I’m going to be on The Forge show today at 2pm EST. The Forge is a monthly web show put on by TechSmith, posted on their Visual Lounge blog. Here’s their description of The Forge: New to The Forge? Wonder what it’s all about? It’s TechSmith’s monthly webshow where we talk about screencapture, screencasting, visual communication and more. We share our tips and tricks and … more »

At least once a month, I post a few messages from the sponsors. Today we have a message from Madcap Software and Techsmith. From Madcap Software Driven by customer demand and request, MadCap Software is pleased to announce MadCap Consulting, a new service aimed to provide our customers with the resources necessary to perform skilled technical communication projects on both a full-time and part-time basis. Find … more »

Techsmith gave me a free copy of Camtasia Studio 7 and Snagit 10 to give away on my blog. To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this post. In your comment, tell me something interesting about screencasting. It could be a tip, an argument, a story, a scenario, a technique, or whatever. The most interesting comment wins a copy of Camtasia Studio 7. … more »

On Tuesday, July 13, TechSmith is create 24 Screencasts About Camtasia in 24 Hours. It must be fun to do screencasts at 3 a.m. If you’re into screencasts (and use Camtasia), these sessions should provide a lot of good information. They’re streaming the screencasts live here and are also recording them to publish later.

The final tip in my list of techniques for developing a personal voice in audio is to breathe correctly. This is actually the hardest technique for me, so I have saved it for the end. Strangely, in normal conversation, most of us don’t have any trouble breathing. But when we start recording voiceovers, we start talking a little faster, with more energy and fewer pauses. … more »

Sorry for the lapse yesterday–spent the day traveling and then recovering. This cartoon is for a free copy of Camtasia Studio. Cartoon by Ben Minson. For full details about the giveaway, see this post.

Congrats to the winner of yesterday’s contest. (I added the winner’s name at the end of the comment thread of the last post.) Let the contest continue with Day 2′s cartoon, again drawn by the talented Ben Minson of Gryphon Mountain. The winner of this caption contest will receive a free copy of Camtasia Studio, courtesy of TechSmith. For full contest, details, see this post. … more »

This week I needed to create some visuals for a PowerPoint to illustrate concepts related to blogging. Since I have limited artistic ability (perhaps even negative artistic ability), I resorted to a stick figure person as a common theme. I spent a while trying to decide which tool to use to draw with. It turns out drawing a basic circle in Photoshop that doesn’t have … more »

Understanding SWF versus MPEG-4 Formats in Jing Pro I was confused by the difference between SWF and MPEG-4 before I read this explanation (which includes video examples).

Help in a Movable Type Blog Format — Jing Help Center

Like Jing? You’ll Love Jing Pro – Jing Blog

SnagIt 9 is nearly a perfect 10 | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise.

After my last post in which I criticized WordPress for not hiring a technical writer to make their documentation simpler and more accessible, two things dawned on me. First, I’m an idiot for not recognizing an opportunity when it presents itself. I should write a comprehensive help file on WordPress and sell it. I’ll work on that. Second, the interplay between simplicity and complexity is … more »

I’m proud to announce that Camtasia Studio is a new sponsor for my blog. I’ve been using Camtasia Studio to create video tutorials for the past month, and I really like it. I was converted to voice tutorials rather than caption-based tutorials when a user told me he preferred voice 10 to 1. I also prefer voice rather than captions, and voice-screen-demos are a lot … more »

In this Jing video tutorial, I explain how to get up and running with Jing. What’s Jing? Check out my previous post that includes several sample Jing videos showing how technical writers can benefit from Jing. You can also see the [kml_flashembed movie="http://idratherbewriting.com/screencasts/jingEXPRESS/jingEXPRESS.swf" height="335" width="420" /] Note: If you’re seeing some bracketed text and a link rather than a video player, it’s because the flash-embed … more »