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 happy to share some good news with you! My partner in crime, Dave McCollom, our Education Evangelist at TechSmith has just launched a brand new blog. Plus, he's added a new page chock full of great resources for educators that are using all TechSmith products.

There already are some tutorials and examples showing how to creatively use Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing in the classroom. Dave will be working to provide you with more content all the time. We made the site with you in mind and need your input on what you need and how to improve. So, poke around the site and let us know what you think.

Check out some useful links from the new site below!

Education Community Site

Screencast Tour of Community Site (also embedded in the first post on the Education Blog)

Education Blog

Want some creative inspiration in the classroom? Check out some of these ideas and examples (you can find more on the TechSmith Education Community site too!):

Introduction to Screen Capture in Education

Students Demonstrate Understanding via Video

Have a "digital hallway" to display student work

Create quick "how-to" guides for students and staff

Make a video for when you or students are absent

Provide Thorough and Personalized Feedback to Students

Capture Instructional Content for Additional Student Practice

If any of you educators out there have any Snagit, Camtasia Studio, or Jing content and/or stories that you'd like to share please let Dave know! And, please keep the feedback coming...

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?!

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!

You've spoken and we've listened! As promised, we brought back the FLV format in Camtasia Studio v6.0.2 today.

Download the update here. It is a free upgrade if you purchased Camtasia Studio v6.

If you'd like to see everything updated in Camtasia Studio v6.0.2, visit here.

Thanks for your patience and feedback. We appreciate it! What would like to see added to Camtasia Studio next?

"The stars at night, are big and bright... Deep in the heart of Texas!!!" I always think of that song when I'm in Texas. I'll spare you my singing (you can thank me later). Next week, the TechSmith crew is heading down to Austin, Texas for the SXSW Interactive Festival! Tony Dunckel - the Snagit and Jing Product Manager, Mike Kujansuu - the Camtasia Studio and Morae Marketing Manager, Brooks Andrus - Senior Flash Developer, and I are headed south to the event.

I have 10 One-Day Tickets to the SXSW Interactive Festival to give away! First come, first serve! The ticket is good for one of the following days:

• Saturday, March 14, Noon - 6pm
• Sunday, March 15, Noon - 6pm
• Monday, March 16, Noon - 4pm

If you'd like a ticket, email me or contact me on Twitter (@betsyweber or @techsmith).

If you're in the area or attending SXSW, we'd love to meet up with you, hear your feedback about the products, do a screencast, or just hang out! Beverage of your choice is on me!

After SXSW wraps up, I'll be headed to Microsoft Mix09 in Las Vegas. Same rule there. Email or tweet me if you'd like to meet-up! I'd love to see you there!

If you're a Screencast.com user, you may have noticed some new features available to you today!

Customizable Pages: If you're a Screencast.com Pro user, you can now change the color, upload your logo, change the headers and footers, and customize your Screencast.com pages.

Training made a great video showing how to customize your Screencast.com pages. Check out the screencast below. It runs less than 3 minutes.

Optimized Display: One of the nice things about Screencast.com is that it does not alter your content by resizing or recompressing it. But, sometimes I'd have a problem sharing my image or video created on my large monitors. Often my viewer would have a smaller display. They'd end up having to scroll to see the image or video. Not ideal for my viewer or my content. Now Screencast.com will display your images and videos automatically at 800 × 500. This ensures that your viewers will not have to scroll and have a better experience viewing your content. And, they have the option to see your image or video full size if they choose. Oh, and your original file will not be altered.

My image before optimized display (Scrolling needed! Booooooo!):

My image after optimized display (No scrolling needed to see whole pic. W00t!):

Thumbnails: If you're like me, you have several different types of files in your folders. We've added icons for Flash, Quicktime, WMV, Camtasia Studio, PDF, and images so viewers can tell what type of file they are going to view.

Content Navigation: Viewers can now move easily between your content. You'll notice that there are now thumbnails below your content and above are 'previous' and 'next' controls. Viewers can easily navigate through multiple files you want to share.

I hope you like the new features! And, as always, we need your feedback to build better products. What would you like to see in Screencast.com next?

You can keep up to date on all the TechSmith blogs, including the Screencast.com one, here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

It's been awhile since we've had an update about Camtasia Studio on the Mac. The planets aligned last week and Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, and I were actually both in the office on the same day. I was able to get a quick video with him about the project!

It's a quick video and runs just over 5 minutes long. I hope it answers some of your questions and offers you some insight into what we're working on.

I will be giving you regular updates here on the blog and via Twitter. And, we have a Mac newsletter - sign up for a subscription or get the RSS feed here.

What questions do you have about Camtasia Studio for the Mac? Troy and I will be making another video soon.

Hey Blog Readers... I've got some insider news just for you! We've been working hard on a new product called Camtasia Relay. And, it's finally ready for beta testing.

So, what is Camtasia Relay? It is lecture and presentation capture for the masses - perfect for businesses and academia. Say you are a professor and you want to capture and share your lecture. Camtasia Relay makes it easy for you to do this - there is a simple recorder that's easy to use (see pic on the left). Step in the classroom or the boardroom, tell Camtasia Relay to record and deliver your presentation. After you're done recording, Camtasia Relay does all the work for you. You can automatically produce the recording into different formats, name the files and copy the files to different servers. There is an automated distribution system to share your recorded presentations easily.

This is TechSmith's first server-side offering. And, no new hardware is required - Camtasia Relay runs securely on your existing networks, Windows servers, PCs and Macs. The Camtasia Relay recorder runs on the local machine. It records full motion video so you capture exactly what happens during a lecture or presentation.

We've been eating our own dogfood and using Camtasia Relay internally at TechSmith. We've always had a mandatory Monday Morning Meeting for all staff at TechSmith. That's our time to get up to speed on company wide news and events. We've been using Camtasia Relay internally to record the Monday Morning Meeting. That way everyone knows what happened in the meeting. This is perfect for me as I often miss the meeting if I'm traveling. I no longer have to be out of the loop on any news or company wide discussions.

We're having a public beta. Sign-up starts today for 100 qualified people (you must have your own server). You can apply for the beta test here.

You can find more information about Camtaisa Relay here. And, you can watch an intro video and see Camtasia Relay in action here.

Rich Boys, the Product Manager for Camtasia Relay, sat down with me last week to explain what Camtasia Relay is, who it is for and how you can get in on the beta. The video runs about 3 minutes long.

Materials used to create this video:

Stay tuned - we'll be doing regular screencasts and videos about Camtasia Relay!

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!

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.

We're celebrating today at TechSmith! Our hosting service, Screencast.com has moved out of beta and into version 1.0! What does this mean to you? You get a totally redesigned and easy-to-use interface! Here are some of Screencast.com's features:

Take a tour here or if video is your thing, watch an intro video here!

And, don't forget to check out the Screencast.com blog for the latest news!

Have you tried Screencast.com? There is a free 60 day trial so you have nothing to lose. And, as you know, we're always looking for your feedback! Many of the improvements to Screencast.com's user interface have been the direct result of customer feedback. You can send your feedback to us in a couple different ways - you can use this form to email your feedback or feel free to comment here or on the Screencast.com blog.

I have exciting news today! We've been working hard on a new version of SnagIt v9 for you and it is available today! You can download it here.

Now, on to what's new! Click the screenshot below to view the 'What's New' video. And, you can read about all the new features here.

Here are some of my new favorite features. I'd love to hear what yours are.

Multi-image Capability - Now it's easy to combine images easily. I always found myself taking multiple screen captures and then wanting to edit and combine them. In the past, I would fight with SnagIt to do this. Not anymore! SnagIt 9 makes it easy to combine two or more images into one and recent captures are always visible in SnagIt's new Open Captures Tray. This makes it easy to drag-and-drop images onto the canvas to create a composite image.

Media Library - Often I want to take multiple screen captures but do not want to be bogged down to name the files or figure out where I want to save the files. SnagIt's new media library stores all of your captures automatically. And, you can view and sort your images however you like. It's easy to print or share multiple images via email or FTP.

Visual Search Pane - I'm always losing stuff - keys, files, papers... you name it. At least with SnagIt's new Visual Search Pane, I can find my screen captures later by date or website I captured it from. Now if SnagIt could just help me find my keys...

Custom Tagging options - SnagIt 9 helps me stay organized. As I capture images for projects, I can tag them with a keyword of "blog" or set the "Important" flag. I don't need to save anything in folders. I can view all the files I tagged "blog" with a click!

Nitty gritty details:

SnagIt 9 supports Microsoft Windows XP, XP x64, and Vista.

We also made a decision to update the price of SnagIt 9 from $39.95 to $49.95. We've made investments into SnagIt 9 to make it a more valuable tool for you and we hope you'll agree that SnagIt 9 is a better, richer, more versatile version of the software you love.

For the next 60 days, you can upgrade your existing copy of SnagIt for the upgrade price of $19.95. After 60 days, the upgrade price is $24.95.

Everyone at TechSmith would like to extend a big thank you to you - SnagIt would not be the product it is today without your loyal support. And, we know how much we owe you for SnagIt's success. We are better because of you.

And for a little trip down memory lane... Check out this screenshot of SnagIt v1.6! 17 years later, who could have guessed this "little" program, would become what it is today?! I can't wait to see what the next 17 years bring!

What's next? You tell me! I'd love to hear your feedback about SnagIt 9. Comment away!

I'm happy to share some news with you - there is a new release of Camtasia Studio v5.1! This is a free upgrade if you have Camtasia Studio v5.0.

Here's a quick update of what's new:

Callouts, callout, callouts! We have lots of new updates for callouts. There is a new Spotlight callout that dims everything on the screen except for the part you want to emphasize. The new Highlighter callout is a bright, bold highlighter pen for the screen. Plus, add and edit callouts faster and easily.

Third audio track now available - we've added a third audio track on the timeline. This makes is easy to add background or other audio to your screencasts.

Create screencasts for the iPhone and iTouch easily - We've added a preset for the dimensions of the iPhone and iTouch so you can produce videos quickly that look great on these devices.

ExpressShow is now available for the Flash FLV format - FLV videos are typically longer and contain more motion or camera video. Now you can wrap FLV videos in the ExpressShow template. They'll look great with full-screen playback, a floating table of contents and custom "about" box.

Organize, share and present Flash videos with the updated Camtasia Theater - Want to share several Flash videos online together? Use Camtasia Theater to create a customizable Web menu for any of your Camtasia Studio-produced Flash videos. ExpressShow, SWF, and FLV. Use Camtasia Theater to create a table of contents which makes it easily jump between videos.

You can find out all the details here about the new version. For information about how to upgrade, please visit here.

What do you think? Do you like the new features?

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

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

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

You can help shape the future of our products. Did you know that?

One of the requests I often hear at shows and meet-ups is about Mac versions of SnagIt and Camtasia Studio. We take every piece of feedback and product requests very seriously.

Because of your feedback, we're moving to release new products and expand our current products on both the PC and Mac Platforms.

And, the Jing Project is our first experiment in the Mac arena.

So, if you'd like to be in the loop about any new TechSmith products on the Mac, we've set up a News and Notification List which you can sign up for here.

And, as always, keep the feedback coming...our products are better because of the feedback and input you give us.

'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!

We're celebrating the release of Morae 2.0 today at TechSmith! We listened to feedback from users and our beta testers and made lots of updates and changes.

Some of the updates include:

• Graphing - Let Morae do the work for you. Morae 2.0 will calculate data and build graphs for you. Makes it easy to visualize your results.
• Built-in Survey Tool - you can easily measure participant satisfaction with Morae's new built-in survey too. No need for a separate tool.
• Tasks - Quit killing trees by using paper to track participant tasks. You can now define the tasks you want participants to perform in Morae 2.0.
• Markers - you can now view, edit, add more detail, and fix mistakes to your markers during logging on-the-fly...

More information about the release is here, complete with a Getting Started Video.

The Morae Product Manager, Shane Lovellette, sat with me to do a quick screencast to show off what's new in Morae 2.0. Click the screenshot below to watch the screencast. It runs just under 14 minutes.

Materials used in this screencast:

Hardware:

• Dell Latitude D820
• Samson CO3U Microphone

Software:

• Camtasia Studio v4.0.1
• Morae 2.0

Upgrade questions? Visit here!

Interested in making Morae better? Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to join our Advisory Board and start sharing your thoughts and feedback for future versions!

And, we'd love to get any of your feedback about the release. Please visit our feedback form here to send feedback directly to the Morae team.

I thought I'd share the good news with you! TechSmith is on the move! We're staying in mid-Michigan and moving our headquarters to Lansing, Michigan.

Currently we're down the road in Okemos, Michigan and are housed in several different buildings. Not only is it difficult logistically, but it's just not fun to trudge through the snow to other buildings for meetings.

Click here to read more about our expansion. You can even watch a video showing some of current office and an interview with our President and Founder, Bill Hamilton (he's pictured below).

There's another video here about our news. This video shows other parts of our office building and there are different interview questions for Bill Hamilton.

And, as the article states, we are expanding - not just our office space, but also the staff. If you'd like to work at TechSmith, get the ball rolling and check out our career opportunities by visiting here. I have so much fun on the job that it can hardly be called work! Don't you want to come work with us?

Put on your party hats, SnagIt Users...SnagIt 8.2 has been released today! What are you going to do to celebrate?!

My favorite feature? The print enhancements. It would never fail, I'd print my SnagIt captures and they'd be about the size of my thumbnail and usually unreadable. SnagIt 8.2 makes it easier to print your screen captures the same way you see them on the screen. Thank you, SnagIt team! You have no idea how many trees this will save...

I also like the new Callout styles. The callouts were updated with new styles - plain and glassy (I like glassy - so pretty and shiny!). The glassy ones are nice because they're transparent and don't cover up the words or images behind them. Also, you can create and save custom callouts with characteristics like size, shape, color and angle of rotation. This is useful if you want to reuse your custom callouts over and over again.

Planning to run Vista and Office 2007? SnagIt is compatible and ready to capture anything on Vista and Office 12.

And, I love this new feature...we have new SnagIt accessories so I can send my screen captures directly to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, MindManager, or Flickr with one click! I will be putting those to good use, especially the Flickr one (Have I told you lately how much I love Flickr?!)! Check out the accessories page here.

You can find out more information about what's new in SnagIt 8.2 here and download it here. Screencast should be coming later this week I'm told.

What's your favorite new feature or enhancement? What's on your wishlist for future releases?

And, that's why I don't have a new video from Troy for our 30 videos in 30 days series...

Sorry, the team is out playing kickball and dodgeball. You'll get two videos on Monday assuming Troy didn't get injured in today's celebration!

We hope you'll join us in the celebration of Camtasia Studio 4 when it's released soon too!

Remember Nick Hodges from Delphi? He was making 30 Camtasia Studio videos in 30 days. Well, he's inspired us to do the same! Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, is making 30 videos in 30 days about Camtasia Studio!

Up this week topics will range from recording tips to recording Vista and PowerPoint to editing with precision. Tune in each day for a new, exciting video.

So, let's get started. Today's video is all about recording tips like highlighting the cursor and smoothing it, as well as learning about "Take 2" markers and using F9 to pause...Click the screenshot below to start the video.

Any topic or feature you'd like to see covered in the next 29 videos?

The Astoria Project is no longer...it's now operating under its official name - UserVue!

The beta of UserVue is still rolling along, and you still have time to join in if you're interested. The beta will run until we launch UserVue around the end of September.

There was a new update of UserVue last week. There were several new, important features:

• Integrated telephone calling and recording - UserVue will call the facilitator and participant over the phone, automatically record the conversation, and synchronize the audio with the participant video.
• Improved participant interface - The user interface for the participant has been greatly improved to take up much less screen space. It is now unobtrusive for the participant and very simple to use.
• Video scaling for facilitator and observers - The screen video from the participant can now be scaled in the facilitator and observer applications. This makes the screen video view higher quality.
• Event capture is now integrated - RRT is now part of UserVue so all Web page changes, mouse clicks, keystrokes, and window events are captured and synchronized with the video when you import the recording into Morae Manager.

Please join our beta...We want and need as much feedback as possible from the new changes.

The product Web page has been updated here: http://www.techsmith.com/uservue.asp. Check out your new favorite program!

Earlier this week I posted some dates for some classroom training on Morae here. I just heard from our training department that in order to incorporate the newest features and functionality available in Morae 2.0, they're going to modify the dates.

Once I hear what the new dates are, I'll be sure to post them here. Coming soon!

On a side note, what cities would you like us to train in? I'll pass on your feedback to the training department. No guarantees on where they'll end up, but if we can show demand, they'll consider other cities!

Our developers have worked their fingers to the bone coding away for you. SnagIt 8.1 has been released on Tuesday! Depending on your version, you may even have a free upgrade!

So, what's in this release? Lots of good stuff. Remember how you can make those interactive screenshots with SnagIt? The ones where you add the Flash hotspots to your screen captures so text or images pop up when you click or mouse over the hotspot on the image? Well, we took it a step further.

Now, you can add those interactive images right on your PowerPoint slides. You'll have the edge over other people's PowerPoint slides - you can display pop-ups of detailed chart information, click on links to go directly online, and make your presentation an interactive experience.

Be sure to check out PowerPoint MVP Geetesh Bajaj's Hotspot tutorial here, as he's more eloquent than I am...

And another PowerPoint feature - with SnagIt's PowerPoint add-in, you can embed and play any .swf (Flash) files from your slides. If you've ever tried to add a video to your PowerPoint slides before, you know it wasn't easy - but now it is.

Let's talk about callouts. We've made them more flexible - you can resize, reshape, change the color and rotate them. You can also save your custom callouts so you can use them over and over again.

There are also more options for the SnagIt add-in toolbars in PowerPoint and Internet Explorer - you can now choose to keep the links in your captures intact and also save captures as PDF. And for SnagIt COM users - Web page (keep links) and Save to PDF options are now available in the custom development environment.

And, last, SnagIt is now completely compatible with the new 64-bit operating system and Internet Explorer 7.

Read more about the release here. Or, click on the screenshot below to see the marketing video about what's new in SnagIt 8.1.

I had the SnagIt Product Manager, Tony Dunckel, walk me through the new release and all the new features today. As soon as the screencast is edited, we'll post it here. Hopefully later this week.

Are there other SnagIt features would you like to see more in-depth screencasts about?

Camtasia Studio 3.1.1 has landed, so it's now easier to customize and share your videos!

We now have more Flash Playback bars. And, remember the 'Classic' look in older Camtasia Studio versions? Well, we made a mistake by removing it from Camtasia Studio 3.1. We had no idea that you would miss it. So, we listened to you and brought it back. If you need to have the same look and feel as your previously-created videos, it's now again possible. There's a nice Matte or Glass control bar too - check them out.

Other features include support for SCORM 2004, an option to split long timelines into multiple movies, and XHTML-Compliant production files.

What's better than a software upgrade? A free one. If you have Camtasia Studio 3.0 or 3.1, it's a FREE update.

Product Manager, Troy Stein, and the Lead Developer, Dave O'Rourke, made a screencast about Camtasia Studio 3.1.1. Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It's almost 16 minutes long so get comfortable. Or, read more about the release and download it from here.

Consequently, it's great to hear what you love about Camtasia Studio, but we need to know what you don't like about it as well - so we can improve. E-mail, call me on my cell - 517.410.0030, Skype me at - betsyweber, IM me on MSN IM at - b.weber@techsmith.com, comment on the blog, use the feedback form...do whatever it takes!