As you know, Jing is about quick and simple visual communication. Sure, our arrows aren't the fanciest and some people want to have control over the shadows (or no shadows at all!) We also get lots of requests wishing Jing could have some ability to capture more than what's on the screen.

When it comes to tons of features and options, Windows users have been able to turn to Snagit. Well, today TechSmith released a beta version of Snagit for Mac! Anyone can get access to it for free.

Betsy Weber, over on the Visual Lounge has all the details and a great overview video!

Check it out and tell us what you think!

Hey, Jingers! I'm Jim, a Mac Developer here at TechSmith. I'm the guy who wrote most of the Twitter functionality for the Mac version of Jing. This is a feature we've talked about for a while, and I'm stoked to see it shipping for both Mac and Windows (and for both Free and Pro versions of Jing).

Working with the Jing team to design and implement this feature was a blast. We evaluated a ton of other Twitter clients along the way, drawing as much inspiration as possible. We tried to take the best parts of what we've seen, add in a little TechSmith magic, and still make it feel natural. We hope you like it.

The coolest part, in my opinion, is the in-line progress bar that shows up while your media gets sent off to Screencast.com. It was a bit harder to write than I expected, but I'm completely geeked about it now. We weren't 100% sold on the design at first, but it turned out to be a great way to let you write your tweet and upload at the same time where many clients only let you do one. I'll show you what I mean in this short video clip.

We're always looking for feedback on everything we do. Did we hit the nail on the head? Did we miss something crucial? Let us know. Every blog comment and piece of feedback gets read.

The addition of a Twitter output in Jing is clearly a noticeable update. However, two more changes coming on December 8th might go unnoticed by most people.

On Mac, Don made improvements to the History that will be especially appreciated by anyone who has their History filled with hundreds or thousands of captures. It has to do with speed and memory improvement and Don will talk more specifically about those later.

On Windows, our uber-intern, Dennis, refactored the code for the capture selection window and it's dramatically improved.

I sat down with Dennis to learn more details. Check out his Jing Art glasses.

Mike: Dennis, I'd love to tell our readers about your improvements to the selection window...but I don't really understand it. Can you explain what you did?
Dennis: I significantly reduced the lines of code, but more importantly the code is much easier to follow now.
Mike: What does your work mean for our users?
Dennis: Essentially, the idea of improving the code in the selection window was to improve the user experience of both selecting an area to capture on the screen and make it easier and safer for any future modification or improvement we may wish to make as developers. Key points are:

• The best thing is that future modifications of this process for us will be easier and less risky
• You might see minor speed improvements
• The selection process should feel somewhat more natural and stable

Jing SWF videos (the only type of video available in the free version of Jing) is optimized for viewing on the Web. You make a video, send a link to the video and people click the link and watch your video.

However, maybe you want to save SWF videos to your computer. If you double-click a Jing-created SWF to open it, there's a good chance your computer won't know what to do with it...and you might get a dialog like this:

Now just because your computer might not know what to do with the SWF doesn't mean you can't "teach" it.

Important: All SWFs are not the same. Some, like Jing's are videos with the controls attached to the bottom. But SWFs shouldn't be assumed to be a video format--it's really a Flash application. For example there are any number of SWF games people play on the web, so please be careful if you start trying to open non-Jing SWFs as described below.

There are two main ways to open Jing SWF videos on your computer.

The first is the simplest and done on a per-file basis. Open your favorite web browser, then click and drag the SWF file into the browser window. The Jing SWF will play in the browser. You may need to resize your browser depending on the size of the video.

You can also associate the .swf file extension with your favorite browser. This is a more long term solution as your browser will attempt to open any and all SWF files when double clicked.

• For Vista
• For XP
• For Mac OS 10.5

To do so using Windows Vista:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With
3. Click Choose Default Program...
4. The goal is to associate your favorite web browser with this file type. It is unlikely a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox will appear in Recommended programs. If your browser appears in the recommended programs, select it. Make sure Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is checked. Click OK. If your browser does not appear in Recommended programs, click the Browse button.
5. Navigate and select your desired browser. The file you are looking for will likely be in a subfolder of the Program Files directory. It will be an .exe file. For example Firefox.exe or iexplore.exe and should have a familiar-looking icon.
6. Make sure Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is checked. Click OK.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

To do so using Windows XP:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With...
3. The goal is to associate your favorite web browser with this file type. A browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox might not appear under Choose the program you want to use to open this file dialog. If not, check Always use the selected program to open this kind of file then click the Browse button.
4. Navigate and select your desired browser. The file you are looking for will likely be in a subfolder of the Program Files directory. It will be an .exe file. For example Firefox.exe or iexplore.exe and should have a familiar-looking icon.
5. Click Open.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

To do so on Mac OS 10.5:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With.
3. Click Other...
4. Select the desired browser, most likely from your Applications folder.
5. Check Always Open With.
6. Click Open.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

Woah! We just found the very first Jing demo video we ever made. Anyone out there remember that interface? You'll have to click the video twice to get it to start playing.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

It's fun looking back sometimes...but not as fun as looking forward!

I thought I would go through the 'ol Feedback Email bag and pull out a few questions that seem to pop up now and again. I've tried to answer these awesome Jingers individually, but I'm guessing if people are taking the time to write us, there's probably a lot more of you out there with similar questions.

System Audio Recording

Jing is optimized for recording narration using a microphone. Jing detects and uses the default audio input device (which is usually the microphone). That said, people are going to want to record system audio (the computer sound or sound that comes out of your speakers.) You may be able to do it, but the key is changing the default audio input device. This may not be supported on all Vista machines. Check out this article for starters, and note at the bottom there is additional help for both Mac and Windows. This article was written for Camtasia Studio, but is equally applicable to Jing. It goes into a lot more troubleshooting and work-arounds, especially for Vista.

Selecting a Capture Size

We don't exactly go out of our way to expose it, but if you click and drag a selection while holding the Shift or Control key you can get a 16:9 (widescreen) or 4:3 (standard) aspect ratio that "snaps" to popular dimensions. Dimensions are important if you want high quality YouTube screencasts or want consistency on your blog or website.

Remember Where I Saved it Last Time!

Sorry, it should work the right way, but it's a Jing Windows bug that is fixed in the next release. However, this is a good opportunity to mention that you can setup a custom Save button to automatically to a particular location--even a network drive. Here's how to do it.

Hi everybody;
As part of my job, I get to hear many stories and see numerous examples of how people are using Jing in the real world.
I'm excited about this blog post because I get to share with all of you how one of our users, Marc Barman, uses Jing.

Marc lives just east of Sacramento, California, and has had many roles bridging computer technology and people. They include Technical Trainer, a Product Support Specialist, a Technology Transfer Specialist, a Systems Implementation Specialist, a Training Developer, a Systems Analyst, and a Troubleshooter. To keep sane and balanced he plays jazz saxophone and chauffeurs his Bouvier back and forth to the dog park.

When I asked Marc, what inspired him to make a screencast about JiWire.com, he told me:

When I first got my MacBook, I typed "Free WiFi" into Google, and got pointed to JiWire.com, a directory of WiFi locations. Recently, a friend of mine who is a nurse for a Sacramento-area hospice and visits patients all over town, was given a WiFi-enabled laptop. She asked me "How do I find WiFi locations?" I wanted to not only tell her the site address of JiWire, but also show her HOW to use it. Jing saves the day!

Here is his screencast (2:55). You may wish to click the full screen viewing option in the lower right.

Last but not least, our favorite quote from Marc:
"One Picture (still or moving) Is Worth A Thousand Words. Still true today! Actually, moving pictures are probably worth 1,000 words per second."

You may think of Screencast.com as just the most convenient way to host your Jing content so you can quickly send a link to someone.

In fact, Screencast.com can host virtually anything. Usually it's images or video, but there's no reason you couldn't upload a PowerPoint presentation or a huge ZIP file containing project resources.

Before getting into the Desktop Uploader (which is free and works on both Mac and PC), I should make clear the uploader doesn't have anything to do with Jing directly. The best way to send your Jing images and videos to Screencast.com is to do it straight through Jing. The purpose of this post is to show how you might take more advantage of the Screencast.com account you got with Jing.

Here are some typical scenarios where people use the Desktop Uploader:

• You have a file that's way too big to attach to an email. You upload it to Screencast.com, then email the link to the file. Your recipients download it themselves. (Learn how to make content down-loadable to viewers.)
• You want to back up a bunch of videos or files. You select them all and upload them to Screencast.com via the uploader.
• You're looking for feedback on the latest (non-Jing) screencast you made. You upload it to a password-protected folder that contains previous versions. It's easy for the viewers to look at each draft.
• You need to work on something at home, but you forgot your USB drive. You can upload it to yourself.

The Desktop Uploader is easy to download and install. Be sure to keep the following in mind--especially if you're using a free Screencast.com account:

A free account comes with 2 GB bandwidth per month. Bandwidth is the total amount of data you can transfer per month. For example, if 10 people downloaded your 10 MB video, that would be 100 MB--or 5% of your monthly allowance. As you can see, using the Desktop Uploader with large files for yourself or with a small group is one thing, but trying to share a large video with hundreds of students or the public could chew up that bandwidth pretty quick. You can always check your bandwidth. Learn how here.

Ian Ozsvald is a screencasting machine! Ian has written a great blog post about how to make a screencast with Jing in 30 minutes!

In this screencast tutorial, Ian will show you:

• How to start recording with Jing on Windows (it works the same on Mac)
• How to upload your recording
• How to get a reminder of the shortcut URL that it magically gives you after the upload is complete
• The Handbook's Google Group where you are encouraged to share your screencasts so we can help you improve

Ian's screencast runs just over 6 minutes. Be sure to check out Ian's full blog post here about making a screencast with Jing in the next 30 minutes.

Ian is a professional screencaster who has made 170 screencasts since 2005! Ian is also working on 'The Screencasting Handbook'! This is a great resource for any screencaster. To be first in line for the release of the Handbook, you just have to sign-up on the mailing list here (by signing up you'll get a discount on the early releases of the book).

Screencast on, Ian! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and making the world better screencasters!

When I'm making a Jing video, I like to conserve my viewer's time and my time. What do I mean?

An example is if I am uploading a file. I don't think my viewer cares to watch the 12-second progress bar. Likewise, they might not appreciate me fumbling around trying to bring up the right window or document. In cases like this I pause the recording.

To pause the video you can press the pause button, but it does take a second or two and the viewer can see your cursor trail off to find the button. A faster way is to use the pause/resume hotkey.

On Windows, press F8, to pause and resume your recording. (Make sure video hotkeys are enabled in More > Preferences.)

On Mac, the pause hotkey is the same as your capture hotkey. By default this is Command + Shift + 1. Press the hotkey again to resume your recording.

Heya!
As some of you might know, we've been posting tips and tricks for Jing on Twitter. In case you missed some, or if you're not following us, here are the first 5 tips again:

How to Resize Embedded Jing Content: This tip explains how you can change the screencast.com embed code to resize the content when embedded on another site. How to Cover Sensitive Information: Use the rectangle tool to cover sensitive information in your screenshots. Adjust the Opacity of Drawing Tools: The PC version of Jing lets you adjust the opacity of the Drawing tools - here's how. Embedding a Video on a Wordpress Blog: Embedding Videos on Wordpress.com can be tricky... but the VodPod extension makes it nice and easy. Tip suggested by Julia Brewster. Save to Desktop: Create a Button in Jing that will save your capture automatically to your Desktop... or any other desired folder.

Bonus Video
Please also check out this tutorial:

A passionate Jing User, Jim Dornberg created it. Isn't that awesome? Thanks, Jim!

And if you have created any Jing related tips or tutorials that you're willing to share, we'd love to hear from you. Just comment on this blog post, send us a tweet or use good old fashioned email.

Do you use Jing in isolation or do you often use Jing in conjunction with other programs?

We came across this neat post over at www.macangel.com showing how you can incorporate some hand-written notes into Daylite--a business and life management application. Marni "The MacAngel" Melrose, has a nice screencast that shows how these three applications work together for her.

Check it out! Then tell everyone here how you use Jing with other apps in your daily work flow.

Update 12:40 pm, 11-June-09:

Tech Support has been receiving a number of calls from people experiencing Jing crashes on start up. We have confirmed and can reproduce the error and want to share what we know at this time.

This seems to be a Tiger-only issue at this time. We know this is affecting Mac OS 10.4.11. It may affect more versions of Tiger.

Users are having some success with Jing if they disconnect from the Internet, then restart Jing.

Fixing this issue is our top priority and we are currently investigating leads. We will update this post with new information as we get it.

About two months ago, we asked for your feedback about how the new snap to region/aspect ratio should work.

The core internal debate was whether we should show all available dimensions at once or just the next closest dimension. 97 people told us something, but by the time we had to lock down the decision, it was slightly in favor of Prototype A--show one region at a time.

However a number of people asked for both.

Ok, fair enough. :) So here's how it panned out. On the Mac, we got it in. You can display one dimension (default) or ALSO hold the alt/option key if you want to see all available dimensions. Windows doesn't have this ability yet, but we'll get it in there. (Tempting to blame the intern, but that wouldn't be fair or true.) For now, think of this little option on the Mac as something of an Easter egg.

Now, on to working on the next Jing release! If we start another food fight in the lunch room debating the "right way" to do something we'll be sure to ask for your feedback again!

Cross posted from The Visual Lounge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We got an email the other day asking if there was a way to delete everything in the History. Well, this post will show you a "behind-the-scenes" way to do it for power users. In addition it might free up some memory if you're a Mac user. Disclaimer: Messing around with files and folders could screw up your History or lead to unintended consequences, so do so at your own risk!

Now, on to the video, but first a couple of tips:

• Don't be alarmed by the face close-up at the start of the video. It lasts less than 10 seconds. If you need to, just look away until you hear the audio change.
• You can watch the video in full screen mode. (You may want to wait to go full screen until the "face scene" passes.)

Hiya.

Here's a brief overview of what's in this little release.

For Mac and Windows:

• Several smaller bug fixes
• swfs should have improved viewability (a new word!) when opened locally (not on the web)

For Mac only:

• Fixed Tiger Intel crash
• Fixed a memory leak

For Windows only:

• Allow video capture hotkeys to be turned off in the preferences if they conflict with something else

NOTE: Comments have been disabled for this post.

If you find any bugs or issues, PLEASE report them to Tech Support.

You can download Mac Jing here.

You can download Windows Jing here.

have a good day,
Bill 'Thank you for all your feedback!' Scanlon

Over here at TechSmith we strive to stand apart from the kind of tech support you may be used to. Casey's a great example of that effort. Whether you're on Mac or PC (Casey's an expert on both), if you submit a problem or question about Jing, it'll likely end up on his plate.

Jing's different than our other products because it's an application and a service. Because Jing is a "cloud" application, it forces updates, so we get a huge rush of thousands of downloads and installations in a short span of days. Thankfully, this release has gone very smoothly, and we appreciate all the feedback we have received on the new features and improvements in Jing and Jing Pro.

While Casey's been busy, he still finds time to have a life outside of work, enjoying Macintosh evangelism, snowboarding, and creating multimedia art like this:

Should you need to contact Support, I made a little Jing (0:30, no audio) to show you how you can go to the support website, look up Jing-related information and submit a ticket if necessary. One thing I know the Support team loves -- if it's possible -- is a Jing describing your problem so they can see exactly what you're experiencing. Of course, if you need Support because you have an issue with Jing that could be easier said than done...

Oh--and if you have a "How to" kind of question, first check out the new Jing Help Center. Your feedback is very much appreciated.

Hello!
Did you know that you can move Jing's Sun Launcher?

Just left-click on the sun launcher (press Shift and click for Macintosh), hold down the mouse button, and move the sun launcher to a different edge of your screen. It's easy.

For those of you who would rather see what I'm talking about, I updated one of my old videos that explains in detail how the sun can be moved. Check it out:

This video is of course also available in the new Jing Help Center.

In an effort to address the Jing Pro video problems associated with the latest release of QuickTime (v7.6), we have released a new version of Jing (for Mac users only). Jing will prompt you to install this latest version the next time you restart.

With this new version, Mac users can once again record videos in .MP4 format and share those videos as desired. We do however, view this release as a step in completely resolving the problem, as there are still a few lingering issues.

Remaining issues:

• Videos may get out of sync between the video and audio if the user mutes and restores the audio during the recording OR the user pauses and resumes during the recording.
• If the user's CPU becomes highly stressed, the resulting video and audio content may also become out of sync.

We will continue to investigate the remaining issues. That being said, we wanted to restore the ability to record .MP4 videos as quickly as possible with this release.

NOTE: Windows users of Jing will be not affected by this update.