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At Tuesday’s Macworld keynote speech, Apple announced a handful of upgrades to existing software. Of the changes, one of the biggest is the budding online integration found inside two of its software suites: iLife and iWork. The “2009″ versions of both of these software packages show a more balanced approach by Apple in integrating third-party services alongside pushing users toward its own online efforts.

In the case of iWork, is a tight integration with a brand new online component called iWork.com. The site, which launches later this month in conjunction with the software release, lets users upload files for sharing with others–up to 1GB. When using any of the three applications included in the iWork suite users are able to export whatever they’re working on right from a link on the top of the screen. Once the item has been uploaded it can be shared with other users who can download it in whatever file formats you specify, or leave little sticky-note comments.

Apple's 'collaborative' element of iWork revolves around storing the files in an online share called iWork.com. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

This is far from online word processing solutions offered by Google, Zoho, Thinkfree, and others, but continues in the direction of 2007’s photo galleries and Web e-mail applications that were offered as a part of Apple’s MobileMe service. Notably missing from this new online service is a way to actually edit the document right in your browser, and instead requires downloading a local copy then re-uploading.

Additionally iLife’s iWeb application has been updated with both Facebook and FTP integration. Now, whenever you make changes to your site you can have it send out a notification to your Facebook news feed, letting your friends see that you’ve made an update. And with the FTP integration there’s no more messing about with third-party FTP applications to update changes you’ve made to an iWeb-created page. You can now simply plug-in your server information and have it sync up.

This is going to solve a lot of headaches for people who wanted to use the WYSIWYG site creation software without ponying up to pay Apple to host it for them.

Another big change is in iPhoto, which now offers built-in export support for both Facebook and Flickr–two of the most popular photo-sharing sites on the Web. Exporting to both of these services was previously possible with third-party plug-ins, however Apple’s new solution works right out of the box. Any changes you make to uploaded photos within the software will be automatically sent back to these places. This means that you can replace a previously uploaded photo without manually having to visit the site and re-upload.

Users can now export photos to both Facebook and Flickr right out of the box in the new iPhoto.

(Credit: Apple)

Still missing from both of these suites is a true online companion. While iWork.com offers a free (for now) way to share big files outside of e-mail, and without the need for a subscription to Apple’s MobileMe service, you still have to do all the work on your computer–and your computer only. With the Facebook and Flickr integration you can’t pull down photos you’ve previously uploaded for editing on the software’s new editing tools. I’m also sad to see that despite the promising integration with Google Maps in iWeb last year, there’s still not a way to import and export from Google Docs and Spreadsheets in Pages and Numbers respectively.

Maybe next year.

Click here for more Macworld Expo coverage from CNET News.

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Apple takes another small step onto the Web

On Tuesday TechSmith released Jing Pro, a paid premium version of its free screen capture and casting software. The new service, which runs $14.95 a year upgrades videos to H.264 encoding, takes off the Jing watermark in the bottom corner of recorded clips, and gives users the option to upload directly to several popular video hosting sites including Facebook, YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo.

Of the news, one of the biggest changes is the move to the MPEG-4 AVC video format. It’s the go-to format for iPods and iPhones, as well as set top boxes like the Apple TV and TiVo. Likewise, it’s been adopted by YouTube, which makes a separate encode for each file for both Flash players and hardware that runs H.264 clips. This means that going forward your screencast may end up being able to be watched on a wider range of devices.

On the export front I’m a little surprised TechSmith is offering such a simple way to offload captured videos to third party hosting sites. It’s really nice, but will no doubt cut into potential revenue from people who might have paid the extra cash for the company’s video hosting sister product Screencast.com. This service has a higher cap on its file size (2GB up from most service’s 1GB max), but limits how many people can watch your content to 2GB of streaming video.

In addition to the launch of Jing Pro, TechSmith put up a new support site called the Jing Help Center which has a handful of how-to videos and support document. This is available to both free and pro users.

Download Jing (via CNET’s Download.com)

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TechSmith’s screencast service Jing goes pro

(Credit: Topherchris.com)

Some nasty pranksters, likely associated with Web forum 4Chan, have hacked into Apple gossip mainstay MacRumors‘ live-blog coverage of Tuesday’s Macworld keynote. Hosted on a separate domain, MacRumorsLive.com, the site was plagued by offensive messages about Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ health and general inanity (i.e. “SEX ME”) before finally succumbing to “technical difficulties.”

It remains uncertain whether the pranksters actually brought down the site, or whether MacRumors voluntarily took it down to keep things under control.

It’s pretty clear, however, that this was the work of 4Chan, which has gained both respect and notoriety (depending on who you ask) over the past year for its persistent protests against the controversial Scientology sect in the form of an offshoot group called “Anonymous.” Over on 4Chan’s labyrinthine forums, a couple of threads (warning: contains explicit language) hint at members’ collusion to take down MacRumors Live, and the hacked live-blog was peppered with declarations of “4CHAN FTW” (that’s “for the win” for those who stepped in late).

This year’s Macworld Expo has gained particular attention because Apple has announced that it’s the last year it will have a presence at the event, and additionally because iconic CEO Steve Jobs bowed out of the keynote presentation. Marketing exec Phil Schiller took his place.

The 4Chan skulduggery appears to have first been noticed by Twitter users and independent blogs like Topherchris.com, which took the screenshot above.

One Twitter user pointed to rumors on social news site Digg that 4Chan members had been circulating MacRumors passwords on Monday night.

It’s a silly prank, yes. But it could have a big impact on MacRumors: this is likely the site’s biggest day of the year, and could have an impact on both ad revenues and server costs.

This post was updated at 10:39 a.m. PT.

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Hackers hit MacRumors keynote coverage

Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices.

A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees–20 out of 28–had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was “about a dozen” cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company.

“LiveJournal Inc.’s headquarters, technical operations (and servers), legal, administration, and the customer service teams will remain in the United States,” the release explained. “LiveJournal’s global product development and design will now be coordinated out of its Moscow office. The pooling of resources between the U.S. and Russia will allow the company to build a stronger business model, well positioned to guarantee the long-term success of LiveJournal.”

Yahoo veteran Matthew Berardo, who was hired as general manager of the service less than a year ago, was affected by the layoff.

LiveJournal was founded nearly a decade ago by OpenID creator Brad Fitzpatrick, who sold the company to blog software firm Six Apart. But that led to widespread reports of management difficulties, and late in 2007, Six Apart resold LiveJournal, phenomenally popular in Russia, to the Moscow-based software company SUP.

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LiveJournal deletes ‘about a dozen’ jobs

Charles Schwab improved its online trading platform Tuesday with the introduction of new features for its site, StreetSmart.com. According to the investment firm, clients will now have real-time performance reporting for closed positions, new short-selling tools, and more order types. The app will also feature new tabs for realized gain and loss data and information on shorting securities. The updates are available now on the Schwab service.

Privus Mobile, a company that provides mobile calling services, announced Tuesday that its Caller ID app is now available through Handmark stores, as well as mobile stores that offer apps for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm devices. Privus Mobile’s Caller ID feature gives users a cross-carrier option to find out who is calling, regardless of whether their name is included in the user’s contacts. The app is available now without cost, thanks to a free trial period.

Move Networks, the company behind online video streaming for Fox, ABC, and a variety of cable networks, streamed 180 million hours of video last year, it claims. 100 million hours of that coverage was in HD. The company estimates that it provided video for 55 million unique viewers during 2008 and it expects even more viewership during 2009 as more professional content makes its way to the Web.

TechCrunch is reporting that Clearspring, a widget distribution firm, has laid off several of its staff, though the company’s CEO, Homan Radfar, would not say exactly how many employees were affected. Radfar told TechCrunch that the layoffs occurred during the “fourth quarter of 2008.” For more layoff information, see CNET’s Layoff Scorecard.

RipCode, a provider of Web and mobile video streaming services, announced Tuesday that it raised $12.5 million in funding to help it gain worldwide traction. The round was led by Granite Ventures, along with Hunt Ventures and Vesbridge Partners.

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Daily Tidbits: Charles Schwab updates trading platform