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!

As you know, TechSmith is headquartered in lovely Okemos, Michigan. And, lately, I've noticed many men walking around town in beards. Now, what do Michigan and beards have in common? Well, our 'local' hockey team in Michigan, the Detroit Red Wings are in the Stanley Cup finals... tonight. And, there is a tradition that hockey players and fans will grow 'playoff beards' once their team has entered the playoffs!

So, that got me thinking... hockey, playoff beards, tech... how can we bring them all together? That lead me to thinking about the mustache custom Snagit stamp I shared earlier this week (you can download it here). Well, why not have a playoff beard custom Snagit stamp too?! Check out our Education Evangelist, Dave McCollom sporting the playoff beard stamp!

You can download your own Playoff Beard custom stamp to use in Snagit here. Enjoy! I'd love to see what you create with it... Give your boss a playoff beard, your dog, a baby... it works on anyone. :-)

You can find more info here about how to install and use custom stamps in Snagit.

The 'beard is back' as they say! And, I'll be watching the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup tonight! ;-)

If you grew up in the 80s like I did, you are probably familiar with pop singer Rick Astley. In the last few years, maybe you've heard of "Rickrolling"? Basically it is like the old bait and switch idea - you send someone a web link that misdirects someone to Rick Astley's video, " Never Gonna Give You Up". Pretty funny!

So, naturally, when I saw the tweet above from Jessica Knott, it caught my attention. Snagit AND Rick Astley! A custom stamp match made in heaven! I had to find out more! So, I contacted Jess and she was kind enough to share the custom stamp.

If you'd like your own Rick Astley stamp for Snagit, you can download it from here.

Jessica also wrote a great blog post here about how she uses Snagit 9 at Michigan State University (my alma mater!) for documentation.

And, while we're on the topic of the 80's, you cannot talk about 80's pop stars without mentioning Hall & Oates. John Oates has a mustache that is legendary. So, I was thinking what better than a mustache stamp to go along with the Rick Astley stamp!? I tested out the mustache stamp on our Snagit trainer, Chris McQueen's pic to the left. :-)

And, I thought others might want to use the mustache stamp too (that's for you, John Quick)!. You can download the mustache Snagit stamp here.

If you'd like to make your own Snagit custom stamp, you can take any PNG, JPG, GIF, TIF or BMP. Chris McQueen from our Training Department will show you how to create and use a custom stamp in this handy screencast. It runs just over 2 minutes.

If you prefer a written tutorial, you can read here how to add a Custom Stamp to your Quick Styles Gallery in Snagit.

Chris also writes Snagit tips on Twitter. You can follow him here or TechSmith on Twitter here.

Want other stamps? You can download them here from TechSmith. Or, Geetesh Bajaj from Indezine and Scrapbook Presentations has hundreds of other free Snagit stamps available in a variety of categories here.

I want to see how you use the Rick Astley and mustache stamp! Email me the pics or post links in the comments! I'm lobbying our Creative Services Department for a set of different mustaches and eyebrows. You'd use them, wouldn't you?! Any other stamp requests?

Thanks for a good laugh, Jess! You make Snagit fun!

"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?

Ever since I started at TechSmith in 2000, we've had an all-staff Monday morning meeting. It's our time to get to know each other and share what we did over the weekend, hear company news, see product demos of upcoming releases, learn about new product ideas or hear about recent tradeshows. And, often several people are missing from the meeting due to travel, vacation or who knows what. So, we started recording the meetings. That way no one ever misses the meeting! And, we're all on the same page.

An easy way to share these types of Camtasia Studio videos with a team, class or other group is through iTunes. Its nice because others can subscribe to your videos in iTunes and then automatically get the updates.

I asked Kelly Mullins, from our Information Development team, to write a guest blog post and she wrote about how to share your Camtasia Studio videos in iTunes using Screencast.com. Enjoy!

Share a Camtasia Studio Video in the iTunes Store

With Camtasia Studio, you can produce an iPod or iPhone video (.m4v) and upload it to the iTunes store via Screencast.com so others can subscribe to it from within iTunes. When you add your content to the iTunes store, it makes your content available to anyone who uses the iTunes software application. Adding your video to the iTunes store also makes your video
searchable from within iTunes.

In this tutorial, learn how to:

• Produce a video in the correct iTunes video file format.
• Upload the video to Screencast.com.
• Submit the video to the iTunes store.

Estimated time to complete this tutorial is about 30 minutes.

This tutorial does not demonstrate how to take create a screen recording. To learn how to do this, see the Camtasia Studio online help.

What you Need to Get Started
You will need the following to successfully complete this tutorial.

• Camtasia Studio 6.0 or higher. If you do not have Camtasia Studio 6.0 or higher, you can download a copy here.
• A Free or Pro version of Screencast.com. If you do not have a Screencast.com account, you can sign up for a free account here.
• The iTunes application installed on your computer.
• An iTunes account to upload to the iTunes Store.
• A video to be used for the upload to the iTunes store.

Skill Level: Beginner

This tutorial is suitable for beginning users of Camtasia Studio. Knowledge of how to create a folder, name files, step through a wizard, and save files is needed.

Part 1: Produce the Video in Camtasia Studio

1. In Camtasia Studio, have your video on the timeline and ready to produce.

2. Select File > Project Settings.

3. The Project Settings dialog box appears. Select iPhone or iPod from the Presets dropdown. Click OK.

4. In the Task List, select Produce video as.

5. The Production Wizard appears. Select the same preset: iPhone or iPod and click Next.

6. On the Produce Video screen, enter a Production name and select a folder.

7. Select the Upload to Screencast.com option.

8. Click the Sign In button.

9. The Login Info dialog box appears. Enter your Screencast.com credentials and click Log in.

10. The Screencast.com options become enabled.

11. Create a new folder by selecting New Folder from the menu. Give the folder a name and click OK.

Note: You can also choose to upload to an existing folder. If so, all of the content in the folder that is iTunes compatible will also be submitted to the iTunes store.

12. Click Next.

13. Click Finish. The video will begin rendering and a progress dialog box appears.

14. When the rendering is complete, the video is placed in your Screencast.com folder and is displayed in the view page. Close Camtasia Studio.

Part 2: Submit the Video to iTunes Store

To submit a video to the iTunes store, your video must be in a Screencast.com folder. All of the content in the folder that is iTunes compatible will go to the iTunes store.
When you add your content to the iTunes store, it makes your content available to anyone who uses the iTunes software application and also makes your content searchable from within iTunes.

You must have the iTunes application installed on your computer and have an iTunes account in order to upload to the iTunes Store.

All content uploaded to the iTunes Store is evaluated by a moderator. This process takes 2-3 days. During this time, the content is not available for viewing.

Enable the iTunes Feed

Before you can submit the Screencast.com folder to the iTunes Store, you must first enable the iTunes feed. Screencast.com's iTunes feed is available for folders that contain iTunes compatible content. Any content in the folder that is not iTunes compatible is not sent to the iTunes store.

1. From the View Page, click the My library link in the breadcrumb trail or at the top of the Screencast.com page.

2. Mouse-over the folder you created during the production of your video and click Edit.

The Edit Folder Properties or Edit Playlist Properties dialog box appears.

3. Check the box next to iTunes to enable that feed.

4. Click Done.

5. While in the library, click on the folder that contains the iTunes feed that was enabled.

6. You will see the iTunes feed option at the top of the page.

Submit the Folder to the iTunes Store

1. Click the iTunes icon The RSS Subscription page appears.

2. Within the URL field at the top of the browser window, copy the entire URL (it should end in itunes).

3. Open the iTunes application.

4. In the left navigation pane, click on the iTunes Store link. The store appears on the right side.

5. In the iTunes Store group box, click Podcasts. The view of the store will change to reflect your selection.

6. Scroll to the very bottom of the page to the Learn More group box.

7. Click Submit a Podcast. The Submission page appears.

8. Paste the URL into the field provided.

Kelly Mullins is a long time resident of Flint, Michigan where she began her career in software development seventeen years ago. While a student at the University of Michigan, she helped pioneer a technical communications program focused on the emerging technology industry and became the first to graduate with that degree. The last six years have been spent at TechSmith where she has been a lead on the Information Development team working with the SnagIt and Camtasia Studio product teams.

Ever heard the saying, 'Audio is King'? One of the most difficult parts of a screencast is getting quality audio, in my opinion. And, there have been studies that show that the quality of your audio affects your audience's perception of the quality of your presentation more than the visuals. Poor audio = people think poor presentation. Kathy Sierra has a great blog post on the effect of sound on users that you can read here.

I struggle with audio especially when I'm out of a controlled environment. I often like to make videos on the road at events - usually in a noisy conference hall with high ceilings. This is a less than ideal recording situation.

So, I thought I'd round up a bunch of different microphones at work and compare them for you. Matt Pierce, the Training Manager, and I headed to our soundbooth and tested 6 different microphones. We used Audacity to record the audio at 44,100Hz. We tried to have as much consistency as possible, but we had to adjust the audio levels on each microphone. You will see in the screencast what level we recorded at. Also, I made the links a hotspot in the video, so you can click them if you'd like more info about the microphone. The screencast is short - running 1:30.

The text we used was from the classic book, 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Caroll:

"Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead: before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it."

Also, you should always check your microphone's manual to see where the most sensitive spot is on your microphone. That will dictate where you speak into it. Hint - it may not always be on top.

We liked the Audio-Technica Microphone as well as the Samson and Lapel microphones. What microphones have you tried that you like? Any tips to share with us and other readers?

Update:

It was suggested that I add prices for the microphones. So, here you go! Note: I could find most of the microphones/webcam cheaper than MSRP on places like Amazon.com.

Remember those math story problems you had to do in school growing up? I know, I'm trying to forget them too. :-) They'd walk you through a scenario (A freight train leaves the station traveling 30 mph... ) and you'd work your way through the math problem. These exercises would help you learn some new fundamentals in math.

Matt Pierce, our Training Manager, has created something similar - a Camtasia Studio Walkthrough that will take you through a project to learn the fundamentals of Camtasia Studio. You can find the PDF here. Feel free to print it, pass it out at work or in your presentation, email it... share it any way possible!

Like this type of resource? What else could you use? We're always looking for new ways to help you!

One request I hear is to add OCR (Optical Character Recognition) functionality to Snagit. There is a work-around if you'd like to do this with Snagit.

Why would someone want OCR functionality? Well, say you need a list of all the file names you have in a directory (song list, photo names, expense reports, etc). You could manually type them out one by one, but that takes too long. Or, sometimes you might want to convert a picture or PDF that has text into editable text.

If you have Microsoft Office, there is an easy way you can utilize OCR with Snagit. You can use Snagit with Microsoft Office's built-in OCR software. It's called Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI). Chris McQueen recently made a great tutorial for the Snagit Newsletter showing exactly how to do this. Check it out here.

Try it out! It's a great time saver...

What other tasks would you like to do with Snagit?

My computer's desktop is often like my desk. Messy! Which is fine for every day work. But when you're making a screencast, a messy desktop can be an ugly sight and major distraction to your viewers.

Stardock released a new product today, Fences. Fences can help with the organization and 'housekeeping' of your computer's desktop. Fences allows you to group your desktop icons and files together for organization or it can hide them with the click of a button. Perfect for quick clean up of your desktop for screencasting.

Lifehacker did a great review of Fences today - you can read it here.

And, you can check out this demo video (made with Camtasia Studio!) about Fences.

The price is right on Fences - it is free! Found any nice tools to improve your screencasts lately?

YouTube is hot - there's no doubt about it. Last year it was reported that YouTube is the Number 2 search engine, right behind Google. In August 2008, YouTube had over 2.6 billion search queries!

And, I know a lot of Camtasia Studio users would like to share their screencasts on YouTube. I've heard from a lot of people asking questions about getting the optimal settings and the best way to get your Camtasia Studio recordings with the HD option in YouTube. Our training manager, Matt Pierce, recently made some short videos sharing his tips and tricks that I thought everyone would like to see.

The first screencast is about recording for the HD YouTube option. This ~2:00 minute video will show you how to set-up your Camtasia Studio recordings to ensure you get the HD option on YouTube. 

These Custom Camtasia Studio production settings should give you a high quality HD source video for upload to YouTube:

• Use the Flash MP4 output
• Choose the No Controller Template
• Change the Dimensions to 1280 (width) x 720 (height)

Under Flash Options adjust the Frame rate to 30 frames per second, and the quality level to at least 55%

• Change the audio options to at least 96 kbps. 

The other tip I've heard is that YouTube displays low-quality video by default. If you'd like your viewers to see high-quality video (720p - 1280×720 resolution), add &fmt=22 to the end of the YouTube URL when you send it to them. Note: I've read that not all videos on YouTube are capable of this.

YouTube also states here on their FAQ that they are experimenting with HD.

There is also a thread going on in our TechSmith User forums about this. If you'd like to see more info, please visit here.

If YouTube isn't your thing, TechSmith created Screencast.com to host your videos. Screencast.com doesn't scale your content or re-encode it so the quality of your screencast matches your original and it is easy to use. We'll even give you some free storage and bandwidth.

What have you found when using Camtasia Studio with YouTube? Any tips and tricks you can share about getting HD quality?

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

Do you have any quick tips to share?

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

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

Hardware Used: Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet
Lapel Microphone

Software Used: Camtasia Studio
Microsoft Paint

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

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

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 may know, I love Twitter! If you haven't heard of Twitter, check out a quick informative video here from Common Craft. Twitter has been great to keep up with friends, to get advice and answers to questions, and get feedback from the community.

I noticed something different about Twitter the other day. People's profile pics had started... well, moving! Profile pics in Twitter can be in a variety of file formats include BMP, JPG and GIF - which means you could use animated GIFs as your profile pic!

I noticed this post on Twitter from Nils Geylen. He mentioned how he used Camtasia Studio to create his animated profile pic!

I must admit, I had not put two and two together. The ability to create an animated GIF with Camtasia Studio is one of those options that I just don't think about or use very often. Thanks to Nils for shining the light for me to make an animated GIF for a Twitter profile pic!

Producing animated GIFs in Camtasia Studio is easy. I made a quick Jingcast that runs just over a minute showing you how to do this. Simply select in Camtasia Studio>Produce Video As>Custom Production Settings>GIF - animation file and you're on your way!

If you join Twitter, feel free add me and TechSmith as your friend! If you use Camtasia Studio to create your profile pic, let me know! I'd love to see your profile pic in action!

Sometimes when I narrate a screencast, I stumble over my words. OK, most of the time I do audio in a screencast, I mess up. :-) I was playing around with Camtasia Studio tonight and once again, I made a mistake on my audio. I was reminded of a quick audio trick I thought I'd share with you.

Whenever I make a mistake narrating my audio, I will often either tap the microphone or pause for a minute. That way when editing, I can quickly locate either spikes in the audio or dead time which signals to me where I need to edit my audio. It makes it a lot faster for me to locate the problem areas to edit.

Hope this helps you! See the screenshot below showing where I tapped the microphone to indicate to myself where I needed to start editing. The spikes in volume stand out on the audio track.

Do you have any quick tips to share about audio?

I'm still in Berlin this week for Berlin Web Week. Yesterday I attended PowerPoint Anwendertage (that's PowerPoint User Days for those of you who do not speak German). I attended a session about video and PowerPoint conducted by Axel Becker. That's Axel and I to the left at a Berlin Eisbären hockey game tonight (Eisbären won, if you're interested!).

This reminded me to share with you some resources to using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint. One way to set yourself apart from boring PowerPoints is to spice them up with some great visuals and video.

I've seen many presentations completely derailed because the presenter ended up not having an internet connection that they were promised. I always liked to 'safety proof' my PowerPoint presentations with some Camtasia Studio videos. I'd simply use Camtasia Studio to record the website I wanted to show off, save the video, and add it to my PowerPoint slide deck. That way, it did not matter if I had an internet connection for my presentation.

Also, ever done a presentation and have someone ask for your slides? I don't about you, but my slides don't usually have a lot of text and I'm too lazy to write in-depth speakers notes. And, I often leave PowerPoint to show off software and websites. So, my slides are only one part of the story. Next time you present, hook yourself up on a microphone and use Camtasia Studio to record all elements of your presentation. That way you can share your entire presentation with anyone who'd like to review it.

I compiled a few links about using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint, but there are many more out there. Check out:

• A tutorial about how to record a PowerPoint Presentation with Camtasia Studio here.

• A SnagIt Output accessory for PowerPoint. Use this Output accessory to send your SnagIt screencaptures directly to PowerPoint... and its free.

• An example about how to add interactive images to your PowerPoint presentation with PowerPoint.

So, let's hear from you! How are you using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint? Any tips and tricks you can share with the group?

This evening I have been sitting in a hotel room in Prague under a blanket! Yes, I looked silly, but there was a good reason behind my actions. :-) I had to make a quick Jingcast to answer a SnagIt user's question. And, I just could not get acceptable audio in the hotel room. It sounded awful. Lights were making a little buzzing noise, the fan was turning on and off, and the audio was bouncing off the wall and higher ceilings. To put it technically... it sounded flat out bad.

I remembered a quick audio trick that anyone can use... as long as you don't mind looking a little funny. Simply put a blanket over your head and microphone when you record your audio. It is not the equivalent of a sound booth, but it can help quite a bit quickly and easily.

I was also digging on our website and found this article with some additional audio tips.

Oh, and here's another quick tip. Forget your tripod for your camera or video camera while you're on the road? You can use a lamp for your tripod! The screw on top of a lamp for the light shade is exactly the same size as the screw on a tripod that you attach to your camera!

Do you have any audio or video tips to share with everyone?

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.

I try to have a pic or video in every blog post. We've talked in the past here about how the combination of words plus a visual is much more powerful than words alone.

So, it is no surprise that I use SnagIt or Jing for a graphic for every blog post. And, consequently, there are a few features I routinely use in the SnagIt Editor to create the screenshot for my posts - I almost always resize the screenshot to scale it down and I use the 'Save As' feature.

There's a little known feature in SnagIt Editor called the 'Quick Access Toolbar' that makes it really quick and easy to have access to your most frequently used tools and options. I used the Quick Access Toolbar to make buttons for the 'Save As' and 'Resize' options. Now I always have access to the options I use most often and it saves me time from having to go to different menu options in the ribbon.

It occurred to me that many of you might not know about the Quick Access Toolbar so I wanted to share it with you. You can find out more about the Quick Access Toolbar here complete with a screencast.

Do you have any SnagIt tips or tricks to share?

PowerPoint and OneNote MVP Kathy Jacobs has a great sneaky SnagIt trick on her blog. You can check it out here.

When Kathy has a computer process that she needs repeated screenshots of, she uses the Capture Timer option in SnagIt for timed shots. Or, another great use of timed captures is to document things that happen too fast to capture by hand. Kathy gave a great example of a time she got an error on software she was testing. She kept getting an error that disappeared before she could read it, let alone capture it. That's where automatic screenshots came in - run the software, captured the error with SnagIt's timed capture, and document the bug! Simple!

Read more ways that Kathy uses this feature here. She also shows you how to set up timed captures too.

Thanks for the inspiration, Kathy! There is also a tutorial on our website here. Have you used the Capture Timer in SnagIt before?

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

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

How do you prepare before you record your screencast?

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

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

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

What will you make with SnagIt?

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

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

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

Note: TechSmith is one of GottaBeMobile's sponsors.

A little background music goes a long way and can set the tone and personality of your screencast. It can also make your screencast feel polished and professional. I get several questions about where we get the music for some of our screencasts. So, I thought I'd do a music round-up to share some sources we've found.

One option is to create your own music. I've used Cinescore and ACID Pro from Sony Creative Software. If you don't feel like composing from scratch, you can get some samples, loops and themes from Sony to help you create your masterpiece.

Creative Commons is also a great source music which you can search here. You can also try ccMixter for music that is free to download, remix and sample.

We use royalty free music that we purchase from Digital Juice often. The nice thing about Digital Juice is that most of their tracks are stackable which means you can pull out individual audio elements. So, if you find a track you really like but dislike part of it, you can just remove it.

DigitalJuice has a 10 second, 15 second, 30 second, 1 minute and a 3 minute version of each song. Here's a quick screencast about how to get to the galleries to listen to their samples. It runs less than a minute long.

The Camtaisa Studio Product Manager, Troy Stein, has compiled a list of his favorite music clips from Digital Juice's Stack Traxx. Here are Troy's favorites (the number represents the Volume Number):

• 04 RiverFlow (upbeat, fun)
• 06 ComeAndPlay (upbeat, little techno)
• 15 Mystique (lighter, subtle)
• 15 KickItBack (moderately upbeat guitar)
• 06 LookInside (un pocito espanol)
• 12 Letter of Intent (blue suit feel)
• 32 EstaBien (fun latin groove)
• 03 Magic (playful orchestra music)
• 37 Westcoast Vamp -- (bit of Jazz)
• 13 RadioActive -- (more of a driving, rockish sound)

Chris McQueen in Training used royalty free music for the Jing videos from Kevin Macleod at Incompetech.

What music sources have you found?

Growing up in Michigan, I have always been a hockey fan. I often went to watch games at Michigan State University and even played on a roller hockey team in college. And, if I couldn't attend a game, I would sometimes watch hockey on TV. I remember back in the early 90's Fox Television developed a special puck (FoxTrax) with internal electronics that would highlight the puck on the TV broadcast. That way viewers could easily see and track the puck on-screen. Sometimes it was hard to follow the action of small, fast moving puck on TV.

Just as the puck could be hard to track, the same is true for your cursor when screencasting. It can be hard on your viewers to follow your mouse movements. And, on some backgrounds, it may be nearly impossible to see your cursor. That's why I love this tutorial from video expert, Bill Myers! He'll show you how he makes his cursor big and red so his viewers can easily follow his activity. The video runs just 3 minutes long.

And, don't forget you can also highlight Camtasia Studio's cursor for added visibility. There is a tutorial here.

Thanks for sharing your tip with us, Bill!

As much as I love the computer, sometimes I need to step away from it. You know, to do things like go outside, read a book, go photowalking, hang out with my dog and family, sleep...

There's a little known feature in SnagIt that enables you to do screen captures whether you're at your computer or not! Set the capture timer on SnagIt and walk away - SnagIt will do the work for you capturing things like stock tickers, websites, software...whatever you like. You'll never miss the action on your computer again. There's a tutorial about it here. You can see some of the settings in the screenshot below.

Want to see this feature in action? Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration made a time-lapse video, made with SnagIt screen captures, showing how the website Techmeme homepage changed over 50 hours! His screencast is 50 seconds long. Check out the video and his blog write-up here. Amit also has a nice write-up about how he created the screencast here.

Do you think you'll try this feature? What will you capture?

Who doesn't need some extra time in the day? I thought I'd try out a new series on the blog and give you some time saving tips. I hope you like them!

First up, saving time with SnagIt. Did you know SnagIt has a batch processing feature? This can save you lots of time. Say you have several images you'd like to resize or maybe you'd like to apply a special effect (like a torn edge). Instead of selecting each file, one by one, and altering them individually, you could use SnagIt's Batch Converter to change them all at once!

Simply highlight all the images you'd like to change and then right click. Select 'SnagIt>Batch Convert Images' from the menu. Then follow the four step wizard! You can read the tutorial here

That's your time saver tip for this week. Do you have any time savers to share? What are you going to do with your newly found free time?! :-)

I have an apology to make to you. I've subjected you to bad webcam video in some of our screencasts. Remember back when Brooks Andrus and I made a screencast at PF Changs? Check out a screenshot of the webcam video below. It's bad, bad, bad! And, I'm sorry.

When I can, I try to use the better DV Camera I have versus my webcam, but if I'm traveling, I don't always want to carry the bigger DV camera, tripod and other gear. And, I always have the webcam hooked up in the office so often out of convenience, I like to use the webcam.

Well, I was excited to see this blog post over at Strobist blog. This is a blog post worthy of a bookmark!

And, you'll see how you can improve the picture from your webcam with a few simple tweaks. 5 tweaks to be exact:

1. For Pete's Sake, Don't Use Your Monitor as a Light Source
2. Soften the Light
3. Kill the Computer's Reflection in Your Eyes
4. Give Your Webcam What it Wants
5. Clean Up Your Background

Any tips you have to add to get better quality video from your webcam? Oh, and after getting tips from the Strobist, I promise I won't make you watch red webcam images anymore.

PowerPoint and OneNote MVP, Kathy Jacobs, recently wrote a blog post with a great SnagIt trick that I just had to share!

Ever need to fill in fields on a PDF? I have to do this periodically for contracts or sign-up sheets. And, if you're me, you can't fill out the form online because you don't own Adobe Acrobat. So, you know the drill...then you have to print it, write in your name, contact info, sign away your life, and fax it back. Too many steps for me. What to do? Well, Kathy saves the day and will show you how to use SnagIt to fill out those fields on a PDF form using SnagIt!

You can read Kathy's SnagIt and PDF trick here.

Got any SnagIt tips you'd like to share?

Bill Myers has done it again! I got an email from Bill about a tool he created for his Camtasia Studio videos...and he has made the tool free for everyone!

Bill has developed a 'video bandwidth protection' tool for use with your Camtasia Studio videos.

With this tool, you can control which site your Camtasia Studio video can be viewed on. And, this tool automatically causes your video to redirect to a specific URL if an attempt is made to display your video on a non-authorized site.

Why did Bill create this tool? Well, he wanted to protect his screencasts that he stores at Amazon S3 (or on any other hosting site) and make it difficult for anyone to steal bandwidth by displaying his videos on other sites.

You can find more information about the tool here. And, Bill even created screencasts to show how to use it.

Thank you, Bill! Check out Bill's site here - it's full of great resources and, of course, lots of screencasts!

Last week, I was excited to see a package waiting for me in my office! In it was my copy of Daniel Park's new book, Camtasia Studio 4: The Definitive Guide. This book is over 500 pages of Camtasia Studio tips, tricks and techniques. The book will take you through your project from start to finish and the book is appropriate for users at all skill levels.

Daniel resides in Spain, but stopped by our offices for a visit around the holidays and we made a quick screencast. In this screencast, Daniel gives his top tip for your Camtasia Studio videos. Click the picture below to watch the screencast. It's a short one that runs less than 8 minutes long.

You can pick up the book from the TechSmith website here or from Amazon here.

I have a few copies of Daniel's new book to give away and a signed copy the last version of the book, Camatasia Studio 3: The Definitive Guide. The first 4 people to e-mail me ideas for future screencasts will get a copy. I'll post in the comments when I'm out of books.

Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, was recently interviewed by Tom Cone over at Screencast Central. You can check out the interview here. You can hear how Troy uses Camtasia Studio 4 plus get his tips and tricks. You can hear Troy's thoughts on screencasting too.

I'm in the hot seat for an interview next week with Tom about screencasting and SnagIt. Anything you'd like us to cover?

And, if you haven't visited Screencast Central yet, give it a whirl. It's got lots of a great resources to get you started on your screencasting journey.

I ran into Kathy Jacobs at the APCUG Conference yesterday. You might remember her from this recent OneNote screencast. She sat down with me to do a quick screencast on how she uses SnagIt. She'll teach you new tricks and give you ideas on how to use SnagIt differently than you normally do.

The video is just over 11 minutes. Click the pic below to start the video. In my tests, the screencast ran fine on Internet Explorer, but I had problems with FireFox. I'll try to get this fixed on Monday. For now, please use IE.

To make the screencast, here's what we used:

Hardware:

• Dell Laptop - Latitude D820
• Panasonic MiniDV Camcorder
• 2 Lapel Microphones with a Y-cable/splitter

Software:

• SnagIt
• Internet Explorer
• Camtasia Studio

Plus, one dark and cold conference room at the Riviera Hotel

Does this count toward my new years resolution of a screencast a week?

Were you feeling sad and lonely since we wrapped up our 30 videos in 30 days series? Well, fear no more....You get another bonus video! Our next video in the series is done by the Camtasia Studio Lead Developer, Dave O'Rourke. Dave made an extensive video with everything you need to know about how to get smooth looking videos.

If you've ever had a video with choppy mouse movements, this video is for you. Dave also talks about codecs in this video. I don't know anyone who can talk more about codecs than Dave.

Click on the screenshot below to launch the video. Any requests for future videos?

When planning our screencasts and videos, we'll often storyboard them out. Our storyboards are simply a rough sketch of what we want to cover in the screencast and the content we want to talk about. Our better videos happen when we pre-plan them out. Go figure. Storyboarding helps us organize the content of the video and makes sure we cover all topics we need to incorporate in the video.

For example, here's a pic of the storyboard used in a recent video Kelly Rush made about UserVue.

You can see the video created from the storyboard here. The part from the storyboard is at about 2m:33s into the video (almost the end).

I recently found these storyboard pads of paper at Levenger that I thought some of you might be interested in as well. They're nice to use when planning your screencasts.

Or, if you'd like a free template for a storyboard, download a copy of the ones we use internally here and here.

What have you found useful when planning for your videos?

Looks like we're one video short this week. So, our final video will be posted next week. Thanks for sticking with us!

Up first is a video from our Senior Flash Developer, Brooks Andrus. He'll go over customizing the Flash Closed Captioning. This feature is new with Camtasia Studio v4. I guarantee you will learn something new with this video.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs just over 10 minutes.

Video 29 is with Dave O'Rourke, the lead Camtasia Studio developer, and Troy Stein, the Product Manager. They'll go over all that is fixed and new with Camtasia Studio v4. It's a longer one that runs over 25 minutes. There are a few funny moments in the video too.

Click the screenshot below to launch the video.

Today you get two videos for the price of one!

First up, Video #26 is about adding horizontal navigation Table of Contents (TOC) to your videos. Troy created some sample nav bars that you can have. Download them in a zip file here along with a screenshot of the nav bars in this zip file.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It's a longer one that runs about 15:22.

Video #27 in our series is about doing smoother software demos in one take. I was talking to Troy and he mentioned how he's learned a lot creating these videos in our 30 days series. So, he wanted to share what he's learned with you. He's learned to do a minimal amount of scripting before the demo and that helps him to do fewer "take 2s".

You'll see how Troy uses PowerPoint for his storyboarding and records PowerPoint and the software demo in one fell-swoop.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs 6:40 mintues.

Today's video in our series is all about Camtasia Studio and PIP - Picture-in-Picture. I like PIP video because they add that personal touch to training and presentations.

The video will go over how to record, edit and publish PIP videos. And, also Troy will talk about best practices.

Click the screenshot below to launch the video.

We're up to video #24 (Yep, we owe you a video for yesterday). Today's video is all about customizing web menus in Camtasia Studio.

If you'd like to add DVD-like navigation to your Camtasia Studio video, this screencast is for you. Custom web menus make your content easier to use and navigate. Viewers can watch videos at their own pace.

This is a shorter screencast. It runs 4:22 minutes. Click the screenshot below to watch the video.

Today's video is all about how you can reuse sections of your already recorded videos. Sometimes you want to cut a portion out of your video, but want to reuse that clip in other araes of your presentation. This screencast will show you how to easily do this in Camtasia Studio 4.

This a short video that runs 3:21 minutes. Click the screenshot below to watch the video.

Tonight, we're on our way back from the League of Innovation Conference on Information Technology (CIT ) in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the show, Troy Stein gave a presentation with Jacques du Plessis from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Jacques has a wonderful website about learning Afrikaans online. There are many Camtasia Studio videos on his site to learn Afrikaans - click here to watch one of the videos (pick 'Clothing 2' Movie off the submenu).

The presentation Troy and Jacques gave was all about creating podcasts, screencasts and Screencast.com, RSS, PowerPoint to iPod videos, and more. Troy recorded a video of part of his presentation. So, that's video #22 in our series.

Click the screrenshot below to watch the video. It's a long one clocking in at over 22 minutes. So, get comfortable and enjoy!

Brooks Andrus, our Senior Flash Developer, created this next video in our 30 videos in 30 days series.

This video is all about the quizzing enhancements and new survey feature in Camtasia Studio 4.0. Brooks also talks about SCORM.

The video speaks for itself so I'll keep the post short...

Click here to watch the video. It runs about 6:30 minutes.

In my opinion, some of the hardest parts of video is the audio portion.

Troy walks through some of the new audio improvements in Camtasia Studio 4 in Video #19. We worked hard to make your voice narrations sound better all the way around.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. The video runs just under 5 minutes.

Video #20 is all about custom production settings. Maybe you always want to produce AVIs that is 725x540 in dimension with high quality audio. You can set up a custom production setting to do just that. Troy will walk you through creating your own custom productions settings for consistency across your videos. Troy even talks about how to share your custom production settings with others.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. The video runs just under 4 minutes.

OK, we're in the home stretch for videos. Anything you'd like to see covered over the next 10 videos?

As you may remember, I'm addicted to my video iPod. So, naturally, one of the new features in Camtasia Studio 4 that I'm really excited about it the ability to easily create a video for the iPod. You could do this before, but it wasn't easy.

In the 18th video in our series, Troy walks us through recording, editing and zooming in the video (this is important for videos played on the small screen), producing and getting your video on the iPod.

Click on the screenshot below to start the video. It's a longer one that runs about 13:30 minutes.

Anyone making videos for the iPod that they're willing to share?

When giving presentations, I like to embed Camtasia Studio videos in in PowerPoint to show off a website or application. Then, you don't have to worry about multi-tasking while presenting and running a demo at the same time. I'm free to move about the room as well.

Click here to watch Video #15. The video runs just over 5 minutes.

You've heard about hot spots before, but what about cold spots? Aren't you intrigued now? Video #16 is about advanced interactivity and creating interactive simulations.

This video does not show a new feature in Camtasia Studio, but rather a new way to use an existing feature.

Click here to watch the video. It's a longer one clocking in at over 9 minutes.

Take a trip down memory lane back to Comdex (I miss that tradeshow) with today's video. One year at Comdex, Troy saw a presenter give a flawless demo...using Camtasia Studio. Troy shares some tricks about giving self running demos using Camtasia Studio and the Pack and Show feature.

You can learn more about Pack and Show here.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video.

Today's video is all about sharing...sharing your Camtasia Studio projects with others for editing or collaboration as well as sharing notes with others.

Not only is this new feature useful when you're working on a team but it also creates meta tags so when you publish your videos you can have project, author or iTunes information associated with your video.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video.

Do you think you'll use this new feature?

Video #12 in our series is available. Dave O'Rourke, the lead Camtasia Studio developer, walks you through Camtasia Studio recordings and how to make the most of them. Ever wonder what a 'CAMREC' file is? Dave will answer that question as well as how to share AVIs for editing and more.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video.

Ever made a Camtasia Studio video and played it back only to hear your computer's fan churning noisily in the background? Or, Remember those videos I made at the airport, tradeshow floor or hotel lobby with users? There's lots of background noise. Not always ideal for your listening pleasure. A new feature coming in next version of Camtasia Studio helps alleviate that problem.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video!

It's all about timing...do you ever find your Camtasia Studio video is too slow or too fast? Maybe you want to just extend a frame. You're in luck - in today's video, Troy covers all these topics as well as splits, transitions, clip speed and more.

You know what to do - click the screenshot below to start the video!

Do you like these videos? Would you like to a 30 day video series for our other products like SnagIt or Morae? I know where the SnagIt and Morae product managers sit in the office - I can twist their arms for you. ;-)

I get tongue tied and stumble over my words all the time. And, when making videos, it's no different and it is not pretty.If you're like me, you may want to edit that out. And, the good thing is that you don't have to remake your recording. You can simply edit your video. Today and tomorrow's video from Troy is all about precision editing with Camtasia Studio.

Troy goes over the clipbin, preview window, timeline, navigating and cutting in Camtasia Studio. I know you'll learn several new things in this video.

Click the screenshot below to view. Enjoy!

I'm jealous of John Madden. I think it's cool how on Monday Night football, he gets to draw all the Xs and Os on the screen. It's a nice way to draw attention and illustrate examples on the screen. Plus, everyone likes a visual example to go along with words.

Well, if you'd like to imitate John Madden but don't have a Tablet PC, you can still do this in your Camtasia Studio recordings with a little feature called 'Screendraw'. You can learn more about Screendraw here.

Check out the next video in our series all about Screendraw! Click the screenshot below to watch the screencast.

One of the best tips I got from Troy for making Camtasia Studio videos was about this great little freeware app called 'Sizer'.

When making videos, often you want a uniform window size for the screens you're recording. You can do this easily with Sizer. Sizer allows you set a resize your app, Web page or any window to a predefined size. It's great when record your video, because you can make the windows in your videos a consistent size.

Check out video #3 all about using Sizer with Camtasia Studio. Click the screenshot below to start the video.

Download Sizer here. Hope you like it...

I've seen some great videos made with Camtasia showing off Vista like this one and this one.

Wondering how to best make your own videos of Vista? Troy Stein has made a video doing just that. Check out today's video by clicking on the screenshot below.

Two down, 28 videos to go!

Recently, a question was posted on the blog asking us to clarify some different terms like vlog, podcast and screencasting. If you've ever taken advantage of our free tech support, you may have talked or emailed with AJ Morris. AJ was kind enough to sit down with me for a screencast to go through the terms.

Click the screenshot below to meet AJ and watch him talk more about some new terms. It runs just over 6 minutes.

Here are some links to definitions from the screencast:

• Podcast
• Vlog
• Screencast and Jon Udell
• Webcast
• Inkshows and GottaBemobile.com

What other questions do you have for tech support? We're ready to personally record you an answer!

Professional speaker, Camtasia user, and all around good guy Terry Brock recently stopped by our offices by way of Florida.

I'll be honest, I'm not a public speaker. And, if you've seen any of my screencasts, you know this...really well. Maybe too well. :-)

So, I had to take the opportunity when Terry was here to get some of his top tips for public speaking in hopes that it would help my screencasting. And, you also get the benefit since we recorded it!

Click the screenshot below to start the video. It runs just over 10 minutes.

To learn more about Terry, visit here.

What would you like the next screencast to be about? (Need help overcoming any other fears, phobias, snakes on a plane?)

Make sure your microphone is plugged into the microphone jack and not the headphone jack.

<*sigh*>

Am I the only one this happens to? Seriously?

Often I do the same screen capture over and over...Region capture, torn edge effect, saved to a file in .jpg format. Ever do routine screen captures like me? I got really tired of manually setting up that same screen capture over and over. Did you know you can save your favorite or most commonly used screen captures with your own custom SnagIt Profiles? And, even share those profiles with others?

Microsoft Word MVP, Dian Chapman has a great SnagIt tutorial this month about Custom Profiles in her newsletter, TechTrax. Check it out - She's a lot more articulate than I am, so I'll let her walk you through it step by step. Click here to read the tutorial.

If you're looking for more great tips and tricks about using computers, sign up for Dian's newsletter here.

On my last trip to Chicago I was lucky enough to meet up with Dian and Greg Chapman. She gave me a great insider's tour of the Windy City in her convertible! Here's a pic from our visit...Greg Chapman (far right) is pretending to shoot me at the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in North Chicago!

I love my iPod and I'm addicted to it...I admit I have a problem! I also love Camtasia Studio, so what better than putting the two together?

So, I was pleased to hear that I can make Camtasia Studio videos for mobile devices - videos to watch on the go!

Kelly Mullins from our technical writing team has written a guide called Creating Portable Media on how to convert your Camtasia Studio recordings to many different devices, including the Apple iPod, Sony PSP, Palm and Creative Zen Vision. Now I think I need to get each gadget to test each out myself...

You can download the Creating Portable Media guide here.

We also have a great tutorial video about how to create content for the video iPod by Dan Kazup, our training manager. The video will take you from start to finish through a project.

Click the screenshot below to view the video:

It's a 15-minute video, so depending on your internet connection, it might take some time to load, but it's worth the wait.

Now I just need to stop watching videos while I'm driving! Just kidding.

Is anyone else doing this? Any tips to share with others? Show them off - post a link to your videos in the comments.

Confused about captioning, Camtasia Studio 3.1's new feature that allows you to add text to your videos? Want to learn more? Well, I have a treat for you.

Glenna Shaw, PowerPoint Magician and Microsoft MVP, recently wrote an article for us about all the ins and outs of captioning - complete with videos that have captioning in English, Spanish and German! You can read the captioning article here.

As you can see from her picture, she really is a PowerPoint Magician!

Her article offers lots great information about types of captioning, plus the difference between subtitles and captions. It also has links to some great resources.

You can read more about Glenna here.

Last time I saw Glenna, she was wearing a great t-shirt that was 'captioned', if you will. The PowerPoint guru's shirt said, "*.PPT: Weapons of Mass Instruction".

Would you like to contribute an article for us to share with others? E-mail me if you'd like to discuss article ideas!

I wanted to go more in depth about the new features in Camtasia Studio 3.1 for you.

So, I asked the Camtasia Studio developers to make screencasts of the features they worked on. Who better to tell you about the ins and outs of the new features than the person that actually made them?!

So let me introduce developer Marty Gardner! His screencast focuses on captioning - one of the new main features of 3.1. He gives great tips on making it easier to add captions to your video.

Click on the screenshot below to start the screencast!

What's the next feature you'd like to see a screencast for?

I was talking with Dan Kazup, our Software Training Manager, and he told me a video editing trick. It makes editing videos faster and easier for me, so I thought I'd share it with everyone.

The Microsoft IntelliMouse I use has five programmable buttons. The mouse's software interface allowed me to program the mouse for specific applications. So, I programmed my mouse buttons to correspond with Camtasia Studio's hotkeys.

Here's a screenshot of the Camtasia Studio-specific settings:

Now when I fire up Camtasia Studio, I can use my mouse to insert a marker, split a frame, and switch to the storyboard view.

Also, when I leave Camtasia Studio, the mouse settings return to normal - no need to worry about it interfering with any other software.

If you have a programmable mouse...give it try and see if this works for you.

Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with all the extra time I'm saving...Maybe talk to Dan more often.

I met with Echo Swinford, PowerPoint MVP extraordinaire, at PowerPoint Live. We talked about doing a screencast, but we were just too busy having fun to sit still long enough to make a video.

Thankfully, after Echo returned home she recorded a Camtasia Studio screencast on a little-known PowerPoint feature: Select multiple. Ever heard of it? I bet you haven't - that's why it's her top PowerPoint tip.

"Select multiple" is a really handy feature when you need to select objects on slides that are hidden by other objects, or objects that so near others that they're difficult to select individually.

Click the screenshot below to start the screencast.

If you prefer a text version of her tip, visit PowerPoint MVP Steve Rindsberg's FAQ: Selecting shapes that are covered by other shapes

Thank you so much, Echo, for your PowerPoint tip and Camtasia Studio video ... video ... video ... (You didn't think I'd close out without one reference to Echo's name, did you?)

Anyone else have some tips to share with us? Send me your video or share your link in our comments.

I bugged the Camtasia Studio Product manger, Troy Stein, to make a screencast about making screencasts. Say that several times in a row.

In this video, Troy gives us his tips for creating a screencast that will play inside of your blog or Web site page. Click the screenshot to view the screencast:

Why screencast? Several reasons really.

1. Show AND tell! It's more interesting for your blog readers, and sometimes ... words just aren't enough.
2. It saves you time - how long would it have taken me to type out instructions on how to screencast? Much longer than it takes to make a narrated screencast. And with zero typos.
3. Show your personality.
4. It's a great way to promote yourself and your expertise.
5. Be different - need a way to stand out in the blogosphere? Start making screencasts!

Here are some great resources to get you started:

Jon Udell, lead analyst for the InfoWorld Test Center, is the father of screencasting as far as I'm concerned. He even coined the term 'screencast'. He has many great screencasts on his blog as well as some great advice.

Bill Myers has a great article on screencasting

And some of my favorite screencasts include:

Cliff Atkinson made an impressive screencast with Camtasia Studio and PowerPoint.

Alex Barnett has a great screencast about RSS 101.

As I mentioned earlier, David Pogue has some of the most entertaining ones I know. I'm starting a David Pogue Fan Club. Who wants to join?

Are you screencasting? If so, let me know. I'd love to see your masterpieces and what you're screencasting about!

Greetings from the show floor at PowerPoint Live! I'm having a great time in sunny San Diego.

I was able to get a few minutes with PowerPoint MVP and author Kathy Jacobs,and she sat down with me to do a screencast on the show floor. We managed to find a quiet corner in the conference room, I hooked her up with a microphone, set up my Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 webcam, and launched Camtasia Studio for a quick video.

In this screencast, Kathy shares with me her top three tips for PowerPoint Users. See how much I don't know . . . yet! Click the screenshot to launch the video.

Watch the screencast

I'm learning a lot at the show, but I have severe PowerPoint shame after seeing the PowerPoint presentations done by the MVPs. They trulyare works of art.

The product manager for Camtasia Studio,Troy Stein, was asked by a customer this week, how to present twovideos in a side-by-side layout: powerpoint on one side andcamera video on the other.

It takes some doing (this is not for the faint of heart) but the results can look quite nice.

Watch the screencast

Time: 8:40 minutes

If you've made Camtasia Studio videos like this, I'd love to show them off to our blog and newsletter readers! Send me an email or please leave comments.

Raise your hands...How many of you have ever seen a speaker show a video in a presentation only to have the projector display a black box on the screen while the audio and video plays just fine on the laptop?

I'm here to admit that I have been this presenter. In a crowded room, I went to show off one of my Camtasia Studio videos and you guessed it...black screen of embarrassment. After fumbling around for what seemed like forever, I remembered to go into the Control Panel and the Display Properties to disable my hardware acceleration. Problem solved.

Obviously, this isn't a Camtasia Studio issue. It's a video issue. It doesn't matter what you use to create the video...it's your default computer settings.

So, in order to save you from the pain and humiliation I've experienced, I thought I'd share this article from a friend, Steve Rindsberg, who is a PowerPoint MVP: Videos play correctly on computer but not on projector (black box)

Thankfully this did not happen during my presentation at HTCIA with Duane Hopkins on Wednesday!