Since I’m a FrontPage MVP, I try to keep my articles FrontPage oriented. But I have to step outside that role a little bit to turn you on to one of the most fantastic pieces of software to grace my hard drive in quite some time.

It was recommended to me by Jim Cheshire of jimcoaddins.com.

It’s called Camtasia from techsmith.com. What it is, in short, is a suite of tools that allows you to make screenshot “movies” and then edit, enhance, and save them in a number of file formats appropriate for different utilizations.

I’ve used it a number of times (all without reading a paragraph of tutorial or help manual) and it’s totally KILLER. My output product has improved with each successive attempt and it’s got me so impressed I’m actually thinking about reading the stinking manual so I can use it to its fullest capacity.

Here are some links to the items I’ve done with it and published to the Web (oldest to newest, you can see the improvement in my skill level):

1. http://nedp.net/support/articles/Video/GoDaddy-Permissions/GoDaddy-Permissions.asp

2. http://contentseed.com/videos/author-permissions
3. http://nedp.net/support/articles/Video/SBA-CC-Probs/index.asp

Besides making videos appropriate for the Web in both flash and WMV it’s great to make “one off” examples to e-mail to people. I usually save them as fairly small (320×240px) videos and the file size is surprisingly small. It’s let me help people through issues that’d have taken thousands of keystrokes and a bunch of back and forth emails.

While this software isn’t cheap, you will pay yourself back by buying it. Even if you never make a video for a client (for a fee), you’ll save yourself precious time in customer support.

Since I’m involved in helping people learn how to use and extend FrontPage (ahh, there’s the FrontPage slant), I deal with many “green” users. This is not the users’ fault that they’re green, everybody starts something new sometime. This Camtasia suite is a panacea for these new users. It helps me convey a concept or show how to do something in a way that can’t be compared to by text or even text with copious screenshots. There’s something inherently comforting in “seeing” an operation take place in video form. I’m not sure whether it’s because the user gets a feeling of comfort seeing it take place or whether it gives them confidence by seeing evidence that the operation can, in fact, be done.

Whatever it is, this program is definitely worth keeping and something that I’m looking forward to getting to an expert level with.

If you’re a professional Web developer, or just do a lot of support activities, you really need to check this thing out. They have a free trial download so you really have nothing to lose.

Chris Leeds, MVP, WPD
Chris Leeds is a long time digital photographer and Web enthusiast.

Chris has recently developed and released a software product that allows Webmasters to create Web sites that can be edited by their clients with just a browser.

Chris also maintains and operates Northeast Digital Photo.

Chris has additionally had “Tips and Tricks” and numerous articles published, on Microsoft’s site and other locations, regarding various facets of FrontPage and recently served as a technical reviewer for the O’Reilly Press “FrontPage 2003 the Missing Manual.”

Tags: video, support, chris leeds, camtasia, screen shots, screen video, documentation