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 was digging around on the O'Reilly website, signing up to attend their Emerging Technology Conference and noticed they had a section called, "The Missing Manual Screencasts". That caught my attention!

Look what I found there! Several Camtasia Studio screencasts to go with some of the new O'Reilly books.

I like this screencast showing off Word 2007's new Ribbon from Chris Grover. This screencast goes along with his Word 2007: The Missing Manual book. I emailed him after finding the screencasts. He told me that this was his first screencast! I'm impressed! Click the screenshot below to start the screencast.

You can find additional videos related to Word 2007 from Chris here.

Chris also mentioned that he's working on more screencasts for Word 2007. I can't wait to see them!

Chris has also penned other books, Digital Photography The Missing Manual and the two Word 2007 books. He mentioned he used SnagIt to create the screenshots for his books!

I haven't made the switch to Word 2007 just yet, but when I do, I'm sure these screencasts and books by Chris will come in handy!

Have you upgraded to Office 2007 or Vista? Found any good screencasts that help with the transition?

PowerPoint MVP, Geetesh Bajaj from Indezine has a nice review and tutorial on the Camtasia Studio v4.0 PowerPoint add-in. Check it out here.

Also, Geetesh has a new book coming out all about PowerPoint 2007 called Special Edition Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 which you can find out more about it here.

Here's an excerpt from his book on page 423 about Camtasia Studio:

Camtasia Studio is a complete solution for recording, editing, and publishing presentations that can convert your PowerPoint presentation to Flash, plus do much more.

Here's my pic with Geetesh at a past PowerPoint Live.

We all have a lot to learn about PowerPoint 2007. And this book will help! Congrats Geetesh! I've ordered my copy. Who wants to start a book club with me?

SnagIt 8.2.1 was released on Tuesday. If you have SnagIt 8.0 or later, it's a free update. You can get the update right from SnagIt's Help menu (see the 'Check for Upgrade' option?) or grab it here on our website.

You'll want to pick up the update if you are using the English or German version of SnagIt. That will give you version 8.2 in those languages. Also there were some problems fixed like the text being cut off in callouts and more. You can read all about the update here.

I have to admit, I had a SnagIt 'nightmare' last night. I dreamt that I had a large SnagIt tattoo on my forearm that I could not hide. Not only did the tattoo have the old logo (how embarrassing!), but it also had upgrade info with it. I had to wake myself up to make sure I didn't actually have the tattoo! Anyone do dream analysis?! What does that mean?! I definitely have SnagIt on mind (and thankfully not forever emblazoned on my arm)!

Get the update...save yourself from any nightmares...

I'm happy to announce that the forums are back! You can visit them here.Thanks your patience while we improved them.

Come visit the forums, kick the tires and join the community. This is your place to connect with other users of the TechSmith products.

And, if you need tech support, visit Tech Support's site here. Tech Support does not monitor the forums at this time..

If you were registered with our old forums, you should get an email with a new password and instructions.

I'll try to get in the forums several times a week.

Questions? Feedback? Contact: forums@techsmith.com

I hope you like them! Will you use them?

It's the Screencast of the Week time again! Drop everything and check this out...

I was delighted to get the Cyberwalker.com newsletter this week that was all about Microsoft's new operating system, Vista. But, this wasn't any old ordinary newsletter. It was a video newsletter complete with a Camtasia Studio screencast!

Click the screenshot below to check out the newsletter and video.

You might notice that Cyberwalker.com's editor-in-chief, Andy Walker, also used Camtasia's Zoom and Pan in this screencast. It's a nice effect to bring out more attention to details .

Andy is also half of the LabRats. You remember me talking about them here, here and here, right?

Any nominations for the next Screencast of the Week?

Just getting started with Camtasia and want to take a class about it? Well, you're in luck! Our Trainers will be hitting the road to conduct classes around the country.

I had the Training Manager, Matt Pierce, sit down with me to share more about himself, the Camtasia Studio classes and our Learning Center for a screencast. Click the screenshot below to launch the video. The video runs just over 5 minutes.

The classes run 2 days and are from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

Here's the schedule so far:

• Seattle February 27 - 28
• East Lansing March 20 - 21
• Washington D.C. April 17 - 18

If you come to the East Lansing, Michigan class, I'd love to give you a tour of the office and you can meet the different teams. Who can turn that down? Plus, all the snow just might be gone - no guarantees. ;-)

You can find more information and sign-up for training here.

Where else would you like us to come and conduct training?

I thought I'd share the good news with you! TechSmith is on the move! We're staying in mid-Michigan and moving our headquarters to Lansing, Michigan.

Currently we're down the road in Okemos, Michigan and are housed in several different buildings. Not only is it difficult logistically, but it's just not fun to trudge through the snow to other buildings for meetings.

Click here to read more about our expansion. You can even watch a video showing some of current office and an interview with our President and Founder, Bill Hamilton (he's pictured below).

There's another video here about our news. This video shows other parts of our office building and there are different interview questions for Bill Hamilton.

And, as the article states, we are expanding - not just our office space, but also the staff. If you'd like to work at TechSmith, get the ball rolling and check out our career opportunities by visiting here. I have so much fun on the job that it can hardly be called work! Don't you want to come work with us?

We're always working on new versions of our software and I wanted to get your input for future releases. If you were the Product Manager for SnagIt, Camtasia Studio, Morae, UserVue or Screencast.com, what would you do?

What would you add or change if you could do anything to the products? There must be at least one thing you'd add!

Comment away! I'll make sure the product teams get the feedback. Maybe we'll name a new feature after you. ;-)

Awhile ago (yes, I'm behind!), Amit Argawal sent me some Camtasia Studio screencasts he found from a Web 2.0 seminar. You can find the screencasts here.

The screencasts are interesting! The theme of the conference was all about Web 2.0, how it's changing us and what does it all mean. The screencasts are great if you're just learning about Web 2.0 or want to learn more from the industry experts like Dan Hilton, Simon Price and Paul Boag.

What was the best part of the screencasts for me? Even though I could not attend the conference, I love that I can still watch the sessions! It's the next best thing to being there. I wish more conference did this, don't you?

I've added the screencasts to our set of del.icio.us bookmarks here. Keep the links coming!

And, if you haven't checked out Amit's blog, visit the Digital Inspiration blog here. Amit (that's him pictured below!) has great technology reviews and info plus all the breaking news on many products. I always learn something from his posts.

Thanks Amit! Just like the title of your blog, you inspire me digitally and personally!

Next week, I have on the schedule to make a screencast about how we make screencasts with Kelly Rush, our video producer.

So, rather than me come up with all of the questions about how we make our screencasts, I thought I'd open it up to you. E-mail your questions, leave them in the comments, or better yet, click the button below and leave me a voice message. No typing required.

Anyone interested in meeting up next week in Chicago? Maybe for dinner on Wednesday, February 28, or Thursday, March 1? Whether you're new to SnagIt, Camtasia Studio, Screencast.com, Morae or UserVue or you're a seasoned veteran, I'd love to meet-up.

Looks like the Detroit Red Wings are playing the Chicago Blackhawks in hockey on Tuesday. You could twist my arm to come in a day earlier to meet-up at the game. ;-)

Drop me an e-mail or call me on my cell, 517.410.0030, if you'd like to meet-up in Chicago next week.

Most of the Camtasia Studio screencasts I make are for delivery on the web. And, the best option for me, usually means producing a SWF or FLV video. But, I never really knew the difference between the two or which format to use.

I had our Senior Flash Developer, Brooks Andrus, sit down and do a screencast with me to talk about the difference between SWF and FLV and which output to use.

Click the screenshot below to launch the screencast. We did pretty good on time for this one - it's just over 4 minutes. Don't get too comfortable!

Any requests for the next screencast?

Remember when you were 15 years old and it was fun to pull an all nighter? Well, it's still fun to stay up all night...even when you're twice that age! :-)

Back in December, in celebration of SnagIt's 15th anniversary, we decided to act like we were 15 again and pull an all nighter at TechSmith...for you! We shot 24 SnagIt videos in 24 hours.

And, rather than do 24 separate posts for each video on the blog, we thought we'd combine all the videos into one project. Otherwise I would have clogged up your RSS readers!

Click the screenshot below to watch all 24 videos.

Here's a summary of each hour (we started at 9am):

1. Intro
2. SnagIt on Vista
3. Scrolling Windows - horizontal, vertical and custom scroll
4. Edit Scrolling Windows - remove portions and add special effects
5. Menu Capture with special guest, Tiffany Wood, Manager of Tech Writing
6. Timed Capture, Fixed Region, Fixed Starting Point
7. Printing with SnagIt with special guest, Paul Middlin, Lead SnagIt Developer
8. Fun with crayons and file formats with special guest, Nick Gorsline, Senior Web Designer.
9. Output extensions with special guest Bryce Hauptman, SnagIt Developer
10. FTP and SnagIt
11. Editing, Special Effects and Tools in SnagIt
12. Profiles and pajamas
13. Late night confessions about SnagIt - Text Capture
14. Record a video with SnagIt
15. Web Capture
16. SnagIt Printer - a virtual printer
17. Top three tech support tips - Move your copy of SnagIt to a new computer. Look up your software key. Add or remove Add-ins. With special guest, AJ Morris, Tech Support
18. Blue Moon ice cream and batch conversion
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19. Stamps and callouts!
20. Work with multiple images in SnagIt
21. Add interactivity and links to your screencaptures
22. Add interactive images with hotspots to PowerPoint (download sample presentation here)
23. Add interactive screenshots to your blog (HTML from video here)

I hope you enjoy the videos as much as we enjoyed making them! Now I need to catch up on my sleep!

Your lucky day! You get two 'Screencast of the Week' this week since it looks like I didn't have one last week.

I recently heard from Tom Cone about his site, Screencast Central. There you'll find many screencasts and articles - many free to the public. There is premium content on the site as well.

I like Tom's screencast here about screencasting and it's history. I also like how he notes that it is quicker to make a screencast than to type a document or blog post!

What other resources have you found for screencasting?

Check out this Camtasia Studio screencast about Yugma. Click the screenshot below.

The reason I like this screencast? Simple...it is a great demo of new technology. I can watch the video and learn about the service without having to try it first. No risk involved.

And, speaking of which, Yugma looks like interesting technology. Free web conferencing?! Has anyone tried it? Anyone want to try it with me? We could schedule a web conference and connect. Let me know if you're interested.

Speaking of resources, there's a great Google Group, Camtasia Pros all about Camtasia Studio run by John Kirk, a trainer at an insurance company.

John recently posted here about a nifty little free tool from Microsoft called ZoomIt. It allows you to draw anywhere on your desktop - no Tablet PC or Wacom Tablet needed (although they are nice to have, this is free). This sounds like a great tool to use in your presentations and it looks like there is a zooming feature too.

On a sidenote, Camtasia Recorder does have a feature called 'ScreenDraw', that allows you to draw on your desktop, similar to ZoomIt, during record time. I wanted to share ZoomIt with you since it's useful with your recording and for your presentations in general. Plus, I figured, you might want to draw on your screen even when you're not recording.

And, if you're interested in joining John's Camtasia Studio group, you can sign up here. Hope to see you there!

I just read a great quote about SnagIt over on the wync blog. Matt says this about SnagIt on his post about essential software for MBA students:

"PrintScreen is to SnagIt what pre-made sandwiches are to In-n-Out burgers."

Ah, Matt, you made my day!

I got Dian Chapman's TechTrax newsletter this week and was happy to see a SnagIt article with video included. The video is free to view - you just need to subscribe to her newsletter (also free).

In this video, Dian will show you how she uses SnagIt to save time capturing, editing and sharing photos.

Click here to read the article and watch the video.