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 don't know about you, but whenever I travel somewhere and I'm not a native speaker, I always end up thinking about usability. When you're not able to read or understand what people are saying to you, you better hope they've put some thought into usability with whatever you're interacting with.

Take for instance the task of purchasing train tickets or even using an elevator. Even these routine tasks can be difficult tasks unless someone takes into consideration that a user may not be able to read or hear the instructions. Hopefully they have observed someone interacting with the machine. It can be pretty frustrating sometimes, but I'm always amazed at the kindness of strangers (and grateful too)!

And, on that note, I am in Paris this week for a conference and to meet-up with anyone who uses Camtasia Studio, SnagIt, Jing, Morae, and UserVue. And, yes, I had to buy a ticket to the Paris Metro off a machine like the one pictured to the above. And, no, I did not see an English option, but I managed to get my ticket nonetheless. :-)

So, with that in mind, this week's Screencast of the Week is about usability. It's done by Todd Follansbee of Web Marketing Resources. He made the video with Camtasia Studio but the testing was shot using Morae. Click the pic to the left to see Todd's video about website usablity. It's a quick one that runs less than 3 minutes.

If you're in Paris and would like to meet-up, please feel free to e-mail, call or text me (+1.517.410.0030). I'd love to meet-up!

I'm having a great time in Paris this week! When I'm not stuck inside at a conference, I've been a tourist and snapping lots of pics.

I also have a habit of changing my laptop's wallpaper frequently. I'd like to use a few of my photos from Paris for wallpaper so I can remember my trip long after I've returned home to Michigan. TabletPC MVP Craig Pringle recently wrote an article about how he creates wallpaper that works in both portrait and landscape mode and he used SnagIt as part of the process. Craig used SnagIt to change one of his pictures to grayscale which looked great! So, I thought I'd try the same thing! Here's Craig's article on GottaBeMobile.

I also made a quick Jing screencast that runs less than 20 seconds to show you how to change your pic to grayscale. Click on the video below to watch.

Note: TechSmith is one of GottaBeMobile's sponsors.

Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, is out loose on the road! He'll be making his way around North America over the next few weeks stopping to chat with Camtasia Studio users. He's starting on the East Coast of the United States. If you'd like to give Troy your feedback directly, drop us a line either in the comments or via e-mail and he may be coming to your town soon.

Here are Troy's notes from one of his meetings...

I met with Anthony Rocha in New Hampshire. Anthony runs Blade Multimedia, a full-scale multimedia development shop. He kept mentioning in his "pipeline" -- the various applications he uses to create his rich websites, CDs, etc. Anthony uses a lot of software applications in his multimedia projects, in conjunction with Camtasia. Here's how he decribes his pipeline of applications and some of the workflow (3min video):

Below is his list of apps in his pipeline. What's in yours? What do you use in conjunction with CS?

Me? Tonight, I used a Sony HDV camera, digitzed it with iMovie (for some reason Final Cut didn't like me today). I exported from iMovie to QuickTime MOV and imported it into a prototype of CS for editing, marking and production. Why not just edit in iMovie or FCP? I'm making a longer video of the interview and want the ability to create a TOC for easier navigation. If there's a good way of creating an html TOC w/ embedded MOV file in iMovie or FCP, let me know.

Anthony's Pipeline of Applications:

Animation 3D & 2D:

. 3DS Max
. Silo
. Motion Builder
. SWiSHMax
. Flash
. Swift3D

Graphics Design

. Fireworks
. Photoshop
. Digital Audio production
. Cakewalk Sonar Producer
. Cakewalk PRO Tracks
. Groove monkee midi libraries
. VSampler
. WaveLab
. dbpowerAMp Encoder

Video editing and encoding (& screen capturing):

. Camtasia Studio v5
. SWiSHVideo
. Adobe Flash Video Encoder
. Sorenson Squeeze
. MediaCoder
. SUPER

Web Design:

. Dream Weaver
. Source Edit
. Notepad
. XAMPP local server for site testing.

Rich Application Development:

. MDM zinc 3
. Amayeta swf encrypt
. Axialis Icon Workshop
. Astrum Install wizard

What can you do in 20 hours? Could you develop and deliver a product? Well, several developers did just that the other day. And, they made screencasts demoing what they made! So, with that in mind, several screencasts share the title of 'Screencast of the Week' this week!

Recently Telligent Systems hosted a Community Server Hack-A-Thon (HAT) event to show off their new web services API. The challenge was simple - developers had 20 hours to develop and deliver a product! And, even though I could not attend the event, I'm still able to see the highlights since they used Jing to make screencasts of the top ranked submissions.

You can see the details of the event along with the screencast demos of the top ranked submissions here. It's exciting to see what people can develop in less than 24 hours!

Big thanks to Scott Watermasyk who alerted me via Twitter about the videos!

Any nominations for next week Screencast of the Week?

I was honored enough to meet the wonderful Beth Kanter in person at SXSW this year. You remember Beth from these blog posts, right? Beth is a screencaster extraordinaire! Troy Stein was able to meet up with Beth on his travels in Boston recently. Here's what Troy has to say about his meeting with Beth:

Met with Beth Kanter in her home in Massachussets. Beth was running between her workout and the airport and was gracious enough to spend some time with me.

Beth makes tutorials and training for non-profits. In the past, she's made some really fancy training videos with Camtasia. One project was 12 minutes long, but took 20+ hours to complete, including storyboarding, recording, and especially edit.

Lately, Beth has been using Jing to do more improvised recordings. She says that she'll do a quick dry-run before she starts the recording, then she'll record it with Jing.

She said that it was liberating to create something so quickly and easily. But, she often wants to edit her Jing recordings.

Beth also said, "I don't mind re-recording a Jing if its a minute or two long. But, when I screw up in the third or fourth minute, it can be really frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I get frustrated when I mess up using the Camtasia Recorder, too. But the pain is lessened by knowing I can edit my Camtasia recordings. But I can't edit my Jings."

Is that an issue for anyone else?

Would it be helpful to edit Jing recordings inside Camtasia?

I think you already know that I love SnagIt. But, I want to know if you do. Actually, I want to see if you do! We're including some photos of SnagIt users in an upcoming marketing piece and we need your help! If you have a few minutes to spare, please send us a photo with yourself holding a sign as shown below.

Details:

• You can stand in front of a plain wall or something more interesting. We'll crop out most of the background.

• Leave your photo at full size when you send it. We'll scale it down. If it must be reduced, shrink it to 800 × 600.

• Email your pics and photo release form (download PDF here) to our Newsletter Editor, Daniel Foster at newsletter@techsmith.com.

• Deadline for pics is Wednesday, May 14, 2008.

• Smile, smile, smile!

Need some inspiration? Check out the video below! Kate Sumbler, from Tech Support, was our roving photographer at TechSmith today and snapped some sample pics to inspire you. I included Kate's pictures from TechSmith along with some pics we received from SnagIt fans in the video. I had a lot of fun making video - I hope you enjoy it!

You can see the pics we have so far here.

Note about the photo release file: If you have the full Adobe Acrobat, you can fill in the boxes, save the PDF, and attach it to an email. If you have Acrobat Reader, you can fill in the boxes, Snag the whole page (scrolling window capture works great for this) and send me the image.

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Mahalo.com. I like his screencast for a couple reasons. Jason used a screencast in a perfect way - to show off and explain some new features and changes they've implemented at Mahalo.com. What better way to give a tour and see a site in action than with a screencast?

Click here to see Jason's blog post and screencast. It is a quick screencast that runs under 4 minutes.

And, just like the screencast, I'll keep my blog post short too! Have you seen any interesting screencasts lately? Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Cap and gown, sheet cake, senior prank, diploma, Open House party, and SnagIt ...These are all things I associate with High School Graduation. And, of course, every Open House party needs an invitation, right? That's where SnagIt comes in!

Ryan Everett, a Sales Intern at TechSmith, created the invitation for his brother's graduation party. Several people asked who the “professional” was that created his brother's invites. Ryan answered, "SnagIt all the way!".

How did Ryan make the invites? Basically he captured two old photos of his brother with the "Ellipse" option. Then in SnagIt Editor, he added text and faded the background. I made a quick Jing screencast to show you how to make a similiar invitation. It runs just over a minute long.

What will you make with SnagIt?

I've talked in the past about the importance of storyboards. I thought I'd also share another tool we use when planning our screencasts. We have a 'Video Project Form' that we use for planning before we record so we don't run into any 'gotchas' during recording or production. If you think about the goals of your video the audience before you make your screencast, it can change a variety of things like file format and video dimensions, if you use audio or captioning and other options.

You can download blank storyboards and a video project form here.

How do you prepare before you record your screencast?

This week's Screencast(s) of the Week are out of this world...and from Second Life! TechSmith Newsletter writer, Daniel Foster recently interviewed Torley Linden, who is a Second Life rock star. Torley is a prolific screencaster with over 100 videos!

Torley also recently published his "13 rules to making good video tutorials". One of the reasons I like Torley's videos is because of his third rule: "Bugs must be left in". It is like you're looking over Torley's shoulder which is a good way to learn. Torley also makes good use of text and callouts.

And, I also like that he has lots of videos of his quick tips. For example, the quick tip tutorial below is under 2 minutes. I don't always have 20 minutes to spare to watch a screencast, but I almost always have time for a 2 minute one.

You can find lots of Torley's videos here. And, you can find the full interview in the Camtasia Studio newsletter interview here.

I love the quote on Torley's website too - "I amplify your awesome." This is a great motto!

Have you seen any great screencasts lately?

It's not every day that someone writes a song about technology! But Sunday was one of those days! I was so happy to see that Maria Andersen, a Math Instructor from Muskegon Community College in Michigan, wrote a song about Jing!

Here's an excerpt from Maria's song entitled, "How Do You Write Your Math in Online Classes?" (sing to the tune of, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"):

You can read the entire song here. You will also find several screencasts here that Maria made to help her students use Jing to share their math questions on the message boards in her summer online calculus classes!

Big thanks for the Jing song, Maria! You made my day!

Anyone willing to sing the song and send us the MP3 file so I can post it? Believe me, I wish I could record it myself, but your ears would bleed if I sang it. No one needs to hear that... ever! :-)

Put your screencasting skills to use and win some prizes! I noticed that Firefox is holding a screencasting contest and thought some of you might want to enter! FireFox needs your help to create screencasts for their support articles. Grand prize gets a Flip Video Ultra Series camera!

By the way, does anyone have a Flip Video Ultra Series? I was thinking about getting one. What do you think of it?

It's almost June and that means that tradeshow season is in full swing! Several TechSmithies will be spending some quality time at airports, hotels and tradeshow booths. That's where you come in! If you're attending ASTD, STC or Microsoft TechEd, we'd love to meet-up with you! I will be working the booth at ASTD and TechED. Feel free to e-mail or call (517.410.0030 - cell) if you'd like to meet-up. Details are below! Hope to see you on the road!

• ASTD
• When: June 1-4
• Where: San Diego, CA – San Diego Convention Center
• Booth #304

• STC
• When: June 1-4
• Where: Philadelphia, PA – Pennsylvania Convention Center
• Booth # - 430/432

• Microsoft TechEd
• When: June 10-13
• Where: Orlando, FL – Orange County Convention Center
• Booth # - 324/326