One question we get a lot around here is, "How do you make your video tutorials on the Learning Center?"

Jing works great for informal "one off" screencasts, and with a script and enough takes you can create a fairly polished video. However, even the Jing Learning Center videos aren't made with Jing. We need to utilize the editing capabilities in Camtasia. If this is something you're interested in, Ryan Eash--the person who makes all the Camtasia Studio videos--recently put together a comprehensive video showing his process. It's filled with tips and has a Table of Contents so you can jump to the part you're interested in.

Watch it here.

In this post I want to give you a little behind-the-scenes update about what's been happening on the Mac side. Later, I'll do Windows.

Otto, our Mac dev, has been up to his eyeballs in deep-level code. His mission? Make Jing smaller, use less CPU, and squash a few little bugs that are annoying but not annoying enough to make the effort to contact Tech Support.

Here's a run down of what Otto's been working on. Note that it's not released publicly yet:

• If you took a capture with Jing but canceled it, Jing would still consume CPU. Now, if you're not actively using Jing it will idle at 0.0% or very very close to 0. Nice!

• Completed switch to libcurl (or cURL). This has to do with the way Mac Jing implements FTP. Results? A better SFTP solution and Jing is about 1 MB smaller--down to a sleek 5.6 MB.
• Has this ever happened to you? You use a hotkey to initiate a capture and when you click and drag, instead of selecting a region it grabs the whole window and moves the selection area? Not a big deal right? Just cancel...it always works the second time... But no! It's kind of annoying and Otto fixed that too.
• Finally, have you ever made a selection, but had no crosshairs? It still works, just odd that there's no crosshairs. Well, that should be fixed too.

Everyone who has given feedback about performance issues should know that the team has been rolling up their sleeves and making improvements. Most people will never notice or appreciate them, however, it's those small things that can really add up to create a faster, more consistent, and pleasurable experience.

Once we wrap up these "under the hood improvements" and complete our testing, we'll start work on a new cool feature and ship it. Now, that's going to take a while but does it sound like a plan?

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)