Super simple screen capture - with video!
Jing, www.jingproject.com, is an amazing little utility for Windows or Mac that lets you capture your screen, either as a still image or as a video. Have you ever wanted to show someone else what's on your screen, either to have them help you or to help them from a distance? I have a friend who likes to send me big fat Word documents into which she's pasted an enormous .bmp screen shot. I'm going to turn her on to this. It will save us both a lot of bother. Niels, a colleague of mine, likes to spice up his Powerpoint presentations with video demos of various software features. I think he might enjoy trying out Jing.
This sunny little wonder, currently in Beta and completely free, is really simple and intuitive. On a Mac, it downloads and installs in seconds. On Windows, it takes a bit longer because it needs to install the .net framework, if it isn't already installed. Once installed, it hovers discreetly at the edge of your screen, as a little yellow globe or sun, waiting for your mouse to hover over it. Then you can launch a screen capture or video. If you have a microphone, it will record audio as well.
Once you've captured what you want, you upload it with a single click to a site and gives you an URL you can send to your audience. The first time you do this, you are prompted to sign up for a free account with the hosting service, screencast.com that provides 200 MB of storage. Seconds later, your capture is available for sharing and the URL is handily copied to your clipboard automatically. Voila!
As an example, I made this little screen tutorial. It took about 5 minutes from start to finish. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to use the tool to capture the tool itself, so I just found something quick to demonstrate. Seems like they might need to do something to optimize the final video, but it is, after all, a Beta version.
This sunny little wonder, currently in Beta and completely free, is really simple and intuitive. On a Mac, it downloads and installs in seconds. On Windows, it takes a bit longer because it needs to install the .net framework, if it isn't already installed. Once installed, it hovers discreetly at the edge of your screen, as a little yellow globe or sun, waiting for your mouse to hover over it. Then you can launch a screen capture or video. If you have a microphone, it will record audio as well.
Once you've captured what you want, you upload it with a single click to a site and gives you an URL you can send to your audience. The first time you do this, you are prompted to sign up for a free account with the hosting service, screencast.com that provides 200 MB of storage. Seconds later, your capture is available for sharing and the URL is handily copied to your clipboard automatically. Voila!
As an example, I made this little screen tutorial. It took about 5 minutes from start to finish. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to use the tool to capture the tool itself, so I just found something quick to demonstrate. Seems like they might need to do something to optimize the final video, but it is, after all, a Beta version.
posted by Ann Powell Groner at 19:41
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