Camtasia Studio 6

I recently bought Camtasia Studio 6, after previously using versions 5 and 3. It's a tool for screen recording (or screencasting, as some people like to call it). I use it for all my screen recording work, so I thought I'd do a quick video of how I use it. So, what you see below is a video of me making a video - which is kind of mind-boggling to do. To record me recording the screen with Camtasia I used Camstudio - a free screen recording app.

The video below just gives an idea of how you can use Camtasia to record your screen. I don't usually use any format other than flash for the web, but in this case I've encoded the video to wmv, just for the blog.

Screencast Tour

I've been working on a new site at the University of Manchester to host all my screencast content. The content is all locked away inside the University's virtual learning environment (VLE) which is now Blackboard rather than WebCT. Since it's locked away from public view, I did a quick screencast tour of it so that others might have a peek. The video below is a little small to get the full effect, but just sit really close to the screen. All content was produced using Camtasia (from 3.0 to 5.1) and is delivered in flash because that fits in with my Rules of Screencasting.



As you can see, I've customised Blackboard for the purposes of the site and all videos have one click access via unique thumbnails and appear in a new tab/window. This should be going live to students in the next few weeks. I've just over 50 on there so far on a variety of topics but hope to increase the number according to need in the near future. It was about time for another screencasting post, so that's it for now.

CommuterView, ONS, etc.

I got back to work after a week away and in my mail I discovered a new DVD from ONS. This was the CommuterView DVD I had been waiting for. What is it? It's an interactive flow mapping tool showing all commuting flows in the UK from the 2001 census, down to LSOA level. It's very interesting and is similar to the kinds of things I've previously done with migration data.

Another important development is that from April 1, 2008 the Office for National Statistics became the executive agency of the new UK Statistics Authority (UKSA). The UKSA is accountable to parliament rather than a government minister (as ONS was). The aim of this is to restore public trust in the quality and integrity of official statistics. They also have some pretty new logos.

Yesterday I received an interesting e-mail from a PhD student at MacQuarie University in Australia asking about flow mapping techniques, but they are looking at communication linkages in settlements in Bangladesh rather than migration/commuting in the UK. I'm going to try and be of help as it sounds interesting and any kind of global communication on flow mapping is surely a good thing.

What else? I've also been exploring the new tools available in Google spreadsheets and the 'heatmaps' in particular. These could be very useful tools indeed but I couldn't find a quick and easy way to resize my maps and there are still quite a few restrictions. Not a replacement for doing similar things in GIS but an interesting development. Still waiting on my new copy of Camtasia Studio 5. I'm working with 3 at the moment and plan to produce a 'how to use Camtasia' demo eventually - this will involve a screencast of screecast software. This is possible if you have two separate versions installed, just as it is possible to run Excel 2003 and 2007 on the same machine, for example.