I likey Jing! (screencasting for Mac & linux)
Since switching to Mac, I’ve been wondering what I’m going to use for recording screencasts. Thanks to Alec Couros I learned about the Jing project, a TechSmith app that does screencasting for both Windows and Mac. And, since I’m running linux via VMWare fusion, I can even record screencasts of my linux sessions.
Once you start the recording process, you click and drag the screen to set up the capture area. Then you can choose to take a snapshot or video. Once you’re done, you can immediately upload to screencast.com or save it to your computer.
All this is free while the project is being developed; I imagine TechSmith will come up with some outrageous pricing scheme once it’s finished. For now I’m using the free hosting on screencast.com just because it’s so convenient: save your movie and upload it!
Jing came in particularly handy today when my wife needed to send me a folder of files via email. She didn’t know how to zip them up, so I just fired up Ubuntu and did a quick demo of creating an archive in Ubuntu to send her.
Jing also provides the embed code if you want to embed it on your site, too.
October 16th, 2007 - 11:44 am
Nice! Love how you have done this for Linux as well … I have Fusion as well, and find it a great way to Jing about Jinging in Windows.
All the best, and thanks for the linkback.
October 17th, 2007 - 9:32 am
I’ll have to try this out, as I’ve been pretty disappointed with using Snapz Pro X for screencasting. It’s nice software but simply cannot get the results to be legible when I upload them to YouTube or Google Video.
December 22nd, 2008 - 10:08 pm
I would like a few details as to how you got Jing to work in Ubuntu. I’m a newbie in Ubuntu, but an old DOS/Windows guru.
I’ve found that some Mac programs seem to work ok in Ubuntu. Is that the case here as well?
Thanks!
Clif
the best things in life are still free
http://freewarewiki.com
December 22nd, 2008 - 10:09 pm
Sorry … forgot to click the notify box.
December 23rd, 2008 - 9:28 am
@Clif, I’m running Ubuntu in a virtual machine (via VMware Fusion), so I just select the area to be captured with Jing and it captures whatever is there–in this case, my Ubuntu session.
December 23rd, 2008 - 3:09 pm
Ahh, that explains it. I’ve run it in virtual machines as well. I finally installed it for real.
I did find out how to record my screen to make screencasts using gtk-recordmydesktop. Works great but leaves the output as OGV (ogg video). Have to convert it to AVI using mencoder. Set up a launcher that automatically converts from OGV to AVI when I drag a file onto it and drop it there.
Thanks for the reply.
Clif
the best things in life are still free
http://freewarewiki.com