Screen Capture Video for Free

Jing Project
Video is the newest must have for website owners. While its easy to capture live action on a camera or webcam, taking video of your computer activities hasn’t been so easy or affordable. I had tried CamStudio, but couldn’t get it to work right. And Camtasia just isn’t in the budget right now. Fortunately there’s a new screen capture software in town called Jing.

Jing is free and incredibily easy to use. Once its install, you have a little yellow ball that sits at the top of your screen waiting for you to request a picture or video. When opened, its easy to pick the area you want to capture and then you simply poke the picture or video. You can hook up your mic to add audio. Jing will even tell you when the video is starting if if the mic is on.

The free version saves file in flash and you can easily send to Screencast or Flikr. For a $14.95 per year subscription, you can get a more advanced version that lets you save in MPEG-4 and can automatically upload to Youtube. You can even use your favorit movie editor to edit it.

Both versions have a limit of 5 minutes of video, but experts say that for basic website needs, 3 minutes is all you need anyway.

Visit Jing Project to learn more or download Jing.

3 Reasons Everyone Needs a Smartphone

When I first got my Palm Treo, it was more of a novelty than anything. I paid the extra for Internet access and bought all sorts of programs to go with it, but at the time I didn’t really need it.

Today, I have a Blackberry (although I’m taking a close look at the Droid) that I can’t live without. If there is no wi-fi for my laptop, I can check email on my phone. If I need to do some quick cost comparison research, I can access information from the Internet on my phone. If I need to capture a thought, I can do it on my phone either through text, recording or a service like Jott that will send it to my email or calendar. And while much of its use is related to work, not all of it is. I listen to Pandora, read ebooks, and locate where my children have wandered off to.

Here are my top three reasons why everyone needs a Smartphone:

1) You can carry your life with you wherever you go. Contacts, notes, schedule, music and more. You don’t have to carry a bulky planner with erasable ink scribbles in it. Your phone can do it.

2) Get information about anything, anytime, anywhere. Like phone service, your Internet access can be limited but as many times as I’ve hit a dead spot in my phone service, I have very rarely not been able to get online to access important information from my phone. Need to know the traffic or weather where you’re heading? Want to compare prices on that great new doodad you’re planning to buy? Just last week I used my phone in Blockbuster to figure out what disk a specific episode of Stargate was on so my son could rent it. You can even get GPS.

3) Mange your life. Worried about missing an important call or email? Need to update your blog or Tweet with your colleagues? Nearly every great web-based productivity site has mobile options to make doing your work or managing your projects fast and easy while on the go.

New Website Lists Services of Self Employed Parents

Self-employment particularly among women, many of whom are mothers, is growing at a fast rate, faster even than men owned business. While many begin their work-at-home search hoping to find a job, starting a business is probably the fastest and easies way to start making money at home. But once the product or service is created, the real work is getting the word out. A new website helps self-employed parents by offering a directory that consumers can use to find products and services.

Our Milk Money was started by two work-at-home moms Ally Loprete and Kelli Shand who wanted to help parents find ways to achieve the financial means to stay home or provide more for their children, and to educate consumers about the products and services found through self-employed parents. They provide a searchable directory of businesses through Canada and the United States from which consumers can find local or Internet based businesses from which to shop or find work-at-home opportunities.

To learn more or find a self-employed parent near you, visit Our Milk Money.

Your News, Your Way with Topicfire

If you’re a news junkie wanting up-to-the-minute news on your favorite topics, you need to check out Topicfire. While your regular RSS feeds provide you with current news, Topicfire delivers news in real time.

Simply choose the topics you want current news on:

Then check the news! You’ll hear a little bleep, each time your news feed is updated. Or subscribe to your topic-feed’s Twitter or Facebook feeds.

A Bathroom When You Need One

It happens to everyone. You’re traveling in parts unknown, when someone in the car needs a bathroom. Looking at the car window you see only trees or fields; no sign of a bathroom. But now you have help. Over at SitorSquat.com you can enter a location and find the nearest public bathroom. It even offers bathroom updates (open or closed) and ratings – sit or squat.

If you don’t have a network on the road, you can get the mobile app for iPhone/iTouch, Blackberry, and android phones. Or you can send an SMS text message “sitorsquat” to DOTCOM (368266).

For those who love public bathrooms, there is even a community filled mostly with bathroom humor.