Jing Blog

Jing Me, Tweet Me! Jing Direct to Twitter Coming Soon!

2009-11-19T23:37:59Z

Cross posted from The Visual Lounge Blog

Sometimes words are not enough! Especially when you only have 140 characters on Twitter. Soon, you'll be able to easily add visuals and screencasts to Twitter with the click of a button in Jing!

There will be a Jing update on December 8 that will give you a fast and easy way to add your Jing screen captures and screencasts to Twitter!

How will it work? Simple! Set up a new Share button in Jing for Twitter.

Just as always, you will capture an image or make a video of your desktop

Share your capture by selecting the 'Twitter' button. A box will automatically pop up and you can create your tweet in the text box. Jing will post your tweet along with a link to your Jing screen capture or screencast.

That's it! Tweet away!

And, best of all, the price is right. This new feature is free to all Jing users! On December 8, Jing should alert you that there is a new update available. Update Jing and you should be ready to start tweeting your screen captures and Jing-casts!

Can't wait to see what you create! Jing me @betsyweber or @techsmith. Or, be sure to follow @jingtips for the latest tips and tricks all about Jing!

How to Display Smaller Videos and Leverage the Full Size Viewing Option

2009-11-18T13:32:30Z

Let's say you've got a blog, website or maybe a wiki that supports embedded video. Dilemma: If you embed the video at full size, it'll take up your whole site. Or worse, it overflows your site like shown here. Yet if you record a small video, people will have a hard time seeing anything useful. Plus you might often want consistency such that all your videos are the same size initially.

In this post I'm going to show you how you can record full screen (or whatever size you want) and then present your video at a more reduced size. Viewers have the option of watching the video as is, or they can click the full screen button to enjoy your original dimensions.

I listed the steps below, but I also made a Jing video (2:30) where I show my process.

In Jing, make a new button that returns Screencast.com embed code. That's explained in detail here.
Next, make one of your stellar Jing videos. You can make it as large as you want.
When you're done with the video, click Stop and click your Screencast.com embed code button.
Now, paste the embed code into your blog, webpage, wiki, etc. Preview it. Is the video ginormus? We can fix that.
This next part gets a little into some math, but it's not bad. Get a piece of scratch paper and write down the height of your video over the width. You can see where to find the dimensions in this example.
Now, the key here is scaling the video but keeping the same aspect ratio. If you just lop off some arbitrary number of pixels from height and width it's possible your video will look cropped or squashed. You can reduce the height and width by multiplying the same percentage or, if you want to bust out some old school math dust off your cross multiplication skills. What's great about cross multiplication is that you can precisely define your desired width and the height will fall into place for you. Remember, once you get your new dimensions you must update the height in 4 locations in the code as well as the width.
That's it! Your video will be gracefully embedded at your specified dimensions and viewers have the luxury of viewing the original dimensions if they want!

Parting notes:

This works for SWF and MPEG-4 video format. (Free and Pro versions). Recommended: Use Jing to upload your video and return the code. There is currently an issue where SWF videos put on Screencast.com manually may not scale appropriately. We believe we have a fix poised to be implemented.
If I know I'm making a video I care about, I will usually hold Shift as I make the selection and then snap to 1280x720. I don't have to do any math because I just reduce each dimension by half and arrive at the popular and friendly size of 640x360. You can learn more about that on Brooks' YouTube in HD How-to video.
Yeah, I probably should have made my example more extreme in that I recorded awfully close to 1280x720.

Let us know if this was helpful and understandable. Thanks!

How Jing Works. As Explained by Captain Jing

2009-11-17T12:05:22Z

There's lots of ways to learn things. Some people like visual, some like hands-on. Some like to read. How would you explain how Jing works to someone? We talk about fast visual communication, but what does that really mean?

What would be a different way to try and explain Jing? Do you think this video get the idea across? Would you be willing to send it on and help explain to others how Jing works?

SWF and File Size

2009-11-13T19:47:21Z

Have you ever noticed tremendous file size variation with your videos? This is by far more common with the Flash SWF video format that is used in the free version of Jing, and it probably has to do with how much motion you're recording on the screen.

SWF is great in many ways because it's really great for the Web, captures pixel-perfect quality, and is royalty free to use. However it's not so good in that hardly any program can edit or convert it, has a frame limit, and it's not so good at capturing hi-motion content.

If you record something like a video game or web cam with the SWF video format, your file size will explode. In addition, it might start dropping frames leading to a "jerkier" video. MPEG-4 will provide a much better video.

Here's a lot more information and some side-by-side comparisons so you can see for yourself the difference in both the quality and file size of the videos.

Blast from the Past

2009-11-10T17:48:05Z

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!

FAQ's from Feedback

2009-11-05T17:24:38Z

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, We're Looking for Stories!

2009-11-03T20:08:55Z

We shared Marc's Jing story last week. It's neat to see how people use Jing and often learn about a new application, in this case JiWire.

We were wondering if anyone out there would be willing to share their Jing stories with us--and more importantly--the Web. We have dual motives. We really want to understand how people are using Jing, and how it is and isn't quite meeting their ideal needs. This helps us prioritize and make Jing better. Sometimes we are exposed to ideas we've never even thought of.
Our second goal is to spread creative uses to the masses. People use Jing in ways others never consider. (Like using a webcam to share an image that's not on your computer.)

Do you have a story to share?

We are specifically looking for stories involving:

Strategies for recording system audio (the sound from your computer speakers) with Jing.
Using embed code for some purpose.
Using Jing in educational settings, especially student use of Jing.
Using Jing for business purposes.
Examples of how Jing increased productivity in the workplace.
Funny uses of Jing.

And even if you don't tell us your story, we hope you'll tell a person you know. We thank everyone who spreads the word.

Captain Jing's Halloween Costume

2009-10-30T11:08:17Z

In this 27-second video, some of Captain Jing's colleagues give him some ideas for what he might be for Halloween.

Do you still need a last-minute Halloween costume? You can dress up as Jing!

Here's what you need to do:

Put on a yellow turtleneck.
Some yellow face paint doesn't hurt.
Blow up three yellow balloons--not too big.
Get a marker and as best you can, draw the three Jing icons...like this:
Affix the balloons to a headband.
Put on the headband!

P.S. anyone who actually does this and sends us a picture gets a free "Jing: Show and Tell for Grown-Ups" T-Shirt.

Featured Jing User: Marc Shows How to Find WiFi Using JiWire

2009-10-27T13:28:02Z

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."

Captain Jing Works Off His Burrito

2009-10-20T14:25:37Z

This video (0:49) is our special way of letting you know we're still working hard to make Jing better, listening to your feedback, and we hope you'll stay tuned. Faster Jing, faster!!

Taking an Image Capture with your Webcam

2009-10-16T15:42:00Z

You may not have thought of it, but you can use Jing Pro's Webcam Feature to take a single Image-snapshot as well.
I usually use this feature whenever I quickly want to show something that is not on my screen, such as:

The keys I found in the hallway - anyone looking for them?
The latest addition to my beer stein collection. Mike has to see this!
My pristine A-Team action figures, as demonstrated in this video:

By using Jing's Webcam feature, I don't have to find my digital camera, take the picture and upload it.
It's a lot faster to take the snapshot with Jing. I can annotate it if i want, and then I can upload it to Screencast.com and share the link just as fast.
Sure, it's not exactly a 5 megapixel image like my digital camera can give me. But it works for most of my communication needs, and it saves so much time.

Can you think of other uses for this feature?

Screencast.com's Desktop Uploader

2009-10-13T15:31:34Z

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.

Making a Screencast in the next 30 minutes with Jing!

2009-10-09T16:51:37Z

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's the Last Time You Janged Someone?

2009-10-08T15:20:18Z

Definition: A Jang is the unintentional sending of a Jing that was not the Jing you meant to send. This is often caused by sending a link before the Jing was completely uploaded. Jangs are usually immediately followed by the user racking their brains trying to recall the last Jing they took when they see the "The link to your capture is ready to be pasted" dialog.

Here's an example!

Bill: Ok guys, here's our latest test count: http://screencast.com/t/VMmGVLXh Congratz all!
Mark: That'd be an awesome test count! Did you have a good weekend? (I think you just Janged us.)
Bill: Uhhh, let's try that again, and yes. http://screencast.com/t/k7cQA3Yt

Have you ever Janged when you meant to Jing? Care to share? We seriously do want to reduce the number of Jang experiences, and we'll share the plan and solicit feedback in another post.

Add Another Screencast.com Button to Jing

2009-10-06T14:34:40Z

By default, when you share to TechSmith's Screencast.com, Jing uploads your content to a private hidden folder named, creatively enough, Jing.

This is fine, but did you know you can have up to eight Jing buttons all of which could share to Screencast.com if you were so inclined?

But why would you even want ONE additional Screencast.com button? Here's four reasons why some Jingers use them.

Make a button for videos that you know you will use again. An example might be for frequently asked questions. When the question comes up again, don't re-make the video, just grab the link from Screencast.com. You could even make a playlist.
Make a button that returns embed code instead of the link.
Separate work content from play content.
Make a button that sends content to a password protected folder for clients, or a public folder a collaborative group can access.

Some readers might be thinking, "A way I'd utilize multiple Screencast.com buttons would be if they could point to different accounts." This seems like a good idea. If only Jing wasn't tied to that Screencast.com account so much...

I digress--want more Screencast.com buttons? Here's how to do it.