I really like Jing. Sure, you could dish out hundreds of dollars for Captivate or Camtasia and get a bit more robust set of features (including the ability to create videos over 5 minutes and post production editing), but in terms of value, it’s hard to beat this free, simple and easy to use piece of software for creating videos of screen captures.
One feature I would like to see in Jing that it currently doesn’t have is the ability annotate content on the screen as I create screenshot videos. Well, this week I came across a free tool called ZoomIt from the Sysinternals group at Microsoft. Here is another handy, free tool that allows you to do simple annotations on the screen, and also allows you to zoom in. Put Jing and ZoomIt together and you’ve got a handy screen video capture that allows you to annotate videos. Here’s a quick example of what you can do with Jing and ZoomIt.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://clintlalonde.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/jingzoomit2.swf" height="400" width="500" /]
6 Responses
Alec Couros
May 10th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
1Zoomit: cool tool. Thanks. Jing also needs the ability to save as something other than .swf. That would also make a great difference.
Clint
May 11th, 2008 at 8:08 am
2I agree. Another file format would be great. What would be even better is if sharing services like blip.tv and YouTube would support swf files, which is the business model I think TechSmith, the makers of Jing, is trying to exploit with Jing. They make it easy to upload your screen captures to Screencast.com, their (paid) hosting service that does support .swf files.
Debbie G
May 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am
3That’s very handy! Thanks for the tip, Clint. Jing has annotations for their “still” captures, but not for video, so it’s great to add that functionality. And yes, I wish YouTube took .swf files. You can upload to Screencast.com for free, but I don’t know if there’s some limit to the number or whether it will flip over to paid at some future time.
Clint
May 12th, 2008 at 9:01 am
4Is Screencast free? When I looked at it it I thought it was strictly a subscription service? Hmm, might have to take a closer look. If there is a free option then that would be the way to go.
Dominic
May 21st, 2008 at 11:06 pm
5Dear Clint…once more you provided an excellent link to an excellent product….I can use that tool in my teachings no problem. I have many ideas, my students will LOVE it because it will be very useful to THEM and not only to me! Thanks again!
Clint
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
6Thanks for the feedback Dominic.
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