5 Best Screen Cast Tools On The Web

By Lior Levin

Adding a screen cast to your site is a great way to enhance your site’s visual appeal and make it more interactive. But if you’re not a video whiz how do you create an attractive screencast? And once you’ve made it, how do you share it with the world?  These five free tools we use at 123 neon signs will help you.

GoView

It takes just two clicks to begin recording what’s on your screen with GoView. At the moment it’s available for Windows and you have to go to the site to download the application. GoView captures everything that happens on your screen and it’s got a countdown timer so you know when recording is about to start. You don’t have to worry if you make a wrong move. All you need to do is use the scissors tool during the editing process to cut out anything you don’t need. You can also add title slides easily. Once it’s done you are easily able to share it online as it’s streamed to the online servers while you create it. I think this is a great tool for people who are just starting out with screencasts.

Jing

Jing has been around for a while and is available for Windows and Mac. It allows you to create screencasts of up to 5 minutes and you can easily share your screencasts via Twitter, Facebook, and Screencast.com (your account includes 2 GB of free storage).  It’s easy to capture the action on your screen, and this popular application can also be used to take screenshots. You will have to get the pro version if you want easy sharing to YouTube.

Overstream

Overstream is an online editor that makes it easy for you to add text to existing videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other video sites. This is a great site for video modders and is useful if you already have a video that you want to extend with commentaries, captions and subtitles. You can even create video postcards. This seems a bare bones option in comparison with some of the other screencast tools.

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is an online screen recorder which requires no installation and works with Windows, Mac and LINUX. With the free version you can make screencasts of up to 15 minutes, export to a number of common formats and uploaded to YouTube. The pro version removes the watermark, allows password protection and gives you some editing tools. This tool is easy to use because all you have to do is click the start recording button and you will instantly capture your screen. Even a novice could make a competent screencast within seconds.

Screenr

Screenr is another web based screencast recorder which works with Mac or PC. It’s easy to create recordings which play on your iPhone or on the web. Like the other tools mentioned, it takes just a couple of clicks to have a screencast. It’s especially made to work with Twitter but it’s also easy to share your recordings on YouTube. It really doesn’t get much simpler.

So, which one should you choose? Many people swear by Jing, but the easy editing features in GoView make this a great option for screen cast recording. And if you prefer not to download software  Screenr with its easy upload to Youtube is another worthy contender.

Author Information

Lior Levin works for 123neonsigns, a neon signs store and also advises on a regular basis to a applicant tracking software company that developed an amazing solution.

WordPress 3.0 Has Been Released!

WordPress has done it again. They’ve released version 3.0, one of the most important updates of this popular blogging platform in some time.

But I have a confession to make: I was looking at this update with a bit of trepidation, concerned that some of the problems uncovered in past major updates would find their way into this one. I manage eight blogs and I really DID NOT want to have to update them over several days. Thankfully, the updates went smooth and all eight sites are now running on WP 3.0 including this one.

If you’re running WordPress, your admin panel should have signaled you on June 17 to make the update. Surprisingly, there was very little I needed to do other than to back up my database and hit the update button. A few of the plugins were out of date, but I bulk updated those as well. So smooth…so very wonderful!

As you might expect there were a number of important changes with this update including:

The merger of individual and multi-use (MU) versions of WP. Writing for Information Week, Allen Stern said, “The new functionality, called multi-site, will allow blog administrators to manage one or any number of blogs from one install.” Stern expressed concern that a hacker could wreck multiple blogs if they share a singular set-up as WP 3.0 allows. This is something worth considering if you manage more than one blog.

You will also find a new default blog theme called “Twenty Ten” in honor of this year’s big release. I took a look at it and won’t be using it, but it can make for a nice default theme if you need one while looking for a fresh theme for your site.

Introduction of custom post types. Pages that used to be tagged as posts no longer have to be.  According to PC World, “…each page could represent a product, for instance, and have specific fields relating to that category, such as price and model.”  This could prove to be a better model for promoting a page featuring a particular service or product you have to offer.

Easier to do stuff. Bulk updates of plugins is now a reality for WordPress. The interface is lighter, easier on the eyes and more than twelve hundred bugs have been eradicated.

WordPress, which has been constantly updated, will not see its next update for some time.  WP star, Matt Mullenweg says, “We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress. The growth of the community has been breathtaking, including over 10.3 million downloads of version 2.9, but so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else.”

Yes, WP has certainly come a long way and has brought along millions of new users with it. Since first using WP in December 2005 I have observed how the WP team works and am satisfied with their product. I am not a WP evangelist per se, but when it comes to blogging WordPress is simply the best!