Comments on: Recording SME Demos — It’s Easier Than You Think

By: » 2008» April» 10

» 2008» April» 10 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:16:04 +0000

[...] especially by Tom Johnson, (http://www.idratherbewriting.com/) and a couple of his entries (Recording SME Demos — It’s Easier Than You Think and Six Ways I’m Using the H4 Zoom Recorder to Do Technical-Writing Related Things) particularly [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:25:25 +0000

If you want to go the really inexpensive route, SnagIt has video recording features, but I think after an hour you’ll be up to 2-3 gigs. Not sure.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:48:02 +0000

For those of us who don’t have Camtasia Studio and an expensive mic, a digital vioce recorder works pretty well to capture the audio portion of a rapid fire SME demo. While you don’t have the video, at least it serves as a memory jogger afterwards.

By: forfear

forfear — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:04:25 +0000

This is what’ve we’ve been doin to some extent last year. needs a lot of discipline. its not meant to be pretty or preproduced. but should be recorded, a quick edit, and then published to WMV quickly (no TSCC codec required) to a file server. that’s what i think

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:03:24 +0000

I think recording is a great idea–we record ourselves doing demos, so why not record others? I’m sure part of the cause of the difficulty here is that the SME has other things to do and wants to get through this demo as quickly as possible. When you’re holding such a demo, is it your goal to get an in-depth tour of the app or just an overview? Do you and the SME agree on the goal of the demo before you start?

I’m also curious about your thoughts on how much of your documentation comes from such demos vs. going through and exercising the app yourself in a test environment.

By: avi

avi — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:46:48 +0000

Excellent method!
I’d add: make sure your laptop is capable of running both the documented application and Camtasia. It’s not trivial.
I’m using my cell-phone camera for taking pictures of whiteboards during discussions, and plain old pen and paper for almost everything.

By: Recording SME Demos: It's Easier Than You Think: EServer TC Library

Recording SME Demos: It's Easier Than You Think: EServer TC Library — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:45:24 +0000

[...] all works in ‘Multimedia’ View all works in ‘Screen Captures’ Recording SME Demos: It’s Easier Than You Thinkhttp://www.idratherbewriting.com/2008/03/04/recording…Johnson, Tom H.Tech Writer [...]