can export audio recordings as AAC files. What you can't do is marry the animation of your drawings (that is, the replay of your writing) with the audio for export. On the Windows version you can export a Flash file that shows you drawing and plays audio as it was recorded. Of course, the app is still in beta, and the feature is coming, but this is a limitation for some. There are other features "coming soon" I'll describe in the main review.

Check out the gallery for lots of screenshots and close-ups of the pen. If you're the impatient sort, I can say that I really like the pen and the software. There's a "gee whiz" factor when you see your notes "playing" on the screen, with audio, and the pages turn as it progresses. If you need digital copies of everything you write, or want to capture a lecture with written notes, there's simply nothing this compact and efficient. Read on for the full details.

Last month TUAW pointed you to a video of a relational database application for iPhone and iPod touch: HanDBase. DDH Software, developers of HandDBase, announced immediate availability of the program in the iTunes App Store.

At US$9.99, HanDBase (click opens iTunes) isn't cheap, but when you consider that it can be used to create custom iPhone database applications to track just about anything in your life, it begins to look like a bargain. HanDBase has been a popular product in the mobile computing space for years, and HanDBase aficionados have uploaded over 2,000 applets (database templates) to the HanDBase applet gallery for free download by other users.

Over the past three weeks, I've been test driving HanDBase for iPhone / iPod touch.

Read on for a full review of the app.

Go on, I dare you -- name an individual who has done more to improve the lot of Mac OS X system administrators than Mr. Mike Bombich. Over the course of the past six years, while working both at educational institutions and as an Apple SE, Mike has given of his time and energy in an effort to deliver some deeply useful tools: Carbon Copy Cloner, BootPicker, NetRestore and more. CCC was one of the first effective & free drive cloning tools for Mac OS X; NetRestore set the standard for deployment frameworks and led the way in Boot Camp compatibility for restoring Windows partitions on the Mac.

CCC continues on, but we have to say goodbye to the other half of the dynamic duo: Mike announced that he has end-of-life'd the NetRestore utility, citing a lack of time for the necessary work to bring it forward to current standards and future functionality. It's true that the basic capabilities of NetRestore have been replicated elsewhere (particularly Winclone for Boot Camp partitions, and Apple's NetBoot services in Leopard Server for machine imaging over the LAN), but many have built very capable and complex deployment strategies on top of NetRestore's PHP and database support. It's a shame to see it go.

If you're shedding a tear at the departure of NetRestore, you might take Mike's advice and give DeployStudio a look -- many of the deployment approaches he had planned for "NetRestore 4" can be found in that free and actively-developed system. DeployStudio will allow you to image machines from a local boot drive or from a NetBoot repository; you can even create an image server for your Windows machines and wipe them remotely. Another option, and one that permits very rapid customization of your image config, is the InstaDMG project.

For the latest help and tips on deployment strategies, be sure to visit afp548.com and macenterprise.org.

Thanks to Josh Z for the tip.

Managing the power consumption of your Macs just got a little easier with the latest version of the LANrev cross-platform client management tool. In the new 5.0 build, the headline feature is bright green: you can assign power saving preferences to machines, including toggles based on whether a user is logged in and new reporting fields to monitor energy savings. For government users, the new FDCC SCAP component helps Windows clients meet Federal Desktop Core Configuration standards for 300-odd security settings on XP and Vista (yee-ikes).

LANrev's sometimes-confusing UI has been simplified, bringing many of the server-oriented functions (software distribution, license monitoring, etc.) under a single window; machines can now be categorized for ease of searching and organization. Software deployment has been jazzed up with new metapackage/multi-payload options and Adobe Creative Suite CS3 direct deployment for installers and updaters (no word yet on CS4 support). LANrev still offers one-click Mac reimaging without setting up a Netboot server, which is a big plus in large deployments.

Pricing for LANrev starts at about $50 per seat for corporate buyers ($40 for education markets) with tiered discounts for larger installations.

An email is being sent from Apple to education customers this morning, offering a free white paper on Mac management. Entitled "Solutions for Systems Management," the paper can be accessed by entering your school's name and zip code on a special web page.

It includes solid, basic information on assessment of your school's needs, deployment of a solution and even a solution's typical lifespan. Apple products are featured, of course, like Apple Remote Desktop and Mac OS X Server, but the paper also describes some third-party products like Deep Freeze and K2 Key Auditor and Key Server.

It's certainly not the definitive paper on being a Mac-friendly administrator, but a decent reference. You can find out more about deploying Mac OS X in education contexts from the indispensable Macenterprise and AFP548 sites.

Letting a bunch of kids loose in a candy store might be a sticky mess, but letting them loose in an Apple Store should be a delightful, brushed metal and glass wonderland of fun. Right? That's the idea behind Apple's new Field Trip program for elementary, middle and high school students and their teachers.

Apple is inviting groups of up to 25 students for the hour-long programs, which can feature a big-screen presentation of work that the students have already done in class (Keynote/PowerPoint, movies & more) or hands-on creation sessions that allow the kids to make new projects in the store. Parents and friends are welcome to come watch the fun.

Session reservations are available through November 21; the 'school champion' organizing the event gets email templates to send to attendees, the option of printed invitations, and a complimentary subscription to One-to-One training for a year. Not too shabby.

[via Apple Hot News]

Dear Auntie TUAW,

I've been thinking about trying my hand at development for the iPhone (I've got some good app ideas already), and I was wondering where a good place to start might be. Should I mess around with learning some Objective-C first, or just spend the $99 and dive in with the dev kit? I know some PHP, Javascript, and a smattering of C++, but have never tried developing in Objective-C or Cocoa.

I have some free time this weekend to try messing around with development and see if it's something I might be able to do. Where's a good place to stick my toe in and see if the water's good for swimming? Should I buy an Objective-C book and spend the whole weekend with that, or is it worth it to put down the money on a dev kit and see what I can make my iPhone do?

Let me know! Just thinking of you, there's this scent in the air... like a mixture of 4711, hard candies and Aqua Net.

Your devoted nephew,

Mikey

Back in July, we reported on an iPhone programming course being developed and offered by Stanford University. The course is in full swing this fall, with a reported 80 students signed up. Stanford has also started a project that is beginning to bear fruit in the form of iPhone and iPod touch apps -- the Stanford iApps Project.

Five student-developed apps are now being tested as part of the Stanford iApps Project. Two of the apps are targeted at Stanford students and provide management of course registration and bills, while the other three apps are aimed at a much larger audience including the general public and alumni.

These other apps give access to a searchable Stanford University map (see screenshot), schedules and scores for the University's sports teams, and listings in the StanfordWho online directory.

While future iApps may be the result of the iPhone development course, these apps were developed by TerriblyClever Design. This may sound like an established Silicon Valley development firm, but it's actually a startup created by Kayvon Beykpour, a Stanford computer science undergrad. Once the Stanford apps are out of beta testing, they'll be available in the App Store.

Thanks to Ian for the tip!

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings.

This is the third and final installment in the "Back to School: Writing Tools" series (parts I and II are here). To round out our roundup, we'll take a look at some (possibly) unexpected solutions, as well as some utilities which can aid any writer. Read on for some final thoughts on the current array of Mac writing tools for students, teachers, professors ... and the rest of us, too.

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings.

Continuing the Back-to-School "sub-mini-series" on writing tools, this second post covers some great tools for compiling all of your thoughts, ideas and research into cohesive, structured documents. If you've never explored this category of applications, you might be surprised what the available options can do to improve your writing efficiency and lower the general anxiety involved with writing 10-page reports or lengthy creative writing assignments. I'll highlight a few cool ways to get those notes and floating thoughts from your notepad and your brain onto papers with large A's on them. Read on ...

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September.

Going back to school isn't all about the students; the educators are often just as excited or stressed out as the kids about the beginning of a new school year. What can make life easier on the poor teacher? Great Mac software! Read on for information on a grab bag of Mac and web apps to help out your favorite educator.

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September. Read on for nifty supplies for any student.

Today only, RadTech is offering 20 percent off regularly-priced backpacks, cases, laptop bags and sleeves, including bags with photovoltaic cells to help charge your electronic devices. Solar panels on the bag can provide up to four watts of power for your iPod or phone.

Make sure to use the promo code SCHOOL88 when you check out to take advantage of the offer.