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!

What's the old saying? 'Time flies when you're having fun!'. Well, I have been having lots of fun and I can't believe it is 2009 already. I swear time is moving faster. It has been awhile since I've given you an update on Camtasia for the Mac and I thought you might like a glimpse of some of our progress.

We've been running some usability tests on Camtasia for the Mac which have been very insightful. And, we've been making changes based on the feedback we're getting. Also, to give you an idea of its look and feel, here are some recent screenshots of the Recorder and Main User Interface.

And, in the software world, I've learned nothing is final until it is released to the public. So, please keep in mind that these are pre-release screenshots and things are subject to change. We're looking at a mid-2009 release. I do not have pricing info or final feature list for you just yet. As soon as I have more details, I'll post them here.

And, again, let me extend our thanks - we're building Camtasia for the Mac based on your feedback and comments. So, keep them coming. We appreciate your input and insight!

If you've ever purchased a car, then you're familiar with that 'new car smell'. Sometimes I wish software software came with that smell! Maybe someone needs to invent 'smell-o-vision' for computers. :-)

And, speaking of 'new' - I'm happy to announce that we have a new version of Jing available today. Meet Jing Pro! While Jing Pro doesn't come with that funny new car smell, it does come with something better - lots of great new features!

So, what's new with Jing Pro?

• YouTube support. You can upload a video to YouTube directly from Jing. Jing also gives you the link to your video.

• For screencasts, in addition to the SWF file format, Jing Pro now offers a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format video option. Without getting too technical, this format excels at capturing video with a lot of motion, is much more suited for editing, and is supported on YouTube. And, for those of you who have been wanting to tweak your Jing videos, you can now import them into Camtasia Studio 6 or iMovie to edit, merge or anything you want.

• Branding removal. At the end of a Jing Pro-produced video, there is no Jing logo and branding.

You can upgrade to Jing Pro for $14.95 a year. And, we're not forcing you to upgrade to Jing Pro. The free version of Jing is still available complete with complimentary hosting on Screencast.com (2 GB of storage and 2 GB of transfer bandwidth per month). And, we also have free tech support for both Jing and Jing Pro. There is a great Help Center for Jing that is full of tips and tricks.

Jing Pro was built based on customer feedback. So, we need to hear from you! What do you think?

Calling all Jing and Camtasia Studio screencasters! Put your skills to work and earn some prizes and cash - NETTUTS is running a screencast contest!

The tutorials on NETTUTS are geared for web developers and designers. They cover HTML, CSS, Javascript, CMS's, PHP and Ruby on Rails. So, if you are an expert on any of those topics, you could win a variety of prizes including $200! You can find details here.

If you enter, please post the link to your screencast in the comments here!

You have until Jan 31, 2009 to enter. Good luck!

I am told that I didn't talk much until I was two years old and then I started to speak in full sentences. Maybe it was because I had an older sister to do the talking for me. Or, maybe it was because I had nothing to say! Regardless of what the reason is, I am now trying to catch up for lost time! :-) I love to talk - online or face to face! I even talk in my sleep! You'll often find me available to chat online via Instant Messager or on Twitter. And, I often like to supplement my chats with something visual - like a Snagit screencapture! And, this is where is gets difficult...

Part of the problem with "talking" online is that it can be difficult to share screencaptures via email or chat. Files are often blocked or people can't receive or open them. It always seems to fail when I'm sending the files to them.

There's a new, free output for Snagit that makes it easy to share your screencaps - the Snagit Screencast.com Output. Send your Snagit screencaps to Screencast.com and then just share the link - no more messing with files being blocked or lost. Easy! This is great to use for collaborating on projects, in blog comments, Instant Messaging or on sites like Twitter.

By the way, you can learn about Snagit and TechSmith news like this through our Newsletters. You can subscribe to them via email or RSS. They're free and full of news, tips and tricks. Enjoy and start adding graphics to your chats and emails!

What program or site would you like Snagit output screencaptures to?

It's good to share, right? I heard from Geetesh Bajaj from Indezine and Scrapbook Presentations recently and he asked me to share some new Snagit stamps they created!

They made some new sets that include all keyboard characters found on Windows and Macintosh keyboards. You can download them for free here. Geetesh has hundreds of other free Snagit stamps available in a variety of categories here.

Also, you can find additional stamps for Snagit from TechSmith available here. And, you can create your own stamps. Here's a fun project to show you how. Enjoy and start stamping away!

As you know, our products at TechSmith are built on the feedback from you, our users! Our products are better because of your input. And, as usual, I need your help to guide us with some of our future development of Camtasia Studio. We have a survey of 5 quick questions asking about which file formats you use now and what you expect to use in the future.

To participate in the survey, visit here. And, feel free to pass the survey on to others you know who use Camtasia Studio!

As always, I appreciate the help and your input!

When I was at CES earlier this month, I was talking with someone about Camtasia Studio's SmartFocus feature. They loved the feature, but hated the green frame. You know, that green frame that pops up before your screencast zooms? It gives your viewers an idea of where you will zoom in on the screen for more detail. There's a screenshot of the green zoom frame to the left.

So, I thought I'd make a quick screencast to show you how to apply SmartFocus, but turn off the green frame. It runs less than 2 minutes. I was feeling goofy tonight (must be the cold medicine!) so you'll have to pardon my drawing skills. :-)

Hardware Used: Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet
Lapel Microphone

Software Used: Camtasia Studio
Microsoft Paint

And, in the interest of transparency, I wanted to let you know that Lenovo loaned me a Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet to test with Camtasia Studio. I used the TabletPC in this screencast. I have to say it has been working great so far! I think the inking capabilities of a TabletPC look great in screencasts and make them visually interesting. I'll be running more vigorous tests and making several more screencasts with it. I'll share the results with you. Big thanks to Lenovo for letting me test it out.

If you'd like to see more about SmartFocus, check out this article in our Learning Center.

I love getting simple tips that are easy to incoporate and improve the quality of your screencasts. I heard a great tip at lunch the other day I just had to share with you! For Jing and Camtasia Studio screencasts, try using a heavier weight cardstock for your scripts and notes. By using cardstock, it eliminates the shuffling noise of the paper when you flip through the pages of your script. It cuts down the noise your microphone picks up! Quick and easy!

Do you have any quick tips to share?

Would you like to learn more about Camtasia Relay and see it in action? If you're in London at the end of February, sign up for a Camtasia Relay Boot Camp hosted by Stewart Milton of BlueOrange.

During the boot camp, you'll learn how Relay automates everything and makes it easy to capture and share your knowledge with your colleagues, clients or students.

All attendees receive:

• Free tuition and 30-day Relay trial software.
• Unique opportunity to try Relay at the first UK event to celebrate its launch.
• Personal advice and help from Stewart Milton, Techsmith expert and Business School mentor.
• Opportunity to learn how screen video capture enhances eLearning in a relaxed and fun environment

And, I'm sure Stewart won't make you run laps or do push-ups in this boot camp! Find out more info and sign up here.

January 19 was American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday. He was born January 19th 1809. Growing up, my father would read his stories to my sister and I right before bed. I think that might explain a lot about why I am the way I am now! No wonder I had trouble falling asleep back them. :-) Edgar Allan Poe was quoted as saying "Sleep - those little slices of death, how I loathe them." And still today, I have trouble falling asleep - I am a night owl!

Being a night owl will be useful soon. I'll be pulling an all nighter with Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, various developers, trainers, and other TechSmithies. Starting on February 17, 2009 at 8:00am EST, we're going to do another 24 videos in 24 hours all about Camtasia Studio!

There will be a couple of different ways you can 'tune in'.

• Visual Lounge Blog:
  We'll be recording 5 - 10 minute videos all about Camtasia Studio every hour for 24 hours. I'll be posting them on the blog after we complete them.

• Twitter: I'll also be live 'tweeting' it on Twitter here.

• Ustream Live Video Stream: And, for fun, we thought we'd experiment with a live video stream on Ustream - you can tune in and watch us for the 24 hours here. I can't say the the live stream will always be riveting or interesting - especially at 4am, but you can tune in and there will be a chat room where you can talk with us.

If you'd like a reminder about the event, download an appointment for your calendar here.

These will not be formal training videos - you can find those in our Learning Center. We wanted to have fun, have you 'meet' people at TechSmith, give you some insider tips and tricks and show you how we use Camtasia Studio.

A small group of us were were brainstorming our list of topics to cover last week and we wanted to make sure we were covering topics you wanted to learn about. We saved several spots for 'Viewers Choice' videos. What are some topics you'd like us to cover? Post them in the comments below.

I hope you'll tune in and learn something new that you can do with Camtasia Studio!

We've been listening to your feedback on our Forums, through our product feedback form, Twitter, Facebook, and via email. And, one of the things we heard after releasing Camtasia Studio v6 was that you wanted us to put back in support for the FLV video file format.

Well, I'm happy to report that we plan to release an update to Camtasia Studio as soon as possible and we will put back the FLV option. Our goal is to have Camtasia Studio v6.0.2 available to you by March. There will still be support for MPEG-4 in Camtasia Studio as well.

Curious about why we removed FLV and added MPEG-4?

With the launch of Camtasia Studio 6.0, we decided to replace FLV with the MPEG-4 video format. MPEG-4 is awesome for high definition video - it offers high quality video and smaller file sizes which is great for video on the Web.

What we did not realize was how many of you were using your Camtasia Studio video in delivery systems that do not support MPEG-4 video yet.

Bottom line is that we messed up by removing FLV as soon as we did, but we're working on fixing it.

And, we want to avoid these kinds of mistakes in the future. So, we need to hear from you! Keep the feedback coming - we're listening and learning! And, thanks for sticking with us...

Call me a nerd, but I love trying and testing new software! I love being able to give feedback and help shape the new product. And, you will never hear me complain about getting an early look at the new software!

With that in mind, I need your help! Help us beta Camtasia Relay. We need 25 committed volunteers to start (we may open it up to more). We do have some special requirements for this beta test. We would need you to have a server at your site. The beta period will consist of conference calls in February and testing in March and April.

Requirements for the beta:
• Test the product for a minimum of 5 to 10 hours a week.
• Install the product within 48 hours of receiving it.
• Complete provided test cases within one (1) week after each beta release is installed.
• Promptly report on defects found during beta testing.
• Regress defects found with product refresh code.
• Participate in conference calls, as scheduled.
• Answer survey questions, as needed.
• Periodically report feedback to development on reliability, stability, and readiness of product for the marketplace.
• Provide feedback regarding product documentation and help systems.
• Participate in the TechSmith Beta Test Program under a formal Non-Disclosure Agreement.
• Provide the required hardware to adequately test the product in a test environment.

Benefits to the beta sites:
• Early access to product code.
• Involvement in development cycle, which includes the ability to influence the final code and submit enhancement requests prior to release.
• Free technical support throughout the duration of the beta test period.
• More stable code due to multiple individuals testing in many environments.
• One-on-one contact with the Development team, Product Management, Marketing, etc., through weekly conference calls.
• Relationship-building opportunities with other beta sites around the world.
• Improved documentation.

It will be painless, I promise. :-) Beta testing sound good to you? If so, please fill out this survey here. The Camtasia Relay Team will review your submission quickly and let you know if you have been accepted. Big thanks! We appreciate it!