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Josh Holmes, a RIA Architect Evangelist from Microsoft, stopped in our offices recently and told me about how he did some remote screencasting with Camtasia Studio! Since Josh is doing something different and new, he's the Screencast of the Week!

How'd he do it? Well, Josh's interviewee records what they're doing with Camtasia Studio on their end and also shares their screen with Josh via Live Meeting. Josh uses this nifty little phone recorder which he plugs into the microphone input jack on his computer. Then Josh uses Audacity to record the audio. Note that the phone recorder does not have a level indicator so you need to watch the levels when recording. Then, Josh gets the screencast from his interviewee and in Camtasia Studio, he merges the video with audio.

Want to see the screencast he created? Check out the episode of Code To Live on Channel9 here.

I'm looking forward to seeing Josh at Microsoft Mix this week where he'll be helping out in the Open Spaces area. Did you have any questions for him? I'm happy to ask him when I see him.

And, I've ordered one of the phone recorders too. Any volunteers to try remote screencasting with me to share your story?

Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeep! Ever had one of those nights were you swear your head just hit the pillow and then your alarm goes off? I just had a whole week of that! I was running day until night...and often back into day at the Microsoft Mix and SXSWi conferences. The only thing that kept me running was a lot of Diet Coke! Consequently, the blog did not get updated for a few days. My apologies.

You can see some pictures here from SXSW and here for Microsoft Mix. The TechSmith crew had a great time meeting up with people doing amazing things with SnagIt, Camtasia and Morae. More stories on that later...

I also got great news that Daniel Park has started a new newsletter about all things screencasting called, 'The Screencaster'! You can sign up for it here. It's a free monthly newsletter all about the art of Screencasting.

Daniel told me the newsletter will be filled with tips, tricks, news, and reviews. And, he'll be focusing not just on the technology, but also be giving lots of attention to higher-level marketing and training topics as they relate to screencasting, so Sales Directors or IT Coordinators who are left wondering how to implement screencasting in their own organizations will all find something to like.

And, I'm told the first issue goes out early next week, so sign up now so you don't miss it.

To celebrate, I thought I would give away a few copies of Daniel's latest book, Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide! The first 4 people to comment on this blog post answering the following statement will get a free copy of the book - 'Camtasia Studio is {insert your answer here}...'

Here's a place for you to not only learn what's going on with Screencast.com, but to also give your feedback directly to the team - many different members of the Screencast.com team will be participating from Developers to QA to Product Management. Dirk Frazier, pictured left, is the Product Manager for Screencast.com and would love to hear from you. What do you like about Screencast.com? What would you like changed or added? If you were the Product Manager of Screencast.com, what would you do? Check out their new blog and comment away!

This week's Screencast of the Week was sent to me by Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration blog! You can see the blog post and screencast here.

I liked this screencast for several reasons. In the blog post the author, David Tucker, mentioned that talking about Aviary wasn't enough. You really need to see it in action. This screencast does a nice job showing off the features and functionality in Aviary without being too long and David makes good use of panning the screen too. You get too see all of the app, without having a large video. And, in addition to giving you a tour of the app, David shows you how to use some of the functionality too.

Also, you may notice that when the screencast is loading, David changed the preloader in Camtasia Studio to show his own logo (see image on left). It's a great way to show off your own brand in your screencast while your viewers wait for the video to load. If you'd like to learn how to do that too, check out this tutorial here.

Thanks for sending this screencast, Amit! Anyone have a nomination for next week's Screencast of the Week?

I just wanted to post reminder that we've got some great monthly newsletters filled with additional tips, tricks and interviews that you can subscribe to either via email or RSS feed here. You'll also notice that we have a new Mac newsletter where you can keep up to date on what we're up to on the Mac front.

Recently, Peter Gillberg, one of TechSmith's resellers at SoftwareCasa, launched two blogs - SnagIt Guide and the Camtasia-Guide. Both blogs are filled with tips, tricks and tutorials about both products. That's Peter in the picture with me at Microsoft TechEd last year.

It's Sunday so you know what that means...It's time for the Screencast of the Week!

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from StyleFeeder. You can watch this week's Screencast of the Week by clicking the pic on the left. I picked this as the Screencast of the Week because I love the use of SmartFocus, Callouts, and the short length. Plus, they have several screencasts available on their site - you can see several here!

It think it is often harder to make shorter videos - I always have a goal target length when I make a screencast, but usually end up doubling it! It is easy to start talking and rambling. I don't know about you, but I definitely prefer shorter videos right now. My attention span is short and lately I rarely have time to sit uninterrupted to watch longer videos. Is it just me?

We've been laughing a lot at work lately about Lolcat pictures. If you haven't heard of Lolcats before, they are usually pictures of cats that have been captioned with internet slang and poor grammar. You can see a whole collection of the pictures at a website called 'I Can Has Cheezburger'. The Wall Street Journal even wrote an article which will tell you the history and background of Lolcats which you can read here.

The Lolcat photos always have great captions which brings me to SnagIt. SnagIt is perfect to make these types of images since it has tool that allows you to type text on an image. With SnagIt's Text Tool, you can add text and you can set the font, size, alignment and color of the text. SnagIt's Text Tool is useful to not only write captions, but also to add things like your copyright to an image, instructions, fill in content on a PDF form, and more. You can see in screenhots of the SnagIt Editor below where the Text Tool button is located (it looks like the letter 'A' on the left hand side).

I also made a quick little Jing screencast showing how I used SnagIt's Text Tool to create a Lolcat with my dog, Mutton, since I don't have a cat. (Would that then be a Loldog instead of a Lolcat?!). The screencast runs less than a minute long. And, no animals were harmed in the making of this screencast. Well, maybe Mutton's dignity was hurt, but she got lots of treats after the pic was taken. :-)

And, on a side note, do you have any suggestions for better captions for the Loldog pics of Mutton?!?

One of the nice things about working at a tech company is that there is never a shortage of computers. I often like to try out new and different machines. I've recently started using a MacBook Pro in addition to my PC. On a typical day, I bounce between the two computers depending on what I'm working on. Then, I end up shuffling documents and files back and forth between the machines and the network. This wastes a lot of time plus every week I lose a file and end up shouting in anger at both computers. Shouting doesn't fix anything, by the way!

I was so happy to see this article in the New York Times from one of my favorite tech columnists, David Pogue. David tests out a product called SugarSync that will sync your PC, Mac and phone together! And, even better was when I went to take the product tour, it was made with...you guessed it...Camtasia Studio! So, it's the Screencast of the Week!

I love this screencast because they show split screens with the PC and Mac in the screencast which is a great way to illustrate the product. The audio sounds great. And, they make good use of SmartFocus.

Click the screenshot below to launch the screencast. It runs just over 3 minutes long.

Thanks David Pogue and SugarSync for keeping me sane and synched!