I have mentioned Jing before and it’s uses several times in the past, and today TechSmith announced the availability of Jing Pro. Jing is an application that lets you take screenshots, record video, add edits, and share it in several different formats. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to create screencasts and screenshots.
Jing Pro offers those features plus:
YouTube support. You can upload a video to YouTube directly from Jing. Jing also gives you the link to your video.
For screencasts, in addition to the SWF file format, Jing Pro now offers a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format video option. Without getting too technical, this format excels at capturing video with a lot of motion, is much more suited for editing, and is supported on YouTube. And, for those of you who have been wanting to tweak your Jing videos, you can now import them into Camtasia Studio 6 or iMovie to edit, merge or anything you want.
Branding removal. At the end of a Jing Pro-produced video, there is no Jing logo and branding.
It’s that time of the year again where people will start giving their predictions for what will hold for the tech industry in the new year. With the economy being in the state that it is, mostly everything I have read so far is pretty pessimistic, but putting politics aside, I think 2009 has potential to be a big rebound as far as tech goes.
With that being said, I will start with the most obvious one.
Windows 7 arrives. Microsoft hasn’t been too forthcoming about when the next version of Windows will arrive, and we have heard dates going all the way to 2011. I think Windows 7 will arrive sometime this summer with a hype that we didn’t see with Vista. I haven’t gotten my hands on Windows 7 yet, but I am hearing some really great things about it so far. We are already getting a glimpse of how Windows 7 will operate, but what we haven’t heard much about is the gritty details such as pricing and versioning. I have written about before the need for Win7 to have a more family-friendly licensing, and to drop the numerous SKU’s for just one or two.
Steve Jobs leave Apple. Apple shocked the tech community recently when they announced this years Macworld will be its last, and that Steve Jobs will not give the final keynote. Speculation and rumors are running abound about the reasons behind it, but that simple fact is that Jobs is on his way out. How this will affect Apple going forward is yet to be seen, but Apple’s stocks will certainly take a hit once this is announced. This certainly won’t mean the end for Apple, but will they continue on their current track with new leadership? I say yes.
Online services takeover. Well “takeover” is a bit of a stretch, but 2009 will be the year when more and more services like “the cloud” launch. In 2008 we saw services like Google Documents become more usable, and saw others like Microsoft step their feet into the online office waters. Apple dove right in with MobileMe, which despite its rough launch, it has shown what “cloud” services can do for the average consumer. Just today I was reading more speculation that iWork will move towards online integration, but no confirmation as of yet. And of course we can’t forget Microsoft’s announcement of their Azure platform which has some tremendous potential.
Next-gen consoles revealed. The next-gen consoles like the Xbox 360 are not so “next-gen” anymore, and this year we will get a peek at the next, “next-gen” consoles. We still won’t see the actual units ship until at least late 2010, but the hype machine won’t wait that long. Aside from the usual graphic improvements, blu-ray will once again be a big feature, along with more integration with home entertainment features.
Social networks “slow down”. This year we seen social networks like Facebook, Friendfeed, and Twitter really take off. The popularity of these services spawned a ton of startup services, but towards the end of the year we have also seen many of them fade into oblivion. 2009 will bring a new wave of updates such as a “pro” version of Twitter, and these services will remain extremely popular, but the overall excitement and expansion of these networks will start to slow down.
Well those are my 2009 predictions, and I think most are pretty solid. Do you agree with these? Leave your comments and let me know.
My wife got me an Acer Aspire One netbook this year for Christmas, and so far I’m loving it. A Netbook is basically a mini-laptop that is meant for web use, messaging, and document tasks. The one I got has a 8GB SSD drive and an 8GB SDHC card. It’s running Windows XP, and has 1GB of RAM. The biggest concern I had was the keyboard, which is roughly 90% of a normal sized keyboard, but the keyboard on the Acer is well designed, and is fine after a short adjustment period.
Now comes the task of getting it setup for my use, which means installing a bunch of software.
Some of the key applications I need:
Impulse: Well it’s quite obvious I need Impulse, but one feature I use often is the integrated IRC client.
OpenOffice 3.0: I had a choice of either Office 2007, or OpenOffice 3.0, and I went with OpenOffice just because of the amount of installation space it saves.
FileZilla: Simply the best FTP client out there.
SnagIt 9: SnagIt is not only great for taking screenshots, it also has a very featured image editor that is perfect for basic image editing needs.
ObjectDock Plus: I don’t want a bunch of icons on the desktop, and organizing them in tabs is the best.
Live Writer: If you blog, you should be using this.
TweetDeck: If you are a Twitter user, TweetDeck is one of the best client applications out there.
Earlier this year, I reviewed Bento by FileMaker for OS X. I was very excited to see the release of Bento 2 recently. I had wanted to get a review out earlier, but due to other obligations I wasn’t able to, but that just gave me more time to use Bento 2 before talking about it. Upgrading to Bento 2 was a piece of cake, and although a backup of your data is strongly recommended, I had no issues getting the database upgraded.
First thing I noticed was a slightly new UI, most notably the new spreadsheet ‘look’ to the information pane. More on that in a minute. The rest of the UI has been cleaned up and refined, although it really didn’t need much improvement over the original release. Split view is another new feature that does just that, gives you a split view between the summary and details screens. Very handy when trying to gather data. They have also made customization of forms and layout easier to by taking a more modular approach by allowing you to edit fields without having to enter the Customize mode. Speaking of customization, they also added a bunch of new themes which can be applied to your libraries to really personalize them.
One of my concerns with Bento was the lack of integration with spreadsheets and applications like Numbers or Excel. Having to export data to .CSV files is not the most efficient way, and importing it into another app only seemed to create more work in the end. However, that is a thing of the past. Bento 2 now allows direct import/export of libraries and data to common spreadsheet applications such as Numbers and Excel. One of my uses for Bento is keeping track of business expenses and receipts, and having the ability to copy and paste data back and forth is worth the upgrade alone. Yes I know, I seem to be getting excited about spreadsheets, but hey, it makes things much easier and I think that is one of the intentions of Bento.
Another new edition which I found very handy was the ability to pull up maps and directions in address fields. If you use Bento to create contact lists and things of that sort, it’s very helpful. It’s the little features like this that makes Bento appealing to the average users. I mentioned this in my previous article, but I still would like to see the option to password protect the backup files. Other than that, I honestly can’t find too much not to like about Bento. It does what it’s supposed to do, it’s affordable, and in my evaluation, it’s certainly reliable. Just remember it’s not a corporate database solution, Bento excels by keeping focus on the home user who needs a solution for contact management, home inventory, projects, etc. It’s even great for small businesses who don’t need a full featured database application like FileMaker.
In my last review, I gave Bento 5 stars with the hope that in future versions they would improve on Bento, and not go in the opposite direction. I can say with confidence that they are on the right track.
Day 2 of the Impulse Gift Guide is focusing on Tools and Utilities to make your PC more productive, and easier to work with. Impulse has a wide variety of applications, everything from backup programs to maintenance applications.
If you ever worry about losing your data from a corrupted document, or from a power outage, KeepSafe is the ideal solution for real-time data backup. KeepSafe has an easy to use interface and setup wizard, which will get your data protected in no time. You can select which types of documents to backup, and there are a wide variety of options for maintaining those backups.
To see a more detailed review, check out one of my walkthroughs.
The holidays are approaching fast, and if you are still looking for some last minute gift ideas, look no further than what we have to offer in the Impulse Store. The big advantage is that you can purchase a gift for someone, and they will be able to download it via Impulse without having to worry about delays from the post office.
Day 1 of the Impulse Holiday Gift Guide is focused on MyColors skins, which is perfect for anyone who wants to customize their PC without having to worry about purchasing multiple applications to do it. It’s also perfect for sports fans looking to support their team right on their desktop.
I still can’t believe the year is quickly coming to an end. With that, it’s time to get some things done to start the new year off right. I have come to call this my “End of the Year Chores”. It’s nice having a long holiday break, but I’m going to use some of that time to get these done.
Some of the things I need to get done:
Reformat my desktop PC. I have been putting this off for months, but it just needs to be done.
Upgrade desktop PC. I’m still not sure about this one, but I am considering upgrading my PC with a new mobo and CPU in preparation for Windows 7.
Organize desk area. I have been so busy over the past month, my desk has been neglected. I think it’s also time to move some PC’s around, and try out a different work area and see how it goes.
Clean out the closet. My office closet is a disaster.
Organize music collection. Although I try to keep it organized, it has just gotten a bit out of control. I especially need to get some playlists going in iTunes.
WinCustomize 2009 details. I want to get most of my final wishlists for WC2K9 down so we can take a look at them when the new year starts.
I think that is most of my work related chores for the next couple of weeks. What type of chores do you need to get done?
Christmas is a great time of year to customize your desktop, and there are just so many ways to do it. I created a desktop gadget with animated Christmas Lights that will really decorate your desktop with some holiday cheer. This gadget was created with DesktopX, and will run on any Windows Vista or XP system. You can run multiple instances of the gadget, and string them together on your desktop any way you like.
Here is a screenshot of how I am using them:
Just download from the link below, and double-click to use.
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