zondag, juli 29, 2007
The potential of Jing
Jing is a free beta product that allows you to easily share screenshots or screencasts of your desktop and save them or share them. The makers call it 'visual conversations'. Jing is a project of TechSmith, the makers of the popular commercial snapshot product 'SnagIt', screen video product 'Camtasia' and associated hosting site 'screencast.com'. I don't expect Jing to end up as a free product, but as long as they are in beta you get a pretty good, simplified and easy tool with free hosting on screencast.com. I recommend you give it a shot.
I've tried it out to make a few previews of the about2findout.com project so far.
Jing is available for Windows and Mac and installs pretty easy. You need the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 installed for it to work on Windows, so you better install that and reboot before you install Jing. Once installed Jing lives as a little sun at the top of your screen. First select to capture, then select the area or window to capture, and whether you want to take an annotated screenshot (image) or a video. For more information, troubleshooting and tips, visit the Jing blog.
You can add pointers, text boxes, markers and frames to your screenshot. In the example on the left I added some of each. Of course you can save the screenshot (as .png file), but the real power of this '2.0' application is the ability to automatically upload and share. Click the share button and Jing will upload your masterpiece to a free account on screencast.com and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard. Just paste in the link to your messenger, chat, e-mail or web page and you're done! All images and video's also end up in a local history archive so you can find them back later.
My second try was a video of the form edit page on about2findout.com. You can speak any comments as you record the video, and save it as a flash (.swf) file or share it via screencast.com. Video has a limit of 5 minutes. The aim of the project is not to make professional screencast but rather to quickly show. So I did not prepare and just dived in :-). It shows.
The link on the left will take you to the recorded video of the form edit page.
My final try was a video of the wysiwyg edit page. The video was longer and for some reason I'm unable to upload it to the site. So I saved the .swf file, embedded it in a HTML page and you can open it here.
I see a lot of potential for Jing, not at least in the field of learning. It lowers the centre of gravity for expertise because anyone can easily, just-in-time make a small tutorial on how to us a certain feature of an application or where to click, and share it. Help desk people will find this a useful tool. Coaches and remote trainers will love this. And if the makers add tags to it and a home page you get an instant YouTube for 'how-do-I-do-this' screencasts. Very cool indeed.
I've tried it out to make a few previews of the about2findout.com project so far.
Jing is available for Windows and Mac and installs pretty easy. You need the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 installed for it to work on Windows, so you better install that and reboot before you install Jing. Once installed Jing lives as a little sun at the top of your screen. First select to capture, then select the area or window to capture, and whether you want to take an annotated screenshot (image) or a video. For more information, troubleshooting and tips, visit the Jing blog.
You can add pointers, text boxes, markers and frames to your screenshot. In the example on the left I added some of each. Of course you can save the screenshot (as .png file), but the real power of this '2.0' application is the ability to automatically upload and share. Click the share button and Jing will upload your masterpiece to a free account on screencast.com and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard. Just paste in the link to your messenger, chat, e-mail or web page and you're done! All images and video's also end up in a local history archive so you can find them back later.
My second try was a video of the form edit page on about2findout.com. You can speak any comments as you record the video, and save it as a flash (.swf) file or share it via screencast.com. Video has a limit of 5 minutes. The aim of the project is not to make professional screencast but rather to quickly show. So I did not prepare and just dived in :-). It shows.The link on the left will take you to the recorded video of the form edit page.
My final try was a video of the wysiwyg edit page. The video was longer and for some reason I'm unable to upload it to the site. So I saved the .swf file, embedded it in a HTML page and you can open it here.
I see a lot of potential for Jing, not at least in the field of learning. It lowers the centre of gravity for expertise because anyone can easily, just-in-time make a small tutorial on how to us a certain feature of an application or where to click, and share it. Help desk people will find this a useful tool. Coaches and remote trainers will love this. And if the makers add tags to it and a home page you get an instant YouTube for 'how-do-I-do-this' screencasts. Very cool indeed.
Labels: Jing
