[How to] Configure and Use Jing Screen Capture Software

Introduction:

If you’re making a video tutorial about a software program, you are probably going to need a screen recorder to make it professional.  What if you’re writing a text tutorial?  If it’s all text, the reader will have a hard time making sense of it, so you’ll want to include some screen capture images, right?

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A friend told me about Jing, which is a free screen capture program.  It can record videos and still images of your computer screen.  Click here to get Jing.

All Right, Software Piracy For the Win or Lose?

Let’s face it.  Software piracy has always been around since the days that people figured out they could copy 3.5″ floppy disks.  With the advent and proliferation of the availability of the Internet, some will argue that is made software piracy even worse.  A lot of the viewers of this blog have experienced or know about software piracy.  I myself have dabbled in parts of it too.  Let’s dive a little bit into why people pirate software, when everyone knows from a moral standpoint it is just plain wrong.  This is story number 4…

Software Recommendations Are Not That Easy

I thought I write a quick insightful post on the review of software.  Let’s face it, in the Window’s world, there are tons of software built for many different audiences.  The problem is, how do you know which one is the “best” software?

Even declaring which software is the “best” is not clear itself.  The word “best” is a relative term, so what is considered the “best” to one person, is not simply the “best” for another person.  For instance, there was a time period when Zone Alarm was the best firewall out there.  Now Zone Alarm has changed over the years from being strickly a firewall program to a security suite.

Now you got other firewall programs like Windows Firewall, Kerio, Sygate, Tiny Personal Firewall, Bitdefender, and more.  For some people, they live by one of the programs mentioned above.  For others, Zone Alarm is perfectly fine for them. Thus, in this advanced software age making a recommendation or review on a piece of software is partly objective, partly personal, and partly cynical.

On Freewaregenius.com, a virtual desktop program named Dexpot was part of the top 20 list.  I tried it, and I didn’t like it.  It just didn’t really “vibe” or click in with my personal computing experience.  For other people, maybe this is just up their alley.  In my review, I might have been biased, and for another reviewer, he may have given it praise.

However, from time to time there are software recommendations that we as a general public maybe able to agree upon.  One example is what is a good anti-spyware program to use.  I’m sure if you had a choice between the 2008 version of Ad-Aware and Spybot, the majority of people would pick Spybot because it is leaner and has less bloat.

But then, you may have Ad-Aware fanboys, so who is right and who is wrong?  Where I am going with this post?  The next time someone says a program is “interesting”, it doesn’t mean it is good or bad, or even a recommendation.  To me, saying a particular piece of software is “interesting” is like not even taking a real side.

A good example is this new Microsoft Program that lets you take a webcam, and turn your monitor into this touch type like application area.  Cool?  Yes.  Interesting?  Yes.  Do myself see it as a life changing event?  No, but then again I may be phrasing the question wrong.

Every software has its niche audience, and for someone out there, the program is sufficient enough for them.  As an author, I respect that.  Some people may try to “push” programs onto me, and vice versa, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept it.

The only way to truly satisfy your own personal computing experience is to try out software on your own, and develop your own preference.  Live a little. Don’t be a drone.  😉

Am I off whack?  Leave a comment.  I’m curious how others act when someone “recommended” something to you, and you felt their recommendation was utter crap or useless. 🙂

If You Own A Computer…

Then make sure to check that you update the anti-virus definition files.

Taken from Vapid2323 via Digg

Give Away Of The Day: Always Free, Guaranteed.

Today, I have decided to reveal something I found out not to long ago. I learned that there is a place on the internet that gives free software and games everyday! They are free downloads and are your to use forever if you choice to download and install it.

Directly from the website comes this knowledge:

”

The idea behind this initiative is that many sites and publishers offer trial downloads; but only we offer giveaway downloads. What does that mean?

Basically, every day we nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means – not a trial, not a limited version – but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for our visitors”

Of course, the only drawback is that you must install and activate the product within the time limit, so you have to install and run the program on that same day.

Keybreeze: Good but not Amazing

After using Keybreeze for a total of ten minutes, I was pretty much dumbfounded and annoyed by the user interface and its overall appearance. Indeed, the application does use less resources than Launchy, but it is not very user-friendly nor intuitive. Some applications require as much as one letter, while an app that starts with the same letter might take a whole word to find the right program.

Also, adding in new programs was an eyesore. Adding a miscellaneous program on a different partition took about 3-7 clicks to add it in along with associating it to a key command. Although I do appreciate the programmed hotkeys for typical searches like the dictionary, Wikipedia and the sorts, there is a very slim chance that I would actually use the other features like checking the theatres or the weather.

Whereas the macros function is a very useful function, I would rather stick with Launchy and tell it the directories that I want indexed.

All in all, Keybreeze is a good program, but not exactly for beginners and impatient users. Honestly, this program has more features than it really needs. Stick with launchy for those who want immediate results and an easy-to-use interface.

CCleaner – Freeware Program to Clean Your Computer

This is a program that I have been using for years called CCleaner. What it does is it cleans up your hard drive by removing temp files, bat files, internet files, and the like. Also, it has a built in registry cleaner. Ok, I don’t know how well this registry cleaner compares to Registry Mechanic, but I never had a problem with it.

Here is what the program can do for you.

Program Summary:

CCleaner is a freeware PC optimization tool.
It combines a system cleaner that removes unused and temporary files from your system and also a fully featured registry cleaner!
CCleaner allows Windows to run faster, more efficiently and gives you more hard disk space.
The best part is that it’s Small, Fast and Free!
Cleans the following Windows components:

* Internet Explorer
– Temporary File Cache
– URL History
– Cookies
– Hidden Index.dat files
– Last download file location
* Firefox
– Temporary File Cache
– URL History
– Cookies
– Download manager
* Recycle Bin
* Clipboard
* Windows Temporary files
* Windows Log files
* Recent Documents (on the Start Menu)
* Run history (on the Start Menu)
* Windows XP Search Assistant history
* Windows XP old Prefetch data
* Windows memory dumps after crashes
* Chkdsk file fragments

Advanced Options allow cleaning of:

* Menu Order cache
* Tray Notifications Cache
* Window Size and Location Cache
* User Assist history
* IIS Log Files
* Custom Folders

Application Cleaning:
As well as cleaning up old files and settings left by standard Windows components, CCleaner also cleans temporary files and recent file lists for many applications. Including:

* Firefox, Opera, Safari, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat Reader, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more…

Registry Cleaning:
CCleaner uses an advanced Registry Cleaner to check for problems and inconsistencies. It can check the following:

* File Extensions
* ActiveX Controls
* ClassIDs
* ProgIDs
* Uninstallers
* Shared DLLs
* Fonts
* Help File references
* Application Paths
* Icons
* Invalid Shortcuts and more…

Safety:
CCleaner was designed from the ground to be safe and secure to use. It has multiple levels of checks in place to ensure that it cannot delete any useful information or documents you may still need. We also certify that it contains no Spyware or Adware.
High Security:
For the super cautious users we also offer secure file erasing. By overwriting the files before deleting them, making it impossible to recover the data.
Multiple Languages:
Thanks to the translators, CCleaner is available in 35 different languages:

English, Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech/Slovak, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Serbian Cyrillic, Serbian Latin, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Below are some screenshots of what the program looks like:

Find the program at www.ccleaner.com

Joost – 1.0 Beta!!!!

It’s finally here, Joost is version 1.0. Now I think you can just go to the site and download and you don’t need invites anymore, but I could be wrong.

Visitors, please verify this feature. If it turns out that you do need invites, post in the comments here right now.

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What is Joost? Joost is like online TV, it doesn’t have all TV shows, but its getting there. The interface is slick, and sexy. Joost was made by the same people who made the Kazaa network and Skype. Yes, these guys know what they are doing.

Check it out at www.joost.com