The Screen Capture Tool That Doesn't Know When to Stop

Snagit has been around for a long time and occasionally TechSmith releases a new version that somehow manages to improve on the previous version. Sometimes the improvements target the user interface, other times it's new features. It's a tool that I can't imagine being without. And capturing on-screen images is just the beginning.

Even updates that, based on the numbering scheme, appear to be minor pack a wallop.

Take the recent upgrade from 11.2 to 11.4. One expects big changes when the major number changes -- from 11 to 12, for example -- but nothing more than a small feature or two and some bug fixes when the minor number increases. One expects that from most software publishers; I've learned that this is rarely the case with TechSmith.

Snagit can capture anything that's on your screen and sometimes it can even capture things that aren't on your screen. It can scroll vertically and horizontally during the capture. Once you've grabbed the image you need, use Snagit to modify and annotate it. The proprietary Snagit file format retains all of your additions as separate components so that they can be modified later. Once you have the exact illustration you need, export it to a standard format (JPG, PNG, TIFF, or such) for use on the Web or in printed documentation.

And although TechSmith has a video production tool, some video capabilities are included in Snagit so those with basic video needs don't have to buy Camtasia.

I've reviewed previous versions of Snagit 11 and it was clearly a 5-cat program at version 11.0 and 11.2. Now TechSmith has added significant new features and the upgrade cost for anyone who owns an earlier version of Snagit 11 is free. If you're still using version 10 or earlier, the cost is reasonable.

New in version 11.4

• Startup performance has been improved so that Snagit launches faster and a spiffy new reminder appears at the top of the screen. The Snagit bug has been there for a while, but the arrow that calls your attention to is it new. I've found the little Snagit bug to be a lot more helpful than I thought it would be when I first saw it.
• For people who illustrate a lot of processes with images that include numbered steps, the new step tool automatically increments the counter for you while retaining the size and style of the marker. In the past, creating numbered steps required touching each numbered point at least twice.
• The blur tool has been changed and I'm not entirely certain that I like the new approach. Previously, users needed to select the area that would be blurred and then apply the blur effect. Once placed, the blur couldn't be modified. The new blur tool allows the blurred area to be moved or deleted and it also works in conjunction with vector objects, but when multiple blurred areas overlap, a distracting border is created. I've found myself wishing that both options were available because the new approach is better most of the time, but occasionally it just doesn't work the way it needs to. If the selection tool could be made to select the blur instead of the background so that part of the blur could be deleted, we would have the best of both worlds. Perhaps in 11.6 or 12.0.
• Long-time users may wonder where the text tool went, but they'll find that it's been combined with the call-out tool.
• Some of the tabs on the interface are gone and some buttons are either missing or moved. This will probably distress some users as much as did the removal of the Start button on Windows 8, but overall the interface is better once you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it. No existing features have been removed.
• There's a new Library tab in the Snagit Editor. Instead of taking you to your default Snagit folder, the Library can display all images (effectively taking you to your default Snagit folder) or display captured images by date, by website, by key words or flags (you have to apply these), and even by the application that was running when you captured the image.

Still Missing

Snagit can be set up to automatically name saved files. This is a handy feature that can help users keep track of the order in which images were captured. But when you're in the Library and want to rename some images, copy and paste don't work. They never have in Snagit and this is an annoying shortcoming in an application that does everything else so well.

What I'm describing here is the ability to sequentially rename files like this: Project_01, Project_02, Project_03, and so forth by pressing F2 for the rename function, pressing Ctrl-V to paste "Project_", and then typing the number. It's true that Snagit allows users to set up file naming conventions that will do all of that automatically (including the numbering) but that would require modifying the file naming properties every time the user changed projects.

But if that's all I can find to complain about, then SnagIt must be pretty well constructed.

Snagit is the indispensible tool for anyone who creates documentation.

Snagit may be the application that professionals use, but its reasonable price makes it a good choice for anyone who, even occasionally, needs to show someone what's on their screen. The free upgrade refreshes the user interface, which was already good and adds several useful new features. Additional details are available on the TechSmith website.

Out-of-the-World Desktop Backgrounds for Your Computer

A business manager who was a big fan of the US space program once wanted to decorate the organization's various conference rooms with space-related photographs. A government website shows many images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration so he wondered how much it would cost to license these images for use on conference room walls. The answer might surprise you, but it shouldn't.

The company needed to pay to have the images enlarged, mounted on display board, and attached to the walls, but the cost to license the images was zero.

The American flag heralds the flight of Apollo 11, the first Lunar landing mission. The Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle lifted off with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., at 9:32 a.m. EDT July 16, 1969, from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. During the planned eight-day mission, Armstrong and Aldrin will descend in a lunar module to the Moon's surface while Collins orbits overhead in the Command Module. The two astronauts are to spend 22 hours on the Moon, including two and one-half hours outside the lunar module. They will gather samples of lunar material and will deploy scientific experiments which will transmit data about the lunar environment. They will rejoin Collins in the Command Module for the return trip to Earth.

NASA makes its entire library of photographs available to the public at no charge and with few copyright restrictions. You can't use them for certain commercial purposes, of course, but because the government is us, we are allowed to use our own images for nearly anything we want to.

On June 3, 1965, Edward H. White II became the first American to step outside his spacecraft and let go, effectively setting himself adrift in the zero gravity of space. For 23 minutes White floated and maneuvered himself around the Gemini spacecraft while logging 6500 miles during his orbital stroll. White was attached to the spacecraft by a 25 foot umbilical line and a 23-ft. tether line, both wrapped in gold tape to form one cord. In his right hand White carries a Hand Held Self Maneuvering Unit (HHSMU) which is used to move about the weightless environment of space. The visor of his helmet is gold plated to protect him from the unfiltered rays of the sun.

The images date back to the earliest days of the space program and include photos from the Mercury, Gemeni, and Apollo programs, moon landings, the Shuttle and the International Space Station, Mars missions, the Hubble space telescope, and more -- right up to current images. The images are provided with resolution sufficient to make wall-size images (20 inches by 24 inches and larger). You have to download the images, send them to your preferred print maker, and pay for the prints, but there's no cost for the images themselves.

This spectacular color panorama of the center the Orion nebula is one of the largest pictures ever assembled from individual images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The picture, seamlessly composited from a mosaic of 15 separate fields, covers an area of sky about five percent the area covered by the full Moon. The seemingly infinite tapestry of rich detail revealed by Hubble shows a churning turbulent star factory set within a maelstrom of flowing, luminescent gas. Though this 2.5 light-years wide view is still a small portion of the entire nebula, it includes almost all of the light from the bright glowing clouds of gas and a star cluster associated with the nebula. The mosaic reveals at least 153 glowing protoplanetary disks (first discovered with the Hubble in 1992, and dubbed "proplyds") that are believed to be embryonic solar systems that will eventually form planets. (Our solar system has long been considered the relic of just such a disk that formed around the newborn Sun). The proplyds that are closest to the Trapezium stars (image center) are shedding some of their gas and dust. The pressure of starlight from the hottest stars forms "tails" which act like wind vanes pointing away from the Trapezium. These tails result from the light from the star pushing the dust and gas away from the outside layers of the proplyds. In addition to the luminescent proplyds, seven disks are silhouetted against the bright background of the nebula. Located 1,500 light-years away, along our spiral arm of the Milky Way, the Orion nebula is located in the middle of the sword region of the constellation Orion the Hunter, which dominates the early winter evening sky at northern latitudes.

Or, perhaps more accurately, your tax dollars over the years have paid for your access without additional charge.

An overhead view of the Skylab Orbital Workshop in Earth orbit as photographed from the Skylab 4 Command and Service Modules (CSM) during the final fly-around by the CSM before returning home. The space station is contrasted against the pale blue Earth. During launch on May 14, 1973, some 63 seconds into flight, the micrometeor shield on the Orbital Workshop (OWS) experienced a failure that caused it to be caught up in the supersonic air flow during ascent. This ripped the shield from the OWS and damaged the tie downs that secured one of the solar array systems. Complete loss of one of the solar arrays happened at 593 seconds when the exhaust plume from the S-II's separation rockets impacted the partially deployed solar array system. Without the micrometeoroid shield that was to protect against solar heating as well, temperatures inside the OWS rose to 126 degrees fahrenheit. The gold "parasol" clearly visible in the photo, was designed to replace the missing micrometeoroid shield, protecting the workshop against solar heating. The replacement solar shield was deployed by the Skylab I crew. This enabled the Skylab Orbital Workshop to fulfill all its mission objects serving as home to additional crews before being deorbited in 1978.

And besides making prints that you can display on the wall, you can also use the images as desktop backgrounds on your computer.

The Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle", in a landing configuration is photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia". Inside the LM were Commander, Neil A. Armstrong, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. The long "rod-like" protrusions under the landing pods are lunar surface sensing probes. Upon contact with the lunar surface, the probes send a signal to the crew to shut down the descent engine.

What's Not Allowed?

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. The Lunar Module (LM) is on the left, and the footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil of the Moon. Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this picture with a 70mm Hasselblad lunar surface camera. While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the LM, the "Eagle", to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar-orbit.

Let's start with what is allowed: You may use NASA imagery, video, audio, and data files for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations, and Internet Web pages. Figuring out what's not allowed is mainly a matter of common-sense:

• You may not use any current or previous NASA logo unless you're an employee of NASA who's working on a NASA-sponsored project. However, NASA logos appearing in images that you use are permitted as long as they appear in their original context.
• NASA images may even be used for commercial purposes and advertisements, but NASA cautions that users may not explicitly or implicitly convey NASA's endorsement of commercial goods or services and any NASA image that includes an identifiable person cannot be used for commercial purposes without first obtaining permission from the person. (If you plan to use NASA images for advertisements, be sure to read the agency's advertising guidelines.)
• The small print (which is actually full-size type and easy to read) explains the specific usage restrictions:
  • Any stated or implied endorsement by NASA is prohibited, as well as using an image to mislead viewers.
  • You may not claim any right to the images.
  • NASA will not pay any expenses you incur while using the materials.
  • You have only shared rights to use the images. In other words, you can't attempt to deny the use of your preferred images to others, including competitors.
  • Any NASA image that carries a copyright notice may not be used without permission.
  • Audiovisual materials may incorporate music or images that have thier own copyright restrictions and may not be used without permission.

To start looking for pictures you might like to use, visit the NASA website.

Short Circuits

Google: Buy High, Sell Low

Less that 2 years ago, with a great deal of fanfare, Google purchased Motorola's mobile phone division for $12 billion 500 million. Now the company is selling the division to Lenovo for $2 billion 910 million. Yes, that's a 76% loss. At the time, it was Google's largest-ever acquisition. One might say that the deal didn't work out as planned.

One might also think that losing nearly $10 billion in less than 2 years would be a disaster, but apparently it's not. Google will retain most of the the 17,000 patents it acquired from Motorola and those could be important in coming years as the competition with Apple heats up.

Google, after all, continues to be primarily an advertising operation and a software publisher. Hardware is a small part of the company's business. The more phones and tablets that are in people's hands, the more profitable Google will be because it derives income from advertisements that people see on their mobile devices. Who manufactures the phones and sells them is largely immaterial to Google.

For Lenovo, the world's largest computer manufacturer, the deal provides an entry point into handheld devices. Although Motorola has stumbled in recent years, it was the company that invented the cell phone. The business strategy lately has involved the introduction of many new models and Lenovo has indicated that it will concentrate on far fewer models.

More choices is not always better; sometimes it's just confusing.

US Justice Department on the Trail of the Target Hackers

Attorney General Eric Holder says the FBI will find the criminals who were able to break in to Target's point-of-sale terminals between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. The crooks stole credit card numbers and other information belonging to tens of millions of people. Holder made his promise at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now there's a new clue.

The clue came from Target: The thieves broke in by using credentials that had been issued to one of Target's business partners.

The trail has led investigators to believe that thieves located in eastern Europe were responsible for planting malware on the company's check-out terminals and managed to capture information from credit cards and debit cards that customers used in the stores. The exploit began during the Thanksgiving weekend and continued for several weeks.

Thieves obtained credit card and debit card information from some 40 million customers and personal information such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers of 30 million more.

Target spokesperson Molly Snyder says that the company has instituted new procedures that limit access to their in-store systems.

Facebook's Profits Shoot Through the Roof

Apparently moving fast and breaking things works as a business model. Facebook reported a 700% increase in profits in the 4th quarter of 2013.

The company says that its profits increased from $64 million in the 4th quarter of 2012 to $523 million in the 4th quarter of 2013. In 2012, Facebook took several one-time charges for employee stock grants and that pushed profits down.

Most of the gains seem to have come from ad revenue on mobile devices. Facebook says 53% of its revenue ($1.24 billion) came from ads served on phones and tablets. The company averages 757 million visitors per day.

Speaking on a conference call with analysts, Mark Zuckerberg said that 2013 was the year that Facebook truly became a mobile business. The future could be cloudy, though, because younger users seem more likely to use services such as Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Facebook is now second only to Google in the sales of online advertising in the US. Yahoo has fallen to third place and the gap is expected to widen because Yahoo has only a small presence in mobile advertising.

Malware Author and Bank Thief Pleads Guilty

A man who extracted money from numerous bank accounts that don't belong to him has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. Aleksandr Andreevich Panin appeared in US Federal Court in Atlanta this week. Another man, Hamza Bendelladj, who was extradited from Thailand, entered a not-guilty plea last year and that case is pending.

The two are members of a group that's accused of planting "SpyEye" malware on people's computers, capturing their banking credentials, and then emptying their accounts.

Panin is believe to be the primary author of the malware that infected nearly one and a half million computers around the world. The malware was designed to seek out banking credentials, credit card information, passwords, and PINs. The information was then sent back to Panin in Russia so that he could gain access victims' bank accounts and send their money to his account.

Prosecutors say that Panin then offered the SpyEye virus for sale so that it could be used by other thieves. For 2 years starting in 2009, SpyEye was the most serious bank fraud application available to crooks. An undercover FBI agent was able to contact Panin in 2011 and buy a copy of SpyEye. That eventually led to Panin's arrest in July 2013 at Hartsfield–Jackson Airport in Atlanta.

Following his guilty plea, Panin will be sentenced at the end of April. Other arrests have been made in Europe.

If this makes you feel more secure, it shouldn't. Malware writers can make a lot of money quickly and with surprisingly little risk. They get caught only when they become lazy or careless as Panin did. He left too many clues about his identity and then made the mistake of traveling through the United States at a time when the FBI had already identified him. Today's malware writers are a lot more cautious and, therefore, much harder to catch.