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October 14, 2007
Screen Capture - A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
If you provide any kind of remote support, the ability to to take a picture of your screen is essential. It's typically not easy to explain an online task over the phone or email without visuals to go with it. Think of it as an important way to deliver "just in time" training. Live remote support, by connecting to a user's PC, is preferable, but if that's not an option, you need a good screen capture utility.
As I've mentioned before, my favorite such program is SnagIt. You can use SnagIt to capture an entire window or just a section of the screen. You can even record videos, a capability that can be tremendously helpful it you've trying to explain a process. Just attach the video and send.
The nice people at TechSmith, makers of Snagit and Camtasia, are also experimenting with what they call the Jing Project. I spotted an entry about Jing on Inter Alia, and decided to give it a whilrl.
Once you've installed Jing, a gold globe hovers rather unobtrusively at the top middle of you computer screen, just waiting for the moment you decide to do a screen capture or video. To start the process, click on the globe, select the capture icon, define the area of the screen you wish to capture, then choose image or video. You can even include audio in your video captures. For more details, watch the video tour on the Jing Project web site.
When you've completed your capture, you can save it or post it to Screencast.com. If you post to Screencast.com, you're provided a URL that you can share with others. Screencast.com normally requires a monthly fee, but Jing users are provided with free access for the time being. Free is unlikely to continue indefinitely, however.
Posting your images and/or videos to Screencast.com has several advantages . You don't have to email large attachments, which may or may not make it to the recipient, and if you want to send the same video to others at any time, it's easy to do so.
On the other hand, I wouldn't feel comfortable using Screencast to store anything related to firm resources, software or data. Security is a concern. For that reason, you may want to store the video to your hard drive instead.
Whether Jing suits your fancy or not, make sure that you have some kind of tool to quickly and easily grab screenshots and create short videos. Remote support is a requirement in this day and age, and you need to be able to deliver in the most effective way possible. And, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
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