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!

Hi everyone, my name is Kelly and I'll be your guest blogger for today!

Recently, I read a feature request in our online discussion community asking TechSmith to develop a Camtasia-like product for capturing tablet video. This got me to thinking of a few things:

1. Most tablets have a way to push video out from the device (either directly through HDMI on many Android tablets, or through the use of an adapter with the iPad).
2. I do video capture through HDMI all the time (we use it for every episode of our monthly web show "The Forge".

With those two facts in mind, I started wondering if it might be possible to use an HDMI capture card in conjunction with the HDMI-output from a tablet to just capture the video from the screen of the tablet. Well, I'm happy to say that after some trial and error, I met with success! I then repeated the process, and recorded a video of the steps involved. Check out the video below to see how I did it, but first, a few of the required materials:

• A tablet (tested and verified with an Asus Transformer and Apple iPad 2; iPad 1 DOES NOT work)
• An HDMI cable (preferably 6-10 feet so you can pull it a ways from the computer tower)
• An adapter for your device (HDMI to iPad adapter, HDMI to mini HDMI, etc. Varies depending on your tablet)
• PCI-Express Avertv HD DVR High Definition Capture Card by AverMedia
• Camtasia Studio or Jing
• A computer with an open PCI-Express slot

Kelly Rush is the video production specialist at TechSmith, and has been with TechSmith for seven years. When he isn't making videos he is usually out taking pictures, playing with whatever new gadget he's just gotten his hands on, trying to find yet another classic gaming console for his collection, or having fun with his wonderful family.

Photo credit: autan

Our superstar development teams have updated Camtasia, Jing, and Snagit to work on the soon-to-be-released Apple OS X 10.7 (aka "Lion"). Why is this necessary? Because there are serious incompatibilities between Lion and Camtasia, Jing, Camtasia Relay, and, to a lesser degree, Snagit. (More info...)

You can download these free maintenance releases now--they will work on your current operating system AND on Lion when it's released.

• Download Camtasia for Mac update | details
• Download Jing update | details
• Download Snagit on Mac update
• Updated 7/20: Download Camtasia Relay 3.1 | details

Something amiss? Get help from our support team--they're friendly, fast, and free!

Have questions? Give us a shout at our Q&A site or on Twitter.

I was recently at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Besides meeting one of Bob Marley's sons, Rohan Marley, the highlights for me were the miles of gadgets and equipment.

A few products I saw on the show floor stood out that looked useful for screencasters... Here's my top 5 list of products for screencasters from CES!

1. Cinemin Slice from WowWee - This handy little pico projector turns your iPad into a 60 inch projection screen. So, load up your Camtasia screencasts and show them off to the crowd. Added bonus - it has stereo sound. Your screencasts should look and sound great.
2. Mikey for Flip by Blue Microphones (shown in pic above) - Adding camera video to your screencasts can make them dynamic and give them that personal touch. It can be difficult to get great audio on video cameras using the built in microphone. The clever people at Blue Microphones have solved this problem with Mikey for Flip. This microphone will give you professional sounding audio with your Flip video camera. Your screencasts will sound better and your viewers will thank you.
3. KODAK PLAYTOUCH video camera - What can I say? This is my camera of choice for any screencasts I do. It can capture full 1080p HD video and it has an external microphone jack so I can get great sounding professional audio. And, it uses SD cards so I can quickly reload memory cards if I run out of space.
4. Wacom Intuos 4 Wireless Pen Tablet - Using something like a Wacom tablet in your screencast can make your screencast more interesting and dynamic. Wacom's Intuos 4 tablet is now wireless. So, if you're in a classroom or presenting, you're not tied to your computer. You're free to move around the room with it.
5. iPad Stand from Griffin - An iPad or Tablet can be a very useful tool for screencasters. It's great to have the extra screen for notes or to use as a teleprompter. Griffin has several nice stands for iPads and Tablets. The Arrowhead looks useful for all tablets plus small enough to travel with. I've also been enjoying the Loop stand.

You can see more pics from my trip to CES here.

What gadgets and products have you seen lately that would be useful for a screencaster?

According to the traditional Christmas carol, "The 12 Days of Christmas", today we would have received two turtle doves. Well, my true love can keep the birds. Instead, let's continue with our next tip for the "12 days of Screencasting"...

We have a great tip for those just getting started in screencasting from Ian Ozsvald. Ian has made over 170 screencasts! He knows what he's talking about...

Sing it loud and proud! "On the Second Day of Screencasting, Ian Ozsvald gave to me..."

"If you haven't made a screencast - just get on with it. Start with Jing, graduate to Camtasia later. You'll gain confidence by seeing that you can talk and act at the same time and the 5 minute Jing limit is useful to force you to be concise and clear. Send your videos to a few people for feedback, try again and then just start to publish your videos. Real feedback from real people sure beats worrying that your private videos isn't any good! If you want further beginner-tips then see my blog and look at the free chapters of The Screencasting Handbook."

Ian Ozsvald has created over 170 screencasts since 2005, from 30 second tours to 30 minute lessons. He co-founded the screencast tutorial site ShowMeDo in 2005 (used by 50,000 people a month) and founded the professional screencasting company ProCasts in 2008. He also blogs at IanOzsvald.com, encourages entrepreneurs at the £5 App event and occasionally lectures on Artificial Intelligence at Sussex University (UK).

I need your help! It's that time of year! What would you get your favorite screencaster as a gift? What are essential tools that you need to make great screencasts? Maybe it's a camera? Or, storyboard paper? Or, a particular microphone?

I need your input to compile a list of gifts to get your favorite screencaster. Here are the past lists from 2009, 2008, and 2006 (looks like I skipped 2007!). Anton Bollen, our German Evangelist, has started his list which you can see here (in German, but you can see which products he picks).

Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments or email me! I'll post the list later this month. Thanks for your help! Can't wait to hear what's on your list!

I'm a DIY kinda person. In my spare time, I'm knitting, crafting, cooking... making something... anything!

That's why I'm so excited that this weekend, Maker Faire is coming to Detroit, Michigan! Maker Faire is described as the ultimate DIY festival - "It's county fair meets science fair meets farmers market meets burning man for families! ..."

And, that got me thinking about how screencaptures and screencasts bring Maker projects to life by not just telling people about a project, but also showing.

I compiled a list of ways you can use Snagit, Jing, Camtasia and Screencast.com to make your DIY projects more visual. I'd love for some additional ideas. Please chime in on the comments with ways you're using screencaptures and screencasts with your DIY projects.

• Aim your Web camera at your hands for a true hands-on demonstration that is easily posted to your blog or website.
• Watermark and copyright your demonstrations and images with just a few clicks.
• Send your instructional screencast video directly to your YouTube channel.
• Archive an in-depth project step-by-step with screen captures and screen recordings.
• Narrate a video for online customers to navigate your online store.
• Annotate patterns and schematics with Snagit, the world's leading screen capture software.
• Use Snagit to convert your annotated pattern into a PDF to sell on Etsy.
• Use Snagit or Jing to collect and archive projects, tutorials and ideas on Screencast.com, TechSmith's free hosting solution.

Here are some great examples of Makers making projects visual:

• Sandal Woods moves to a 21st Century Toolbench with Camtasia Studio.
• Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams from Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, CO use Camtasia's Picture-in-Picture feature to highlight lab experiments for their class in their screencasts.
• Nico DiMattia uses Camtasia to screencast his speed painting.
• Use Snagit or Jing to annotate a step-by-step recipe.
• Capture Online Templates for Pumpkin Carving Project.

And, if you're going to Maker Faire this weekend, please contact me (email or call/text 517.410.0030)! There will be lots of TechSmithies there. I'd love to meet-up. And, I'll have plenty TechSmith sporks to share. :-) You know you want one! Come find me!

I may have a new addiction. I'm pretty smitten with my iPad. I even bought a new purse that the iPad would fit in so I can carry it around with me all the time. :-) Yes, I have a weakness for gadgets.

One of the reasons I got the iPad was so I could watch and show Camtasia videos on it - the larger 9.7 inch screen is perfect for viewing screencasts. I've heard from several people wonderfing if you can view Camtasia videos on the iPad and how to do it. Well, the good news is that is it possible to play Camtasia Studio, Camtasia for Mac and Jing screencasts on the iPad! There are some tricks. Mike Curtis, an Information Developer at TechSmith has created a screencast that will show you how to successfully create a screencast for your iPad.

Check out the 4 minute screencast below. Mike will walk you through recording dimensions, file formats, codecs, settings and more.

There is also a help topic here that deals with a range of mobile issues. It also explaines how to get from Camtasia for Mac to the iPad.

And, in case you're wondering, Jing Pro MP4 videos will play on the iPad. We recommend you use 1024×768 (hold control key for Jing to snap to the dimension). Jing videos will not play if they exceed the number of pixels in 1280 × 720. Basically, if the video does not work, you will need to make it smaller.

Once you create your videos, you'll need to load your videos onto the iPad. First, you need iTunes. Then you need to sync your iPad with iTunes. Once the iPad is connected to your computer, use the Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and iTunes U panes to select which videos to sync. There is a more detailed tutorial here (look for the sections on Syncing and Syncing Videos). This can be a lot of work. If you don't want to do that, Screencast.com is a good option. You can enable the download link if you want people to have the native viewing experience.

And, if you decide you want to make lots of videos for your iPad. Save your production settings up as a Preset - that way you set it up just once and re-use the settings over and over. Here's how you set one up.

Anyone making screencasts for the iPad? I'd love to see them! Have any tips to share?

Calling all Jing users! There's been an update for all free and Pro Jing users - you can now post your Jing screen captures and screencasts right to your Facebook wall!

You can find out about all the new updates on the Jing blog here.

What other sites would you like to share your Jing captures on?

I think I've finally caught up on sleep after our Chevy SXSW Road Trip Challenge! As you may remember, the Snagit Product Manager, Tiffany Wood, Kyle Mulka, developer of Twilk, Kathy Jacobs, and I had to drive from Lansing, Michigan to Austin, Texas (and back) in a Chevy Traverse (made in Lansing, Michigan, our hometown!) to SXSW. Plus, we had to complete a variety of challenges from wrestling a diner cook to getting temporary tattoos of our teams hashtag (#lanchevysxsw - see pic at right).

One of the highlights of the trip had to be our first challenge in Noblesville, Indiana at Hare Chevrolet. Hare is the old transportation company in the United States! As part of our road trip challenge, we had to 'hunt (Hare Chevrolet) rabbits' which involved using OnStar technology and driving new Camaros (squeee!) and finding Chris Theisen, the Director of Digital Communications for Hare Chevrolet. You can read all about the challenge here.

Originally Chris and I met via 'Twitter' so it was nice to meet in person. It is great to see a car dealership using social media to listen and gather customer feedback plus help customers out. While visiting Hare Chevrolet, Chris shot a quick video about how Hare Chevrolet uses social media plus how he uses Snagit and Jing. The video runs less than 5 minutes.

Also, after driving close to 3,000 miles, I could not believe the kindness of strangers and friends. We got off the highway and were able to interact with local people. I learned that everyone has a story. Everyone was so friendly and willing to help us whether is was taking a goofy picture, being in a video or sharing their story. Thanks to all of you who helped us out, kept us awake, encouraged us and kept us laughing

You can see a log of our travels here, some pics here, and some videos here.

Where should we road trip to next?! I'm ready to hit the road again!

This week's Screencast of the Week is actually a series of Jing videos (Jingcasts) from introNetworks! You can see all the videos here. I liked these Jingcasts - they're quick, personal (introNetworks CEO, Mark Sylvester, introduces himself in the Jingcast) and, I like Mark's new slang word - 'Jingspeak'!

I asked Mark about his experience using Jing and here's what I heard from him:

Jing = EASY as anything I have ever used. We use it EVERYDAY. I love the interface on my Mac and because it is so simple I tend to think in Jingspeak - meaning, can I do something in 1 min on Jing that would take 5 min in an email, answer is usually yes! Using it to show clients and prospects the nuances of our platform in bite sized chunks of five min has been incredibly effective.

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

I recently had a request by email to share a list of suggested books for screencasters. So, I asked a few people around the office like Daniel Foster, our newsletter editor, Matt Pierce, our Customer Engagement Manager, and Dave McCollom, TechSmith's Education Evangelist.

And, I was also thinking about different elements of a screencast: preparation, planning, writing, graphics, presentation, storytelling and promotion.

Based on that, here are some of the books we came up on our suggested reading list for screencasters:

Prep:

• Made to Stick, by Chip Heath, Dan Heath - This book gives you tips on how to keep your screencast viewers attention and make your ideas stick.
• The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam - A picture is worth a thousand words. This book helps you create compelling graphics and visuals for your screencasts.
• Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark - this is a useful book for any writer. Great screencasts start with great writing.

Presentation:

• Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson - learn how to use storytelling and graphics to effectively communicate. I've seen Cliff speak several times - he has wonderful advice!
• slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte - effective visual communication for your screencasts. Make great graphics especially when recording PowerPoint. I've seen Nancy present several times - every time I see her speak, I am in awe.
• Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds - make better presentations which makes for better screencasts.
• Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun - learn techniques behind what great communicators do and how to effectively present ideas. Use these tricks to make better screencasts.

Tools:

• Camtasia Studio 6: The Definitive Guide by Daniel Park - Daniel's book takes you through using Camtasia Studio from start to finish of your screencast.
• The Screencasting Handbook by Ian Ozsvald - Ian has created hundreds of screencasts and his handbook reviews software and microphones, processes and techniques.

Promotion:

• Get Seen by Steve Garfield - now that you've created your screencast, make sure your screencasts are promoted and seen!

I've started a list on Amazon - Screencaster Suggested Reading List And, I'd love to add what's on your reading list.

Here's where I need your help... As a screencaster, what books have you found useful and why?

It's that time of year... And, I need your help! In the past, we've done gift lists for Screencasters in 2006 and 2008. It's time to compile the list for what to get your favorite screencaster for 2009.

I'll get the list started for the screencasters on your 'nice' list:

Storyboard graph paper - perfect for planning your screencasts and stories. I like that one side of the paper is a story board and the back side is just a dot grid if you need to map out bigger ideas without the constraint of the storyboard.

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera I just switched to this video camera because it has an external audio jack. I can use my own microphone with this camera and get awesome audio even when I'm recording in at a tradeshow or other event. It is a nice camera if I want to mix real world video with my screencast.

And, here's where I need your help. Chime in! What equipment, software or other items would you get for your favorite screencaster? What if they are on the naughty list?!

If you're a Jing user, you may have noticed that Jing had an update today! All Jing users, both free and Pro users, now have the ability to post your Jing captures and screencasts straight to Twitter!

You can find more details here including a screencast showing the new feature in action. Or, check out the recent posts on the Jing Blog.

Will you use the new Twitter sharing option? And, now that we've added the new Twitter option, what features or functionality would you like to see added in the next Jing update?

I 'met' Chris Petescia, the VP & Director of User Experience at Carrot Creative, on Twitter when he was talking about Jing. I don't think I've heard from anyone using Jing more than Chris and in some very creative ways including creating a whole site dedicated to something he calls 'Jing Art'! I love all the different ways he and Carrot Creative are using Jing and I had to share that with you!

I sent Chris some questions and here's what he shared with me...

1.     How have screenshots and screencasts changed your own communication at Carrot Creative for the better?

Shortly before we stumbled across JingProject.com (the debate rages on here as to who gets credit and whether it was guidance from an Obi-wan at Hoth-like spirit vision, or just plain luck), we used another (now defunct) screenshot-to-web service. While the ingenuity of auto-uploading any screenshot taken- to a URL & clipboard- amazed us, we soon learned there was a far more vastly-featured and elegant tool to do this and more: Jing. The day we installed Jing was for Carrot, the day we landed in Oz and opened the door into so much vibrant possibility. We'd been living in the dark ages and didn't know it until then... one click onto the yellow Brick Road pop-bubble and there was no looking back. Jing immediately became valuable to us in all departments, especially to me with frequent travel and need to review/ communicate/ share visual ideas at odd times. iChat screen share never really worked anyway, so Jing made sharing easier across all needs, particularly those we hadn't previously identified.

2.     Are your screenshots used internally or externally? What is the viewer response to them?

We use Jing internally, externally and if there was a third option, that way too. Internally we share anything from financial notes among my partners and I to notes on mockups and code/CSS bugs during project QA... and of course humor (see: JingArt.us). Externally, it has quickly become a favorite way for us to communicate with clients during all steps of a process. Some clients are very hands on and involved: regular walkthroughs with screencast videos (including voice notes throughout) allow us to demonstrate and clarify. There is very little confusion regarding client perception and expectation of a project, when we can walk them through a workflow or design. Many of these clients have adopted Jing to communicate back to us as well, and with their other persuist I'm sure, as is the case with our friends at MLB.com. Other clients are only involved where milestones of a project are concerned, but for them Jing is a great way for us to send individual screens and video overviews. We use it to demonstrate usage and get feedback about their experiences before launch. Additionally, Jing is a great tool for reporting analytics and data to clients. Whether for a formal weekly report or just to illustrate user engagement on their site, page or social feed, Jing does it for us.

3.     What do you use Jing for primarily

Because we use Jing daily for so many things, I actually had to check my Jing "History" to get perspective on where it is used most. As the head of our design and production team, my History is flooded with design mocks: my review thoughts on our team's work with suggestions, as well as my own design work with video or text notes and questions to get feedback and guidance for our developers as they build it. Jing has smoothed this entire process of design concept to tweaking to producing to reviewing production.

Aside from the day-to-day work of a digital agency and production shop, Jing has been useful for the unplanned pitfalls that come with our field: Photoshop or Illustrator locking up or most recently a plague of sporadic crashes that Snow Leopard has blessed us with. In these times, Jing has more than once allowed us to quickly grab a screenshot as the pinwheel of death spins it's cheery and spiteful rainbow, signifying an impending crash. If nothing else, we get a reference copy via quick Jing'ing to refer to as we re-build (:grumble:) Jing Art came about by chance, as one of our creatives was taking a web-browsing (info snacking, we call it) break and came across a photo of a Russian Developer... or, as our Creative saw it, a potential Jing-Jedi Knight. One Jing arrow added to his perfectly posed hands and internal Jing humor was born at Carrot Creative. While we certainly don't mock clients by any means, the variety of projects and circumstances we deal with allows us to laugh and enjoy our jobs a lot, and Jing has become an integral part of sharing that among ourselves. I think there was one day when we were Jing'ing one another's Jings and adding comments until it just got out of control :)

Chris Petescia is a co-founder of Carrot Creative, located in the Digital District of DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY. Chris works as a mix of Art Director and Designer, focusing on the User Experience side of Carrot's projects. He is enthusiastic about Star Wars, gets excited about pixels and enjoys a good lolcat photo as much as the next web geek. When he's not attending a live show at one of NYC's numerous music venues, you'll find him scrabbling to last.fm/dmbpride, posting to chrispetescia.tumblr.com or tweeting from twitter.com/chrispetescia

I was also lucky enough to meet Mike Germano, the President of Carrot Creative at the Blog World Expo and he shared with me how they are using Jing at Carrot Creative. The video runs less than 2 minutes. See why Mike is 'mad' at his team for using Jing! Quite the funny story!

Big thanks to Carrot Creative for sharing with us how they're using Jing.

I hope you'll submit to Carrot Creative some Jing Art of your own! Here is the Jing Art I'm going to submit. What do you think?

Sometimes words are not enough! Especially when you only have 140 characters on Twitter. Soon, you'll be able to easily add visuals and screencasts to Twitter with the click of a button in Jing!

There will be a Jing update on December 8 that will give you a fast and easy way to add your Jing screen captures and screencasts to Twitter!

How will it work? Simple! Set up a new Share button in Jing for Twitter.

Just as always, you will capture an image or make a video of your desktop

Share your capture by selecting the 'Twitter' button. A box will automatically pop up and you can create your tweet in the text box. Jing will post your tweet along with a link to your Jing screen capture or screencast.

That's it! Tweet away!

And, best of all, the price is right. This new feature is free to all Jing users! On December 8, Jing should alert you that there is a new update available. Update Jing and you should be ready to start tweeting your screen captures and Jing-casts!

Can't wait to see what you create! Jing me @betsyweber or @techsmith. Or, be sure to follow @jingtips for the latest tips and tricks all about Jing!

We asked, you responded! Remember last month when I asked for your tips to share with a new screencaster here? We compiled all of your comments from this blog post, as well as comments from the Education blog and our Newsletter. Big thanks to the 40 people who responded. I appreciate it!

From your responses and tips, we created a booklet "What would you tell a new screencaster?". Download your free copy here. If you left us a comment, your name will be listed in the booklet! Now, if I could just meet up with all the contributors and get a signed copy, I'd be all set!

The booklet has several sections including: General Tips, Content & Planning, Before Recording, During Recording, and Editing & Production.

The top tips (by number of mentions):

* plan out screencast &
do practice takes
* create a script/storyboard
* shut down apps to free up memory & avoid pop-up notifications
* use a good mic

Download your free copy here and feel free to share the PDF with others you think would find it useful.

Thanks to all who shared their knowledge and tips! What else would you like to learn from others about?

Sometimes I hear people say that it is too hard to make videos. Think again! If you have 7 minutes, Ian Ozsvald of ProCasts can have you screencasting!

Ian just participated in BarCampBrighton4 and led a talk about ''Screencasting in 7 minutes with Jing' workshop at BarCamp Brighton 4'.

Check out Ian's blog post here and he'll show you how to start screencasting in 7 minutes. You'll see his video of his session and him helping others install Jing and make their first screencast. You will also see one his friends in the session use his MacBook to record his first screencast on searching Wikipedia (there is a link in the blog post above), plus Ian gives some tips on recording better screencasts.

Ian has some great tips for first time screencasters:

• Do a walk-through first of all so you're practiced
• Speak slowly and clearly
• Record the audio in a quiet room (you can clearly hear other background voices in Jez's example above - best avoid this if you're doing work for clients!)
• Don't wiggle the mouse to highlight something, prefer to use an editor later to add highlights or spotlights
• Just Do It - don't worry about it, just make a recording and repeat it if it wasn't good enough. Soon you'll have something online that Does The Job

Ian has made 170 screencasts since 2005 so he knows what he's talking about. :-) And, I'm excited for his next project to be released - he's working on 'The Screencasting Handbook'! Be sure to sign up on his website for updates.

It's good to share, right? And, I have got something fun to share with you!

As you know, I love our products and I love stickers. We just got in some great new buttons and stickers and I thought many of you would like them too!

If you'd like some Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing stickers and buttons, please feel free to order them from here.

And, please, please, please email me some pics of you with your buttons and stickers. I'd love to see how you put them to good use!

Cross posted from The Jing Blog

And, we're off! The Jing Speed Series has started! Can we pull off 6 Jing Screencasts in 60 minutes? We will find out!

Up first, we have David Moulton, Senior Web Designer, shows me how to turn an unused button on your mouse and making it a hotkey for Jing. Makes captures fast! You can see the Jingcast here. By the way, he made our cool Jing Speed Series graphic you see in this post.

Jing Lead Developer, Bill Scanlon and Katie Lewis, the Product Marketing Manager, will be going over what's new in Jing. You can see the Jingcast here

Katie and Mike Curtis, Information Developer, go over an easter egg in the latest version of Jing on the Mac giving you the ability to display all of your easy region selection options. You can see the Jingcast here

Training Manager, Matt Pierce, and Tech Support Engineer, Casey Phear, go over how to move the Jing sun and using it with a hot key. You can see the Jingcast here.

Matt Pierce and Instructional Designer, Chris McQueen, go over how to use Jing with Snagit and Camtasia Studio. You can see the Jingcast about using Jing with Snagit here and the Jingcast about using Jing with Camtasia Studio here.

And, lastly, Mike Curtis, Information Developer, and Katie go over demystifying embed code and the value of the new Screencast.com folders. You can see the Jingcast here.

If you'd like to tune in live, you can watch here on Ustream.tv here

Note: Well, we actually made 6 screencasts in 60 minutes with Jing, but found out we had audio issues (as in no audio) on 2 of our videos. So, we had to re-record them! Always something! :-) Thanks for tuning in!

"I feel the need... the need for speed!" Ah, one of my favorite quotes from the movie, Top Gun. Remember that scene?

Last weekend was the Indianapolis 500. I was watching the news and found out that those cars hit speeds of 220 mph or more!? That got me thinking about speed... which led me to thinking about Top Gun and then got me thinking about one of my favorite topics, screencapture and screencasting (yes, that's how my brain works)! ;-) It occurred to me that Jing is like the racecar of screencaptures and screencasting! It's all about speed, baby!

And, I've been thinking lately about how much fun it was to do the Camtasia Studio 24 videos in 24 hours. And, wondering if we should pull another all nighter to make 24 videos for Jing? But, since a big benefit of Jing is how quickly you can create and share content, I thought a speed test would be a better idea instead! Besides, I'm not sure if I've caught up on sleep after our last all nighter screencasting. :-)

So, for our speed test, we'll create 6 Jing screencasts in 60 minutes next Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 3:00 pm EDT (GMT-4)!

A variety of TechSmithies will be joining me on the screencasts from Jing developers, to Graphic Artists, to Trainers and Information Developers to Product Marketing Managers. We'll post the Jingcasts here on the Visual Lounge Blog as well as on the Jing Blog as they are available (hopefully every 10 minutes). If you'd like to tune in live, we'll be streaming from Ustream.TV here. There will be a chat room on Ustream.TV so feel free to ask us questions there. I will also post updates on Twitter (TechSmith and BetsyWeber).

We'll show you some new tips and tricks and reveal some new surprises as well. So, tune in!

Any topics you'd like us to cover?

Part of my job is to connect with people. And, as you may know, I might be what some people call a little quirky. :-) So, I thought we should have something fun in the booth. Somehow I stumbled up Maple Bacon Lollipops - I had to try them! I mean, what could be better than sugar plus organic bacon on a stick?! I figured, it'd be fun for Brooks Andrus, our Senior Flash Developer, and I to take them down to Indianapolis for 360|Flex this week. The lollipops would be a great hook to get people to talk to us and a way to have fun at our demo table. So far, so good!

Interested in the response to the lollipops? Brooks and I interviewed a few Flex developers not only about the candy but also how they use Snagit, Camtasia Studio, and Jing. Check out the first interview with Nick Kwiatkowski. It's a quick one that runs 2:00 minutes.

We made the video with a Flip Mino HD camera and used Adobe Premiere to edit plus a pic from iStockphoto.

Also, be sure to check out Brooks' first video about the bacon lollipops here.

Maple + Sugar + Bacon + Stick = Good?

"You learn something every day if you pay attention."  I always like this quote from Ray LeBlond. And, in keeping with this theme, I learned something the other day on Twitter that I wanted to share with you! A tweet from Heather James at the Institute of Technology, Sligo caught my eye. She mentioned she not only created a manual for Jing, but that she was sharing what her knowledge with everyone!

So, if you are teaching a class about Jing or just want to learn how to use it, check out Heather's PDF guide - 'Jing - the Missing Manual'.

Thanks for sharing, Heather! This is a great resource for everyone! And, if I ever get to Ireland, I'll be sure to pack some goldfish crackers for you!

More about Heather:

Heather grew up in the US and moved to Ireland in 2000. She loves the rain, the green and the pace of life. Things she misses from the US: her family and goldfish crackers. Heather studied fine arts for her undergrad and technology & learning for her Masters degree. She adores screen-captures, because she is a visual learner herself. Camtasia & Jing are essential tools in her kit for teaching. Right now, she is a lecturer at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, where in addition to making instructional videos for staff and students, she also uses Jing to provide feedback in formative assessments; her students love it (and it saves her time). 
 
She made this handout for those lecturers who get "snow blind" when they get to a computer to learn new software. Sometimes it's good to have a guide on paper. 

Hey Camtasia Studio and Jing users! Are you up for a challenge?! I thought so! MindBites has a screencast contest and the grand prize is $1,000!

I know what you're asking yourself. Self? So, what is MindBites? Well, MindBites is a website where you can find, publish, sell and distribute video tutorials and how-to lessons (on the MindBites site, on your own site, and across the web). You can find instructional videos on everything from Calculus lessons to Photoshop tutorials.

Now, how do you win the screencast contest? Simply register at MindBites and then create and upload an original screencast tutorial. The lesson must be instructional in nature, focused on tech (e.g. software, development, or gaming), at least three minutes long, and meet the standard MindBites lesson guidelines. You can find the rules here.

What can you win? Well, there are two prizes - The Grand Prize winner will receive $1000 plus a copy of Camtasia Studio and Snagit. There is also a People's Choice Award winner who will walk away with $500 and a copy of Snagit!

So, what's the timeline?

* April 21st - Contest and weekly People's Choice voting begins
* May 18th (11:59 PM CST) - Entry Deadline
* May 19th - Daily People's Choicevoting begins
* May 26th (11:59 PM CST) - Daily voting ends
* May 27th - Winners announced

How do you vote? Simply login or register as a user (don't worry it's free and painless), click on the "All Entries - Vote!" tab here and add your vote to your favorite. And, as an added bonus every time you vote, 10¢ goes to the Youth for Technology Foundation (up to $1000)! Vote - it's for a good cause!

If you're on Twitter, you can follow along at @mindbites for reports on the contest and the hashtag to use on Twitter to tag contest tweets is: #cast4cash

And, in the interest of transparency, I have to let you know that TechSmith is a sponsor and I have the honor of being a judge.

I would love to see a Jing or Camtasia Studio user win this contest! And, I'm looking forward to seeing the great screencasts you create! Make me proud!

What would you do with the $1,000 if you win the Screencast contest?!

What I've learned over the past few years is that it is much harder to make a shorter screencast than a longer one. For the blog, my goal is usually around a 3-5 minute video. And, if I'm really pushing it, 10 minutes max. The shorter the screencast, the more I need to prepare. I know I personally prefer shorter videos that I can 'digest' quickly. And, if the screencast is longer, it needs to be really engaging. Otherwise, I prefer the screencast broken up into small chunks.

I asked on Twitter to see what people thought the ideal length of a screencast was. You can see some responses to below. One of TechSmith's Flash Developers, Brooks Andrus, has an interesting post on his blog proposing 120 seconds for video length. Is that long enough? I'm really curious to hear what you think. What's the ideal length of a screencast or Jingcast? How long are you willing to watch? Other thoughts?

At TechSmith, we love feedback. You get to have a stake in the products you use on a daily basis and it helps us make better products for you. Everyone wins!

And, we need your help with some feedback about Jing! Please click here to take a 3 minute survey. Let us know how you're using Jing.

Thank you for your input! We couldn't develop great products without you!

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!

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?

Growing up, I could never keep a secret. If I went gift shopping, inevitably I'd end up sharing with a family member about their gift well before the holiday we were celebrating. I was just so excited to give the gift that I could not contain myself! As an adult, well, I still have a hard time keeping a secret. Thankfully I don't have to keep your gift a secret!

For your gift this holiday season, I asked some expert screencasters to share with us their screencast wishes for the future, advice and gift list. I hope you enjoy their contributions! And, I'd love your feedback and additions. What wishes do you have for the future of screencasting, advice or gift ideas would you share? Comment away!

• Tim Fahlberg - Mathcaster extraordinaire and Math 247
  Looking for something to give to your favorite mathcasting student or teacher? How about a new Genius MousePen 8" × 6" graphics tablet (about $50 from Amazon or use Google Product Search). Or how about giving them a new voice with a new Logitech USB headset ($20-$40)? Or totally blow them away with a new LiveScribe Pulse SmartPen which can be used to create pencasts (including mathcasts like these) as well as capturing notes with voice and much more ($150 at Target or Amazon)? Or give them the free beta version of SMART Notebook 10 SE (Student Edition) which will be a fantastic tool for students to create mathcasts and much more.
  Want to share your mathcasts or learn more about creating or sharing mathcasts? Visit our mathcasts wiki at www.math247.pbwiki.com or email Tim Fahlberg at tim.fahlberg@mathcasts.org.

• Bill Myers - Bill Myers Online
  Bill has a fantastic list and review of great products ranging from light kits to wireless microphones here. Since I travel a lot, this folding USB stereo headset on his list caught my eye.

• Axel Becker - Camtasia Training Blog
  My favourite screencast hardware is my new headset microphone from Shure. You can find German information at: http://camtasia-training.de/technik-tipps/ In addition to that I bought an external sound card: Alesis io|2 which makes it easier to record my screencasts.

• Rob Bushway - InkCaster and GottaBeMobile
  Looking for a way to make your screencasts more personal and engaging? Add handwritten notes and annotations by using a Tablet PC We'd recommend looking at Lenovo's X200 Tablet - plenty of speed and power, along with a beautiful screen to ink your next screencast on.

• Daniel Park - dappertext, author of The Screencaster Newsletter and Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide book
  A lot of folks have particular trouble with adding background music to their screencasts. First, you have a heck of a time finding a buy-out (read: royalty-free) source that's reasonably priced and high quality. Then there's the matter of implementing it. I always found the abrupt fading in & out of music to be the epitome of lazy, low-class editing, but custom-cutting the music to the exact length of your screencast is incredibly time-consuming, to say the least. But all these problems went away when I picked up SonicFire Pro 5 from SmartSound. This amazing product offers incredible quality tracks that automatically adjust themselves to any length. They support mood mapping, meaning that you can kick up the intensity of the music at critical points during your video as well as take it down a notch when you want the focus on your narration. Its easy search tools let you find the perfect track with record speed and ease. The Scoring edition prices in at just under $90, and comes with their Core Foundations music disc free.

• Jon Udell - The father of screencasting!
  I'd like to give screencasters (including myself) an easier way to record audio. I wish I could recommend a silver-bullet solution. But there are lots of moving parts -- operating systems, recording software, audio peripherals -- and I don't think the industry as a whole has done yet for digital audio what it has done for, say, digital photography.

• Beth Kanter - Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
  This year, except for the kids, my gifts are in the form of charitable donations. For some people, I'm making a gift to The Sharing Foundation in their name or for others donating to their charity or using a gift card from global giving or Network For Good. Here's some more ideas on how to be a geek who gives.

• Kathy Jacobs - OneNote MVP and Vitamin CH
  OneNote: Getting ready to create a screencast, but not sure what to say? I recommend putting together your outline of steps and things to say in OneNote. Build a two column table. First column gets the step, second column gets what you are going to say. Practice doing the steps and reading the content. When you have it down pat, start Camtasia and make your recording... When you have your recording done, use your notes to build the text that goes with the video.

What's on your Screencast wish list, advice or gift giving list? Don't keep it a secret - give us a gift!

As you know, TechSmith loves user feedback. We need it. Our products are better because of your input and feedback.

So, with that in mind, I was chatting with the Jing (and SnagIt) Product Manager, Tony Dunkel. That's him on the left. And, we were wondering, now that Jing is a little over a year old, now what?

This is where I need your help - help shape future versions of Jing to how you want them. What would you like to see in future releases? What about a Jing Pro version? What would that look like to you?

I'll get the list started. For a Jing Pro version, I'd like to see some additional features and functionality like:

• Editable Jing video content - I'd like to do some basic editing to my jingcasts like resize them and do some editing in Camtasia Studio (trim clips, join multiple jingcasts, produce in multiple file formats).

• Additional mark-up options for screen captures - I'd like to change the font of the text and add transparency to objects (arrows, text boxes, highlights, etc).

Now it's your turn - What would you like to see in future releases? What would Jing Pro look like to you? Comment away - We're listening...

Teleprompters are not just for news anchors. They're nice for screencasters too! When making polished screencasts, teleprompters can make your projects go faster, sound better, run smoother and you don't run the risk of having rustling paper scripts mess up your audio.

Traditional teleprompters can cost thousands of dollars, but I found a free teleprompter that's available online called CuePrompter.com. It's simple to use - you just cut and paste your script and off you go! And, there's no software to install.

Here's a quick little Jingcast of the teleprompter in action. As many of you know, I am a hockey fan. And, since I'm not working on a script right now, I used some of my favorite quotes from "The Great One", hockey player Wayne Gretzky, as my script. :-)

And, don't forget about Max Rottersman - he made a teleprompter using SnagIt and some CD cases! You can read about him here. Have you found any tools that make video making easier with Camtasia Studio or Jing?

As a student, I always had to work harder at math and science to get a good grade. It just didn't come naturally to me at a certain point in my schooling. I would often get so wrapped in taking notes that I would not process what we were being taught. What I would have given to have access to the teacher walking through the math or science problems again when I was at home for review. That brings me to this week's Screencasts of the Week - they allow you to just that. Bring home the teacher in the form of a screencast!

Now you've heard of me talk about mathcasting before with the pioneer, Tim Fahlberg. Tim introduced me to Graeme MacNeil who contributes to Tim's mathcast wiki. In addition to mathcasts, Graeme also creates 'phicasts'. What's a phicast? Well, it is a physics lesson that incorporates screencaptures and screencasts. Graeme uses classroom response system (clickers), a tablet, ExamView software, plus Jing or Camtasia Studio to record his phicasts. Click on the pic to the left to watch an example of a phicast - it is about Newton's Second Law of Motion. Remember that law? If not, watch the phicast to re-learn it! You'll see in the screencast the use of the classroom response system when the students have to participate and give their answers to the problems. You can see additional phicasts here.

And, since we're talking math and science, I thought I'd give you an update on Tim's mathcast project. His wiki continues to grow which you can see here. He's working on creating a library of 500 screencasts for K-7 math using many student and educator voices! Another expert mathcaster, Colleen King of Math Playground is also participating in the K-7 Mathcasts 500 Project. Graeme also contributes many mathcasts to the wiki.

And, math must run in the family. Tim's sister, Linda Fahlberg-Stojanovska (pictured on the left) is a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Sciences at the University "St. Clement of Ohrid". She not only contributes to Tim's Math247 wiki, but also has a mathcast wiki here complete with mathcasts in Macedonian and Albanian! Linda has created 100s of calculus mathcasts. And, be sure to check out some the videos she created wtih Graeme here. What makes these screencasts cool is that they relate both physics and math!

Graeme and Tim also have an interesting twist on mathcasts - they have the students create them as well. Here is Graeme's write-up on why this is a good idea (hint: it engages students, they like to show off what they can do, it is different...).

What's also interesting is that Tim is in the USA, Graeme is in Australia and Linda is in Macedonia. They don't let the physical distance separate them - they colloborate online using Skype to work together and make mathcasts and phicasts.

Hats off to you Tim, Graeme, Linda and Colleen for making math and science easier for students to learn. I am in awe. This is a service that benefits all of us. And, they're making these screencasts available for free to everyone! Do you like what you see? Please be sure to thank Tim, Graeme, Linda and all the other screencasters who are helping students learn.

What can you do with a screencast? Who can you help or inspire? Share your knowledge and pass it on.

I had a wonderful time at Gnomedex this week. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight back home to Michigan as we 'speak'!

I was continually amazed at the people I just happened to run into. For instance, Friday night I was looking for a Jing or Camtasia Studio screencast to show off on the blog for the 'Screencast of the Week'. I stumbled on to a great one and made a note to email the creator of the video. Less than 12 hours later, I actually ended up meeting the video creator, Troy Malone from Pelotonics in the hallway at Gnomedex. Just by chance! I love that!

Troy is using the Jingcasts to help with customer service and internal communication with his teams. He likes Jing because he can take a very personalized approach to answer someone's question or give feedback. And, guess what? His users love getting a screencast answer. Here's an example of a recent Jing that Troy did for a customer inquiry. Click on the screenshot below.

Enough of me talking about how Troy how uses Jing. Its better if Troy tells you himself. We shot a quick video in the hallway at Gnomedex. So, check out the video below. It's a quick one - it runs 3:34 minutes.

Materials used to make the video:

I also got to see non-profit screencaster extraordinaire, Beth Kanter at Gnomedex. I have to share with you Beth's fantastic screencasting primer wiki which you can see here!

Congrats Pelotonics on being our 'Screencast of the Week'! Any nominations for next week?

I got a new laptop last week and yes, it has Vista on it. And, there's a feature on Vista that's is great for screencasting! Tony Dunckel, the SnagIt Product Manager, tipped me off to it last week when he was prepping for a webinar and it occurred to me that it would work well for screencasting too!

When screencasting, it is good to have as little distraction in your video as possible. You want your viewers to focus on the topic at hand. One way to do this is to clean up your desktop or other areas you will be showing off. A little 'house-keeping' is good! I made a quick jingcast to show you how to clean up your desktop quickly in Vista (Note: I learned this option is available on XP too from Pierre and Owen. See comments below!). The video runs less than a minute.

Got a screencast tip to share? If so, I want to hear it! Or better yet, Jing it to me!

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.

Break out the balloons and party hats! It's time to celebrate Jing's birthday! Hard to believe that it has already been a year since we started the testing the concept of the Jing Project! To celebrate, we're making Jing an official offering of TechSmith.

Don't worry, it's still free! And, as our thanks to all the Jing users, we're upgrading your complimentary Screencast.com account to 2GB of storage and 2GB of transfer bandwidth!

We still need your help with Jing - so keep the feedback coming. And, you can always find the latest news and interact with the Jing team on their blog here.

Tony Dunckel, the Jing Product Manager, sat down for a quick interview with me. We talked about the history of Jing to where we are today and what the future holds for Jing. It's a quick video running under 3:25 minutes.

Happy Birthday, Jing! I can't wait to see what happens between now and your 2nd birthday!

Every two years my extended family gets together for a family reunion in Northern Wisconsin or the Upper Pennisula of Michigan. Last weekend happened to be family reunion time. So, my parents, sister, my 2 year old nephew and I, all piled in a car and drove 12 hours to the reunion. And, yes, you read that right. 12 hours in a car with a 2 year old!

When catching up with family members, it inevitably came up that I worked at a software company. Now raise your hand if you're the one in your family that everyone comes to for tech support or computer questions? I'm that person too! Well, this weekend was no different. Everyone wanted some computer help. In the past, I would try to help out family members via phone or email which isn't always easy and everyone ended up frustrated. But, this year, I'm going to go the Jing route!

So, you can guess what I'll be doing over the next week. I've been given a laundry list of questions and I'll be making screencast answers with Jing. Here's part of my list of screencasts: how do I move my iTunes library, how do I organize my photos, how do I update my antivirus software, how do I... ? And the list goes on. Anyone else using Jing for tech support for their family? What's been their reaction?

And, I'm also compiling the family photos from the weekend into a video slideshow using Camtasia Studio. You can see how to create this here.

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from Mike Beltzner, the User Experience Lead at Mozilla. You know, Mozilla. The people that make the Web browser called Firefox! Mike made a great Jing screencast showing off the upcoming release of Firefox 3. You can click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs less than 4 minutes.

I asked Mike more about his screencast. He mentioned that he made the screencast to help people see the new features of Firefox 3 in action.

Mike said, "Software is all about interactions with the user, and it can be hard to convey the same feeling and experience with screenshots and text alone. Jing made it really easy to do - I just picked my window, pressed a button, did my think, and then had a video that I could share with anyone. I used the built in microphone in my laptop (that's why you can hear me typing and clicking) and didn't really script anything; if I made a mistake, I could click "Restart" and start again. It took me about 20 "takes" to get it right."

You can see Mike's blog post about the Jing video here.

I'm glad Mike made a screencast about what's coming in Firefox 3! Now I'm really excited and ready to download when it's released!

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 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! :-)

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?

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?

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?

Don't you love it when someone figures out a great trick and then shares that knowledge? This week's Screencast of the Week does just that! It comes from Alec Couros, a Professor at the University of Regina. He's done a Jing screencast with step by step instructions about setting up sub Gmail accounts for all of his students. After a little research, he was able to figure out how to do this and made a great Jing screencast to share it. The screencast runs just over 3 minutes. You can click the screenshot on the left to watch it.

And, I learned about this screencast from a post referencing Alec Couros on Twitter! If you're on Twitter feel free to add me as a friend - @betsyweber. I have also set up a Twitter feed for @techsmith for TechSmith news.

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Ever have one of the those days where you look up at the clock and the day is over? That's what happened to me yesterday. I was having so much fun in Chicago going to the Art Institute of Chicago (they have a great art exhibit on Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer, by the way), Millennium Park, walking on the Magnificent Mile, riding on the "L"...and, you see where I'm going. I ran out of time to post the Screencast of the Week yesterday. My apologies...

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from Dr. Brian Friedlander. Dr. Friedlander is using Jing to answer students questions! Recently one of his students was stuck on a software project and needed help. Instead of writing a long email with step by step instructions to answer his students questions, Dr. Frieedlander just made a quick screecast with Jing and emailed it to his student. His student got the individual attention she needed plus she not only got to hear what she needed to do, but she also got see what she needed to do.

You can read Dr. Friedlander's blog post about how he's using Jing in the classroom here. To see the screencast, click on the screenshot above. It is a short video that runs just over a minute long.

And, best of all, in addition to saving himself time, check out his student's response to his screencast!

What have you screencasted lately?

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?!?

This week's Screencast of the Week goes to Tom Johnson of the blog, I'd Rather Be Writing. Check out his blog post here complete with not one, but three Jing screencasts!

I love Tom's addition of a few quick Jing screencasts to not just tell, but also show his ideas and examples in his blog post. It's often easier for me to understand feedback or a bug if someone makes a screencast that walks me through what they are explaining. It's like video voicemail!

And, in effort to be transparent, it looks like our Advertising team is sponsoring this site.

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week? And, you're free to nominate yourself!

Did you get the new Jing release earlier this week? Version 1.4 came out on Wednesday. Jing shoudl have alerted you to the new update. You can find details about the release here. As you know, I love Flickr! So, one of my favorite updates is the option to output images directly to Flickr!

You also have the opportunity to help shape the future of Jing. We need your help. Please send your feedback about Jing by either posting here in the comments or leaving your feedback here. I'm begging and pleading with you for feedback.

You'll also notice when you install the update that you have the option to give us anonymous usage reporting. This helps us to help improve Jing for you and we will use the statistics about how the sharing methods are used. And, it helps us figure out where to head with the Jing Project.

Lastly, if you love Jing, we have some fun freebies for you - a couple different desktops, graphics and buttons. You can download them here.

And, as always, check out the Jing Project blog for the latest and greatest!

If you're a Jing user, hopefully at some point today you got an automatic update. This was our first true 'feature" update since we launched Jing on July 17th.

We've listened to your feedback and have made the following updates:

For images, we've made several updates to the editing environment, including:

• Both the Mac and PC versions get better arrows, improved text boxes, and undo/redo buttons. (Thank you Jing team!)
• For the Windows version, objects like arrows and text can be reselected and re-edited

For video:

• A countdown process (3...2...1... Go!). This helps you get ready before the recording process starts.
• A visual indicator of your audio settings (e.g. audio on, mute on, no device detected)
• A "Restart" button to give you a 'quicker' way to start over rather than requiring you to retake the capture.

Easier to share:

• Jing now offers the embed code to your image or video directly from the share button. You can now easily embed Jing content in your blog or website making it easier to share with the world. (I'm really excited about this feature!)
• Coupled with Screencast.com's 'click-to-play' feature, it is better overall user experience for both creator viewer.

Tris Hussey over at Blognation has a great write-up about the update. Check it out here. And, check out the Jing Project blog here for more details.

We'd love to know what you think about Jing - what do you like, what would you like changed? Submit your feedback here. We're listening...

And, if you haven't tried Jing, why not?

I heard from Rob Graham this week about how he uses Jing and he offered to write up his experiences so I could share them with you. And, if you'd like to share your experiences with our blog readers, I'd love to hear from you too! So, on that note, I'll let Rob take it away...

If you're reading this, I probably don't have to sell you on the value of Camtasia and SnagIt as invaluable tools for recording what's happening on your computer screen. If you're not familiar with these tools then I encourage you to spend some time poking around the TechSmith site. It will definitely change the way to market/educate/ communicate in the future.

But what I really wanted to talk about today is a new project that the team at TechSmith has been working on - Jing. I caught Jing out of the corner of my eye a few months back but, like most of you, already have a million and one other things to think about everyday so I didn't get to checking it out right away. Big mistake. For me, Jing has proven to be the missing solution I've been looking for most of my professional career.

In a nutshell, Jing is a tool that sits quietly at the top of your screen for easy accessibility, and allows you to quickly record screen events, audio track and add annotation and callouts. However, Jing adds a layer of simplicity to the process of sharing content by allowing you to immediately review the capture and then automatically save it to TechSmith's Screencast servers. What you get in return is a URL that you can send via email, texting and even live chat that allows the person at the other end to quickly see a newly created web page featuring what you just created.

For my students and me that has been a godsend. Now I can easily answer questions by simply showing them how to fix problems in real time.

And educators aren't the only ones who can benefit from Jing. The business world, from help desks to sales teams, can use Jing to easily customize materials for clients.

Need to answer a technical question? Jing.

Need to share a few slides from a recent presentation? Jing.

Need to get updated marketing materials to sales team members already at the client site? Jing.

In the interest of full disclosure I will mention that I am in no way employed by TechSmith. I have requested, as a TechSmith customer, to share my thoughts with you via the Visual Lounge because I'm frankly a huge fan of the products they offer.

As Mom always said, 'sharing is good'.

Rob Graham is the Director of Training at LearningCraft, LLC., a company that provides Marketing Training. Join Rob November 15th in Cambridge, MA for the Internet Marketing Boot Camp.

I have a problem...and I'm not alone. I'm addicted to screenshots. I imagine you might be too if you're reading this blog. I was happy to see Bryan Eisenberg's (that's him in the pic on the right) blog post, Confessions of a Screenshot Addict. Check out his blog post - Bryan talks about where his obsession came from, what he does with the screenshots and what you can do with screenshots.

Bryan also started a FaceBook group for all of you screenshot addicts. Join the Facebook group, I am a screen shot addict here. Hope to see you in there!

We released the Jing Project almost 2 months ago and we want to know what you think of it.

One of our original goals with Jing was to help improve your daily conversations. Did we do that? We also wanted Jing to be built on feedback from our users. So, help us improve Jing by giving your feedback in this quick 9 question survey.

Click here to take the survey

I really appreciate your input! Our products are better because of the feedback from you!

My mother and sister are both teachers. So, over the last few weeks, I've heard all about school starting back up and what they have to do to prepare for it. It got me thinking back to those 'Back to School' shopping lists we had. I always looked forward to getting a new backpack, books, pens, notebooks, apple for the teacher... But, what about adding Jing to your 'Back to School' list of supplies?

I recently heard from Bonni Stachowiak from Vanguard University (pictured above). I thought I'd share with you how Bonni is using Jing in her college classroom. Below is an email I got from Bonni.

I am a college professor, among other things, and hadn’t really used Jing all that much - - until now that the semester has started. As of today, I am now Jing’s biggest fan. I teach a blended learning model for our business, management, and marketing classes. Mondays and Wednesdays we’re in class together. Fridays are online. The start to every semester is typically a big headache, trying to get the students comfortable with the online format. Despite my near-perfect syllabi, with beautiful SnagIt screen shots that describe how to login and use our elearning platform, there are inevitably questions that come racing through the first couple of weeks of school from students who are unfamiliar with this style of learning.

Today, I found such joy responding to their emails as I quickly grabbed screen shots, placed arrows on areas of emphasis, and in about 7 seconds was able to navigate to the right screen, grab the screen shot, upload it, and paste the link into the email.

I wonder what I’ll do with all this new found time? Plant a garden? Take more naps? No…

Thanks for everything TechSmith does to make us better, regardless what we do!

-Bonni S

If you haven't tried Jing, I hope you'll not only try it out but also give us feedback on how to improve it.

Has Jing helped you? How are you using it? Drop me an e-mail or post in the comments for everyone to see.

After working at TechSmith for about three months, I am happy to report I still believe it's an amazing place to work. I could launch into a big list of many little reasons that combine to form the overall goodness, but instead I'll try an analogy that might get the main points across.

I am surrounded by very smart, motivated, and empowered people. This environment provides us in the Documentation department with the freedom and resources to pursue avenues beyond what people often associate with a Technical Writer. (Think really dry PDF manuals.) One recent topic of conversation around here has been rethinking this whole antiquated title. For example, maybe Information Developer or Help Solutions Developer is a better representation of what we do at TechSmith. Comments? Our team is working on many "new" types of resources. This includes using a blog as a content management system for the Jing Project, going way more graphical in the upcoming SnagIt, proactively soliciting focus group feedback, and experimenting with an enterprise wiki for possible future use.

Mike Curtis is a Technical Writer who is married and has three young children.

'Jing me!' I hope that's a phrase I start to hear more often! I have a secret to share with you loyal blog readers...Today we are launching a new "project" called the Jing Project. And, you're among the first to know about it.

So, what is the Jing Project? That's a great question. We're hoping you will help us answer that and tell us where you'd like this experiment to go. Jing is all about the instant capture and sharing of images or video. It's perfect for improving and supplementing those daily conversations that you're already having in email, on IM chats, blogs...

And...we have not only a Windows version, but also a Mac version! Woot! We realized we have to be platform-independent and could not limit it to just one platform if we're making a product all about conversations.

Questions about Jing? There's a new blog devoted to all things Jing. The Jing blog will serve as one of the primary places for you to give your feedback about Jing and to find out the latest news. Contributors to the blog are pictured below (left to right): Tony Dunckel , the SnagIt Product Manager (he is the Jing Project Manager in his 'spare' time), Michael Malinak, Lead Developer for Jing, Don Sherry, Mac Jing Developer, Alan Dennis, Interface designer, Nick Gorsline, Senior Web Designer, Chris McQueen, Instructional Design, and Matt Dyer, Tech Writing. I'll be posting to the Jing blog periodically to show off all the great things people are doing with Jing. So, please send me examples of the ways you're using Jing.

Want to get started using Jing? Check this out. And, we need your feedback! Head over to the Jing Project Homepage to leave your feedback.

I'd love to see you using Jing! Here are some ideas to get you started - use Jing to add comments to the Visual Lounge or other blog posts. Use Jing to make your IMs or emails more visual with images and videos. I'm on Skype (betsyweber) and IM (MSN: b.weber@techsmith.com) most of the day so feel free to 'Jing' me!

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!