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 stocking up on tiny bottles of shampoo and toothpaste. That means I'm getting ready to hit the road and come to a town near you hopefully!

I've been plotting out my schedule this year and here's what i have penciled in on my calendar. I will schedule Geek Dinners and meet-ups all along the way. I want to meet-up with as many of you as possible while I'm on the road. I'll also post on the blog all the details about when and where we will be having our Geek Dinners. Stay tuned!

Please leave a comment, email, text or call (+1.517.410.0030) me if you're interested in meeting.

And, yes, I will be bringing lots of sporks with me to share with you! I will also be posting pics from my travel here.

Schedule:

July:

• July 30 - 31 - Maker Faire Detroit, Detroit, Michigan
• July 30 - Ignite Great Lakes, Detroit, Michigan

August:

• August 12 - 14 - ScreencastCamp, TechSmith Headquarters, Okemos, Michigan
• August 17 - 19 - DevLink, Chattanooga, Tennessee
• August 30 - Sept 2 - Microsoft TechEd, Gold Coast, Australia

September:

• September 5-6 - Swipe Conference, Melbourne, Australia
• September 18 - 21, The Presentation Summit, Austin, Texas

October:

• October 1 - 5 - Adobe MAX, Los Angeles, California
• October 24 - 26 - Business of Software 2011, Boston, Massachusetts
• October 29 - 30, BarCampLondon, London, England

November:

• November 7 - 11 - Øredev, Malmo, Sweden

December:

• December 7-9, LeWeb, Paris, France

You can also check out our tradeshow calendar here for other events that TechSmith is participating at. Any suggestions on events to attend? Places to visit? Restaurants to try? Any travel advice would be appreciated!

I'll bring the sporks and you bring yourself!

I'm heading to Atlanta, Georgia for Microsoft's TechEd conference next week. If you're attending the conference or are in the Atlanta area, I'd love to meet up with you!

On Monday, May 16th, Chris Woodruff of Deep Fried Bytes and I are planning a dinner. If you'd like to join us, please let me know. Dinner and sporks are on TechSmith. Space is limited so please email me to reserve your spot. We will be at a venue close to the convention center.

See you there?

Ah, SXSW Interactive! A great chance to see what's hot in the world of web and mobile, meet up with a bunch of our fabulous customers...and wear rockstar wigs and hand out fake mustaches. Yep, the TechSmith crew did our part to help "keep Austin weird" this year.

If you didn't make it to the festival, you can get recaps of a lot of the sessions as slides and notes, sketch notes, or even rap!

This year at the TechSmith booth we invited people to show off--in 2 minutes or less!--an app or website they built. We recorded these demos with a combination of Camtasia, a Kodak Zi8 video camera, and an IPEVO document camera for capturing mobile apps. Editing chops provided by Camtasia for Mac.

Here are demo screencasts from six startups we discovered and thought you'd want to know about...along with a quick, written description of each.

(Videos are embedded below in a playlist. Navigate between videos using the arrows and thumbnails; if you're having trouble viewing them, click here.)

Hashable (mobile app) - keep track of the people you meet on Twitter and in the offline world, either publicly or privately. See who's part of your "inner circle" and who you connected with at that last tradeshow. Which reminds me...I still owe a few follow-up emails from SXSW.

Vablet (mobile app) - push videos, docs, images, presentations onto your team's mobile devices...get stats on how they're using the content...and refresh or kill it when you need to.

Remind101 (web app) - developed right in our own backyard of Lansing, MI, this one sends students a text or email to remind them of the big exam or final project. Can it prevent that nightmare where it's finals week and you remember that you were enrolled in 5 classes, not 4?

WebDoc (web app) - a quick way to pull rich media and interactive widgets into a blog post or webpage. For example, make a slideshow out of of images found all over the web.

Locaii (mobile app) - start conversations with friends or strangers nearby. Yes, in the old days we did this without an app. But imagine being able to say, "whoa, did you see that!?!?" without giving yourself away.

FriendlyMusic (web app) - put music in your videos, legally. As in, remain friends withYouTube. Right now the licenses are for consumer use only, but CEO Paul Anthony says they will be offering commercial licenses for business use soon. And in the meantime, they offer commercial licenses at MusicLicensingStore.com.

How about you? Did you discover any interesting, new startups by attending SXSWi or tuning in to the chatter? Post a link in the comments or tweet about it using the hashtag #sxswapps!

Daniel Foster is the "social media guy" for TechSmith. He enjoys iceboating, ice cream socials, and isosceles triangles. Tweet him up @fosteronomo

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

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

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

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

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

Are you heading to the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on October 14 - 16? If so, a couple of geeks fromTechSmith will be there too! And, we want to meet you! See why in the video below! :-)

In addition to having a booth at BlogWorld, I'll be speaking with my favorite partner in crime, Betsy Aoki from Microsoft Bing (Betsy is also the blog queen at Microsoft!). We'll be talking all about community. I hope you'll join the conversation at our session.

See you there? Feel free to drop me a line (Email or +1.517.410.0030) if you're at the show or in Las Vegas!

One of my favorite publications is InfoWorld. I always learn something from their articles and product reviews. Plus I also have a soft spot for InfoWorld because it is also where Jon Udell started the conversation that coined the term 'screencast' back in 2004!

This week at TechEd in New Orleans, I caught up with Brian Chee. In addition to being wonderful, Brian is a senior contributing editor at Inforworld and is also the director and founder of The Advanced Network Computing Laboratory at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

I grabbed a quick video with Brian on the Expo floor and he shared how InfoWorld uses screencasts, what his readers think of the screencasts, his tips for a new screencaster and also how they use Camtasia Relay at the University of Hawai'i. It's a quick video that runs less than 3 minutes long.

I also posted some pics of our trip to New Orleans and TechEd here. You'll see pics of beignets, creative uses of cable ties, pics from the TechSmith booth, kilts, the Mississippi River and more!

"Laissez le bon temp rouler" as they say in New Orleans... Let the good times roll!

Chris McQueen, Instructional Designer, Adam Marks, Lead Snagit Developer, Donald Cook, Sales, and I are heading down to the Big Easy, New Orleans this weekend for Microsoft's TechEd.

If you're attending the conference or are in the New Orleans area, we'd love to meet-up, get your feedback, hear about your screencast projects, or even just hang out! I have some TechSmith sporks and software with me to share! Donald Cook is in the pic on the right showing off a titanium TechSmith spork. :-)

Stop by our booth at TechEd, #540, and find me before I run out of sporks and software. And, feel free to email, call or text (+1.517.410.0030) or tweet me (@betsyweber or @techsmith)

If you can't make it to TechEd, we're attending lots of other events. You can see our full tradeshow calendar here.

I also need your help! Any suggestions for places to go for live music or eat in New Orleans?

I am ready to hit the road! I've got my TechSmith spork packed and I'm heading out to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo!

If you're attending the event, stop by the booth (#630). I'll have some sporks on hand for some lucky visitors. And, also Dirk Frazier, the Product Manager for Jing and Screencast.com, will be hanging out in the booth. I know he'd love to hear your feedback and ideas about Jing and Screencast.com.

Not attending the show? Let me be your roving reporter. Anything you want me to investigate? And, I'd still love to meet! Anyone up for dinner next week? If you'd like to go, leave a comment, email, text or call me (517.410.0030).

And, I can always use travel tips. Any where I should go or must see in San Francisco?

The TechSmith crew is heading out to the land of Elvis impersonators, aka Las Vegas, next week for the NAB Show (National Association of Broadcasters). It's my first time attending the event and I'm looking forward to picking up a lot of pro tips and tricks for audio and video.

And, I'll be carrying plenty of those TechSmith titanium sporks! If you want one, find me at the TechSmith booth, SL9912.

Are you attending the show or out in Vegas? We'd love to meet-up with you while we're out there! Email, call or text me (517.410.0030). Not attending the show? Is there anything you would like me to scout out for you? A certain product, technique, session? Let me know!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm a Navy brat. Every summer my dad would go on active duty and my mom would load my sister and I up in the car and we'd head out on a road trip to meet-up with him for vacation. We'd hit the road and visit Washington DC, Chicago, Rhode Island, Norfolk... wherever he was stationed. It was a great way to see the country. I've always loved a good road trip!

That's one reason I was so happy to be picked by GM to head on a road trip from Lansing, Michigan to Austin, Texas for SXSW! TechSmith will have a booth at the SXSW conference (booth 124) in Austin, March 12 - 16. Hopefully I'll have time to meet-up with some of you on the road or at the conference!

Tiffany Wood, the Snagit Product Manager, Kathy Jacobs, Social Media Credit Analyst and OneNote MVP, and Kyle Mulka from Twilk and I will be heading out March 09 on our drive to Austin.

I'll post some updates here that are relevant to you. And, we'll be flooding Team Lansing blog will all the details of the trip, video and pics. And, you can follow updates on Twitter: @betsyweber or @LANChevySXSW I will also be posting pics here.

And, as I prepare for the trip, I can't get this old jingle out of my head! Do you remember this one?

I hope to see many of you on our trip or at SXSW in Austin! Drop me a comment or email if you'd like to meet-up! I'll be posting our route soon!

I'm on the road with my buddy, Screennoms, in the Big Apple, New York City, this week for the O'Reilly Tools of Change conference. You can see some pics from our adventures here. Would anyone like to meet-up? They still have ice skating at Rockefeller Center! Anyone want to take a few laps around the rink?

I'll be home just long enough to do laundry before heading down to Atlanta, Georgia for the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Conference on Saturday, February 27.

I'd love to meet-up in NYC or Atlanta. Drop me an email or call me at 517.410.0030 if you're around. And, I'm always looking for travel advice. Where should I go? What should I see?

Can't meet-up in New York City or Atlanta? You can see our entire event schedule here. Maybe we're coming to your city later in the year!

The thermometer reads 17°F today in Okemos, Michigan where TechSmith is located. And, Weather.com says it feels like 4°F (which I can confirm, it does feel that cold!). I have to admit, I am pretty happy to be hitting the road next week and heading to a warmer locale!

I'll be in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, next week (Jan 6 - 11). I will be looking for new webcams, microphones, computers and other new technology to use with Snagit, Camtasia, Morae and Jing. And, I'm also hoping to meet-up with any of you who are attending the show or are out in Las Vegas.

I'll be posting pics from the show floor and events here. If you're not attending, but would like me to scout out some new technology for you, let me be your roving reporter! :-) Just let me know what company you're interested in and I'll stop by.

If you're attending, I'd love to meet-up. Please feel free to call or text me at +1.517.410.0030, email me or leave a comment on this blog post.

I need to start packing today, but at least I can save some room in my luggage and leave my long johns behind in Michigan! Hope to see you on the road...

I love a good road trip, don't you? Well, people of the UK, you've been warned... I'm coming to your side of the pond next week. And, I have rented a car!!! So, you might not only want to stay off the roads, but you may want to leave the country entirely!

I've got one last trip on my schedule this year. And, it is shaping up to be a great one! I hope I can meet up with many of you on the road!

Up first, is a stop is London! We're having a meet-up on Nov 30. I'd love to see you if you're in the area. Sign-up and details can be found here.

Big thanks to the wonderful Ian Smith (@irascian on Twitter) for organizing the London Meet-up! That's him in the pic with me!

After London, I'm heading up to Edinburgh, Scotland for a meet-up with the famous (or infamous!) DevExpress Evangelist Gary Short. I'm hoping Gary can teach me more Scottish slang words like tickety boo that I can use in screencasts. :-)

After that, I'm off to Ireland to meet with the awesome Heather James. Remember her? She wrote the Missing Manual for Jing.

And finally, I'll be in Paris December 9- 10 for the LeWeb conference. Anton Bollen will also be joining me in Paris for LeWeb!

So, if you're in London, Edinburgh, Dublin or Paris, I'd love to meet-up! Beverage of your choice and a titanium TechSmith spork is on me! Drop me an email, leave me a comment on the blog, call or text me (+1.517.410.0030).

Any travel advice for me? Where should I go? What should I see? Where should I eat?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last week, the TechSmith crew was at the Blogworld Expo. We had a great time and even had a fun new booth. The theme of our booth was all about Snagit, Camtasia and Jing making tasty screencasts and yummy screencaptures. In our booth, we had our new Om Nom Nom Monster. See? He's eating some screencasts and screencaptures with a spork! :-)

And, keeping with the theme of tasty video and screencaptures, we thought it would be fun to get some titanium TechSmith sporks! If you find me on the road, ask me for your own titanium TechSmith spork.

Brooks Andrus and I were armed with a Flip Mino HD videocam and caught up with some TechSmith friends. We shot a quick video with Sean Carruthers and Andy Walker (aka the Lab Rats) from butterscotch.com. Click the video to find out the idea Sean came up with for a new blog! It's a quick one - it runs less than a minute long.

And, we also ran into Ryan Hupfer (aka Hup) from Hubpages. Not only did Hup and I have the same shoes, but we also share the love of sporks. Check out the quick vid Brooks and I got with Hup at the tradeshow - it runs just over a minute long.

And, speaking of TechSmith sporks... Healthcare IT consultant and Camtasia Studio user, Luke Schnoebelen, is chronicling everything he eats with his TechSmith spork on his new blog, "Things I've Eaten With My TechSmith Titanium Spork". I love the creativity! Can't wait to see the adventures Luke's spork goes on around the world!

We've been taking pics of our Om Nom Nom monster and sporks on the road - you can see our adventures here. Again - find me on the road and I'll give you a titanium TechSmith spork. Hopefully it will inspire you to make your own yummy screencasts and screencaptures with Snagit, Camtasia and Jing!

I love loading up the car and heading out for a roadtrip! It's a good time to turn of the technology (expect for GPS!), clear my mind, and think creatively. And, once I reach my destination, I love meeting with our users, attending events, and learning about a new city and culture.

I have a few extra tickets for two upcoming events that you can enter a drawing to win!

The first conference I have a ticket to share with one lucky reader is the StackOverflow DevDays in Toronto on October 23. You can find out details on the event here. I'm attending this event with TechSmith's lead developer of Snagit for the Mac, Paul Middlin. If you'd like to meet up in Toronto, please let me know! Email, text or call me (+1.517.410.0030)

In November, we're heading to the Degrag 2009 conference in Denver, Colorado. I have one conference pass to give away.

To enter the drawing to win one of the free conference passes, please leave a comment on this blog post by 5:00pm EST, Friday, October 16. Please include:

1. A topic or idea you would like to me cover in a blog post on The Visual Lounge blog
2. Which conference you would like to attend - StackOverflow DevDays, Toronto or the Defrag Conference

The Heart of America, The Big Peach, and Sin City... I'm hitting the road and am visiting these cities in October! I hope to see some of you on the road too!

This week, I'm in Kansas City for the Cerner Health Conference. If you're in the area or attending the event, drop me a line, call or text (+1.517.410.0030) me. I'd love to meet up! First round of a beverage of your choice is one me!

After Kansas City, Tiffany Wood, the Snagit Product Manager, and I are headed to Atlanta for PowerPoint Live, October 11 - 14.

And then I'm heading to Las Vegas for the Blog World Expo, October 15 - 17.

Same offer applies for each city - drop me a line if you're in the area. I'd love to meet up and get your feedback, hear about your screencasting, give some training tips or talk shop.

I'm lucky enough to go to several shows a year, but TechSmith goes to many more than I attend. You can see our entire tradeshow calendar here. Hope to see you on the road!

I've got my mini bottles of shampoo packed and ready to go! I'm headed to the BlogHer where I will join over one thousand other bloggers. I'm looking forward to learning from them, being inspired and joining the conversation.

If you're in town attending the conference or are in Chicago, I'd love to meet-up for a meal or a beverage of your choice. :-) Just drop me an email, call or text me (517.410.0030) or contact me on Twitter @betsyweber

I need your feedback to share with the teams at TechSmith so we can make you better products. And, if you're really feeling crazy, I'd love to shoot a quick video or screencast with you. I'll be armed with my camera and video camera.

Any restaurants I should try out in Chicago or any recommendations for some new music? I've got a 4 hour drive ahead of me and I'll need something new and fun to listen to on the road!

It's that time of year... Time to dust of my comfy shoes so I can hit the tradeshows running!

At TechSmith, we're busy planning our travel schedules for the fall and 2010. Here's our current calendar of events. We're always looking to participate in events around the world.

That's where I need your help. I'd love to know what tradeshows or events you'd like to see TechSmith attend? Where would you like us come visit?

Dave McCollom, our Education Evangelist, also wants to know what Education events you want us to attend - leave him a comment on his blog here.

And, the best part of travel and tradeshows? I'll give you a hint... It's not going to an exotic location or spending time at the airport. :-) The best part is meeting you, hearing your questions, getting your feedback and seeing how you're using our software. Let us know where we should go and hopefully we'll see you this fall or in 2010!

By the way, that is Kathy Jacobs on the right in the pic above. She's a Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing user. We met at a tradeshow many years ago and she's become a lifelong friend. :-)

Brooks Andrus and I are having a great time at 360|Flex today! We had a chance to catch up with Renaun Erickson, a RIA developer at Adobe and who is also the driving force behind Structured Log Testing, an open source project for RIA Flash platform developers.

Renaun shared with us the benefits of visual communication for him and how he needed a little more than Jing for his screencasting (he hit the 5 minute limit). He shared how he uses Camtasia Studio.

And, in keeping with the bacon theme, we got Renaun to try one of the maple bacon lollipops we brought to the conference! He may be the biggest bacon fan I have ever met! The video is just under 4 minutes long...

We recorded the video with a Flip HD Mino camera and Brooks edited and produced the video using Adobe Premiere and After Effects

The pic above is by Eric Stoike - See more of his great pics from 360|Flex here

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

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

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

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

Maple + Sugar + Bacon + Stick = Good?