Jing currently requires Microsoft's .NET Framework 3.0 or higher. In the next couple of months or so, when the next Jing release comes out, if you don't have .NET 3.5 SP1 (service pack 1) or higher, you'll be prompted to install it before you can upgrade and use Jing.

One way I check to see if I already have .NET 3.5 SP1 on my computer is to use the Add/Remove Programs feature in the Control Panel and see if it's in the list. Here's what it looks like on my machine: http://screencast.com/t/NWNjYjQxZ

If you'd like, you can get the .NET upgrade in advance. In fact, it should be a recommended suggestion from Microsoft if you ever use their Auto Update or www.windowsupdate.com process. You can also download it directly from here.

This higher .NET requirement is important for a number of reasons including better Jing performance, the ability to leverage some nice features Microsoft has made available, and improvements that let us develop Jing faster.

We appreciate your understanding and hope you'll spread the word if you can. Thanks!

We wanted to give our Mac users a heads-up that going forward Jing will still work on Mac OS 10.4, but it won't be getting any more updates. Future updates to Jing (and Jing Pro) will only support 10.5 and higher.

To be clear, we're not just going to leave 10.4 users hung out to dry. When the next update comes out in the next few months, the current version of Jing is going to hang around for 10.4 users--but you won't get any new features going forward.

There's a number of reasons for this decision--here's a few of them:

• From a user's point of view, we're going to be able to leverage some cool things with Apple's Core Animation and Core Image technology. Basically, Jing's going to take better advantage of the graphics card. (Your actual Jing captures will look the same but Jing itself should perform and look better in the future.)
• This technology would also facilitate improving the History should we decide to do that someday.
• A final benefit I'll mention is that by dropping support for 10.4 and being able to tap into some of what 10.5 and higher gives us, developing Jing will go faster.

We hope this will be of minimal impact. We wanted to give you some warning, but let us know your thoughts--and if you know any OS 10.4 users, maybe you can pass this information on? Thanks!

Anton and I have been working on a package of materials that will hopefully make life easier for those of you interested in teaching others about Jing. Well, our first batch is live and you can find them here on the Jing Help Center.

They have a slight slant toward the educational community, but I think the content is suitable for all people who might benefit from learning about communicating more visually.

We'll add to it over the summer, so let us know what you would find most useful. As always, thanks for using Jing and telling others!

We've been working on a collection of presenter materials to help educators tell and teach others about Jing. We're almost done, but one area we could use more help is collecting diverse examples showing the wide range of how Jing is being used by teachers, students, IT, administrators, etc.

If you've got a story and are willing to share, email Dave McCollom our Educational Evangelist, at d.mccollom@techsmith.com, and me at m.curtis@techsmith.com

Here's what we've got so far. You'll be able to pick and choose the things you'd like, and use them however you want. What's missing from this list? Post a comment or send us feedback!

• PowerPoint presentation: Non-salesy, basic overview of Jing. It emphasizes the "how and why."
• Handouts:
  • Get Started "how-to" guide
  • Examples of how Jing is used in the real world
  • Screencast.com frequently asked questions
  • Using embed code
  • Using Jing with YouTube
• Resources:
  • Sample agenda, list of additional resources, FAQs
  • Various images and screenshots of Jing you can add to your own instructions or presentation
  • Special version of the Jing Interactive Tutorial (so you don't have to rely on Internet)
  • Download-able copies of our most popular Jing videos

We're planning to have the materials ready in early June.

TechSmith released Snagit 10 today. If you're not familiar with Snagit, some people have called it Jing's "Big Brother" of image capture. I wanted to share just a few features I thought Jing users might especially like to know about:

• Scrolling capture--the ability to capture a page that is bigger than what's on your screen--is easier and works a lot better.
• My personal favorite is that Snagit now has built-in transparency abilities. Effects and other editing techniques look so much better--especially when used in other applications like PowerPoint, Camtasia Studio--you name it.
• Snagit is really adept at pulling text out of the screen capture now. Formatting and layout is retained.
• Oh, and there's "All-in-One" capture which Jing users might find curiously familiar...great idea "Big Brother" ;)

A robust description of what's new can be found on Betsy Weber's Visual Lounge. You can also learn more and download the fully-functional, 30-day trial.

Update: Happy April Fool's Day!

3D is all the rage. Once the Jing team saw Avatar we dropped the other so-called "important" features and dove in on how to make this happen in Jing.

After all, just because users don't ask for it, doesn't mean they don't want it. How many times have you wished you could capture an image or video -- convert it to 3D format instantly -- then share it with the speed of Jing? Hundreds of times, but you just thought it would be impossible? I thought so.

We're so excited about this feature, we wanted to share a sneak peek. In this video, Anton shows how the feature works and below the video you can see the finished result. So strap on those 3D glasses (not included - but you can make your own) and check out the Jing team in its 3D glory.

Here is the final result (click on imagefor larger version).

What do you think? What will you be sharing?

To our Windows friends, TechSmith just released Camtasia Studio version 7.0. You may remember that you can use it to edit your Jing-created videos with the click of a button.

For our Mac Jing friends, TechSmith also just released Camtasia for Mac version 1.1 which is a free upgrade if you have 1.0. And while Jing doesn't have a button that will send your videos directly to Camtasia for Mac, you can manually import your MP4 videos and edit to your heart's content.

TechSmith's Visual Lounge Blog has a lot more details about both releases as well as some cool behind-the-scenes videos.

For our Windows users, here's how easy it is to send your Jing videos to Camtasia Studio:

For this next release, we will be addressing some of our top feature requests from you. Among the improvements on tap is Facebook integration.

We've asked for feedback before, but this time, let's do something different.

We want to invite you to be a part of the Jing team. Well, as much as possible.

Most of you reading this are regular Jing users. Our guess is a lot of you also use Facebook.

Seems almost too logical then... If Jing is going to work with Facebook, and we have people who use Jing and Facebook, it seems we should work together to learn what people really want and nail this feature.

We revamped Jing's Facebook page, started a discussion and we hope people will talk with each other, and not just at us. To facilitate, we're going to be posting a lot of behind-the-scenes videos, demos of our progress and post specific questions which we hope will spawn some good discussion and debate. We hope some of you will take us up on it.