Tag: snagit

Lighting strikes twice (and thrice): winning Snagit and Camtasia

So, once again, it pays to TwitterTM. I happened to be online when Techsmith (@techsmith on Twitter) announced that they would be doing a 24-hour marathon about one of their flagship products, Snagit, with prizes to boot. I was immediately excited because I am familiar with Snagit and it’s an absolute-must for anyone who blogs. Besides the allure of winning something, I was curious to get to know the marketing machine (@betsyweber is the chief evangelist) and developers behind the product.

It was a long event (24 hours) so I was in and out. The #Snagit24 videos by Techsmith are up online for your viewing pleasure, but back to my title about winning, I won a license of Snagit v10 and Camtasia v7. Slightly surreal and I’ve already put Camtasia v7 to good use with this first video about setting page breaks in Excel 2007.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uScQ7nJm1NQ

One of the first things I noticed about Camtasia v7 is that redesigned interface puts the focus on creating your content. With Snagit v10, there was the addition of an all-in-one capture mode which I absolutely love. With the previous versions of Snagit, there was an emphasis on Profiles and shortcuts to launch your capture modes. I’m not big on keyboard shortcuts because on my HP notebook, it’s usually a combo of Fn+PrintScreen or Ctrl+Shift+Letter. That’s a LOT of key presses so in the past with Snagit v9, I would have to:

  1. go to the quick tray in Windows (7) and rightclick on the Snagit icon.
  2. Navigate to the Profiles tab; Click on “Basic Profiles” to select the particular capture mode I wanted.

    3. OR

  3. Start up Snagit by clicking the tray icon or going to the Programs menu
  4. Click on the capture type I wanted and hit the “big red button” to start the capture.

oldsnag.png

Now, the smart developers at Techsmith decided that instead of letting users do ALL the work, they engineered the All-in-one mode with which you can capture regions, windows, objects and scrolling windows (horizontally & vertically which is the holiest of Holies in my book). 😛 Needless to say, the addition of this feature alone is what would have made me upgrade from v9 to v10 because it cut down my fiddling time.

Some of the gifts they gave away includes books about making screencasts, Snagit, Camtasia, etc. I was lucky and won license to Snagit v10 AND Camtasia v7.
camtasia-win.png
snagit-win.png

This was back in May. Also back in May, Digital Inspiration and Softonic EN ran contests in which they were giving away a license to Snagit v10 each. I entered both contests, but I didn’t get my hopes up. So this morning, when I received a message from Tom Clarke from Softonic, I knew that lightning had struck twice. 😛 He had emailed me to tell me I was the winner of their Snagit v10 license giveaway! 2010 is shaping up to be *quite* the year. 🙂

softonic-win.png
However, I could not (in good faith) accept the prize without telling him that I already had won a license to Snagit & Camtasia from a previous Techsmith event! So, I proposed that if he/Softonic was amenable to my giving away the license to a nonprofit organization (Free IT Athens at http://freeitathens.org), I would do so or they could pick another winner. Thankfully, that was an arrangement he & I could live with so Free IT Athens is now the proud owner of Snagit v10. 🙂

Update (5pm): FRITA advocates for the use of open source software so I’ve emailed Tom Clarke about selecting another winner.

The moral lesson through my rambling article:

  1. it pays to enter giveaways.
  2. It pays to enter multiple giveays. 🙂
  3. In my experience, the stuff I’ve won so far is stuff I use *daily. I absolutely LOVE my HP Touchsmart 600 and I nearly bit the poor husband’s head off when he suggested selling it to “upgrade” to a bigscreen TV. lol.
  4. Add value to the giveaways; My contest entries are usually thoughtful and honest about what I would use the item for if I won it. In my experience, I would say honesty is definitely the best policy.

That’s all for now. Good luck and happy hunting! 🙂

My blog’s existential crisis … sort of. :)

I have the lamest (yet valid) reason for not blogging in over a week  now: I didn’t know what to say. For the first time in awhile, I felt thoroughly jaded about writing yet another how-to or kvetching about the latest software/hardware fault. There are a ton of sites that I’ll defer to when it comes down to the technical nitty gritty of things, but I hope that my scribblings may have made sense of someone out there. It’s been over 2 weeks since I moved back to Vista and I must confess that I have forgotten what Ubuntu feels like. That sounds like a betrayal even to me, but some context is in order.

Before throwing up my hands in despair and wiping off Windows from  my laptop, my laptop had a lot of experimental (beta quality) software on it and had witnessed scores of uninstallations that clog disk performance. My computer was rapidly becoming as sluggish as my 3 year old XP desktop PC and I didn’t know how to fix it. I was not infected with any virii or rootkits that I knew of, but I had a lot of programs installed and I experimented a lot with my laptop. The final straw was when some of my personal files became corrupted after running a couple of diagnose-and-repair programs and I threw up my hands in defeat. I’d experimented a lot with virtual machines and was becoming rapidly enamored of the Ubuntu/Linux distribution. I backed up my personal and professional files in two places and said “hasta luego” to Vista. Imagine my giddiness when my computer booted up & was ready to roll in less than 1 minute! However, Ubuntu’s “downfall” at my hands came because of a single issue.

Fast forward to mid-March when I restored my laptop to its factory conditions with my recovery DVDs. I installed my essential programs which are:

  1. Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 (everything except the Business Contact Manager or Office Accounting 2008) :- I love Office 2007. Eye candy and extremely functional.
  2. Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 :- I paid for this and it is worth its weight in gold! Of course, this was an educational version so it was less than $60.
  3. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1
  4. Acronis True Image 2009 :- Worth the money I’ve paid for it. I would purchase it again in a heartbeat!
  5. Acronis Disk Director 10 :- A master at slicing and dicing drives i.e. partitioning, etc
  6. Microsoft Expression Studio Suite :- Got this for free at Microsoft DreamSpark; The included Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 is one of the best converters for .AVI files i.e. AVI to WMV in high quality. I love it!
  7. Ultraedit Text Editor :- Fast and killer at handling huge text files. It’s mostly a Notepad replacement for me, but I wanted the best of the best and Ultraedit was the unanimous victor.
  8. Norton Internet Security 2009
  9. Secunia PSI :- For keeping tabs of programs that need updating or that have reached the end of life period.
  10. PC Wizard
  11. Fraps :- For high quality capture of games I’m playing or simply for recording the entire desktop by monitoring the desktop windows manager. Well worth the dough I dropped for it and it comes with free upgrades for life!
  12. Gizmo5 :- I love this program although the call quality could do with some work. I use this to communicate with my folks in Nigeria by buying Call Out minutes. I get the most bang for my buck that way.
  13. Imgburn :- this program lets the user be awesome as Kathy Sierra would say. It’s so easy to use that a cavewoman like me can use it without tearing out her hair!)
  14. Wireshark :- I fire this baby up whenever I’m out of my home network to monitor HTTP traffic leaving & entering my computer. I always use my SSH tunnel whenever I’m on public wifi or on an insecure/hostile network so I try to inspect my HTTP packets for any cleartext passwords, etc. Yes, I’m a tinfoil hat wearer. 🙂
  15. Nmap :- I haven’t fully gotten the hang of this, but I know that I intend on tapping into its power.
  16. Camtasia Studio 6 :- THE name in creating awesome screencasts and I won a license of this fantastic program via a contest on Gottabemobile.
  17. Snagit 9 :- THE name in taking awesome screenshots of whatever you’re doing. 🙂 I’ve paid for this baby twice because it’s that good.
  18. Netalyzer :- Every computer needs one of these. ‘Nuff said.
  19. 7-zip :- For unobtrusive unzipping & zipping needs, 7-Zip is the program to beat.
  20. FeedDemon :- I would be very lonely in the world without FeedDemon. 🙂 I kid, but this program is a desktop RSS reader that backups up my subscriptions and has handled my feeds with minimal hiccups.
  21. Filezilla (and/or Winscp) :- The masters at FTP/SFTP/SSH connections.
  22. Putty :- For making SSH tunneling on my laptop possible. I heart you, Putty.
  23. Xobni :- the Outlook plugin
  24. Firefox :- bestest browser EVAR!!
  25. Cyberlink Youcam 2 (for whatever reason, this program won’t receive updates and I’m in the market for an alternative webcam program like Logitech’s Quickcam software for the Logitech Pro 9000)
  26. Speedcrunch :- This calculator is faster than the built-in calculator in Vista and has even more functionality. I love that it saves all calculations for me so it gives me a reason not to buy the latest shiny thing that catches my eye. 🙂
  27. WinDirStat :- This nifty program tells me which folders are hogging up all my hard drive space. It’s thanks to this program that Nero 9 is not on my laptop anymore. I discovered several GBs in some folders created by Nero 9. I had no idea what those folders were for and I was too scared to delete them.
  28. TheSage dictionary :- Free dictionary that can search online (Wikipedia, Google, etc) from the application’s interface. I debated long & hard about replacing Wordweb Free with this program, but now, I have no regrets. The Sage is just as fast (if not faster) than Wordweb Free.

After installing these 28 programs and installing their updates, I slowly “rolled” out more program installations while carefully monitoring the Performance Information and Tools monitor for any problem programs. One software tool is conspicuously absent and that is Nero 9 which I used to swear by. The reason I have kept Nero 9 off y computer lies in the fact that it is overkill for my purposes (as I’ve learnt the hard way). I don’t want this post to become a screed, but Nero 9 has actually gotten in the way of doing stuff instead of making stuff drop-dead easy. So, I went with Imgburn for its simple 1-click options.

As of today, I’ve added a lot more programs to my computer, but I’ve been discriminating in what I put on my laptop. These programs see less usage than the 21 above, but they are on my laptop because I want them there. They are:

  1. Windows Live Writer
  2. Microsoft Streets & Trips 2009 (with GPS)
  3. DVDFab
  4. ConceptDraw Professional 7 :- A worthy alternative to Microsoft Visio Professional 2007. For making neat drawings that would take forever in Word. 😛
  5. ConceptDraw MindMap 5
  6. Microsoft Math 3.0 :- Don’t ask. It’s not worth the 20 bucks I paid for it because it’s slower than molasses. I recommend SpeedCrunch if a vanilla calculator will suit your needs.
  7. GPG4Win :- Every now and then, I get this bee in my bonnet that I need to encrypt my email conversations. I’m not in cohorts with evil people so my paranoia is largely unjustified. However, if I did encrypt all my email, no one would be able to get in touch with me because my contacts are not tinfoil hat wearers like me!
  8. Quicktime 7 Pro and QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component :- I went Pro over 2 years ago and it’s definitely worth it. I purchased the MPEG add-on because at the time, I needed that capability. Worth it? Meh.
  9. Spacejock software :- You can’t beat free & high quality software. yBook is an e-Reader that simply works OOB (out of box). It is my alternative to the ~ $300 Amazon Kindle. Eat your hearts out, suckers! 😛
  10. Woopra :- A web analytics program
  11. Skype :- I have about 2 contacts on Skype (my husband and a friend of ours). 🙂 However, I need Skype on the laptop because I can make video calls to my husband and when my husband is jamming with his friend (my 2nd contact), they call me via Skype and I can listen to their music.
  12. CCleaner :- This program is not on my must-have list because I already do a lot of the tasks it performs manually. I’ve been burned by mediocre “clean up” software (*cough* TuneUp *cough*) so I’m leery of such applications. However, CCleaner has a very good reputation so I’m comfortable with running this program once a quarter. 🙂
  13. Bulk Rename Utility :- a free program by Jim Willsher for bulk renaming. It does what it does simply and fast. Tons of options to satisfy any needs (extension changes, sequential numbering, etc). A specialized tool, but not essential. It also has a dedicated 64 bit version.
  14. ColorPic :- Another specialized tool for when I’m optimizing my Adsense ads and I need to pick matching colors. 🙂

Right now, my computer is humming right along with me when I click to open things, etc. I haven’t had the Performance Information and Tools monitor tell me that any issues have been documented by the computer. I haven’t had the computer bluescreen (BSOD) on me yet *knock on wood* although my experience with Windows tells me that even BSODs happen to the best of us.

I will be updating this post with links to the programs later so enjoy!

Wiping off Windows and installing Ubuntu

Welcome back to part 3 of my foray into the Ubuntu/Linux system. To recap:

  1. I installed Ubuntu/Linux as a virtual machine on my Windows Vista Ultimate Laptop using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Things worked really well on it that I decided to give the Ubuntu/Linux operating system a more thorough look.
  2. I decided to partition my hard disk (cue pain and suffering) and I fell even more in love with the Ubuntu/Linux operating system’s ease of use and ‘quickness’, for lack of a better word.
  3. Now, I decided it was time for a complete switch-over to Ubuntu.

This was actually the easiest thing to do. I popped in the Ubuntu Live CD and restarted my laptop. Your computer’s BIOS should (by default) boot from a  CD/DVD if present and that is what my laptop did. I booted into the operating system and once I had an internet connection going, I began the installation process by clicking the “Install” icon which was on the desktop (default behaviour).

After answering standard questions about the user name, time zone, etc, the time came to select what partition to install Ubuntu to and this time, I selected “Guided partion – use the entire disk”. Again, be very aware that this will wipe off everything that was on the disk before. As I’ve said so many times:

  1. I have, at least, 2 current disk images of my previous Windows Vista installation, thanks to Acronis Disk Image. I also created an Acronis Recovery Media Disk which I can use to restore my disk images (this is part of the Acronis True Image home product).
  2. I have copies of the actual exe or msi files that I can use to reinstall all my prized Windows programs so that I don’t have to cough up any more money.
  3. If my Disk Image restore failed or got corrupted, I’ve got file backups of my documents so that I can simply restore Windows via my computer’s recovery CD/DVDs and then, copy over my files.
  4. I did all of this before I started tinkering with my windows partition, etc so I’m reasonably assured that the files aren’t corrupt.
  5. That out of the way, i confidently hit “Start” and in less than 2 hrs (could be less), I had a working installation of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Wireless connection

The first thing I did was to install all security updates that were presented to me. Clearly, to do this, I had to get my internet connection going and it was as simple as clicking (left click) on the network connection sign (a series of bars) by the clock (top-right corner of the screen). I identified my home network’s SSID and clicked on it. Bam! I was live on the intarwebs. 🙂 Installing the updates was a breeze and I simply restarted the computer when it was done.

Next, I set up the bluetooth pair between my laptop and my hp bluetooth mouse. The key to this was performing the pairing operation after all updates had been installed on the laptop so that the system had the most up-to-date information. Thus, when I hit “setup a new device” after right-clicking the bluetooth icon, my mouse was detected and I set it to be always visible.

I’m still working on trying to get some sort of functionality out of pairing my Palm Treo 750 with Ubuntu. I already have my contacts pulled off the phone, but I would like to be able to access my palm treo as a virtual filesystem, perhaps. It’s confusing, but I’m willing to learn. 🙂 I’m still working on not missing a bunch of my prized Windows utilities like TechSmith‘s products (Camtasia Studio 6 which I used for producing short videos and Snagit for screen captures), Acronis True Image (for set-it-and-forget-it file and whole disk backups), Microsoft Office Outlook (for managing my email, appointments and my phone contacts), etc.

Up next, an overview of programs I’m getting used to in Ubuntu as replacements for my Microsoft Windows staples and difficulties I have encountered with the Ubuntu system. 🙂 Cheers!