Windows 2 Apples

This episode we will take a peek at another Apple only Web site creation tool, the Windows only iClone as well as the built-in archive option shipped with Tiger and Leopard.

iWeb, RapidWeaver and SandVox, popup when Googling for simple Mac website creation and management tools. iWeb is flexible, intuitive and fun. In a nut shell, iWeb is all things Apple but a royal pain if used to install and maintain Webs on a hosting service other than .mac. I am surprised no one has offered up a simple application that takes the mess and fuss out of using iWeb to manage sites on non-Apple hosting services.

I have previously reviewed RapidWeaver 3.6 and continue to use it in creating and managing several of our Webs. The more I use it, the more I like it. The growing list of 3rd party add-ons and plug-ins is reminiscent of the early days of PageMaker. RapidWeaver unfortunately is not a What You See Is What You Get environment, requiring instead the developer switch between edit and proof modes. This is a pain but I have become skilled at layout in edit mode and find myself having to shift modes less often.

I loved PageMaker and lament it was not upgraded to meet WEB standards. Given PageMaker non-standard code and issues with current browser technologies, I would never use PageMaker to create and manage new content. In an effort to get a user friendly What You See Is What You Get editor, I down loaded the trial version of SandVox. I was disappointed the advanced features such as adding and editing html code were not available in the trial version requiring I purchased the Pro version to take a more complete look see.

I had hoped that SandVox would allow more control and customization than the theme based RapidWeaver. Instead, I immediately felt a profound sense of loss of control and wanted to retreat to Rapid Weaver post haste. I could drag and drop content and see the site evolve without having to flip between edit and display modes but the product felt cumbersome and unfinished.

We always test our Webs using a wide mix of machines, displays and browsers and are accustomed to variance in colors and overall visual impact across systems but SandVox seemed to generate sites with greater variance than we have seen using another low end web content creation applications. Configuring SandVox to access and upload files to our web hosting service was a nightmare. My memory of the hours spent trying to make it happen have become clouded with a soft covering of protective fog but the pain of metaphorically pulling the remaining hairs from my aching head is still vivid.

Less than three days after purchasing SandVox Pro I requested a refund which was promptly processed. I occasionally  revisit the  SandVox web site and look for new 3rd party support but always come away happy to have RapidWeaver and the impressive community of developers and users that keep it on top of the limited list of  easy to use Web design applications available for the Apple OS. At this time, I can’t recommend SandVox but perhaps it will pull ahead of the pack over time and offer up some worthy competition to iWeb and RapidWeaver.

I continue to be impressed by iClone and by the often very clever projects produced by iClone enthusiasts.  For a healthy sampling of iClone creativity log on to YouTube and use iClone as your search criteria. You may be surprised at the volume of videos uploaded by amateurs, professional animators and Reallusion.

As stated in our last podcast, iClone 2.5 is a work in progress blessed by a relatively intuitive interface, time saving movement and facial animation templates, automatic synchronization of lip movements voice tracks as well as a reasonably complete online manual and extensive series of video tutorials. The lack of an undo option continues to be a major impediment to experimenting with lighting, movement and other features without having to frequently cycle through saving and starting new projects.

Unfortunately, iClone usability also suffers from inconsistencies in the way changes are made in character movement, lighting and camera angles.  Creating animations with multiple talking characters still requires that you save a separate project per character and use an external video editor to create a finished animation.  The simple option of assigning which character responds to imported speech files on a frame by frame basis would make the creation of multiple character scenes possible and bypass the current need to jump through hoops.

Although Reallusion and third party vendors provide additional content which may be purchased and downloaded at the Reallusion site, the selection of additional avatars (clones) and add-ons such as clothing, accessories, scenes and props is noticeably impoverished compared to competing animation programs such as Poser 7.0.  In an effort to enhance access to third-party support, Reallusion offers an application called 3D Exchange which allows users to download 3D models stored on the Google 3D Warehouse site and created using Google SketchUp. Although this option goes a long way in increasing access to additional content, evidence of more support by commercial third party vendors would give at least a superficial feeling of confidence iClone will continue to evolve and capture a larger share of the animation market.

In spite of the above issues and limitations iClone and its sister product CrazyTalk are impressive applications and have been adopted by iNetSynch to produce an animated video podcast entitled Windows2Apples Video News.  Windows2Apples Video News focuses on topical Internet Microsoft and Apple specific news and tech tips.  Postings from blogs such as Half Byte produced by George and hosted by Microsoft Spaces Live, supplement iNetSynch content.  IClone 2.5 was used to create the introductory animation and background for our news announcer who is animated using CrazyTalk 5.  Please visit the Windows2Apples.Com website to view video news episode hosted by Viddler or subscribe to our podcast. The podcast is listed in the iTunes directory and the feed URL posted to enable subscription using all popular pod-catchers.

One of the things that impressed me most about my new Mac was the ease with which I could format an external firewire hard drive and then basically copy the entire operating system along with all installed program files to an external bootable partition.  I’ve always been perplexed as to why many of the Mac podcasters recommend programs such as Carbon Copy to create a cloned backup of the Mac operating system. The only advantage I can see to these kinds of applications is the ability to schedule regular backups without user intervention.  I was very surprised to find one of my Macite friends with many years of experience with Macintosh computers had never used the Mac disk utility application to backup her system and applications to an external drive.

Once the clone or restore file of your hard drive has been created you can simply use system preferences to reset the boot drive to the external fire wire drive and bypass the internal hard drive. If your hard drive is corrupted the image stored on the external drive can be restored to the internal drive or its replacement. This feature is well documented but apparently not often used by even long time Mac users. I have yet to understand constant references to third party applications to clone a Mac drive when the built-in utility works so seamlessly. For me it was and remains a main attraction of the Apple OS.

Created using Vista Speech to Text, M-Audio Interface, MixCraft 4, HP MediaSmart Home Server, iWork 08 Pages as well as Microsoft Word 2007. Podcast hosted by PodBean.

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