The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

Sometimes when I narrate a screencast, I stumble over my words. OK, most of the time I do audio in a screencast, I mess up. :-) I was playing around with Camtasia Studio tonight and once again, I made a mistake on my audio. I was reminded of a quick audio trick I thought I'd share with you.

Whenever I make a mistake narrating my audio, I will often either tap the microphone or pause for a minute. That way when editing, I can quickly locate either spikes in the audio or dead time which signals to me where I need to edit my audio. It makes it a lot faster for me to locate the problem areas to edit.

Hope this helps you! See the screenshot below showing where I tapped the microphone to indicate to myself where I needed to start editing. The spikes in volume stand out on the audio track.

Do you have any quick tips to share about audio?

As a kid, I was constantly drawing. As a student, often my notes from class were supplemented with sketches and doodles. And, now as an adult, I often sketch out ideas and concepts for work projects. I like drawing out diagrams, mindmaps and flow charts. I find it can be easier and more effective to plan, share information and concepts with visuals. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say...

I'm out in Banff this week at CanUX. I know, I know. I will try to suffer through it. :-) One of the speakers is Dave Gray from XPLANE (That's him on my right at Lake Louise, Alberta on Sunday). I've had the honor of seeing him speak at the VizThink conferences and he is always interesting and inspiring.

And, it just so happens that Dave uses Camtasia Studio. Check out his video about the basic principles of visual language - Forms, fields and flows.

You can see additional videos and content from Dave here.

And, if you're interested in what's going on at CanUX, Kaleem Khan will be live tweeting the event. Follow his Twitter stream here to see what's going on.

And, in interest of transparency, TechSmith is a sponsor of CanUX.

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Our good friends over at Fog Creek Software worked with us to develop a new SnagIt output for their project management software, FogBugz. With this new output, you can quickly send your SnagIt screencaptures directly to FogBugz.

You can learn more and download the output here. Fog Creek also has a great blog post walking through the steps to use the output here.

Why do you need this? Well, let me share how we use it. At TechSmith, we use Fogbugz to submit, manage and track projects in several different departments. For instance, I might need to make a change to this blog. In the past, I'd submit a project in FogBugz with tons of text. Now, I can simply take a screencapture with SnagIt and use the FogBugz output to quickly attach the screenshot to a new case in FogBugz. My task for the webstaff is clear and concise with a screenshot showing exactly what I need changed. In the end, it saves the team time and avoids any confusion. Everyone is happy!

Big thanks go to Joel Spolsky, Michael Pryor and Fog Creek Software for their help developing the SnagIt FogBugz Output.

You can see all of the SnagIt outputs here. What other programs would you like to see a SnagIt output for?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes... I find myself often humming this classic David Bowie tune at TechSmith. We're always working on each of our products so they are often being updated or changed - Screencast.com included.

I wanted to share with you some of the recent changes. Screencast.com now has recurring billing so your account will now automatically renew at the end of your monthly billing cycle. Or, you can also set up your account to renew on a yearly basis - this option saves you money and is perfect for people like me who don't want to bother with monthly billing.

Also, instead of having several different tiers of accounts, we switched to having two options - a 'Screencast.com Pro" or a Free account. Hopefully this is less confusing than having multiple tier options. With the "Screencast.com Pro" account, you get 200GB of monthly bandwidth (2X the available bandwidth of the old Premium account plan) plus 5GB of storage space for only $9.95/month. And, we've added a Screencast.com FREE account that is not time limited. No more 60 day trial.

These changes are from direct feedback from users. Keep the ideas and feedback coming. We need it! The Screencast.com is still working away on thecustomer requested features and enhancements. Either leave comments here or via our product feedback form here.

Happy Screencasting! What else would you like to see added or changed at Screencast.com?

Oh! And, be sure to check out the Screencast.com blog for all the latest news.

After attending the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) recently, I have to say that I'm excited to see some of the technology they demoed at the conference. Attendees walked away with "the goods" so that they could install and start playing with Windows 7 which is the next version of Windows. I was happy to run into blogger Long Zheng (that's him pictured on the right) at the conference.

After PDC, Long made a quick screencast showing off a new feature in Windows 7. It runs 15 seconds (no audio). You can see the video here. I like this video because its a perfect use of a screencast - it is a quick way to show a new feature in action. It is nice to have full blown longer demos, but small and sweet is nice sometimes too! And, even though Windows 7 won't be available for retail for another few years, we can still see Windows 7 in use with screencasts. Expect more screencasts of Windows 7!

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Put on your party hats and dancing shoes! Camtasia Studio 6 was released today! We've been working hard to make it much easier for you to deliver what you want, to the audience you want to reach, in the format you want to based upon their play back choice. It is a much better user experience too.

Here are some of big new features:

• Camtasia Studio users can now easily deliver their screen recordings (screencasts) in HD-quality video (MPEG-4 AVC, H.264+AAC) and Flash to their audience online, on DVDs, and on Apple portable media devices.
  
• Camtasia Studio's support for HD Flash ultimately means a better viewing experience for your audience, great clarity and small file size for fast loading and bandwidth efficiency.

• Based on early benchmark studies we've conducted with Camtasia Studio 6 you will realize a 20-40% time-savings when editing large projects.
  
• With Camtasia Studio 6 you can edit your audio and video independently, move your audio from one track to another, giving you quicker and more efficient means to create crisp looking and sounding video presentations.
  
• Camtasia Studio 6 editing features allow you to perform chain moves and have complete control over transition and call out fade durations to create more informative, polished videos.
  
• Camtasia Studio's new editing hotkeys deliver time saving short cuts and an overall better editing user experience.
  
• With Camtasia Studio 6 users can edit MOV files to combine digital camera video with screen recorded content to create more personal and engaging videos.
  
• Camtasia Studio 6 comes with 2GB of storage and 2GB of monthly bandwidth on Screencast.com, and gives you more control over which folders you save your content to on Screencast.com.

You can download a trial of Camtasia Studio 6 here.

For a complete list of what is new, visit here. And, check out the Getting Started video.

You can find upgrade information here.

Give it a try! What do you think of the new release?

It's that time again! Every four years in the United States, we have a political circus for the Presidential Election. I have been in Europe for quite a bit this fall (and am in Spain now) and it has been interesting to get a different perspective watching the campaigning and debates from the other side of the pond.

While I generally stick to the rule of not talking about politics, I recently talked with Joey Infortuno (that's him in the pic on the left) who does marketing for JibJab. I found out they were using SnagIt at JibJab. So, with the election fast approaching tomorrow, I thought this was the perfect time to share how JibJab is using SnagIt. I'm not here to pick sides and JibJab makes fun of both political parties. So, we should be on neutral ground here, right?

Here's a little Q&A that I (BW) had with Joey Infortuno (JI) about JibJab's use of SnagIt.

BW: How have images and screenshots changed your own communication for the better?
JI: Conveying more with the right pictures helps us move forward faster. SnagIt has made it all too easy to share everything.

BW: Are your images and screenshots used internally or externally? What is the viewer response to them?
JI:We use SnagIt for internal and external communications. Sharing high impact screen shots can mean less text, less text means less reading, we think people like that.

BW: What do you use SnagIt for primarily?
JI: From high-level mockups, product flows, capturing web-press, conveying support issues to sharing laughs by capturing and editing funny images, we use SnagIt whenever we can find an excuse to.

BW: What are the last three captures in your Open Captures Tray?
JI: ... Obama, Palin and Mario Lopez

BW: Is there one feature of SnagIt that has flat-out delighted you? Tell me about it...
JI: The editorial tools are a lot of fun but I love how fast it is... capture, edit and share quickly.

BW: Anything else we should know?
JI: A new JibJab user demo produced with Camtasia Studio 5 is on the way, stay tuned!

About JibJab: Brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis founded JibJab in 1999 with a few thousand dollars worth of computer equipment, a dial-up Internet connection and a dream of building a global entertainment brand. In 2004, their election parody "This Land" spark an international sensation and was viewed more than 80 million times online. NASA even contacted the brothers to send a copy to the International Space Station! Since then, JibJab has premiered ten original productions on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and received coverage on every major news outlet. In 2004, Peter Jennings named the brothers "People of the Year."

Earlier this summer, a longtime friend, Shaan Hurley from Autodesk, stopped by TechSmith for a visit! That's a pic of us on the left in our Shipping Department along with Tony Dunckel, the SnagIt Product Manager. Shaan's been a long time user of SnagIt and Camtasia Studio.

Shaan travels the world showing users how to use Autodesk products. I was reading his blog the other day and noticed this recent post. He had a great screencast in the post which you can see below which is this week's Screencast of the Week.

I picked this as the Screencast of the Week for a couple reasons. First, I liked that it was short and succinct. I love quick tips and tricks. I also liked it because Shaan was sharing his answers to users questions from around the world. What better way to answer a user question than with a video showing exactly where to find the feature in question? And, location no longer matters - Shaan can be anywhere in the world (and usually is) and answer questions with a quick screencast. Perfect use of technology!

TechSmith will be at Autodesk University in December. If you're attending the show or are in Las Vegas, stop by and see us.

And, that reminds me. If you'd like to come visit TechSmith like Shaan did this summer, our doors are open! We love having visitors! Email or call me (+1.517.410.0030) and I'll give you a tour, you can meet the product teams to give them your feedback directly, and I'll even treat you to lunch. Come on in!

This week I'm in Barcelona along with our IT Manager, Mike Morgan, for Microsoft TechED EMEA. We're working hard with a great view of the sea as you can see in Mike's pic to the left. :-) How's that look for a remote office?! If you're in Barcelona, we'd love to meet-up! Our treat for a meal or a beverage of your choice.

If you can't meet-up in Barcelona, you can see all the events on the TechSmith Calendar of Events here. You'll see many events happening in November and December including Camtasia Studio training in Berlin (Product Manager Troy Stein will be helping with this event), London, Dublin, Chicago and Seattle.

I'm also hitting the road and going to Calgary, Banff and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada for CanUX as well as heading to Paris, France for LeWeb.

Email, text or call me at +1.517.410.0030, comment on the blog, or send me a carrier pigeon... contact me however you'd like if you would like to meet-up! I'd love to hear your feedback and hang out.

I'm happy to share with you that we have a new product in the Camtasia family - Camtasia Relay 1.0 is here!

What is this Camtasia Relay thing? Well, it is an easy and streamlined way for anyone at your organization to record lectures, presentations and meetings. As a presenter, you can walk into the room, select your profile settings and everything from the recording to the formats the recording is produced into to the location where you will publish your files is predetermined. When you're done with your presentation, no need to hang out while your video produces or make technical decisions. You can just leave the room and a central server does all the work for you by automatically processing and publishing your video. Easy, right?

Top features include

• Easy recording on Mac or PC - Yep, you heard me right. Recording on the Mac or PC.
  
• Automatic processing and publishing handled by the server - Predetermined profile settings automate everything from the recording settings, to the formats the recording is produced into, to the destinations where produced files are published.

• Multiple file formats - Produce your recordings in Flash and iPod video (MP4), audio (MP3), Camtasia Studio (CAMREC), Windows Media (WMV), along with others... Plus, you will have the ability to produce one recording into any or all of the formats above.

So, are you wondering how does Camtasia Relay differ from Camtasia Studio? Basically, Camtasia Studio is for individuals who typically edit their recordings and choose how to produce the video and where it should go. Camtasia Relay, on the other hand, is for teams and organizations to do recording. Typically the recording would not need to be edited (note: you can edit your Camtasia Relay content using Camtasia Studio), and production and publishing are handled automatically by a central server.

Here are some additional resources for you to learn more about Camtasia Relay

• Comparison chart: See Camtasia Studio vs Camtasia Relay side by side here.

• Product Tour: Check out our product tour for all that Camtasia Relay has to offer.

• Newsletter: If you'd like ongoing information about Camtasia Relay, you can sign up for the Camtasia Newsletter.

• Licensing: Affordable and flexible licensing - No monthly, annual or per-seat fees. Camtasia Relay can grow with you. As the number of recordings your organization creates increases...so can your server capacity. You can easily upgrade to the next level at any time.

So, how are we using it at TechSmith? We have a mandatory Monday Morning Meeting every week at 8am. In this meeting, we go over company news, product information, new hires and other information that all staff needs to know. And, we've even had marriage proposals in our Monday Morning Meetings! They are not to be missed. But I am often on the road so I end up missing a lot of the meetings. Consequently, I'm often out of the loop. But, we've been eating our own dogfood at TechSmith and and have been using Camtasia Relay to record our Monday Morning Meetings. Now I just subscribe to our feed and I can see what happened at the meeting regardless of where I am in the world! It has been invaluable!

I hope you'll give Camtasia Relay a try and please feel free to share your feedback and input in comments on the blog or via the formal feedback form here.