The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

I've been living off bad airport food and out of hotel rooms for the past few weeks. This week is no different. But, hey, I'm having a great time in Seattle at Gnomedex! You can read more about it here. The good thing about being on the road is that I don't have to cook, clean or do any pesky things like shoveling snow (Okay, maybe not that - we're done with snow for a little while) that I normally have to do at home.

This trip has been great - where else, other than Seattle, could I make a screencast in the morning, stand on a volcano during the day (Mt. Rainier) and be at a tech conference that night?!

So, let's talk screencasting. I met up with Tim Fahlberg the other morning. You remember him, right? He makes math screncasts, or mathcasts as he calls them, and runs CoolSchoolTools and Mathcasts.org. He was kind enough to make a screencast with me.

We made the screencast in the lobby of the hotel I was staying at so you'll see all sorts of people wandering around in the background, bad lighting and hear the elevator dinging. So, if you'd like to see me struggle with basic math and see how to make a mathcast, click the screenshot below to start the screencast. It runs almost 11 minutes.

If you're interested in making your own mathcasts and whiteboard movies, here's a link to Tim's online book.

To make the screencast, here's what we used:

Hardware:

• Dell Latitude laptop, Latitude D600
• Creative LiveMotion Webcam
• 2 Lapel Microphones with a Y-cable/splitter
• Wacom Grapphire Tablet

Software:

• Microsoft OneNote
• FSCreations ExamView Assessment Suite
• SnagIt
• Camtasia Studio

Next up...NECC (National Education Computing Convention) in lovely San Diego.

I will have some free passes with me if you'd like to go to the Expo Hall. Call me (517.410.0030) and I'll meet you outside the Expo Hall to hand off the pass.

We'll be giving demos on SnagIt and Camtasia Studio at the booth. And, we'll be giving away a Tablet PC - stop by the booth and sign up!

NECC runs over July 4. A couple of us will be heading over to the San Diego zoo to celebrate the holiday. Let me know if you're interested in going too! We could have a TechSmith meet-up at the zoo by the gorilla habitat! Who's in?

As many of you know, I love Flickr and use it a lot! I have almost 2,000 photos posted on their site here. Since SnagIt's Flickr profiles were released, I've seen a few places around the internet suggesting that TechSmith is violating Flickr's user guidelines by allowing users to post screenshots. Not true. I wanted to make sure you know that TechSmith is not violating Flickr's user guidelines.

Flickr has a policy stating any account (free or paid) that has more than half of their images as non-photographic content (screenshots, etc.) will be turned from public to private.

Basically this means that once a user has over half of his images as non-photographic content, his images on Flickr will no longer be made searchable by the greater Flickr community or viewable in the public area. If Flickr finds your account having more than half of your content as non-photographic content, they may mark you as NIPSA - 'Not in Public Site Areas'. Users that reach this state will still be able to upload and share images on Flickr.

We created the Flickr add-in to give users an easy way to upload and share their SnagIt images. Flickr's screenshot policy was in place before our relationship began with them and was acknowledged when we made our agreement. We are abiding by all current policies of Flickr. And, we will continue abide by Flickr's policies even if that means that one day we may have to discontinue our integration if they ask us to.

To refer to Flickr's community guidelines, click here.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, feel free to add them to the comments or e-mail me.

Make sure your microphone is plugged into the microphone jack and not the headphone jack.

<*sigh*>

Am I the only one this happens to? Seriously?

How did it get to be weeks after TechEd? I made a screencast there that I just got edited and uploaded. Never fear - it's still interesting and of course, relevant!

Mark Frydenberg, a professor from Bentley College, stopped by TechEd to make a screencast on the show's expo floor with me. He teaches Technology Intensive IT 101 which you can read more about here. Mark has even been featured in several articles. Read more about Mark and podcasting in Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine here and in this article about mobile computing here.

What's especially interesting about Mark's class is that his students use Camtasia Studio in their projects! They needed a better solution than filming the screen with a camera or webcam pointed at the screen, and they discovered it with our software.

In this screencast, Mark talks about students using Camtasia in the classroom and gives advice for everyone interested in doing the same. Learn from his experience!

Click the screenshot below to start the screencast. The screencast is almost 8 minutes long.

Visit Mark's site here.

What would you like to see the next screencast about? Anyone willing to try and screencast with me remotely? Maybe through Skype?

NECC was great, and San Diego was wonderful! Who could complain about spending the Fourth of July watching the fireworks on the beach at Coronado Island? Someone not fun, that's who. ;-)

I ran into a lot of great friends who are doing amazing things - like computer guru and all around nice guy, Patrick Crispen, pictured below. He's an Instructional Technology Coordinator at California State University at Long Beach. Patrick also co-authors a newsletter, The Internet Tourbus, which PC World Magazine deemed as one of the 15 best internet newsletters. Also, in his spare time he hosts a night radio program called "The Steve and Johnnie Show" on WGN Radio out of Chicago (AM 720). He fields tech support questions from all over the world. Oh, and he's a Camtasia Studio user! Check out his site here.

I met up with Ken Collura from Bishop Hartley High School whom I originally met at CES. Ken's on the cutting edge of technology. He took a few minutes to share his tips for using technology in the classroom, and how he uses Camtasia to achieve his goals in a screencast with me. He also gives some tips for getting your feet wet. Ken's deployed a lot of Tablet PC's in his district. You can read his latest article in TechLearning about Learning with Tablet PCs here.

Click the screenshot below to watch the screencast from the show floor at NECC with Ken. It runs just under 7:30 minutes.

A couple TechSmithies and I also walked across the border to Tijuana, but I promised to never talk about that evening ever again. :-) You can see some pics from the road here on Flickr.

And, by the way, look at what happened to tech writer Rachel Clark who was at NECC working in the TechSmith booth.

Heh! That's one of the reasons why I love working at TechSmith! Better make sure my office is locked next time I leave town!

Our developers have worked their fingers to the bone coding away for you. SnagIt 8.1 has been released on Tuesday! Depending on your version, you may even have a free upgrade!

So, what's in this release? Lots of good stuff. Remember how you can make those interactive screenshots with SnagIt? The ones where you add the Flash hotspots to your screen captures so text or images pop up when you click or mouse over the hotspot on the image? Well, we took it a step further.

Now, you can add those interactive images right on your PowerPoint slides. You'll have the edge over other people's PowerPoint slides - you can display pop-ups of detailed chart information, click on links to go directly online, and make your presentation an interactive experience.

Be sure to check out PowerPoint MVP Geetesh Bajaj's Hotspot tutorial here, as he's more eloquent than I am...

And another PowerPoint feature - with SnagIt's PowerPoint add-in, you can embed and play any .swf (Flash) files from your slides. If you've ever tried to add a video to your PowerPoint slides before, you know it wasn't easy - but now it is.

Let's talk about callouts. We've made them more flexible - you can resize, reshape, change the color and rotate them. You can also save your custom callouts so you can use them over and over again.

There are also more options for the SnagIt add-in toolbars in PowerPoint and Internet Explorer - you can now choose to keep the links in your captures intact and also save captures as PDF. And for SnagIt COM users - Web page (keep links) and Save to PDF options are now available in the custom development environment.

And, last, SnagIt is now completely compatible with the new 64-bit operating system and Internet Explorer 7.

Read more about the release here. Or, click on the screenshot below to see the marketing video about what's new in SnagIt 8.1.

I had the SnagIt Product Manager, Tony Dunckel, walk me through the new release and all the new features today. As soon as the screencast is edited, we'll post it here. Hopefully later this week.

Are there other SnagIt features would you like to see more in-depth screencasts about?

I neglected to post links to the new SnagIt 8.1 tutorials in my blog post about SnagIt 8.1 last week. So, here they are!

Click the screenshot below to view. Be sure to check out the Interactivity Into PowerPoint, Vector Callout and Multiple Selections sections to see the new features in action.

Screencast with Tony Dunckel, the SnagIt product manager, is being wrapped up so that should get posted soon.

What other features would you like to see tutorials on?

First up, the Windy City! Next week, I'm off to Chicago for Ad:tech. I'll be there July 24-26. Anyone want to meet up? Looks like the White Sox are playing in town. It'd be fun to screencast at the Sox game! Any volunteers?

Then, I'm off to Mad Town...Madison, Wisconsin for the Annual Conference on Distance Training and Learning, August 2-5. If you're going to the show or are in the Madison area, let me know.

Come meet up with other SnagIt, Camtasia Studio and Morae users in addition to other TechSmithies. Drop me an e-mail.

Beta 2 of Vista came out recently. How many of you are running it? I'm not yet, but I'm curious to see what it looks like and how it functions. It's easy for me to do some pre-research - I'm finding more Vista screencasts made with Camtasia Studio, and I wanted to share them with you.

Sit back, grab some popcorn and watch the screencasts of the week.

Blogcast Repository has numerous Vista videos made with Camtasia. Seems like more and more videos are being added every day. Here's one on Media Center and the Parental Controls.

There are a bunch of great Camtasia Studio screencasts on this blog. These screencasts show off Aero, Windows Sidebar, TabletPC Functionality and more. Plus, it's kind of funny that the Vista videos are in QuickTime.

Here's a funny Vista Preview video podcast from Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers at Labrats.tv. Oh, and it's educational too.

Lastly, here's a great screencast about what it's like for a typical user to prep for Vista.

We've heard about some issues running Camtasia Studio on Vista Beta 2 and we're looking into them. Let me know if you've had any issues.

What Vista screencasts have you seen that I missed?

We're hiring!

I took a peek at the job page on our website. Look at all the jobs posted!

I'm often asked what it's like at TechSmith. I usually share some of this info and our history. As well as the following:

We're growing.

When I started at TechSmith in 2000 as the Camtasia Product Manager, there were 17 other people here. Now we're well over a 100. It seems like every week there is someone new starting at TechSmith.

We're in Michigan but our products are sold all over the world!

Our offices are located in Okemos, Michigan, in the shadows of the State Capitol and Michigan State University. It's cool - everywhere I go, I run into SnagIt, Camtasia and Morae users

We're well caffeinated.

Free pop, coffee, tea and espresso... no wonder I have a hard time falling asleep at night.

We've got game.

Our products are the leaders in their field. Don't just take my word for it - PC Magazine, Software and Development Magazine and others have recognized TechSmith and our products. SnagIt just celebrated its 15th Anniversary.

And...We're fun.

We've been known to go on ski trips, camping, baseball games and more together. Check out some of my Flickr photos here to see pics at TechSmith during work and after hours.

All that stuff listed above sound good? If you're interested, e-mail your resume here to Personnel and get the ball rolling.

I'm always happy to give you a tour and introduce you to the teams too. So, if you're interested in checking us out, e-mail me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I LOVE my job. Actually, it's so much fun, I can't really call it a job. It's more a lifestyle. ;-) And, at the risk of sounding like Steve Ballmer in that infamous video that went round the web, I'll say it...I love this company! Call me a shill, but shills don't mean it... I've worked at other companies and none of them even come close to the experience of working at TechSmith.

I just heard some exciting news. TechSmith will be conducting some instructor led training for Camtasia Studio and Morae.

The training is geared toward beginning to intermediate users.

So, if you'd like to learn more about how to use Camtasia Studio and Morae, here's a great chance. Maybe you can teach me! I could certainly use the help. ;-)

If you'd like to know about the Camtasia training, visit here to see more details and the topics covered in the training.

Same goes for Morae...visit here.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact: training@techsmith.com. The training staff will get your e-mails.

Here are the dates and locations:

Camtasia Studio

• Chicago Aug. 28th - 29th
• Seattle Sept 5th - 6th
• LA Sept. 19th - 20th
• DC Sept 26th - 27th
• San Jose Oct 19th - 20th

Morae

• San Jose October 17th - 18th

We thought we'd do a little experiment and you get to benefit! Leave me a voice message on Odeo (click the pic below) about why you'd like to attend. We'll award one lucky winner for each locale with the most compelling message a free seat in the training! (You still have to get yourself to the location - but hey, free seat!)

Leave us a message by August 9, 2006 (be sure to leave your name and contact info on the Odeo form). We may also use your message in a podcast, so feel free to share your thoughts about TechSmith, our products, or anything else you'd like to share wtih the world! Good luck!

Hope to see you there!

Brooks Andrus, our Senior Flash Developer, and I met John Grden from BLITZ Agency at Flash in the Can earlier this year. You can see us pictured below at the show (John's the one in the middle)

John told us about some amazing things he was creating. He has used Camtasia Studio to make a lot of video tutorials for his open source ActionScript debugger, Xray. Basically Xray lets you ... x-ray your Flash files. (How cool is that?!) You can see the tutorials here.

John also made a Camtasia Studio video about Xray which was just listed as a finalist for the FlashForward Austin Awards! You'll see the video listed here under Technical Merit. Or, here's the direct link to the video.

You can even vote for your favorite video in the people's choice category. Good luck, John!

Earlier this week I posted some dates for some classroom training on Morae here. I just heard from our training department that in order to incorporate the newest features and functionality available in Morae 2.0, they're going to modify the dates.

Once I hear what the new dates are, I'll be sure to post them here. Coming soon!

On a side note, what cities would you like us to train in? I'll pass on your feedback to the training department. No guarantees on where they'll end up, but if we can show demand, they'll consider other cities!

Who likes SnagIt? Raise your hands!

Keep your hands up if you want to make SnagIt better.

Okay - you, with your hands still up. I want to hear from you! We're always looking for ways to improve SnagIt. With that in mind, we're forming a SnagIt Advisory Board for the next release.

So, now the big questions...What do you have to do? And, what's in it for you?

What do you have to do?

Give us your honest opinion and feedback. We'll have webinars, surveys, phone calls, and other activities that require two-way communication. We'll get you alpha and beta versions of SnagIt. Basically, everything will be done online or remotely - no travel involved. No, I won't make you come to Michigan in the winter.

What's in it for you?

In return for talking our ears off, you'll have a stake in the software, features and functionality. You get to help direct the future of SnagIt and help make it into software that truly meets your needs. And, who knows? Maybe we'll name a feature after you!

E-mail me to get the ball rolling.