PCs :
Camtasia Studio
In my opinion, this is the best value for the price. Camtasia enables you to create video tutorials by capturing action on your PC screen, while you narrate your actions. You can also edit and export to a variety of formats including Flash.
Snagit
Another gem from Techsmith. Snagit is a screen capture product that enables annotation of your screen captures. Snagit allows the capture of a region, a window, an object, a scrolling region, the entire screen, web page(s), and more. This is probably the most flexible screen capture product available.
Wink
This is a freeware program that lets you create web-based presentations using screen shots. This product is similar in function to Quarbon.com's Viewlet Builder and Macromedia's Captivate (formerly RoboDemo).
Audacity
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:
- Record live audio
- Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs
- Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files
- Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together
- Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
Skype
Free voice over IP (VOIP) phone calls to any other PC/Mac Skype user
Impataica
A marvelously easy to use product for producing narrated PowerPoint presentations which are then converted to a compact, small file size, java-based presentation.
Articulate Presenter
lets non-technical users create e-learning courses by adding narration and interactivity to a standard PowerPoint® file. The finished product is flash-based and presented in a marvelous tabbed interface. You can view an example in the digital media area.
Articulate Engage
Engage enables you to easily produce any one of 10 flash-based interactions:
- Process interaction
- Labeled image interaction
- Tabbed interaction
- Circle diagram
- Timeline
- Media tour
- FAQ
- Pyramid
- Guided image
- Glossary
Like most Articulate products, Engage is expensive, but produces beautiful results, and is so simple to use that you can get started using it right away. You can view a couplel of examples I've created in the digital media area.
MACINTOSH :
Snapz Pro X
A very good product that combines the video tutorial creation and screen capture functions in one application. There may be other applications I'm not aware of, but I am very pleased with my experiences using Snapz Pro X.
OmniGraffle Pro
PC users have Visio. Mac users have Omnigraffle and Omnigraffle Pro. While I have loved and used Visio long before Microsoft "absorbed" it, I prefer to use Omnigraffle Pro. I am a diehard PC user, but I find that charts and graphs I create using Omnigraffle Pro look much more polished than Visio charts and graphs I create on the PC.
OmniOutliner
I work best by creating lists and outlines which help me organize and flesh out ideas. OmniOutliner is a simple, but powerful tool for quickly creating and modifying lists, outlines, and their structures. I find it invaluable as a planning tool.
Audacity
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems (see Audacity blub in the PC area). Mac users may prefer (as I do) to use Garage Band for recording.
Skype
Free voice over IP (VOIP) phone calls to any other PC/Mac Skype user
iChat
This is built into Mac OS X, and is my favorite instant message, voice chat, and video chat application. In my collaborations with my good friend and dear Brother in Christ, Alan Carrington in Adelaide Australia, we have many times used the audio and video chat features, and enjoyed amazingly clear audio and video.
iGlasses
This is an awesome app! For $8 this little app lets you adjust and manipulate your Mac's "...iSight video settings from within iChat AV and many other programs, including iMovie, Photo Booth, Yahoo! Messenger and Skype. iSight too dark? It just needs iGlasses. Apply easy preset settings and fun effects to your video conferences and recordings."
Conference Recorder 2
Provides a drop-dead easy way to record your iChat audio and video chats. Conference Recorder is an add-on for iChat AV which automatically transforms your conference sessions into QuickTime movies.
Profcast
One of the best, easiest to use, sophisticated application for creating podcasts and narrated PowerPoint presentations.
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