iBooks Author allows you how to write, design, and publish interactive e-Pub books and post them for free or for sell on Apple’s iBooks Store.

In the latest 1.0.1 update of iBooks Author, Apple states “If you want to charge a fee for a work that includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, you may only sell or distribute such work through Apple, in such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.”

The above is essentially what Apple required in the original license. In this update, however, it adds in part, “This restriction does not apply to the content of such works when distributed in any form is not include files in the .ibooks format.”

Apple further clarifies it policy agreement on its iBooks Author: Publishing and distribution FAQ page. It says in part:

If a fee is charged for the work and it is in the .ibooks format, the work may only be sold through the iBookstore. If the work is in a different format, such as PDF or ePub, this restriction does not apply.

When the work is provided for free, it can be distributed through the iBookstore or by other means, including when the work is in the .ibooks format.

While Apple says it doesn’t own the copyright of your book, it might be a good idea to hire a legal expert if you think your book is going to have significant sell value.

Source: ZDNET

Though Nuance’s PC and Mac speech recognition programs are relatively expensive, the company provides several free mobile apps that allow users to leverage the power of voice recognition. The company’s latest release, PaperPort Notes for the iPad may be useful to students and for those who want to use their iOS device for notetaking and annotating documents.

Main Features

PaperPort Notes is very similar to many other iPad note apps. It allows you to make typed and free handwritten notes using a stylus or your finger, make audio recordings, change fonts and font sizes, and much more.

But of course because this is a Nuance app, it includes a voice recognition feature that allows you to dictate your thoughts or what you read from existing text. PaperPort seems to be the only app of its type to feature text dictation.

PaperPort also includes a search feature, copying and pasting, bookmarking the pages, and the ability to capture and import selected content from the web, or entire documents from Dropbox and other sources.

Handwriting & Audio Recordings

There are a slew of free handwriting notebook apps, like Noteshelf, Penultimate, and Bamboo Paper that provide near real-life pen and paper quality when using a stylus pen.

While it’s great to see this feature in PaperPort, the digital results (see screenshot above) from handwriting are not as good and smooth as when compared to other notebook apps (see Noteshelf screenshot below).

The audio recording feature of PaperPort, however, does work very well. It will be useful for recording lectures while taking notes, or simply recording your thoughts verbally.

Audio recordings are affixed to a single page, so if you add a new page while a recording is active, PaperPort will automatically stop the recording for the previous page and start a new recording for the current one. Each individual page can be labeled and deleted, and all are kept organized in a drop-down box.

Voice-Recognition Feature

Probably the most inviting reason to download PaperPort is to use its voice recognition feature. Similar to other Nuance mobile apps you can dictate your thoughts or read them from existing text, and PaperPort will process and type out what you dictate.

The feature works fairly well (see unedited dictated note above); however, the biggest drawback is that you cannot see the results of your dictation until after you tap the Finished button. In the desktop versions of Nuance’s voice recognition programs, you see the results of your dictation nearly immediately after you pause after dictating a phrase or sentence. So as with the other mobile dictation programs, you will probably not use this feature for long extended pieces of writing.

You can use the voice recognition program in any page or document you import into PaperPort. You simply tap the Text box icon in the menu bar, and then touch-and-drag across an area on the page to either make typed notes or to start dictation by tapping the Tap & Speak button above the software keyboard.

You can edit dictated notes and add more dictations within the same note. The voice program provides the best capture when using a headphone mic or the mic installed on the iPad. It will not do a good job of recognizing and typing lectures given by someone standing in a room.

PaperPort also allows you to change the font style and size of text, as well as the type of background for added notes. You can select to have text-only, border, sticky style note, or custom image background.

Other Features

A few other advanced features in PaperPort include the ability to add various styles of paper, e.g. white or yellow lined, or graphing paper.

You can also import existing documents from Dropbox, Box.net, or from your PaperPort Anywhere account—annotate them and add written or dictated notes and recordings.

In addition, PaperPort includes a feature for capturing content from its built-in Web browser and other imported documents. You can select both text and images to add to the clipboard and paste them into any document or note page.

And finally, notes and imported documents in PaperPort can be exported in PDF format (with password protection) via e-mail, Google Docs, Dropbox, direct printing, etc.

PaperPort Notes for the iPad requires iOS 4.2 or later and is available for free in the iTunes App Store. Let us know what you think of it.

For several years now, colleges and universities have posted for free academic courses via iTunes podcasts. But now in iTunes U, Apple is expanding the service by providing access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools.

For now the courses are completely free–requiring only your time to work through the lectures and assignments.

iTunes App

The iTunes U app can be used on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. When you subscribe to a coure all the core material for the course will be automatically downloaded to the app on your device.

Links to supplemental material will also be provided for download from the App Store, the iBookstore, and the iTunes Music Store. While the supplemental material may come at a cost, most of the video lectures and PDF document handouts seem to be available for free.

The beauty of iTunes U is how it packages core material into one application. A downloaded course typically includes a brief overview, a detailed course outline of lectures and assignments, a built-in Notepad, and links to course materials. The interface and setup is similar to how you might organize an analog three-ring binder.

Though courses are best viewed on the iPad, you can sync your notes and course information between your iOS devices. Unfortunately, however, Apple has not created a Mac client for iTunes U. Nor has it done so for its iBooks 2 textbook reader.

You can access and view all the courses in iTunes U either through the iTunes U application itself, or in iTunes on your Mac or PC. iTunes U already includes several dozen courses on a wide range of topics—from Basics of Culinary, Beginners Chinese, Masters of Photography, to Stanford University’s highly rated iPad and iPhone App Development course.

Standford CS193p

The Stanford apps development course, for example, includes 19 actual live lectures, slide show presentations, in course assignments.

Even better, the course doesn’t require you to purchase any additional supplemental material. And if you’re running OS X Lion you can download Apple’s app developers application Xcode for free from the App Store. All that is required on your part for this course is your time.

Copyright Course

Another interesting though lightweight course, titled Rights, Remixes, and Respect, is a five part series about the differences between creative inspiration, appropriation, copyright and fair use.

Kirby Ferguson, the developer for this course, provides short definitions of copyright related terms, and then presents excellent song and movie examples about sampling and remixing and creative productions. His video presentations are are linked to a website which means you don’t have to download those files to your device.

You can work through the course in less than a week, and it even ends with a couple of short quiz reviews. The course also requires a few paid download of songs from the iTunes Music Store.

Notepad

Another useful and practical tool in the iTunes U app is a built-in notepad. If you want to do pretty much all your work within your mobile device, this notepad will come in quite handy. It works similarly to to the default Notepad app in Apple’s mobile devices.

While iTunes U will never be as popular as the iTunes Music Store or the App Store, it’s a great opportunity and resource for self-motivated learning. And because courses are free, you learn as much as you like without taking out a student loan.

Let us know what you think of iTunes U.

Dropbox is testing a new feature that allows users to automatically upload photos and videos from their USB-connected camera, camera phone, or SD card reader.

In order to use the service and receive additional free space, you will need to download a beta version of Dropbox and install it on your Mac or PC. (It might be wise to back up your current Dropbox data before downloading and installing the beta version.)

This experimental build of Dropbox works with Windows, Mac OS 10.5 and above and Linux. Link to this forum page for the latest listings and upgrades.

After the beta version is installed, you simply connect say your camera, phone, or SD card to your computer, and Dropbox will automatically detect images and ask if you want them imported to a Camera Uploads folder automatically installed in your Dropbox account.

 

Dropbox clarified that “you can’t get up to 5 GB of free space with this feature, if you count the initial 500 MB space for the first photo import.” Because Dropbox is testing the importing process, you most likely cannot receive space increase unless you use the importer popup window.

Dropbox encourages users to keep plugging in their cameras so they can “snipe all the common bugs during the beta testing.

In a press release, the health care organization wrote that “patients will have 24/7 access to lab results, diagnostic information, direct and secure email access to their doctors, and will also be able to order prescription refills”.

Being able to access medical records can be a huge advantage to patients, particularly the elderly, carers and patients with chronic conditions who need to get updates on lab results, fill prescriptions and communicate with the doctor’s office.

The Android app contains sections for medical records, pharmacy center, appointment center, message center, and a Kaiser location facility finder. Your secure, electronic medical record includes your health history, information about allergies and immunizations, details about prescriptions and any ongoing health conditions, health care reminders, and most test results.

The app for the iPhone has not been released yet, but users can in the meantime access their records on a mobile-optimized version of kp.org and save the site as a shortcut icon to their iPhone device.

Kaiser said that in “2011 alone, more than 68 million lab test results were made available online to Kaiser Permanente patients. The mobile-optimized site and the new app make that information, and much more, securely available at members’ fingertips”.

Source: Marketwatch

For a long while TweetDeck was a popular Twitter client amongst power users, but when the software was acquired by Twitter back in May of last year, it got stripped of some of its features, and many users are no longer happy with it. I have experienced a few problems with the software since I started using it, but I keep it in my Dock for when I want to do some heavy Twitter reading and posting. There are no new features as far as I know added to TweetDeck since it was acquired by Twitter, but I do think the application is worth a second look.

Multiple Accounts

First off, what’s most useful to me about TweetDeck is that you can keep multiple Twitter accounts opened in your Timeline instead of having to switch accounts as you would in other Twitter clients.

Multiple Columns

If you’re a Twitter power user, you no doubt are keeping up with several different streams of posts at a time, including your favorite contacts, a few keyword searches, and of course your mentions, replies and direct messages.

TweetDeck’s multiple columns are probably what makes it stand above other Twitter clients. In addition to creating columns based on specific keyword or name searches, TweetDeck also contains a core selection of column choices to get you started. You will probably want to click and add the Mentions and Direct Messages columns, and maybe the New Followers column to keep open at all times.

What I find most cool about columns in TweetDeck is that you can set up Mentions columns for more than one account and view them all in the same interface. Again, this saves the hassle of switching accounts to view those listings.

Create Lists

You can also create separate columns for Twitter Lists, and TweetDeck makes it easier to do so. Say for example you want to make a list of your favorite websites posting on Twitter. To do so, simply select a user you want to use to create or add to a list.

When you hover your mouse over the user’s avatar, select the little gear icon, which will reveal a menu of selections. Next, select Add to Group/List. In the resulting pop-up window, you can create a new list and select to make it public or private. TweetDeck will create a separate column for your new list.

After the List column is added, you can add more users to the list by putting your cursor at the top of the column and select the edit button. From there you can add your existing contacts or do searches for others to add to your list.

Notice also that you can actually search and add names from your other social networking accounts as well.

Posting Features

TweetDeck also has a few posting features not found in other Twitter clients I’ve used. One of the best features is scheduled updates. You can write a post and then schedule a time for when you want it posted.

After you set up a time for the update, click the Send Today button and TweetDeck will send your scheduled post in the background. You can even create a column for your scheduled posts (select Core services as mentioned above.)

TweetDeck’s posting features also includes automatic long URL shortening, access to a list of your recent hashtags, and a language translator.

It also has a TweetShrink feature that when applied, attempts to shorten your wordy tweets, replacing common phrases and words with shorter representations.

The Twitter client also includes a Long Tweet feature that is supposed to allow you to use bit.ly to post 140+ character posts from within the software; however, I could couldn’t get the feature to work after several tries.

Preferences

If you plan to take full advantage of TweetDeck, you may need to take some time to explore all its Preferences choices which include changes you can make to the application’s color and font appearance, the type of notifications you receive, which image upload service you want to use, and several dozen more options.

What’s Missing

The new version of TweetDeck has received mixed ratings in the Apple Store where it can be downloaded for free.

For one, there’s hardly no keyboard shortcuts for the app, and one big shortcoming, for me anyway, is that there’s no way to quickly post from a web browser the title and URL of an article. You have to actually copy and paste both these items into TweetDeck’s update box. This is a huge turn off because probably half of my tweets consist of links to articles.

Other than these shortcomings, I’m pretty satisfied with TweetDeck. But I’m interested in what you think of it. Did you use it before like I did and stop? Have you restarted using it? Let us know.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon Twournal which can put your latest 3,200 tweets into a PDF or paperback book. When you see your Twitter content archived in one document, you gain a better appreciation of what it means to be a published author. Twournal allows you to create, buy and sell books printed from your tweets. Registering on the site and creating your first book is nearly as easy as signing in and allowing Twournal to access your Twitter timeline, going back to as far as your very first tweet.

InvderMedia, the developers of Twournal are gracious enough to provide your Tweet collection for free in PDF format. Dozens of twitter users take advantage of this feature every day because the process is so simple, and it is a great way to archive your Twitter content.

Creating Your First Book

To create a Twournal, simply sign in with the Twitter account you want to use, and select if would you like to include photos posted to your timeline (via Twitpic, Yfrog, Flickr, Instagram, etc.)

Your Twournal includes a standard multicolor cover, but you will probably want to customize it with your own photo. Before clicking the Finish button, you have several other options to consider for creating your book, including what years to include and not include, and whether or not you want to remove replies, URL links, hashtags, and retweets.

After you submit your book, you will be e-mailed within 24 hours a link to a free PDF version of your book. Even if you plan to purchase a paperback copy of your Twournal, you should definitely order and view the PDF first.

Writing Your First Book

When I first considered ordering a Twournal book, I wasn’t quite sure if it would contain the kind of content that I wanted. What I discovered early on was that few of my tweets included photos, which I felt was essential for my book.

Photos help break up the pages and pages of tweets, and of course provide visual context. So in 2011 I started using my iPhone to snap and upload them directly to my Twitter timeline.

There is nothing really special you have to do in order to write “good” Twitter content. Though you’re communicating on Twitter with your contacts, you mainly post what is important to you and not someone else. However, if you would like to make your Twournal the sort of memorable diary or journal of your thoughts and experiences, you might very well put some thought into the types of tweets you are posting.

For the last several days I have been reading back through my tweets from 2010 to 2011, and though there a great mixture of links to articles I was reading on the net, I noticed that I tweeted quite heavily about important issues that mattered to me – e.g. the death of singer and songwriters Teena Maria and later Gil Scott Heron, the execution of Troy Davis, my thoughts and participation in the Occupy Movement, and posts about goals and accomplishments I made in my day-to-day life.

It looks as if I never went more than three days without posting something to my Twitter timeline, and that was probably the key to making a useful and memorable Twournal.

By the end of last year, my Twournal came to 325 pages – starting from March of 2010.

I also noticed that what makes my Twournal worth reading is how often I made comments about issues and topics I’m concerned about, instead of just retweeting tweets and headlines.

Including Photos

With a smart phone camera and a Twitter app, it is quite easy to post photos directly to your timeline. You might take and post photos of events you attend, special meals you cook, and projects you’re working on.

But you need not limit yourself to camera images. My Twournal consists of over a dozen images composed of desktop screenshots and photos I grabbed from websites.

Memorable Artifact

In the digital age, we often take for granted that the digital content we produce will always be available to us online or on some personal storage device. While that might surely be the case, producing paper documents and artifacts from our digital content is still important.

Whether you purchase a Twournal book or print your PDF, you will appreciate your collection of tweets a lot more when viewing them in hand, in paper format. I’m actually reading through my Twournal as I do any other book, except this time, it’s my own.

For other articles about Twitter, check out our directory of articles that includes tips and recommendations for using the microblogging site.

Let us know what you think about Twournal. Do you plan to create your own?

Apple recently introduced iBooks Author in a live presentation at the Guggenheim in New York. The software is aimed at textbook writers and publishers, but it can just as well be used for producing cookbooks, picture books, interactive fiction novels, how-to books, and the like.

iBooks Author looks to be the first consumer-based e-Pub software designed for multimedia books.

Feature Overview

E-books designed with iBooks Author are basically geared to be read on the iPad platform using the recently updated iBooks 2 reader app. iBooks Author books can however be exported to PDF format, and to plain text format—excluding the embedded images and other media.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s desktop publishing application, Pages, you’ll feel at home with iBooks Author. Both programs share a similar interface, including text editor formatting tools and page layouts, and the familiar drop and add multimedia features.

iBooks Author, however, also includes several unique features including what are called Widgets, which allow you to include interactive images, 3D objects, Keynote presentations, custom HTML, and a review study guide tool for textbooks.

iBooks Author opens with six basic templates to get you started. You can write a book from scratch, but you also can import existing Pages and Word documents.

For the purposes of this review, I imported my Awesome Guide To Mac Automation, formatted in Word. iBooks Author pretty much kept all my text, font and header styles, screenshots, and titles in place. However, it did put extra spaces between the paragraphs.

Extra Features

iBooks Author is a pretty familiar text editor, so let’s focus on some of its unique features.

Because multimedia books produced in iBooks Author are primarily designed to be read and consumed on the iPad using the iBooks 2, by default you lay out books in landscape orientation, rather than the traditional portrait view.

In either view, the content remains the same, but the landscape view provides more interactive features. You can, for example, design your book so that readers can view a gallery of photos, or tap and watch an embedded video, or use various multi-touch gestures with say interactive maps and 3D objects. Portrait view on the other hand, pushes photos and interactive media to the side and puts the focus on text, with a more Read-only format.

iBooks Author also includes a textbook Glossary feature which allows you to not only select special terms and definitions but to also include related glossary terms for cross-referencing.

As with traditional textbooks, iBooks Author enables you to create multiple-choice review questions that can be placed at the end of each chapter of your textbook.

iPad Preview

Though iBooks Author is a WYSIWG desktop editor, you have to physically connect your iPad to your Mac in order to preview your book. Unfortunately Apple has not yet created an iBooks reader for the Mac. To view your book, you launch iBooks 2 on your connected iPad and then you click the iPad icon Preview button in the toolbar of iBooks Author. iBooks Author will send a Proof copy of your book which you can update as you a make changes to your book in iBooks Author.

This preview gives you the opportunity to see how the layout and multimedia features of your book will appear and work.

The iBook 2 reader includes features specifically for iBook Author-designed books and textbooks. In this updated version, for instance, you can use the highlighter simply by pressing down and over selected text with your finger, without having to make two or three taps that are still required with regular e-books.

iBooks 2 also comes with a dedicated flash card feature (that you of course create in iBooks Author), and a notepad that lists all of your highlights and typed notes.

However, Apple still does not allow you to export and share highlighted text in iBooks, but you can e-mail your written notes.

The updated features in iBooks 2 are good improvements, but its annotation tools for studying are still inadequate. Apple would do well to learn from iOS PDF reader apps, like iAnnotate for the types of tools  and features iBooks are still missing. For instance, the bookmarking tool in iBooks doesn’t allow you to change the name of the bookmark page. So when you review your bookmarks, all you get are the page numbers, which when reading and studying large textbooks is very inadequate for studying.

Both iBooks Author, which requires OS X Lion, and the iOS 5 version iBooks 2 are available are for free in their respective app stores.

Let us know what you think of these programs. What tools and features would you like to see added to them. Do you think iBooks Author will be a game changer for education?

Creative Pad

Mixel consists of a blank canvas in which you add selected images from the Mixel library, your own iPad photo library, your Facebook photos, or from a web image search. If you have an iPad 2, you can also snap a photo and add to your “mixel.” You use Mixel to create a collage that can be shared with other Mixel users.

Mixel Tools

The creative collages that you produce on Mixel are the type typically created in applications like Photoshop. But this free app provides tools for even the most inexperienced user to create fun collages.

To use Mixel, you must register and log in with your Facebook account. From there you simply start with a “new mixel” canvas and add and edit selected images.

The Mixel toolbar also allows you to duplicate, delete, crop, flip, arrange photos in front and behind one another. The key to creating an artistic or funky collage is to use the crop tool to mix up images in uncanny ways.

The crop tool allows you to make freehand style crops of any image. If you don’t like the crop you have drawn, simply tap on the green dotted line or shape to start over. You’re not limited to typical rectangle or oval shapes. Sometimes you might even crop an image in a way that completely disguises its original source.

After you select an image, you simply double-tap on it to add it to the canvas. Mixel is so cool that it provides a feature that quickly shows you how other Mixel users have used that same image in their work.

You can also layer images similar to how it is done in Photoshop. You simply tap on the image and then tap the “To Front” or “To Back” button. Some images in the Mixel photo library will have a transparent background, while with others you might need to crop out which portions of the background you don’t want.

Flipping and duplicating an image is an easy single tap process, requiring a lot less clicking that you might do in Photoshop. One feature I like to see added to Mixel is an opacity tool.

Saving & Sharing

You can easily save all your Mixel creations, and then tap the Post button when you’re ready to share it with other users.

With Mixel, shared collages become a part of a larger community in which a mixel can be copied, imported to your library and “remixed”.

When you tap the remixed button, the elements of the collage are broken apart allowing you to delete, reuse, and remix anyway you like. Some popular collages get remixed like a Photoshop tennis competition.

You can also of course like, comment on, and share mixels on social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and via e-mail. Collages can also be saved to your photo library.

As with other social networking applications like Mixel, you can also select to follow other Mixel members.

Mixel really can become quite addictive. It allows for an infinite amount of creativity and inspiration. Let us know what you think of it, and if there are any apps similar to it that you like. If you want to know about other free apps for the iPad, check out the Top 20 Free Apps for Your New iPad.

The following are a list of the favorite ways I work within the Finder. A few tips are borrowed from Keir Thomas’s Mac Kung Fu: Over 300 Tips, Tricks, Hints, and Hacks for OS X Lion.

Bookmark Files In Safari

Websites and pages are not the only items that can be bookmarked in Safari or other web browsers. You can bookmark files located in your Finder. You simply select a file and drag it to your browser. It will open and be linked to where you have it located in the Finder. You can actually make a folder of linked files that you might want to open up in Safari.

When you delete or move the file from its location, the link of course will be broken.

Put Files & Folders In The Toolbar

You can drag files, folders, and applications to the toolbar of any Finder window so that it can be quickly accessed and opened. When you drag them, a little green button with a + sign in the middle will appear, which lets you know you can drop it in the toolbar.

Folders In The Sidebar

Similarly, you can also drag any folder into the sidebar of any window for quick access.

Quickly Rename Files

When you want to rename any file on the desktop or in the Finder, you can simply select it and hit the return key. The word, the existing name, such as “Untitled” will be selected, and you can start typing and rename the file.

Files In A New Folder

In Mac OS X Lion, you can now quickly put files in a new folder, anywhere in the Finder, by first selecting them, then right- or Control-click, and selecting “New Folder with Selection.”

Lock Files

If you have a file that you want to make sure never gets changed or deleted, simply lock it. To do this, select the file, and press Command+I. In the Info window click the Locked box.

Delete Folders From Time Machine

If you use Time Machine, an OS X feature that maintains incremental backups of the contents of your hard drive, you can go into Time Machine and select to have backups of a selected file or folder deleted.

Simply right- or Control-click on the file or folder when inside Time Machine, and select “Delete All Backups…”

An Instant Link To Public Dropbox

If you’re a Dropbox user, you will know that you can drop a file in the Public folder of your account, right- or Control-click on it and have Dropbox create a URL link to that file. Pretty easy, but with a little application called Bloodrop you can set it up so that when you drop a file onto the application, it will automatically add the file to your Public Dropbox folder and  create a link which will be posted to your Mac’s clipboard.

Be sure to read the instructions about where to find your Dropbox user ID in order to set up Bloodrop.

Create A New Folder

You can create a new folder anywhere in the Finder–Desktop, open Window, File Open dialog box–by typing Shift+Command+ N.

ZIP Lock Files

Got a lot of files you need to email or post for download, such as in Dropbox? The best way to do so is to select them,  right- or Control-click, and select Compress…Items.

This will create a Zip file that most computers should be able to decompress and open.

For other ideas on files and folders, start with these articles:

• How do I change the folder icon images on Mac OS X Lion?
• How to Hide Folders Using 7 Free Apps
• Using Automator to Batch Rename Files and Folder
• How To Use Automator To Batch Rename Images on Mac

Let us know what you think of these tips. Do you have any of your own to share?