2008 Fourth Most Valuable Tech Item

MY SCREEN GRABBERS (i.e., SnagIt and Camtasia, both from TechSmith) are the fourth most useful pieces of technology in my year 2008. SnagIt snapped the little strip that sits above this blog post. The still image came from a four-way full-duplex running of Online Meeting Rooms. I use SnagIt 9 at the moment, having graduated from two versions below. It does more than I need--or I fail to use all of its capabilities. It's fast, neat, consistent and less resource-hungry than Adobe Photoshop Elements. Camtasia Studio sits in a league of its own. It can produce screencasts faster than anything else I've seen--including the best-of-breed Mac screencasters--and it renders with CODECs that play on anything. Its timeline editing offers two efficient perspectives that ensure creative multimedia students in Tipperary Institute can get up and running with the least amount of additional training. If your game requires you to present a visual dimension for an audience, you really need to have dependable screen scrapers in your arsenal. I like the TechSmith ones that I use and cite them as the fourth most valuable pieces of technology in my current life.

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Previously: "Fifth Most Valuable Tech Item in 2008".

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