Camtasia is TechSmith's powerful screen video capture system. New versions have just been released for both Windows and Mac operating systems and the functionality across platforms is now more similar than at any time in the past. Although TechSmith's SnagIt can capture screen videos, Camtasia provides far more functionality.
Camtasia has a much longer history on Windows. Version 1 was released in October 2002 for Windows and TechSmith was working on Version 7 for Windows when the first Mac version was released in 2009. As a result, the Windows version is now 9 while the corresponding Mac version is 3.
Both Windows and Mac versions add new behaviors as way to quickly animate images, video, and text, and new call-outs. The Mac version's user interface has been updated to be more like what Windows users see. For the first time, it's possible to share projects across versions, although doing so eliminates the ability to use effects that are available only in the Windows version.
The Mac version has an updated recorder user interface and the ability to group images and videos. Voice narration and quiz functions, already part of the Windows version, have been added to the Mac version.
Windows users will see faster editing and encoding as the result of support for 64-bit processing, the ability to drag and drop assets onto the canvas, improvements to narration and quizzing, and controls that allow adjusting brightness, contrast, and saturation.
Whether you're new to Camtasia or you've upgraded from version 8, a good first step would
be to visit the on-line video tutorials. They're short, but they still cover a lot of useful information, including the importance of creating a script before you start capturing screen images.
When you're ready to start capturing the screen, you'll be offered the option of full screen or a custom area. If your computer has a built in camera, you can turn that on, too, and capture both what's on the screen and what the camera sees. You can specify whether Camtasia captures system audio sounds and add a separate track for narration recorded live.
In many cases, you may want to capture audio while you're recording the screen capture and then replace that audio with a separate narration track later. Doing this eliminates keyboard and other sounds that may be distracting during playback.
The editing screen displays various functions along the left side. These include media, annotations, transitions, behaviors, animations, cursor effects, voice narration, audio effects, and more.
To see a larger view of the edit screen, click the small image.
Camtasia looks a lot like a simplified video editor. In fact, that's exactly what it is -- offering the basic tasks in an interface that's easy to understand without adding a lot of complexity. There's a timeline at the bottom of the screen and that's where your screen capture video track will be. You can then add separate audio tracks as I've done here for narration and music.
During the recording process, Camtasia captures mouse clicks, so if you want to add visual or audio indicators, just dropping them onto the track is all that you need to do. TechSmith's instructional videos explain how to edit a presentation, but those who have any experience with video editing will have no trouble mastering the interface quickly.
When you're finished, the rendering process is made easy by providing a list of uses that you plan for the video. Select one and Camtasia will enable the correct settings.
FontExpert is an application I used to manage typefaces on the computer. In earlier versions of Windows, installing more than 100 typefaces created problems. Starting with Windows 7, it became possible to install several hundred typefaces without serious system degradation. My Windows 10 system has just over 600 installed fonts and more than 9000 typeface files that could be installed. Besides creating performance issues, having 9000 typefaces installed would make finding the one you need far too difficult. That's why someone might want to have a typeface manager.
I wanted to make a short video that explains how a typeface might be activated temporarily for use in a single project and then deactivated.
BEFORE — Just the raw, unedited screen capture. The video is nearly 2 minutes long and includes a lot of fumbling around with the mouse.
FontExpert-Before (Camtasia 9 test project) from Bill Blinn on Vimeo.
AFTER — Here I've used Camtasia 9 to add music, narration, and video effects to highlight mouse operations. Just as important, the edited version is considerably shorter and eliminates mouse fumbling.
FontExpert-After (Camtasia 9 test project) from Bill Blinn on Vimeo.
One of TechSmith's other applications, SnagIt can capture screen videos that are suitable for many uses, but if you need to record more complex presentations, Camtasia has the tools needed to do the job. Camtasia 9 is also available for use on both Windows and MacOS. Although the Mac version omits a few of the features found in the Windows version, it's a welcome application for Mac users. A single license allows installation on two computers -- Windows systems, Macs, or one of each -- so long as one person owns both computers and Camtasia is active on only one at a time.
More power. Same old ease of use.Camtasia earns 5 cats because TechSmith has taken an already powerful program, made it more powerful, and continued to maintain its ease of use. Instead of telling people how to do something, use Camtasia to show them how.
Additional details are available on the TechSmith website.
Windows users who are enrolled in the Fast ring of the Insider Preview program received a bit of a surprise early in October. Attempts to install build 14942 failed around 90% and rolled back to the previous version. There's only one way to install this build now and you're probably not going to like it.
Keep in mind that the Fast ring is not for production machines and virtually guarantees that the users will encounter significant problems. Build 14942 won't install if any third-party protective software is running. That includes all anti-virus applications and other monitoring programs such as Malwarebytes.
Even if users disable Malwarebytes and their anti-virus application, the installation will fail around 90% and roll back. The build will install only if users completely uninstall the third-party applications. And, after upgrading to build 14942, you won't be able to reinstall third-party protective applications.
This isn't some malevolent Machiavellian Microsoft machination. Instead, it's one step in the direction of a more reliable operating system. Let's see what's going on here.
Currently, system processes all run under a single process called "service host". If you've ever wondered what's consuming all your disk, CPU, memory, or network resources only to have the Task Manager display "service host", you've seen this. Besides making it difficult to identify where a problem might be, service host is a house of cards. When a single process running inside service host fails, it's likely that the operating system will crash.
Computers now have sufficient memory that stuffing all of the system processes into a single master process is no longer necessary. That requires some major changes to the way processes are handled and it's why third-party protective applications won't work in the current Fast ring build.
By the time the Windows 10 update is ready for consumers early next year, this behavior will no longer occur. Between now and then, Microsoft will make new system specifications available to third parties and the protective software publishers will need to modify their products to function in the new operating system environment.
This is one of the reasons that the Fast ring should be reserved only for those who want to see Microsoft's cutting edge changes. Even the Slow ring should be used only for computers that aren't mission critical. In my opinion, no production machine should ever run any version of an operating system that isn't the current general release.
If your computer has more than about 4GB of RAM, and that applies even to low-end bargain-basement computers these days, most system processes will be unbundled from service host. Microsoft expects that the separation will result in increased stability for Windows 10, which is already quite stable. As an extra advantage, researching resource usage problems will now call out individual processes in the Task Manager.
Microsoft has avoided making this change until now because it causes the operating system to use more RAM, which is why it won't be active unless the computer has more than 3.5GB of RAM. Allocating more RAM to the operating system won't be a problem for computers that have 8, 16, 32, or 64GB of RAM -- and that's increasingly common. Even entry-level computers now often come with 8GB of RAM.
Cloud security company Netskope says that their research suggests nearly half (44%) of all cloud-based malware is intended to install ransomware on victim's computers. The research examines ransomware and how it spreads through cloud apps within an organization.
Enterprises have just under 1000 cloud apps in use, on average. Netskope Threat Research Labs says that the average institution has an average of 26 pieces of malware found in cloud apps across a given organization.
Of the malware types detected, 43.7% are common ransomware delivery vehicles, including Javascript exploits and droppers, Microsoft Office macros, and PDF exploits. These ransomware attacks are often initially delivered through phishing and email attacks, but within cloud environments, infected and encrypted files can quickly spread to other users.
The research also showed that Microsoft leads Google as most popular cloud app. Office 365, Outlook.com, and OneDrive for Business beat their counterparts from other vendors in session volume. Microsoft productivity apps are the number one and two most popular apps, unseating Facebook from its first-place spot for the first time.
Team messaging application Slack is in the top 20 applications being used for the first time. Netskope says that security teams will need to look more closely at the application to avoid having sensitive information shared inappropriately.
Marketing and Collaboration categories had the highest number of cloud apps per enterprise. Despite the growing popularity of productivity and collaboration apps, the majority are still not enterprise-ready. By "majority" the report says that 99% of productivity apps and 97% of marketing apps aren't enterprise-ready. The best category was cloud-based storage apps, of which 76% are not enterprise-ready.
The report is based on aggregated, anonymized data from the Netskope Active Platform, which provides discovery and control over cloud-based apps. Findings are based on data from millions of users.
The full report is available from the Netskope website.
College students appear to have heard of ransomware, but are unaware of the extent of the danger to their data and their bank accounts.
A survey by Webroot says that students would be willing to pay about $50 to retrieve their personal data. Unfortunately, most crooks who encrypt devices and then demand payment to restore the files want $500 to $1000 -- 10 to 20 times what students say they would pay. There seems to be a disconnect here.
Last year the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received 2453 reports of ransomware. That may seem like a low number, but most victims probably never report the crime. Most news accounts discuss ransomware in terms of businesses (hospitals, police departments, schools, and such), so students may have a minimal understanding of the threat. Students said they would pay about $30 for a dating profile, around $50 for a term paper, a little less than $80 for a banking log-in, and almost $90 for private photos.
Sometimes ransomware authors negotiate with victims, but there's a lot of variety according to Webroot researcher Tyler Moffitt. "We have seen the cost negotiated to a lower amount," he said, but "we've also seen demands on individuals for upwards of $2000."
Webroot developed a quiz to measure the average identified worth of data in the event of a ransomware attack. To take the quiz, visit Webroot's What the Hack website.
For information between weekly reports, don't forget to check the TechByter RSS News Feed page. This week I've added several useful sources.
The RSS News Page (http://www.techbyter.com/rss-news.php) is updated constantly and contains news from worthwhile sources. Because of the interest in security topics, you'll find several new items in the list of resources: ThreatPost Security, Tech Republic Security, and Dark Reading Vulnerabilities and Threats join RSS feeds from Malwarebytes, Ars Technica, US CERT, and Krebs on Security.
You'll also find a new items in the Hardware and Related section where I've added an RSS feed from MacWorld. This feed focuses on MacOS (the new name for what was OSX).
You'll also find links to the top stories from Wired, Tech Crunch's Gadgets, and Tech Republic's selection of articles for small and medium businesses.
There's currently only one photography-related link -- Lightroom Tips. You'll find articles from PC World on Windows, Android News, Microsoft News, and PC World's Hardware section.
TechByter Worldwide can't cover everything, so be sure to check out the RSS News Page for a constantly changing selection of articles that are worth reading.
