The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.

This release brings lots of fixes and improvements. Most of these were a result of feedback we received from users. Keep it coming!

• You can now move the sun to a location without needing to hold down the Shift key. Just click in its center and drag it wherever you want, on the edge or corner of your display (except the Dock or Menubar). The Shift key method still works, and makes it easier to grab.
• The microphone used during video recording can now be selected in the Sound panel in System Preferences. This fixes problems some users had when they wanted to use a microphone other than the one Jing picked to use.
• Jing now better adjusts to adding/removing displays while running.
• Command-A can Select All text in the Name field in the Image or Video windows.
• The default name for captures no longer contains slashes or colons, and now uses the ISO date format.
• When you Save a capture, Jing remembers the folder, and defaults to that folder the next time you save.
• Also fixed bugs with Launch on Startup, placement of the More window, controls at the end of a video recording, and miscellaneous bugs with sharing.

We just released version 1.2.5. We've been trying to hit some of the bigger issues that people are reporting and hope this helps.

Here are the larger issues that are addressed in this build:

• Fixed crash when going into standby/sleep mode in XP
• Can now control launching on startup from the program preferences inside Jing
• You can now hide the launcher UI
• The system tray icon can be used to capture
• Fixed bug where launcher would stay open

We have seen several inquiries about the file formats we are supporting in Jing. Many of you have indicated that the number of formats supported may be insufficient for your individual uses and that the choice to use .swf format for videos seems limiting in some cases. I wanted to get more feedback specifically regarding this topic, so it seemed appropriate to comment here and see what everyone thinks.

So to begin all this, I need to reiterate that our purpose for creating Jing was all about quick, simple and seamless sharing of images and videos in your daily conversations on IM, email and blogs. Keeping with that mantra, we wanted to eliminate any unnecessary decisions the user would have to make about file type, video codec, audio compression and all the other processing steps typically required to create and upload media for easy sharing.

As to .png, we've learned a lot over the years developing SnagIt that .png is almost always the best format to use for screen capture related content. Its perfect quality ensures that your viewers see exactly what you see - nothing less. Plus, its file compression provides files sizes much more in line with the expectations created by .jpg and .gif. Together these attributes typically provide the best of both worlds in terms of quality and file size.

As for using Flash (.swf) as the format for Jing videos, several things played into that decision. Most importantly, we wanted Jing videos to be viewable by anyone regardless of what type of computer you were using. Using .wmv or .mov seemed to provide advantages to one platform or another and since daily conversations occur across all platforms it seemed prudent to stay platform agnostic.

“Why not use .flv?” you ask. Good question. Our intention, still to be proven right, wrong or somewhere in the middle, was to provide a cost effective solution for improving daily conversations. The concept of using things like .flv and even .mp3 audio all carry per user licensing fees that would have driven up the potential cost of a product like Jing. We felt strongly that for Jing to become a disruptive technology that really made a difference, it would need wide spread adoption (the idea that communication improves exponentially when all members are speaking visually). So, when considering all of those factors, .swf seemed the logical choice.

Does .swf have its shortcomings? Absolutely. Probably the most concerning is its lack of default association with a standard application like the browser. That being said, to make the process of capturing, uploading, sharing and viewing completely seamless to both the author and the viewer of the content, we have to manage a few of the variables for it all to work.

Are .png and .swf the only formats we’ll support?We are waiting to see how everyone makes use of Jing content before making that decision. In the mean time, we are taking in all the feedback you can dish out, so what's your take?

Many of you have been asking for the ability to undo an arrow, a highlight or even a text entry when editing an image in Jing. If you are running Jing on a Mac, you do have the ability to reselect any previous edit and manually delete or change it. However, due to some constraints in our development time line, we deferred that capability on the Windows platform in order to get Jing out to all of you that much faster.

Of course, you all miss that feature a lot, right? Presumably so. Well, we hear you on that one loud and clear. :-)

To help with things today, we can at least offer you a keyboard shortcut to "undo" anything in the editor you have already created. For Windows users click the key combination "Ctrl + z", for Mac users click "Cmd + z" to undo an edit. It also has multiple undo, so you can keep "undoing" all the way back to the base image, if you so desire.

Oh by the way, you can also "redo" something you "undid" by pressing "Ctrl + y" on Windows and "Cmd + Shift + z" on the Mac. Keep in mind; once an image is shared or saved, the edits previously made cannot be undone or redone. While this solution may not seem optimal, it will at least give you an option to fix those "oops!" moments for now.

Shortly after we launched, it came to our attention that Microsoft Messenger silently filtered out the URLs generated by Jing. We haven't confirmed it with Microsoft, but from our testing it looks like any link with .scr in the URL will be removed from IMs. This is the extension on Windows screen savers; it is presumably filtered to keep users from inadvertently downloading malicious screen saver files.

We're currently working on a more permanent solution, but as a workaround, we suggest removing the "www." from the URL pasted to your Clipboard. Without the "www.", the link works normally and because the "." is no longer in front of "screencast.com" it won't be caught in the Messenger filter.

I saw a great use of Jing this week. I participate in a Technology Chat room on Skype and at one point in the conversation, someone sent a link to a Jing screen capture!

This is a perfect use for Jing! It's much faster and easier for me to follow the URL than download a file sent via chat. One of the ways I use Jing the most is in instant message chats. Take a quick screenshot or video and post the link in your chat message. Done! Your point is made quickly and clearly.

How are you using Jing?

Preferences in the More ball is one of the few places the Windows and Mac clients are different. Even then, the differences are pretty small.

On the Windows Client Preferences panel, you can:

• Change your Screencast.com account login information.
• Choose whether Jing launches when you boot your machine.
• Select a hotkey to capture.
• Hide the sun launcher (continue to capture using the hotkey or the taskbar icon).
• Choose a location for the launcher.

On the Mac Client, Preferences is a bit sparser at the moment:

• Set a hotkey.
• Use the menubar instead of the sun launcher.
• Launch Jing on startup.

On the Mac, you can move the sun by dragging its center. You can move it to any corner, or any edge except where the Dock or Menubar are.

"How do I put my pictures on a CD?" "I think I have a virus, can you help me?" "Have you ever seen a computer do (fill in the blank)?!"

These are the questions I often hear from friends, family and new acquaintances as soon as I tell them I work at a software company. You may also be that person to your friends and family.

Now, I love to help people, but sometimes it's hard to do this over the phone or email. How many times have you tried to walk someone through fixing a problem over the phone? Or, spent hours drafting that email with pages and pages of instructions. It can often be difficult and frustrating for both sides. This is where Jing could come in handy for you...

I found someone using Jing to help others! I had the honor of meeting Tris Hussey last week at Gnomedex. He shared with me how he uses Jing. He was recently having a problem with some software, ClearContext, that he uses and went to their forums. He noticed that the solution posted in the ClearContext forums were correct only if you were running XP. If you were running on Vista, the information was a little off. So, instead of taking a long time to write-up corrections to the forum information, Tris simply made a quick Jing video and posted the URL in the forums! You can see the forum thread and his Jing video posted here.

You can read Tris's original post about Jing here on his A View from the Isle Blog. Tris also writes another great blog, the Pimp Your Work Blog that is all about making your work day better with lots of great tips and tricks.

Problem solved! And, you get to be the hero!

**Photo courtesy of the fabulous Josh Hallett

Screencast.com will down for maintenance at 7am EST on Monday, August 20th. During this time Jing will not be able to upload to Screencast.com, nor will any viewers be able to see any previously shared Jings.

Updated October 10th, 2007: Jing 1.3 added the ability to get embed code from Screencast.com to the UI.

Additionally, Screencast.com now has a "Click to Play" feature that only loads a thumbnail of your video when embedded. This means that your video isn't loaded every time a viewer loads the page, saving your bandwidth for actual views of the video.

Version 1.2.6 is now available! You can download it here.

• Jing is now usable with high DPI displays or with Windows "Large Fonts" enabled.
• You can now see progress bars when uploading and downloading if you hover over the launcher. You also have the option to cancel transfers.
• Updating (for the next release) should be even smoother. Jing now checks for updates on startup. If you have to update in the middle of a share, the media will be reopened after the update.
• We added the ability to check for updates in the More window.
• We implmented a workaround so that links shared via MSN Messenger should no longer be blocked. (this issue was mentioned here)

It's 2am and I'm still awake...What am I doing? Surfing the web, doing research and checking out websites and technology. My days are often filled with meetings and other activities that prevent me from doing this during 'normal business' hours. And, what are normal business hours anymore?

I'll often see companies post webinars to learn more about products or talk with their reps, but I cannot always block an hour out of my day to attend. And, it's never at 2am or when I want to attend outside of normal business hours.

On that note, I was happy to see several video tours made with Jing at Jumpchart. I can watch their videos and see their product in action any time of the day...whenever it works out best for me! Check out all of their videos here. Think about it...Add a video tour and your sales and marketing demo runs 24/7!

Have you seen other cool uses of Jing? How are you using it?

We have added several improvements and fixes in this version. You can download it here.

• There is now a Check for Update button in the help area of the More window. We also check for updates on launch and once a day.
• For users with more than one Screencast.com account, you can change which one Jing is logged into, via the Preferences in the More window.
• Jing now shows progress during an upload, and uploads can be cancelled. They can be restarted via the History window.
• We have a workaround for MSN Messenger blocking our URLs. This was described in an earlier blog entry, and now we adjust the URLs within Jing automatically.
• The reliability of uploads to Screencast.com have been improved.
• We improved support for system-configured proxies.