Wednesday, May 27, 2009

How to view the YouTube video bypass the network

How to view the YouTube video bypass the network restrictions?
Browse anonymously and/or bypass your school, college or workplace network restrictions. Your favourite site blocked? Browse through our site instead! When YouTube is restricted in your area but you do want to watch the video, this would be of great help!
http://www.sneakme.net/

Demo Created by DemoCreator.


Monday, May 25, 2009

DemoCreator - Screen Recorder for Learning

Screen recorder is the software for recording screen activity and mouse movement to create movies and interactive demos. It is useful for creating training materials, software tutorials, presentations, and product demonstrations. As a powerful presentation tool, nowadays screen recorder is widely used in teaching and learning.

The research about screen recording suggests that screen recordings increase teaching presence and thus improve students' learning experiences.

For teachers, they can perform demos in an online learning environment; the tutorials can be edited with multiple interactive elements before delivery, the demos support reuse...

For students, the presentations created by screen recorder is clearer and more engaging than written instructions or static screen shots; the demos can be played as many times as needed; the tutorial videos is for "anytime/anywhere" learning...

Here is a short review of a screen recorder for learning. DemoCreator is a nice screen recorder for creating electronic learning presentations. It provides friendly interfaces and powerful editing features. No need of multimedia and programming skills to make interactive tutorials. We will take a look at this screen recorder in details.


Capture the onscreen activity


DemoCreator record video tutorials with audio by screen capture, and show exactly how the application (such as PowerPoint, Photoshop and website) or system runs. The screen recording is saved as slides. The slide format makes it easy to edit. For example, the mouse curse is recorded as an editable object in the timeline of a slide, users can change its clicking area, clicking effect, movement route and time. A mass of slides for a lengthy presentation could be a disadvantage for some users, but this enables users to save the desired slides and discard the unwanted slides for their presentation.

Edit the recording tutorial


Because tutorials and simulations are shown as a slide format in DemoCreator, users can readily modify the pace and control the timing of objects such as visual components on the timeline editor for each slide. There is a library of available objects to decorate the recording, such as Flash animation, mouse movements, text box, edit entry, highlight boxes for spotlighting areas in a slide, and clickable buttons for directing users to a different slide or URL page. Users can enhance the presentation by adding the objects to make the illustration explicit. Users can rerecord the narrations for the tutorials, or they can import the music files to their tutorials. Furthermore, the existed project can be imported to the current presentation project. It means that DemoCreator supports tutorial reuse, and the multiple tutorials can be integrated as one.





Publish the presentation


To make interactive presentations, the predominately used publishing output media type in DemoCreator is Flash movie. The main drawback is that lengthy presentations can result in a large number of slides that can be time consuming to publish and result in a larger file size. And DemoCreator enables teachers to provide students with record results through Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) or Aviation Industry Computer-based Training Committee (AICC). SCORM and AICC courseware are available through both commercial and open source learning management systems for school education and enterprise training.



"Teaching is a performing art."
— Bob Ross,
professional speaker and humorist

Easy to make your presentation with screen recorder. But remember, to make a good presentation, instructor enthusiasm and creativity are the key.


Related Links :
Get started with DemoCreator


Record Computer Screen with Audio

Thursday, May 14, 2009

How to make an effective sceencast

A screencast is a video of onscreen activity. It is a helpful tool to show technical tasks, or to illustrate technical concepts hard to explain in words. It might take the form of a formal narrated presentation, a software demo, or an informal walk-through of a particular concept. It can be readily distributed by blog posts, RSS feeds, tags, and social media video hosts like YouTube. These media enable users to share screencasts with a distributed audience, and people can get portable training with podcasts.


But, how to make an effective screencast?

Some important tips from Microsoft to prepare your computer for screen recording:


To improve your computer’s performance during the screen-capture session, especially if you plan to capture the entire computer screen, reduce the screen resolution and color quality. You can set your computer according to the following screencast:


If you plan to capture full-motion video during your screen-capture session, disable your computer's hardware acceleration. That will make your computer runs more smoothly when in recording. There is another screencast to show you the steps:


Then, close the unneeded programs. This helps clear the clutter from the screen and reduce problem of device of resource conflicts.

When everything is ready, just make a compelling screencast according the following tips.

1. Develop an audio narration for your screencast.


Write voice narration scripts for the screencast. The best scripts are written word-for-word to ensure the audio track is never silent. It doesn’t mean that there must be narration for the entire screencast - musical transitions might be appropriate. Now screen recorder like DemoCreator allows user to import music as the background audio to enhance the demonstration.


A solid script will follow good marketing and sales techniques. So ensure that your script doesn’t just explain how to perform a task, but ensure it properly highlights the features and benefits of the product/service being demoed. By continually pointing out the features of the product/service and then going further to explain why they’re beneficial to the audience you make a more stunning screencast.


2. Rehearse the video recording


Practice delivery while moving the mouse. In the task you will handle, how much time will be spent describing an operation, what will you say to highlight a feature, and when will you zoom on an area for details, you should get a feel for controlling the timing. During your rehearsal, ensure that you are speaking clearly and slowly.


3. Record the Screencast


Launch the screen recording software and select the area on the screen, then start your screencasting. When the recording is over, preview your screencast. You can edit or rerecord the audio and modify the video, or rerecord the screencast or audio narration until you are satisfied. Just record the minimum area, that will make your publishing files smaller.


4. Edit the screencast


Now the editing features come to be popular in screen recording software.You can delete unnecessary video and audio content as you wish. Also, you can insert new video, graphics, or audio clips to decorate the screencast.


For example, you can add zoom and pan effect to show the specific area in details, you can spotlighting an area of the recording, and you can put a clickable button to direct users to your website. In one word, users can decorate the movie by adding the objects to make the illustration explicit.


5. Publish your screencast

There are some publishing options:
For widely sharing, publish your video as .avi or .wmv file and upload the file to the Youtube.com or Vimeo.com web service.
Publish as a Flash movie and generate HTML files to be uploaded to a website for access by web browsers.
If you are going to send your screencast to another, EXE format could be a good option. It is an executable format can be run without any player.
And you may create SCORM or AICC compliant demo packages for being uploaded to LMS like SharePoint, Moodle or Blackboard.

Screencast Tools

What screen recording software you need depends on your utility and what effect you want to achieve. DemoCreator could be a good option.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Get Exposure - Increase Your Business Sales

No doubt about that, the one thing that any company, corporation or business wants is exposure. Exposure shapes and molds a company or an idea to formulate a process in the potential customer’s mind. If you can get them to think it, perhaps you can get them to buy it. In other words, more exposure, more money. But how to get more exposure and make it work? A convictive demonstration of your product and service can be good.

Advertising on TV is a good way to get exposure. But the budget is not affordable for everyone. When the internet became available for business and consumer consumption, now the truth is that: no matter what the size of a company is, they can create visibility for themselves, especially online. Online demonstration can be more effective to spread your business and increase your
business sales. A stunning demo is helpful to show the features and functions of your product and service. And it could be a way to attracting more people to learning about your business. Statistics shows that offering your potential customers a product or service they can actually see will help create a massive increase in your sales.

Here is a story from Marketing Your Business on YouTube.

Charles Smith, a pottery artist from Mobile, Ala., thinks about the tens of thousands of people worldwide who have clicked on his videos to watch him create works of art on his pottery wheel only to break them up at the end.

“You’ve got to have a gimmick, so I broke up the pots,” says Smith, who says about 90 percent of that traffic is students, but 10 percent is actually generating sales.

To make a compelling demonstration video, you don’t have to find a professional advertising company. There are plenty convenient devices for you to get it done, what you need is creativity.

Camcorders come to be prevalent in making personalized videos. If you don't feel comfortable to speak in front of the machine, creating a PowerPoint presentation can be the way of your demonstration, but it is not the right format to share online. Converting the PowerPoint presentation file into a Flash movie or a video for wide distribution sounds flexible. For that, PPT2Flash Pro or PPT2Video is available. Another Screencasting tool like DemoCreator provides a highly effective way to guide people through a complicated operating task: it records the onscreen activity to generate the step by step videos for software and website system demonstration.

The video demonstration can better illustrate your business than text with pictures, not matter products or service, in an unconventional way. When the information of your business can be delivered clearly to people, they will respond very well. The video demonstration enhances their experience. They feel a connection because they can visually see and hear how the products and service work. This will help them to make the purchase decision.

The predominately used publishing media for online demonstration are Flash movie and video. This makes it easy to share on product websites, podcast websites, blogs, social sites and more. As far as you know, YouTube, Blogspot and Myspace are all popular all over the world. So, you are getting mass exposure advertising to reach out to the masses. And it may transform them to
your future customers.

More benefit you can get from the step by step online demonstration videos…

The demonstration video reduces service costs with online customer self-service. It could be the solution when users meet the trouble using your service and products. If they can find the related solution demos on your websites, users can get the problems done by themselves most of times.

When you want to drive more traffic to your website, you can put your company logo with the site link in the movie. This will remind them to go immediately to your website for additional information. For example, you are making a video demonstrating a software product. You can add the URL at the downright corner of the Flash movie to direct the viewers to your product page and they may immediately buy.


What can you or your company do to create more visibility and exposure for your service or product? What creative ways can you find to share what you want to share?

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Why make a screencast?

Screencast is a digital recording of computer screens, full screens or screen regions and usually comes with an audio narration to describe the on-screen actions. The term screencast dates back to 2004 with an interesting story.

In 2004, a columnist Jon Udell invited readers of his blog to propose names for the emerging genre. In all the suggested terms, Udell selected screencast, which was proposed by both Joseph McDonald and Deeje Cooley. His "Heavy metal umlaut" screencast is a well-known example - which explains how Wikipedia works. http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html
Since then, the term screen has be known by more people and the use of screencasts has itself become more popular. Currently the new trend of screencast is documentary filmmaking of software-based social networking services like Wikipedia, del.icio.us. or digg.

Screencast Types

Product Tutorials:
The screencast tells users how to use a software application or service by showing screen introductions. Usually, there is a recorded voice over to walk through the steps. See examples below.
Eventools online Demo http://www.eventtools.nl/demo/Eventtools-Toevoegen-wijzigen%20personen.html

Short How-to:
This kind of screencast is often short and demonstrates a simple guide or gives tips and tricks to solve a small problem or dig into a product feature.
See example below.
Xtrmlive Web Service Demo http://xtrmlive.com/demo/sponsorship2/

Conversational Demos:
Conversational demos have more focus on the conversion rather than the screens. Usually, there are two voices for the screen. Often one is asking question about the screen and another gives the answer.

Software review:
If you are asked to write a software review , you can always make a screencast to highlight some features.
Boq System Online Demo http://www.boq.se/help/qounter/qounter.html

User produced demo:
Some software applications are difficult to use and you sometimes have some unexpected troubles. Making a screencast to explain, will help you a lot when you are talking to the technical support. You can even make yourself a troubleshooting demo to share with your friends and families.
DMM Online Support Demo http://www.dmm-support.dk/uploads/video/4pictures/add_pictures/add_picture_to_SDB.html
Of course,there are more types has not yet included in this article.

Screencasting Tools

For Window Users
Windows Media Encoder - Free but with high system requirements http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Windows_Media_Encoder
Wondershare DemoCreator - Flash-based Screen Recorder http://www.sameshow.com/demo-creator.html#107
CamStudio - Free. It has the ability to capture in .avi or Flash (swf) http://camstudio.org/


For Mac Users
Snapz Pro X http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
iShowU http://www.shinywhitebox.com/

Guide Lines of making a screencast

Know what you want to present
First and foremost, You’ll need to have an idea about what you’ll present, and you’ll need to figure out which platform to use. Knowing your purposes of making a screecast is the first step.

Make it real
Always make a screencast real and substantial. For example, if it is for software demonstration or a network monitor, then work with the software or live network.
Of course , for reasons of logistics or security, this isn’t always possible. But the more real you can make it, the better.

Interactivity is important
Interactivity engages viewers through the demo. If your screecast is just screen by screen, your viewers will leave soon. You can and should record narration or insert background music to the screencast. Usually, some screencasting tools like DemoCreator enable you to add some visual aids to the captured screens like callouts, shapes, annotation buttons and animated images. Note that when a screencast is interactive it will engage the viewers in a conversation that steers it into unexpected areas.

originated from: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Screencast

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Free Online screen recording

People love to watch how-to videos or demo screencast of your software and Web applications manual to cut down your support and marketing efforts. A screencast is a simply video capture of your computer screen. Most of the screen recorders available are desktop based, but with the Web-base moving towards Software as Services (SaS) platform, a few online screen recording services have emerged. We take a look at some of the popular remotely hosted screencast services. and it is totally Free.

ScreenToaster uses a Java applet to capture your computer screen, video and live streams from your webcam. Recorded videos are streamed and saved live making editing and publishing faster. The web-base application video editor allows you to annotate videos or add voice. Once your screencast is ready, you can upload it to the servers of ScreenToaster or send it to your Youtube account. Alternatively, you can download a copy of the video as .mov or .swf. Screencasts published on the ScreenToaster site can be set to be accessed publicly or privately and supports social sharing and commenting features.
Price: Free
Pros: Extremely fast video upload and processing.
Cons: Lacks video editing features.

GoView is a new player in the screen recording business that has been developed by Citrix Online, the company behind GoToMeeting and GoToMyPc. Similar to the other services, it supports both video and voice recording. After downloading and installing a small application, GoView will sit in your system tray. Your screencast are automatically uploaded to the goview.com site which can then be easily shared. When tested, we found that the quality of video recorded is far better than the other services. GoView also has a web based video editor that allows you annotate, split and export your videos to MP4 format.
Price: Free
Pros: High quality screen recording
Cons: Uploading screen capture is slow. Video cannot be embedded on site.

Screencast-0-Matic was the first service to offer web-base screen recording right from the browser without any software installation (requires only Java support in the browser). You can select to record your full-screen or just an area of it. Once recorded, your videos can be uploaded to the Screencast-O-Matic web site or sent to YouTube in HD format. You can also export the video as downloadable formats like Quicktime (MP4), Flash (FLV) or as Windows Media Player (AIV).
Price: Free
Pros: Multiple export features.
Cons: Lacks video editing features.

ScreenCastle is the easiest screencast recorder. It no registration requirement, just the download of a lightweight Java applet that takes less than a minute to install. It supports both video and audio recording from your microphone. You can select to record full-screen or just an area of your computer screen. After the recording, it will take a few seconds for your video to be uploaded and right after upload, you will be presented with linking and embedding options. The best part about ScreenCastle is that it has an API version, called Skoffer. Skoffer allows developers to build in the screencast recorder into the web application. Plugins that makes use of this API are already available for popular scripts like WordPress and MediaWiki.
Price: Free
Cons: Lacks video editing features.
Pros: Extremely simple and easy to use and has an API available.

originated from: http://freefree-online.blogspot.com/2007/04/free-online-screen-recording.html