Powerful Free Screen-Recording Program – BB Flashback Express

July 1, 2009 at 1:37 am · Filed under How to, Online, Tips - written by Roshan Jonnalagadda

While browsing through Freeware Genius Blog, I found this interesting and according to their verdict, the best in the market program for recording screen.

BB Flashback Express is a free screen recording program that can capture your PC’s screen, sound, and webcam video and supports capturing graphics/animations, including 3D graphics. It offers a high degree of control over your video (output resolution, quality, file size, recording modes, mouse autoscroll, and cursor highlighting effects). Saves resulting files as either FLV’s, AVI’s or SWF’s, and offers the ability to easily upload videos to YouTube or embed them inside a webpage.

1. Change resolution while recording: you can capture the whole screen or part of the screen and the software can automatically resize the output to a pre-set resolution. For example you can capture fullscreen and set the output size to, say 640×480 and not have to worry about resizing it later on.
2. Can record moving graphics: from the options, you can specify whether to use the normal capture driver (for regular screen activity) or GDI/DirectX, for moving graphics and animations. I successfully tested capturing full-screen games; the results for both 2D and 3D graphics were excellent (although I did witness some choppiness with the 3D graphics, but am unsure as to what degree the settings I used contributed into this).
3. Can capture fullscreen, a user-defined region, or a specific window: I particularly like the third one (locking on and capturing a specific window); very useful when demo-ing software and for some reason most free screen recording programs lack this option.
4. Can record videocam input: how cool is that? I don’t have one so I did not test this.
5. Can create AVI’s, FLV’s, but also SWF’s: The latter is notable in that BB Flashback Express provides the option to create an interactive video (see below).
6. Can create interactive events inside a video: specifically when outputing to SWF, you can define “mouse click” events to stop/continue the video
7. Autoscroll (keep mouse in or near center): if you decide to export only a smaller subset of your movie (for example export a movie captured at 640×480 at, say, 320×240), you can ask BB Flashback Express to track the mouse and export the area around it. Which is to say you can keep the mouse at or near the center.
8. Cursor highlighting: you can highlight the mouse and mouseclicks so that they are emphasized on the screen (very useful for demoes). You can even edit exactly what the highlighting will look like (see image to the right).
9. Export specific range/frames only: although this free version does not allow you to edit the video directly, you can make a note of your desired beginning and end frames and enter those into the “wizard” that pops up on the export process.
10. Automatically upload to Youtube/web page: with your YouTube username and password. Or it will provide HTML and embed code to easily insert videos into your webpage.
11. Hotkeys: allows you to define hotkeys for use
12. The interface: can reside in the system tray or, interestingly, as a cool-looking strip in the taskbar.

BB Flashback via {Freewaregenius}

Comments (2)

Watch while you work – Double Vision

June 30, 2009 at 1:06 am · Filed under Software, Tips - written by Roshan Jonnalagadda

Double Vision is a freeware program for viewing online video (such as YouTube, Netflix, and Fancast) while you work, by having a semi-transparent player that shows through all other windows and programs that are visible on your desktop.

Imagine that you’re at work pulling reports from the database or working on spreadsheets, but that you also just absolutely need to follow developments in the Wimbeldon match that is going on at the same time, or a landmark speech by President Obama (that would be me in the latter case). Typically what I would do is use my headphones, minimize the browser or media player, and follow the audio alone. Except now multitaskers and bored workers everywhere can rejoice: with Double Vision you can do your work while having your video showing semi-transparently under your spreadsheet or whatever application you’re using.

• Plays video from the internet: i.e. anything that you would use the browser to view; does not play local video files.
• Transparency: you can control the level of transparency you want through a slider.
• How to use: browse to or type in the URL of the website you want and navigate to your video. In some cases (e.g. for YouTube) Double Vision seems to automatically zoom onto the video and hide all other page contents; if not, resize Double Vision around the video such that only the video is showing. Finally press the “Go Double Vision” button on the top left, which will sort of “burn” the Double Vision semitransparent player onto your screen so it shows through all other windows.
• Hotkeys: Ctrl+Alt will bring the player back into focus, while Ctrl+Esc will exit the semitransparent state and allow you to use the controls. You can set it to mute the sound as well, although curiously it doesn’t automatically un-mute when you resume playing the video (for that you’ll have to go to your volume control dialog).
• Auto skins: an option where Double Vision automatically changes its skin to match that of the video service being used (for example Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube).

Tell us what you think of this great application!

Double Vision via {Freewaregenius}

Comments

Filter out your Facebook Friends News Feed

June 29, 2009 at 1:41 am · Filed under How to, Online, Tips - written by Roshan Jonnalagadda

Business Insider has a nice step by step guide on how to turn prepare your own personalized news feed that displays the news feed of people you care about and not everyone on your friends list. Follow these simple steps below and at the end of it, you will have a feed that will display personalized friend’s news.

Step One: After you’ve signed in to Facebook.com, you’ll be taken to the page that shows your News Feed. On the left, there’s a list of “groups” you can put your friends into. Go to the bottom of this list and click +Create.

Step Two: This will open a box. In the text field at the top left, name your list “People I actually care about,” because that’s the people you’ll be putting on it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments