I think I just experienced one of those “Oh my God” moments when you see a new technology that takes a task you potentially do often and simplifies in a way that you never thought possible. The reason I say that you “potentially” do it often is that these tasks are usually either difficult or time consuming or just plain inconvenient because they involve too many steps, so you tend to avoid them where possible. An example would be sharing what you see on your screen with someone else across a network. Still images aren’t too hard, but capturing an animated movie of what you are doing on your screen is tricky and usually requires special software, and then the task of sharing that movie over the Internet usually requires a few more steps, plus the issues of incompatable file formats, Mac/Windows issues, yaddah, yaddah… Too hard!
So when I just downloaded and installed Jing from the Jing Project, I was blown away by just how much they have simplified this process. I literally sat in front of the computer repeating “Oh my God!” several times. Perhaps I am just easily impressed, or perhaps this is just the sort of thing that I see very clear uses for, but I am amazed at what Jing does, and even moreso at how it does it. I can see tons of uses for this in a school… for example, teachers could create their own support pages for software the kids need to use so that they don’t have to answer the same questions over and over… students can be creating movies to document their software skills… you can make tutorials for teachers showing them how to do specific tasks… or an end-user could use it to show you exactly what is happening on their screen… and lots more. The finished out is a .swf Flash file.
The Jing Project website will explain more, so check it out or check out my little sample. Let me know if I’m just being easily impressed.
Blown away by Jing by Chris Betcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The idea looks pretty cool. I couldn’t get it to download so I haven’t been able to try it out but reading the FAQ page it looks like this is a trial and they may start charging for use in the future. The downside is that you are not keeping a copy of the video. I use camstudio http://camstudio.org/ to make screen capture videos which I can then manipulate how I like. True this is not quite as straight forward but it isn’t very hard. Camstudio also allows me to record audio at the same time so I can make an instructional video with screen capture video and audio instructions all together.
Thanks for the link though. Worth a look.
Hi Paul. Not sure why you couldn’t get it to download. However, you CAN indeed save the finished Flash files to your local disk, as well as being able to share them online. You have both options. As for the future payment thing, I’m not sure.
I used to use a thing called Snapz Pro X to do screen movies, and although it’s not overly difficult, it it still way fiddlier than Jing. I’m just super impressed with the interface design of Jing… I can’t get over how much they have simplified the task.
Jing does the audio as well.
Hmmm, I’m starting to sound like an advert for Jing and I don’t want to do that, but it really did impress me.
Chris and Paul,
I’m on a Mac and so many things “ignore” Mac users, but not Jing! It was simple to download; installation was a breeze and the ease of use was — well, Apple could have created it; it is so simple.
I too was able to save my movies. And LOVE the pause feature (for the allergic sneeze or momentary thought freeze).
Jing really IS great!