TechSmith release Jing (free at the moment)

[Carol Haynes]

This looks an interesting idea from TechSmith - I am downloading as I type so I haven't tried it yet.

Here is the email I received from them:

You can download the app for free from:

http://www.jingproject.com/

and there is a blog by the developers at:

http://blog.jingproject.com/

[Carol Haynes]

Hmmm ... tried installing this and all I get is "Jing has encountered an error and must exit !"

Tried repairing the installation and reinstalling but no luck.

Anyone else having problems?

[iphigenie]

visual conversation.. do they mean instant messenging?

[Carol Haynes]

No I can't test it out ('cos I can't get it to run on my system) but it seems to be an app that allows you to capture regions of the screen as stills and movie sequences and then upload them to blogs or IM them to friends.

Check out the blog for more info:

http://blog.jingproject.com/assets-jing/gettingstarted/?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=385&width=505

(just click the video)

It looks a bit like a cross between SnagIt, Camtasia and the FlickR website (except they use screencast.com)

Basically you capture the bits you want from the screen and then Jing uploads it to Screencast and gives you a link to share via IM or email etc. Looks quite neat.

For once there are multiplatform versions too.

[justice]

Tried Jing, it installed, but when I want to run it Jing crashes.  (vista 32bit uac off)

[justice]

No I can't test it out ('cos I can't get it to run on my system)

I received an e-mail back:

justice,

I think the error you've reported was fixed with our 1.2.4 release.
There was a bug that was causing us to crash on startup if your date
format was set to something besides US/English.

If you're willing to give it another try, you can download our new
version at:
http://www.jingproject.com

If that doesn't fix the problem, please let me know and hopefully we can
work through it.

Michael Malinak
Jing Lead Developer
TechSmith Corporation

[justice]

Seems to work alright! 
http://www.screencast.com/t/FaDYCrGd

[mouser]

Pretty cool that you are getting an email back from the lead developer -- good sign.

[mouser]

one thing that's kind of funny though is how they are hyping it as a new technology:

"Fun Visual Conversation Technology" = A screenshot program with a button to upload an image to an image uploading site.

Anyone who has installed a context menu extension to upload images to their flickr or other image uploading sites basically has this already, thought it might take 1 extra mouse click..  still seems nice and nice that it's cross platform and free (for now?)

[justice]

I think it's mor of an exercise of making their Camtasia technology more accessible to the masses. It's not just screenshots, you can share video's as well. They're just trying to make camtasia effortless and fun by remove the editing and encoding options steps, and focus on quick sharing of motion/stills of your screen using their website. Jing's probably testing the waters for them to see if there's a market for it.

If you own camtasia you have the technology already and can use it with finer detail, however for the moment this is free (they state clearly on their frontpage: The project will eventually turn into something else) and after a couple of captures to me it could be useful as quick annotations too.

So basically, fun and easy, but does it have enough staying power both on my system and in availability.

[Carol Haynes]

Seems to work for me now - I have to say I think it is really neat and quick.

OK you haven't got all the thrills (and spills) of SnagIt or Camtasia but it is a really easy, quick and dirty way to share screen grabs and video (including system audio) in Flash format.

Ah - just discovered the catches ...

1) Graphics are restricted PNG format
2) Video is restricted to SWF format - and there are apparently no controls you can set other than the region of the screen to capture.
3) They want your money ... (surprise, surprise). Jing may be free but it only interacts with Screencast which isn't! When you sign up you get a 'trial account' which expires in 60 days after that there are charges to pay:



Having said that it could be very useful here as you can post SWF files - so if you want to include a little video to illustrate a problem it is ideal!

[justice]

When you sign up you get a 'trial account' which expires in 60 days

No it's free for the duration of the Jing project. How long that is not clear yet, but over 60 days.

“Your content is hosted on Screencast.com, for which we are providing a complimentary account to all participants during this project. Users have 200MB of space for storing screenshots and screencasts and 1 GB of bandwidth that renews monthly. The Screencast.com account will remain available to you for the duration of the project.”

[Carol Haynes]

OK - hadn't seen that page but when I look at my account on www.screencast.com it shows this:

which is a bit confusing if you haven't read the FAQ page.

Anyway it is clear where they are likely to be heading with this - neat free app to suck you into a subscription service.

[Curt]

TechSmith have updated Jing to 1.4.7331


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[Carol Haynes]

Interestingly they have added FTP and FlickR support - wonder if they will remain when it goes commercial?

[justice]

That's good to know. They might hope to go for ease of use of using their subscription system or DIY using ftp for free? Let's see if DivShare will support the flickr api then u can use that instead haha.

[tinjaw]

I have configured Jing to do FTP and create the share, image embed, and video embed code and it works very well.

[Darwin]

Wow! I missed this in July when Carol first posted about it. I've just downloaded and installed the latest version and am impressed. A lot simpler than firing up either SnagIt or Camtasia!

Right then - which one of you cheeky little monkeys tied up the username Darwin then?

[Curt]

They have improved a lot on Jing's speed, and added two new buttons:

One (button) saves your image or video to any location you choose. The other (button) copies your whole image (not just the URL) to the clipboard so you can paste it into an email...or wherever you want it.

Watch their video, What's new in Jing 1.6?".