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!

Notice anything weird in the screenshot below that I took of the blog this morning? Only the subject and comments were showing on the blog...the text, graphics and videos were missing!

The blog was down for a short time yesterday and today because it was hacked! I thought we had lost all 282 posts! But, the good news is that someone smarter than me backed up the blog. And thanks to our lovely webstaff, we are back up and running. I can exhale now...

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Happy New Year! Sorry it is a few days late, I have been a little under weather, the blog was hacked...little things.

It is that time of year to reflect on the past before moving forward.

So, on that note, here are some of my new year resolutions, which I may or may not start breaking this week. ;-) I resolve to:

• Make a screencast a week - This is the one I think might be broken this week as it's already Friday.
• Give faster e-mail responses - My inbox has officially been declared a disaster zone. At 1,490 emails and counting, it's not pretty. I apologize if I've been slow to respond to your e-mail...In the meantime, keep grabbing me on IM (MSN: b.weber(at)techsmith.com), Skype (betsyweber) or my cell phone (517.410.0030). Any advice about how to manage my inbox? I know a lot of people like TechSmith friend, Marc Orchant, swear by the methods from the book, Getting Things Done.
• Make more and learn more about digital video, audio and Flash video.
• Read at least a book a month - I'm way behind on my reading. The books are stacking up - on the bookshelves, desk, floor and beyond. I need to get cracking or start getting books on Audible again to listen to on my short commute to work. You can see some of the books on my bookshelf here.
• Backup, backup, backup...I resolve to be better about backing up my files at home and at work. I've learned my lesson after today's hacking incident.
• And, lastly, to continue to learn and be inspired by you! I'm always amazed by the videos, blog posts and other content people send me. And, I love hearing about the ways they are using our software that I could never even dream of like some of these examples.

All the best in 2007! What's on your list of resolutions?

There's a meme working it's way quickly through the blogosphere. I've been tagged by Chris Haaker and I am suppose to share 5 things you don't know about me. So, I'll play along...with a twist.

1. Prior to TechSmith, I worked at a dot bomb. Before that I worked as a software trainer and in tech support. I started at TechSmith in 2000 as the Camtasia Studio Product Manager.
2. I studied Latin in high school. Need anything translated? How about, 'Veni, Vidi, Screencasti'? I came, I saw, I screencasted. Or, what about, 'Cogito Ergo Screencast'? I think, therefore I screencast. OK, I'll spare you any more bad puns. :-)
3. I jumped out of a perfectly good plane...and I liked it! Yes, I've been skydiving.
4. I'm crafty...I can't sit still and like to try new things, so I'm always trying a new craft like knitting, felting, cake decorating (need a wedding cake? I can make it!), soap and candle making...really anything I can get my hands on. I wonder how they'd feel if I started knitting during meetings at TechSmith? Nah, better not try it.
5. I broke my wrist playing a midnight game of roller hockey in college. I was one of the few women in the Michigan State Roller Hockey Club back in the day. I had a final exam later that morning. In case you're wondering, my injury did not improve my test score. Not one of my smarter moves.

Here's the twist...to keep this post useful for you, I thought I'd expand on this meme and share with you 5 features you might not know in SnagIt, Camtasia and Morae. Get to know these features...

SnagIt:

1. SnagIt Capture File (.snag) - Ever added text or objects to your capture and later decided you wanted to change something? No need to remake your capture from scratch - you can modify or edit your text and objects any time if you save your capture in the .snag file format. If you save your image as a .snag file, you can open it later in the SnagIt editor to change the vector objects (Lines, Arrows, Shape, Highlight, Paintbrush, Stamp, Callouts and Text tools). You can read about it here.
2. Flash into PowerPoint - In the past, it has not been easy to add Flash into PowerPoint. If you added the SnagIt toolbar (version 8.1 or later) into PowerPoint, it's now easy to add your .swf files to your presentation. There should be a button on the SnagIt toolbar to 'Insert Flash into Presentation'. Perfect for adding those .swf's made with SnagIt or Camtasia. More info is here.
3. Capture Web Pages with Links - I love this feature. You can capture a web page with SnagIt and all the links remain active and clickable! You can even add your own links and hotspots. You can read more about this feature here.
4. Web Capture - Ever go to a site and need to capture multiple images? Try Web Capture - it's faster than capturing single images and it's easy. You can specify any public website URL and tell SnagIt to capture all the images. Then, it stores them in a folder to view, manipulate, save or print. More info can be found here.
5. Multiple Output - Sometimes when I take a capture I want to print, email and save the capture. In the past, I would have re-taken the screenshot for each output. But, you can actually send your captures to a variety of outputs at once. You can read more here.

Camtasia:

1. EXE Output - There's a neat little feature in Camtasia Studio called, Pack and Show that allows you package your video for easy sharing with your viewers. Pack and Show creates an executable (.EXE) file that your viewers can double click on to unpack the file, install the TSCC code and Camtasia Studio Player (if you have included them) and play the movie. You can read the instructions here.
2. Theater - If you want to add DVD-like navigation to your flash videos, you can use Theater. You can find more info about Theater here.
3. Screen Draw - don't have a Tablet PC, but would like to do some inking in your videos? You still can. There's a feature built into Camtasia Recorder called ScreenDraw. It allows you to draw on your desktop while you record a video. You can find out more about it here.
4. AutoPan - In Camtasia Recorder, there's a handy feature called AutoPan that follows your cursor as you record. So, you can record at a fixed region and still record all the mouse movements across the screen. Your recording follows the action. You can find out more about this feature here.
5. Fade Picture-in-Picture (PIP) - I was just using this feature tonight on a video I am producing. There's an option that you can select to have a nice smooth fade in and out of your PIP video, You can find out more about this feature here.

Morae:

1. Export Search Results - Working on a team for projects? You can share your search results will everyone, (even people without Morae) with the Export Results feature. In Morae Manager, you can export the search results into a comma-delimited file so you can view it later. It's also a handy feature if you need to combine data from multiple sessions in one file. More info can be found here.
2. Title Clips - Once you've completed your tests and want to share a highlight video, you can make custom title clips at the beginning of your video. It's a nice touch to add logos and graphics or a great way to introduce key findings in your study. You can read more about this feature here.
3. Automatic Start - You can have Morae automatically start recording when a participant launches or closes a specific app. No need for the facilitator to interrupt the participant to start recording. You can read more about this feature here.
4. Audio Notes - Go beyond text notes. You can add audio notes to any markers, segments, video clips and title clips that are created within Morae Manager. Audio Notes are nice because you can provide more richer information than with text notes alone. You can find out more here.
5. Save screenframes - In Manager you can save screenframes. These are perfect to include in highlight videos and reports (even better if you annotate using SnagIt - insert shameless plug here). Screenframes and annotated screenshots can also be included on title slides in videos.

This is the longest blog post ever. You deserve a prize if you made it this far.

I'm suppose to tag more people. Since I just saw the GottaBeMobile Crew out here at CES, I'm tagging them! Rob, Dennis, Warner, and Matt...I'd like to know 5 things about you and 5 cool things about Tablet PCs.

I ran into Kathy Jacobs at the APCUG Conference yesterday. You might remember her from this recent OneNote screencast. She sat down with me to do a quick screencast on how she uses SnagIt. She'll teach you new tricks and give you ideas on how to use SnagIt differently than you normally do.

The video is just over 11 minutes. Click the pic below to start the video. In my tests, the screencast ran fine on Internet Explorer, but I had problems with FireFox. I'll try to get this fixed on Monday. For now, please use IE.

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

Hardware:

• Dell Laptop - Latitude D820
• Panasonic MiniDV Camcorder
• 2 Lapel Microphones with a Y-cable/splitter

Software:

• SnagIt
• Internet Explorer
• Camtasia Studio

Plus, one dark and cold conference room at the Riviera Hotel

Does this count toward my new years resolution of a screencast a week?

Woo hoo! I was looking through the archives of our newsletters for a link noticed that there is now an option to subscribe to the newsletters with RSS (Real Simple Syndication)!

Since my inbox is a disaster, I prefer to get info like newsletters via RSS. That way it does not clog my inbox or get blocked by our spam filter. I'm an RSS junkie and have subscriptions to hundreds of feeds.

If you'd like to learn more about RSS, check out this great Camtasia Studio screencast from Alex Barnett here. It's an oldie, but a goodie. Or, visit here for more info about RSS.

Get the newsletters any way that you can, RSS or e-mail. They come out about once a month and are full of tips and tricks. Plus, they're entertaining!

I was trying to explain to some friends the other night about what Second Life is. After fumbling around trying to tell them what it was, I thought it would just be easier to just show them. I made a quick Camtasia Studio screencast to show them what Second Life is.

Nick Gorsline, our Graphic Designer, joined me in Second Life to make this 'walking tour' of some of the interesting places we found in Second Life. We ran into Jeff Barr from Amazon Web Services, also known as Jeffronicus Batra in Second Life. He told us a little bit about how he's using Second Life to give presentations and communicate with developers. If you need to give a presentation in Second Life, check out Jeff's tips here.

We also visited CNET, Wired Magazine and Regina Spector's building. She's a new artist that they launced in Second Life. You can visit her building and listen to her music. Because I could sample her music in Second Life, I ended up buying her album in real life! otherwise, I would not have known anything about her.

Click on the screenshot below to start the video. It's a longer one clocking in at 20 minutes.

We did not get to visit everywhere we wanted to go because of time and some tech issues. We'll do a few more "walking tour' screencasts filmed in Second Life of the other locations we wanted to show off.

If TechSmith had a presentation, training or a meet-up in Second Life, would you come?

Ever heard the metaphor standing on the shoulders of giants? Well, that will definitely be the case next week. I have the honor of attending the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) Conference in Munich, Germany. This is the conference for digital innovation!

Check out the list of speakers and guests. I can't wait to hear insight from speakers like Esther Dyson, Marissa Mayer, Walt Mossberg, David Sifry and more...If you could ask them one question, what would you ask?

I'll also be at Robert Basic and Klaus Eck's blogger meet-up.

I'd love to meet-up if anyone is available. Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to get together.

If you're not lucky enough to score an invite, you can follow proceedings online at the DLD website.

Any travel tips for me? Any must see locales?

I'm thrilled to be attending the DLD Conference and to see Germany.

Keeping up with my New Year's resolution, I have another screencast this week. Who said New Year's Resolutions were made to be broken?!? ;-)

Kathy Jacobs made a second video with me while I was at CES and APCUG (Pics from the show can be seen here). In this video, Kathy gives me a tour of the new version of PowerPoint 2007. The new version of PowerPoint looks a lot different than what you're used to seeing. She gives me some tips and tricks and shows off a wonderful new feature called SmartArt. My presentations have a chance at looking good with Kathy's tips and SmartArt!

You can click the button below to watch the screencast. If you're having problems viewing the video, I made the zip file available for download. It's a short one - the screencast runs a little over 5 minutes.

Kathy's not only an expert in PowerPoint and OneNote, but she also knows Excel. She has a new Excel book coming out soon.

Requests for next week's screencast?

For those of you that frequent the TechSmith User Forums, I wanted to let you know that we're getting ready to update our forums. The forums will be down while we're revamping and updating them.

In the interim, please feel free to visit our other resources like the Newsletters, Learning Center, Support Center, and of course, the Blog.

Sorry to cause any inconvenience. We'll be back soon with a new fresh look and better functionality. Maybe the forums will even have that new car smell! Stay tuned!

I'm sitting in Detroit Metro Airport, waiting to fly to Germany for the DLD Conference.

I wanted to update all of you on my contact info if you need me next week. I should have access to e-mail next week, as well as Instant Messenger (MSN IM: b.weber(at)techsmith.com) and Skype (betsyweber). And, my phone number for next week only in Germany will be: 517.974.2528.

And, I'll be updating Flickr with pictures from my travels and meet-ups with users.

Any advice for places to go in Munich, Frankfurt or Berlin?

It's time to get the 'Screencast of the Week' back on track for 2007...

This one is a good one! It's a screencast from Pierre Gorissen about how to create a navigation bar for your Camtasia Studio screencasts! You can view the screencast here.

And, as a bonus, Pierre created a Camtasia marker conversion tool! You can check it out here. It's nice because it allows you to create a table of contents for your QuickTime Camtasia Studio videos.

Time to go catch my flight!

I checked with the team updating our forum and thought you'd like to know the status of them too.

The new server for the forum was set up last week. The data import from the old forum to the new forum is complete and we're getting ready to start some internal testing before making them public again.

When everything is running smoothly and passes our test, we'll launch the forums and send out new passwords to the existing forum members.

Thanks for your patience. We want the forums to be better than ever.

This week's Screencast of the Week is about a product I love, Netflix.

I met Mike Kaltschnee at Gnomedex last year. He told me about his blog all about Netflix called, Hacking Netflix. He said he started the blog as an experiment in company and community relations. This is the blog for the breaking Netflix news and information.

Last week Netflix debuted a new "Watch Now" movie download feature. What better way to show off this new feature than with a Camtasia screencast? Click the player below to watch the screencast.

To read Mike's post about the video, visit here.

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

I've had a wonderful time in Germany this past week. I've been very fortunate to attend the DLD Conference and meet-up with SnagIt and Camtasia Studio users all over the country.

The DLD Conference was great! Where else do you have the opportunity to talk with Nicholas Negroponte and have him show you the 'One Laptop per Child' laptop?

They filmed all of the sessions at DLD. You can view them here.

Also, if you look close in the pic below, you can see I'm even wearing a suit to attend the conference. That doesn't happen often!

I had a chance to make a quick Camtasia screencast with PowerPoint MVP, Ute Simon all about templates in PowerPoint. I hope to have it edited and posted quickly. I guess that's one way I could spend my time on an eight hour flight home. In the meantime, while I edit that video, click here to watch a nice screencast done in German.

If you're interested, I've posted some pics from the DLD Conference and Germany here in Flickr.

Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, will be coming over to Germany in a few weeks. I'm not sure of his schedule, but he might have time to do a meet-up. If you'd to meet-up with him, drop me an e-mail and I'll put you in touch with him.

Ich werde dich vermissen, Deutschland.

Microsoft Word MVP and all around nice person, Dian Chapman has a great article in her newsletter, TechTrax, this month all about how to protect your web images using SnagIt.

See this cute picture of Dian's dog?

I can post this pic on my blog and you know where it came from since she watermarked the picture using SnagIt. In addition to images, you might want to watermark your PowerPoint slides, illustrations or other content. That way, others can view and share your content and you get the credit.

You can read Dian's article about using SnagIt to protect your web images here. And, if you'd like to sign up Dian's great Ezine, TechTrax, visit here.

Our Senior Flash Developer, Brooks Andrus sat down with me recently to make a screencast about using Camtasia Studio in the Mac environment. We used his MacBook Pro running Windows XP through Parallels to make the screencast. We also ran Parallels in Coherence mode. If you're not familiar with Parallels, it allows you to run Windows alongside Mac OS X. Coherence mode in Parallels allows you to work on all of your apps without having to switch between the Windows and Mac OS. Pretty spiffy!

It's a short screencast running just under 7 minutes but a good 5 minutes of the video is of us bantering. OK, maybe there's not that much banter, but there is some.

Click the screenshot below to watch our screencast.

Anyone else doing this?