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.

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?

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 I'm making a Jing video, I like to conserve my viewer's time and my time. What do I mean?

An example is if I am uploading a file. I don't think my viewer cares to watch the 12-second progress bar. Likewise, they might not appreciate me fumbling around trying to bring up the right window or document. In cases like this I pause the recording.

To pause the video you can press the pause button, but it does take a second or two and the viewer can see your cursor trail off to find the button. A faster way is to use the pause/resume hotkey.

On Windows, press F8, to pause and resume your recording. (Make sure video hotkeys are enabled in More > Preferences.)

On Mac, the pause hotkey is the same as your capture hotkey. By default this is Command + Shift + 1. Press the hotkey again to resume your recording.

New to Jing? Or do you sometimes teach others about Jing and wish you had a handy handout? Then you might want to check out this Welcome to Jing Guide. This PDF will show you everything you need to know to take your first screen capture:

• Install and set up Jing
• Launch Jing
• Take a Capture (Image or Video)
• Save or Share your Capture
• Next Steps

And since it's a PDF, it's easy to save it, share it and print it.

We'd love to hear what you think! Is the information we cover sufficient? What is missing? When you first used Jing, what was the one thing you wish we had told you? Thanks for your input & helping to make a better Jing.

Heya!
As some of you might know, we've been posting tips and tricks for Jing on Twitter. In case you missed some, or if you're not following us, here are the first 5 tips again:

How to Resize Embedded Jing Content: This tip explains how you can change the screencast.com embed code to resize the content when embedded on another site. How to Cover Sensitive Information: Use the rectangle tool to cover sensitive information in your screenshots. Adjust the Opacity of Drawing Tools: The PC version of Jing lets you adjust the opacity of the Drawing tools - here's how. Embedding a Video on a Wordpress Blog: Embedding Videos on Wordpress.com can be tricky... but the VodPod extension makes it nice and easy. Tip suggested by Julia Brewster. Save to Desktop: Create a Button in Jing that will save your capture automatically to your Desktop... or any other desired folder.

Bonus Video
Please also check out this tutorial:

A passionate Jing User, Jim Dornberg created it. Isn't that awesome? Thanks, Jim!

And if you have created any Jing related tips or tutorials that you're willing to share, we'd love to hear from you. Just comment on this blog post, send us a tweet or use good old fashioned email.

Hi. We've been getting some feedback about surprises (the bad kind) people are encountering when deleting things from their History. I figured the least I could do is make a blog post in the hopes of helping others.

When you delete content from your History, Jing will also attempt to delete the content from its stored location.

For example, if you saved an image to a folder on your computer, then delete it from the Jing History, Jing will attempt to delete it from the folder as well. Content is also deleted from the History and location if you put it on Screencast.com, an FTP server, Flickr, and YouTube. Learn more about the History.

Why do we do that? Well, when Jing started, Screencast.com was still in beta and some features were missing. For example, there were no thumbnails, deleting was a mult-step process, and there was no ability to multi-select content. Therefore, it was much easier to delete your content from right within Jing. We also thought if people had a video on their FTP, and an image on Flickr, they wouldn't have to go to the web, login to two separate accounts, and delete them. Convenient, right?

Maybe not. Now we're not so sure it's a good idea that deleting stuff in History also deletes it from the stored location.

What are we going to do about it?

1. First off, make a clearer and better warning message in the product.
2. Get feedback.
3. Reexamine this behavior, and rethink the History in general.

Here's what we'd love from you. What do you think of the current deleting behavior? Does anyone use it? Have you gotten burned by it?

If you'd rather not comment on the post, send us feedback directly. Thanks!

One of our users, Julia Brewster, was having some issues with embedding Jing Videos on her Wordpress.com blog. Instead of displaying her video, nothing would show up. Quite frustrating, if you ask me.

Fortunately, she went out to the WordPress.com forums, posted her problem, and with some help from the community, she quickly found the solution: The Vodpod Button.

With this button, you can post just about any video to your WordPress.com blog, including your Jing videos hosted on Screencast.com. This works for Jing and Jing Pro, and it's quite easy.

Here is how:

1. Create a Screencast.com Output Button in Jing that returns Embed Code instead of the URL.
2. Add the VodPod Extension to your Browser (should work with most major browsers).
3. Record your video with Jing, and share it using the newly created Screencast.com Embed Code Output Button. This will copy the Embed Code to your Clipboard.
4. Click on the Vodpod Button. This dialog will appear:
   
5. Paste the Embed Code in the Embed Code field.
6. Enter your Wordpress.com Login Information.
7. Enter the Post Details (Title, Body etc.)
8. Publish your post, or choose 'Send to blog editor' to further edit your blog post. Then publish it.
9. Your Video will now be embedded on your blog and people can easily watch it.

For those of you who'd like to see the Vodpod button in action, watch this video:

So as you can see, adding Jing videos to your blog can be quite easy. I hope to see more and more embedded Jing videos on Wordpress.com blogs.
Do you have a good example? We'd love to see it - share it in the comment section!