Discount for BB FlashBack Screencasting Tool now available - and commentary

[mouser]

I've posted the 50% discount codes for BB FlashBack and BB FlashBack Express screencasting tools in the members only section of the forum.

I just wanted to take a moment to mention it in this general section of the forum because I think it's important for us as a community to make a show of recognition and support for companies that take the time to work with our site..

it's been an interesting experience in contacting companies about discounts and reviews on our site.  companies seem to fall into two very distinct groups. half of them seem to have no interest in talking, about their program, about discounts, about the review.  the other half seem genuinely interested in the review, in talking about how to improve their program, and in maintaining an interaction with their customer base (whether directly or indirectly). as you would expect, it's often the bigger companies that can brush off such inquiries but this is certainly not always the case.

in talking with people here on this forum i think there is general agreement that part of the decision about buying a program should be based on the nature of the company, whether they care about their program, whether they are committed to fixing problems, etc. it's been a real pleasure talking with blueberry consultants about bb flashback, and their plans for it.. it's always nice to find a company that really cares about producing the best product possible, and cares about listening to its users.

I was thrilled that we were able to get discounts on both the high end and low end programs from blueberry consultants because it means a fantastic deal for both people who know they are serious about screencasting, and those that just want to dabble in it.

If you read the review you'll see that we really liked BB FlashBack Express a lot, and this discount makes the program $20, which is an incredibly amazing bargain - i highly recommend you take advantage of this even if you're not sure you really need to the program, just in case.  Let's show blueberry that offering discounts through us is a good way to reach people that might not otherwise be customers.

[mouser]

i had another idea..

i was thinking if we had enough submissions we might host some screencasting movies of freeware programs or how-to demonstrations that people here might make using one of these tools.

it might be a nice gift to a freeware author of some program you like to make a movie showing how to use it.. we could host it here or if they prefer you could just mail it to them for them to host.

and we'd be happy to host any how-to movies for free or commercial programs, or other processes that people might want to make to show people how to do certain things (like change wallpaper, etc.).

ooh!! just got another fantastic idea.. screencasting movies for the new Cheat Sheeter program!!

[mouser]

just got word from blueberry that they have also decided to donate 5 free copies of bb flashback for us to give out as prizes.. really wonderful.

[nudone]

yet again, excellent work, mouser. (i was almost beginning to think you were having trouble with the companies this time - oh, ye of little faith.)

hosting screencasts - another good idea.

just one question. is Cheat Sheeter operational enough yet to start getting serious with it? i've been sort of delaying looking at it until you said it was ready to use properly.

[mouser]

cheat sheeter is ready to start making cheat sheets, BUT
it really needs a good css stylesheet and set of tags before anyone should start writing stuff seriously.

i will post a longer post to the cheat sheeter section about this issue and try to get it really finished in next week or so and then i will make a big push to ask for some help on the forum making some cheat sheets.  maybe we can start with cheat sheets for all the apps that have won awards on the site.

[zridling]

Wow, that's very nice of Blueberry Consultants to do that! You're right — for those wanting entry to screencasting, you won't go wrong with BB Flashback Express. If you find you need more export and editing power, then you can eventually move up to the full BB Flashback. I just used it to demonstrate some issues with a beta version for a company and they were grateful, since my descriptions fell short. In this case, a video was worth 2,000 words!

[mouser]

great to see you back zaine

[Bitwise]

Good work getting that software!  I wish I'd thought of it first  . As mouser knows, I'm going to be reviewing screencasting software in Bitwise soon, starting with the new release of Camtasia 3 this week (btw, later on, I may give some backward links to the screencasting reviews here which I must say are extremely professional) so I won't give my final verdict on BBFlashback just yet. However, what I will say is that the company responsible (Blueberry Software) has been very fast to respond to my enquiries and very helpful too. I'm glad to know that they are supporting DonationCoder. My main criticism of BBFlashback is that the current release doesn't support multiple monitors. To be honest, that's not a huge problem as you're only going to be recording from one monitor at a time. Even so, it would be nice to get this fixed in a future release. There are some things (such as the ability to re-record and edit mouse pointer movements and effects) which surpass the features even of Camtasia. At 50% off, it's definitely a bargain.

all the best
Huw

[mouser]

i know that bb flashback are actively fixing the multimon; they may in fact have already fixed it.