For almost a year, TechSmith has been undergoing some renovations and moving people around in phases so the various departments can be closer together in the same office park.

Last Friday we had a Open House and BBQ to celebrate the conclusion of this process. Families came and we had over a dozen activities--from eating Sno-cones to making your own slime. As you can imagine, all the little kids want to work where mommy or daddy does when they grow up.

The highlight though--for children and adults alike--was the 22 ft inflatable slide! Watch the video below to see Captain Jing almost break the sound barrier. The good news it will only waste 10 seconds of your life.

Want to share this 10-seconds of speed with someone? http://bit.ly/cGz0Mn

Unfortunately the slide isn't a permanent thing, and we don't typically drink beer or wine at work, but nonetheless, we have some job openings you or someone you know might be interested in.

Thanks to: DJ Rachael (whose day job is working here in PR), Impression 5 Science Center, Merindorf Meats, Potter Park Zoo, Ultimate Bounce Inflatables, and Touch Audio and Media.

Some folks at TechSmith are putting on a tech show of sorts. You can watch it live or on our YouTube channel after the fact.

We're calling it The Forge...see TechSmith--smith, as a play on blacksmith, which uses a forge, for tech...

Well, the first episode is today at 2 pm Eastern time (GMT -5:00). We've got Jon Udell lined up to talk about Screencasting, a microphone review, and it's live so who knows what will happen?

Learn all about it on the Visual Lounge.

The upcoming release of Jing for Windows is going to include proxy support--including authenticated proxy support.

We're looking for a few people who have tried Jing in their school or workplace and have been unsuccessful due to proxy server conflicts. We've done a lot of testing, but it would be nice to try Jing in the greatest possible variety of conditions. Can you help us verify Jing works in your setup next week? We want to especially make sure it works in authenticated environments. If you're interested, please contact us.

P.S. We haven't heard of Mac people having proxy issues, but if you are, let us know!

Update: The contest is now closed and the drawing went to Ankur Jain. Thanks to everyone for their support. We'll do more fun stuff like this again.

It's a blog post extravaganza! To celebrate Jing's third year, we've got a whopper of a blog post with a contest and an exclusive behind-the-scenes video.

First, the contest...

You can see Jing's wish list below. Sure, there's never enough sunscreen, and the dashing suit would make splendid formal wear. Webcams are always cool for Jing Pro--but our favorite thing is more people using Jing. Maybe you can help?

(Click the image for full size)

If you're reading this, you know Jing is pretty swell. So in honor of Jing's third birthday, we hope you'll help more people discover Jing and explain why they should check it out. If you want a little incentive, use Jing to take a screenshot of your message (email, Facebook post, tweet, WoW chat, whatever) and post the link in the body of the comments below.

We'll randomly draw a winner for a bundle of Camtasia Studio (or Camtasia for Mac) and Snagit for every 30 people that show us how they've spread the word over the next few days. We'll close this Tuesday July 27th at 5 pm Eastern Time (GMT -5:00).

Jing might not be as fancy or sophisticated as its big brothers Camtasia and Snagit, but when you need more power you can always count on them.

Summary:

• Tell someone about Jing
• Do it by next Tuesday
• Capture a screenshot of your message
• Send it to Screencast.com and post the link in the body of the comments below
• Get lucky and maybe win some other TechSmith software

Now, some behind the scenes action!

While coincidental, TechSmith remodeled some buildings and the Jing team has relocated to a new workspace. We consider our new area a nod toward Jing's birthday and it's an appreciated upgrade for us!

I pulled out my Flip and filmed the team in their new habitat. There's nothing developers like more than seeing me armed with a camera for some spontaneous filming. The video is under 2 minutes.

Thanks for all your support over the years! We look forward to this coming year!

Jing is great for quick & informal sharing of images and videos. However, TechSmith also offers Camtasia for Mac and Camtasia Studio for Windows. Camtasia packs in all kinds of recording, editing and producing powers.

If you're interested in learning more about Camtasia, one fun way might be to tune in to the "24 Screencasts in 24 hours". A bunch of different people from TechSmith share Camtasia insights, tricks, or instructions in an informal setting. We stream it live as well as archive all the recordings. Here's one we did for Snagit not too long ago.

You can see the topics and learn more over on Betsy's blog. She'll be pulling an all-nighter with a couple other people so who knows what you'll see around 4 am! Here's how to join in and info about some prizes we'll be giving away.

I'll be on at 6pm Tuesday and again at 7am on Wednesday. (Eastern Time...GMT -5:00)

The other day we recruited some people around the company to make a fun little video (1:02) to celebrate the fact that Jing now goes to Facebook. I put a captioned version of the video here.

Don't you wish you worked here?

Starring in this video are:

• Bill Hamilton, President
• Sarah, Sales
• Stephanie, Sales
• Charles, Sales
• Bill, Lead Jing Developer

I live a double life. By day I'm Dirk Frazier, the mild-mannered product manager of Screencast.com and Jing, and by night I'm Dirk Frazier, a man of mystery and intrigue... Ok, maybe not so much mystery but I do hang out with my friends at a local pub and take way too many pictures of them with my cell phone. Intrigued yet? I bowl, play golf, read books, listen to music, and watch BBC's Top Gear...all the time. I'm single, I have a dog and two cats to keep me company, like to drink beer and wine on occasion and take photos of my sushi, but all of this shouldn't come as a surprise to you if you know me - or more specifically - if you know me through Facebook. My profile is full of evidence of my full and rich life.

Years ago (and I mean YEARS ago) I lived a similar life but not so "graphically". Trips to the mall with my friends introduced me to programming the Tandy TRS-80 and with every issue of Byte magazine I bought, I read about other computer enthusiasts and their homemade micro-computers. Who didn't want an IMSAI to hack into the high school computer and change their grades? While living in San Francisco, I learned how to connect my computer to a vast network of like minded "users". BBSs like the WELL connected me to information and ideas that were sometimes considered subversive. It's probably no mistake that I was also an amateur radio fan and could only dream of the day when CQ, CQ would turn into ICQ. By the time AOL came along, I was building my own computers, gaming and chatting with Usenet users in the 3dfx.VoodooBanshee group to learn how to get my video card to work with my latest Linux installation. You've got mail was an inside joke that all us nerds could laugh at. I was living a real networked, social life with hobbyists from literally around the world. It's just that my mom wasn't listening in.

Facebook is a social network phenomena that, with close to 400 Million subscribers, is working its way into the mainstream mindset of most Americans, young and old, professionals and consumers. MySpace started to clear the way with its early adopters setting up virtual spaces that let friends make connections and share their musical interests (and other interests we're not going to talk about here). Our parents weren't invited. Twitter came along and let us broadcast our 140 character thoughts to the world as one big stream of (often irrelevant) consciousness. Our bosses weren't invited (at first). Now, Facebook is a combination of group-wise interested networks of friends and family who keep their "followers" updated via their PC and mobile devices. And Facebook is a LOT more complicated than most chat rooms or IRC channels, which is why I was a little nervous when we started thinking about how Jing and Facebook might intertwingle. I should have known that Jing and Facebook were PERFECT for each other. Facebook lets people share their online world with their friends and family - Jing lets you capture your online world. It's only natural that Jing would give you a one-click method for sharing via Facebook exactly what you see and do on your computer.

I don't know where the Jing/Facebook connection will lead us. I hear that the developers down the hall have some pretty fun ideas about leveling up and people keep calling me the King of Jing for some reason. I'm not sure I like the sound of that, but there's no doubt that the future will bring some interesting changes and growth to the wonderful world of Jing.

The other day, we sat down with the original founders of Jing - that core team of developers and designers - and asked them:

How did Jing get its name?

They proceeded to have a jolly little discussion and it turns out that Jing had many names in its life. Kamikaze, Arcturus and Orange Crush were just some of them.

What do you think of the video?
Do you like the name Jing, or should we have named Jing something else?

I hope you enjoyed this little video as much as I did. I'd also like to point that Mike, Alan and Tony are not the only ones who were working on Jing back then and we'll be featuring some of the other founders in later video posts.