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'm sitting in Detroit, Michigan at the Airport watching people run to catch their planes, wrestle with their luggage, and herding children. It's good people watching today! :-) I'm getting ready to head across the pond for Microsoft TechEd EMEA in Berlin! TechSmith will have a booth at the show, so if you're attending the tradeshow, please stop by! I'd love to meet-up!

Troy Stein, the Camtasia for Mac Product Manager, will also be attending the show. So, if you have any feedback for him, this would be a great time to meet and share thoughts with him.

I'll be tweeting and posting lots of pictures from our adventures.

Drop me an email, text or call me (+1.517.410.0030) if you are in Berlin or attending the show. We'd love to see you!

Time for me to pack up and catch my flight! Thankfully I'm not running late and checked my luggage so no need to run to my gate or struggle with my luggage! :-)

Oh - and if you have any travel advice for Berlin, I'd love to hear it! What should we see? Where should we eat? We will be going to the Festival of Freedom to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As you know, I love my job and I love working at TechSmith! :-)

I feel very fortunate that I look forward to going to my job to every day. And for me, my job is perfect - I'm surrounded by smart and inspiring TechSmithies and users who continually amazed me. And, I love working working with people (internal and external), utilizing technology, being creative, participating at tradeshows and in the community (online and off), and being a user advocate. Plus, I love the fact that every day is different - there is no typical day.

We've been building the Evangelist team over the last few years. Dave McCollom, our Education Evangelist, joined the team in 2007 and we're now ready to jump the pond and add a European Evangelist.

You may be wondering what kind of activities does this role do? Some activities include:

• You'll need to be a power listener. As the old saying goes, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." You'll need to do just as much (if not more) listening as talking. Dave and I each attend several conferences and events a year to get feedback and talk with our users. We speak at shows, work in the booth, coordinate meet-ups with users, etc. And, we make sure the user's voice is heard back at TechSmith so we can make products that meet the needs of our users.

• We're evangelist for our evangelists! We spread the word about them online and offline - at tradeshows, on the blog and our website, and internally at TechSmith.

• Get ready to write! Lots. You'll be sending lots of e-mail, writing blog posts, creating presentations, tweeting on twitter, writing articles...

• You will also create lots of screencasts and screencaptures with Snagit, Jing, and Camtasia Studio. :-)

Interested in joining Dave and me on the Evangelist team? You can see the full job posting and requirements here. And, you can also apply online here.

Lots of good news at TechSmith today. In addition to putting FLV back in Camtasia Studio v6.0.2, I'm happy to announce that Camtasia Studio v6.0.2 is now available in German! Details are here.

And, we've launched a German version of the Visual Lounge Blog! The content will be similar to this blog, but in German :-) and with some additional contributing editors. So, for all the news, some tips and tricks and to see the great things people are doing with our German versions of software, please visit here.

And, you can view other blogs at TechSmith here.

Bis bald!

In Munich, Germany, they are celebrating Oktoberfest right now. If you were looking for another reason to celebrate, I have one for you. SnagIt 9 was just released today in German!

You can see what is new in the SnagIt 9 release here. If you're new to SnagIt, you might want to check out this new overview video in German. And, download a free trial of SnagIt 9 in German here.

We also have a full set of SnagIt German training videos that can be found here in the newly designed German Learning Center.

I am headed over to Europe next week for a couple events. If you'd like to see SnagIt 9 in German in action, I'd love to meet-up. Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to get together. Up first is VizThink Europe in Berlin, followed by VlogEurope in Budapest, and then back to Berlin for O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. And, I am very much looking forward to seeing Dieter Schiecke (that's him pictured above with SnagIt). He will be conducting his annual PowerPoint Conference in Berlin while I am in Germany!

I live on the internet, but I still like to read magazines and books in the good, old fashioned paper format! I was digging around on Twitter to see what questions there were about SnagIt and I came across one about capturing from a scanner.

That question reminded me of a little known feature in SnagIt that I thought I'd share with you. Did you know that you can use SnagIt to capture from a Scanner or Camera? I often come across articles in magazines that I'd like to archive, share and save as a PDF. I can do that easily with SnagIt and a scanner! There is a tutorial on our Learning Center here. Or, if video is your thing, I did a quick Jing screencast to show you how to set up your capture (sorry, no audio. I did not have a microphone at home and the built in microphone just sounded way too bad). It's a short Jingcast that runs under a minute.

One of our forum moderators and PowerPoint MVP from Germany, Ute Simon, also shared, via Twitter, her tutorial about how to capture from a scanner. Her tutorial is in German, but the screenshots are in English. You can see Ute's tutorial here.

And, if you're on Twitter, feel free to jump in the conversation and add me as a friend! You can find my Twitter feed here.

Recently I asked for your help in filling out this survey about Camtasia Studio. I appreicate so many people taking the time to fill it out. In the end, you'll end up with a better product.

We had the Camtasia Studio annual survey translated to German. Hopefully this will make it easier for our German speaking customers to participate. You can find German survey here.

Thanks again! We appreciate it! Our products are better because of your input.

We're celebrating today at TechSmith because we've just released Camtasia Studio v5.1 in German! You can learn all about it here.

Dieter Schiecke also has a nice blog post here about the release and will be giving away a copy of the new software. Visit his blog and maybe you'll win a copy!

I'm also happy to announce that we have a new German Learning Center. It has 20+ written tutorials, plus tutorial videos! You can check it out here.

Meet Gudrun Cruz (pictured left). She's been busy, busy, busy. She does a variety of things at TechSmith and one of them being German Tech Support.

Gudrun has been busy writing over 60 articles for the top issues and questions from German customers. She has written articles ranging from "how to snag images from SnagIt itself", or "how to find the optimal frame rate in Camtasia Studio" to "error messages during installation and how to deal with them".

You can find the articles, written in German, here. You can also contact Tech Support directly from there and you can keep your own selection of questions and answers saved for later reference. Gudrun will continue to add answers to the database. And, best of all, you can use this resource 24/7.

What else would make your life easier and be helpful for you when you use our products?

Have you ever heard the saying, '"We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."? Well, I'll definitely be following that rule this week and sitting on the edge of my chair listening!

I was honored to be invited to the the DLD-Conference this week in Munich. There are so many great speakers and attendees like Nicole Simon, Tom Rafferty, Niklas Zennstrom, Marissa Mayer, Esther Dyson and even Martha Stewart and Naomi Campbell (do you think I could get Martha or Naomi to start screencasting?!)

If you could ask any of the speakers one question what would it be?

If you're in the Munich area and would like to meet up for beer or your beverage of choice, let me know! My cell phone is +1.517.410.0030.

We're celebrating the release of Camtasia Studio v5 in German today at TechSmith! You can find all the details here. You can also watch a video and even take it for a test drive. Features are the same great ones that are in the English version.

And, check out Dieter Schiecke and Axel Becker's German Camtasia Studio blog here. They'll have some posts on the new German version as well. That's Dieter and Axel pictured on the left from my last visit to Germany earlier this month.

Any feedback about the German version of Camtasia Studio? And I'm looking for someone to practice my German with. Any volunteers?

I'm excited to share with you some great new resources for our German speaking customers!

Dieter Schiecke and Axel Becker have a great vidcast, PowerPoint-TV. Remember when I blogged about them back here? Well, they recently did a screencast about SnagIt! Check it out here. I love that Dieter and Axel are wearing SnagIt t-shirts!

Also, I got word from Dieter last week that they're launching a Camtasia Studio blog! Check it out here. Expect great things! Dieter is an expert and conducts Camtasia Studio training in Germany.

I've added both of these items to our Del.icio.us bookmarks. Feel free to visit our favorite links here.

I'm looking forward to seeing Dieter and Axel next month in Berlin. I'll be attending BarCamp and PodCamp Berlin and O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo November 3 - 8. Would anyone like to meet-up?

Have you seen good resources in other languages? I'd love to share them with everyone...

I'm happy to announce that today we launched a new series of videos based on feedback we got on the original Camtasia Studio 30 videos in 30 days series. This time we're running 20 videos in 20 days about Camtasia Studio all in German. You can click the screenshot below to access the videos. Bookmark the page as it will be updated daily!

On a side note, I'm having a great time in Germany this week. Today I gave a presentation at Ad:Tech Hamburg and tomorrow I head to Berlin to meet with Axel Becker who makes the great German PowerPoint video podcast, PowerPoint-TV, with Dieter Schiecke. And, if you're interested, I've been posting pics from along the way here.

There's a new screencast in town! Across the pond, in Germany, Axel Becker of FortyTwo Graphik Design and Dieter Schniecke of PowerPoint aktuell have started a new vidcast all about PowerPoint, PowerPoint-TV! You can watch the screencast here.

Unfortunately, my German is not that good. But, luckily, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, Troy Stein, who is fluent in German, is at the Flash in the Can conference with me this week. He was kind enough to watch it with me and translate.

I like this screencast because it's a nice balance of full screen, digital video intermixed with Camtasia's video screencapture.

They used Camtasia Studio for parts of their video podcast. You can see some nice examples of zoom feature. You can find a tutorial about Camtasia's zoom feature here. I also like their use of Camtasia's cursor highlight feature nicely as well. You can find more about this feature here.

I had the honor of meeting Axel and Dieter earlier this year when I went to Germany for the DLD Conference. Here's our pic at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.

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.

In addition to SnagIt 8.2 release yesterday, we also have another new release! The German language version of Camtasia Studio v4 has been released!

What's new?

Support for portable media player video formats - Users can easily create M4V videos for video iPod.

Ability to create multiple files simultaneously - This is nice because you can make a screencast and produce it in several different formats (e.g., Flash, iPod, MP3, PowerPoint, etc.)

Audio enhancements (one of my fave new features) - Users can remove background noise and volume variations with one-click. This is useful for professional-sounding screencasts.

30-second previews - Instead of spending time producing your entire screencast, you can see how the first 30 seconds of a screencast will look and sound based on different production options before producing the entire video.

Closed Captioning - Users can synchronize voice narration with text displayed on the screen video to create videos that are accessible to a broad audience.

Shareable production profiles that allow individuals to share their screencast settings with others, helping organizations standardize the look and feel of all screencasts and get new users up and running quickly.

New quizzing and survey viewer interface -users can embed questions and get answers via email.

You can find more information about this release here.

Unfortunately I took Latin instead of German in school. The Camtasia Studio Product Manager, Troy Stein, was kind enough to translate this blog post to German which is posted below. Enjoy!

SnagIt 8.2 wurde heute veröffentlicht. Dazu haben wir auch eine neue deutsche Version von Camtasia Studio erhältlich.

Neuheiten in Camtasia Studio 4

Camtasia Studio produziert Videos für portable Mediaplayers. Benutzer können nun Videos für iPods in M4V Videoformatten erstellen.

Sie können nun gleichzeitig mehrere Videos produzieren in verschiedenen Formatten (z.b., Flash, iPod, MP3, PowerPoint, usw.)

Mit Audioverbesserungen (meine lieblings Neuheit) - können Sie Hintergrundgeraeusche entfernen, so wohl wie Lautstaerken ausgleichen und das mit einem Mausklick. Das macht für profi-tönnende Screencasts.

30-Sekunden Produktionvorschau- Statt das ganze Video zu erstellen, können Sie die erste 30 Sekunden des Videos produzieren und viel schneller die Qualität des Videos und Audio testen bevor Sie das endgültige Video produzieren. Mit dem Vorschaumanager können Sie auch die Dateigrösse und Qualität mehrere Videos vorschauen und vergleichen.

Flash Closed Captioning - Benutzer können die Beschriftinung mit ihren Videos synchronizieren damit sie von einem weiterreichenden Publikum gesehen werden.

Produktionprofile machen es schneller Ihr videos zu produzieren. Ins besonders, ist es **viel** leichter Windows Media videos zu erstellen, und zwar mit höheren Qualität. Sie können auch die Profiles mit anderen teilen um anderend zu helfen die gleiche Qualität zu erreichen wie Sie.

Nun, sehen unsere interaktive Tests und Umfragen professioneller aus in Version 4.

Mehr Information finden sie hier.

Der Camtasia Studio Product Manager, Troy Stein, hat das Text für das blogpost to übersetz. Seine Deutsche Lehrerinnen sind an seine grammatische Fehlern nicht schuld. ;-)