Software Review – Part 2 Free Screen Recorder

The Free Screen Recorder is a great little program from NBX Soft http://www.nbxsoft.com/download-screen-recorder.php. Don’t be fooled by the name – the program is only free for a trial of about 10 screen captures, after this, you must register the program – at a fee. The registration fee is around $30 US (or was when I registered it a year or so ago), so it’s not an amount to get too stressed over. It’s quite simple to use and set up, the program comes with default hotkeys and has the option to record sound from your microphone. This makes it perfect for creating your own tutorials as it captures mouse clicks and generally what ever is on your screen.

The Interface 

As you can see from the screenshot, the interface is quite simple and fairly intuitive. The red button to record, blue button to stop, the gear for settings, video for output, microphone for sound input settings, cursor for cursor capture settings, keyboard for hotkey settings.

Record function 

The record function, the red button, is set by default to F8 for a Hotkey, this of course can be changed if you prefer using the hotkey settings. Once you click record, the size of the screen selected in General settings will appear as a green flashing square allowing you to select the specific are you wish captured. Simply click the screen to begin the recording process.

It is recommended to set the General Program preferences first! 

 The Stop button 

The blue stop button simply stops the recording and brings up the SAVE AS dialog box automatically, by default the save location is a folder inside the installation folder such as Program Files / Free Screen Recorder, but you can change this save location during the SAVE AS dialog. The program will then reformat your video according to the video output setting chosen and will play using your default video player when complete.

The General Settings button 

This button controls the screen layout for the recording process, here you can choose to set the size of the screen to be recorded to a set size in the number of pixels, or full screen, or a number of other options. By default, the screen size is set to 320 x240 and is a fixed region. If you wish to change this size and/or the recording location, click the SELECT FIXED REGION button, this will allow you to draw the size and location required. Note: This selection will only remain for the duration of this session, if you close the program it does not remember your settings.

The Video Output (Codecs) 

The program comes with a variety of codecs pre-installed for you to select as your output. By default, the Microsoft Video 1 codec is selected, you may switch to a different codec if you prefer using the drop down arrow. Other options here include

• Frame rate 
• Playback rate 

I’ve found the program works best at the default settings, this seems to have a reasonable file size with watchable quality.

Audio Options 

Clicking on the microphone icon will open the audio options. This will allow you to select if you wish to record sound or not. By default this option is turned off, you will need to tick the RECORD SOUND box if you wish to record sound from your microphone. Again, you can make additional changes regarding the output used if required. Capture Cursor Options The blue button displaying a cursor allows you to select if you wish to capture the computers cursor or not. There are a number of useful options here: You can choose:

• Hide cursor 
• Show Cursor 

Under Show Cursor, you have additional options such as the default to use the actual cursor on your computer, but you can choose a custom cursor such as those installed on your computer, or another custom icon that you may have installed on your computer. What might be helpful for trainers is the HIGHLIGHT CURSOR option, which allows you to choose between different shapes:

• Circle 
• Ellipse 
• Square 
• Rectangle 

And also different colours, clicking on the COLOUR button will display a pallete that you can choose from, or you can create your own custom colour using the hex codes by adjusting the RGB values.

Keyboard Hotkeys 

This final option allows you to select your own keyboard hotkeys. This is pretty intuitive, simply click the drop down box and select the key you prefer. Click OK to confirm.

Summary 

In summary, this program is great if you want to record something that’s happening on the screen such as a tutorial on how to perform a certain task on the computer. The recorded sound output is not great, it tends to be far quieter than you would expect, so if recording your own voice, be aware you will have to speak loudly and clearly. The file sizes can tend to be large, depending on the size of the video captured and the codecs used in the output. You may like to fiddle with the settings to find something that is suitable for you, depending on what you are going to use the outputted file for. The files may be too large to place on the internet, but may be fine for recording onto a CD or DVD.

Software for business use - Part One - Office Ready Professional

This is part one in a series of of reviews of software that is suitable for business and/or home use. Some software programs reviewed are free to purchase or offer a free trial. All reviews are strictly unsolicited, if I find stuff I really like, I buy it and recommend it to all my friends and business associates.

Office Ready Professional

The first program I purchased fromTemplate Zone (www.templatezone.com) a few years ago. I purchased the Platinum edition for around $150, and I still love it. The program is an add-on for Microsoft Office and integrates seamlessly with Word, Excel & Power Point. The wonderful design team have created incredible, stunning templates that are quick and simple to edit.

The first thing you need to do once you have installed the program is set up a company profile. This profile stores your company logo, address, telephone and fax numbers, tag lines - all the basic information that you need to include on all documents.

You then are faced with the decision of what to do next. By default, the program shows you the range of Word templates in an amazing gallery of ideas (see screenshot below), all designs are divided into categories to make things easier for you. Choose between flyers, reports, brochures, newsletters and more. Hard part ... hmm ... which one to use? Don't want to create a document in Word - OK ... choose Excel and you are faced with more templates that are divided into easy to browse categories. Choose from Business or Project Management, Finance, and even more. If that's not enough for you, then try Power Point templates, each template design shows the master title slide and the main section slides, all of which can be easily edited.

750 Design templates included
In all, the platinum version offers over 750 different designs! Still not enough? You can always purchase and download more templates from the template store. These additional templates are again divided into categories, so by purchasing an "expansion pack" you get more than one type of design per category.

Inbuilt Image Editor
Office Ready includes an easy to use Image Editor, each of their templates includes sample images that you can edit, change colour, or swap for your own images. To access the Image Editor, simply double click on the smiley face that indicates a photo socket.

To crop the image, simply move the red box around the image, you can resize if required.There are many other options available here also. You can choose to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue & saturation of the image, apply rotation, and more.

Change Text
The text on the template is simply in good old text boxes and is easily editable.

PDF Round Trip
One main reason I purchased this program was for the PDF round-trip. At the time of purchase, there was no easy way to convert Word documents into PDF, you had to use an expensive program such as Adobe PDF maker to create PDF files.

But Office Professional does much more than simply CONVERT your documents to PDF, it can go the other way also and convert PDF documents to Word! Wonderful idea and has saved me endless amounts of trouble.

Other features
There are many other great features of the program, such as the Colour Themes and Mail Merge options, as well as a direct link to Printing for Less.

The Colour Themes allow you to quickly change the colour scheme of your documents, for example if you need to have your company colours on your documents, you can create your own theme and then apply it to your documents. The colour theme controls the colour of text, headings, text boxes, shapes and more.

The Mail Merge option allows you to manage your mailing lists directly with the program that allows you to send the document you have made directly to your customers.

Warning

One thing I found with the program that being designed in the USA, the templates have been developed for that area and use the LETTER page layout. If you are using a different type of paper such as A4 in Australia, you will need to change the page layout to comply before printing your document. Once you do this though, the objects on the page will shift their location accordingly. I've found it much easier to adjust the page layout to A4 before I start any major editing on the document.

With the brochures, I have also found that the do not print nicely (as you would expect) with back to back printing. One side always seems to be slightly to the side - although this could also be a problem with my cheap horrible HP printer that I am waiting to die so I have an excuse to replace it (but what do you expect for $30). I have found that it is best if using a brochure design, to copy the groups of elements and paste into Publisher and then continue editing the document.

Summary

Rating 4 out of 5. Great program, great design ideas. Customer support is available, and quick. If you are looking for some creative documents to impress your clients, or for some good marketing ideas, then check it out. The 30 day trial of the program is available direct from their website at www.templatezone.com, and while there have a look around at some of the other programs available - reviews on them coming soon. Works fine with XP, Vista and 7.

New Training Course – Intermediate Excel

Our new training course to be delivered at Wimmera Hub – 39 Urquhart Street Horsham, begins tomorrow night - Monday 6^th August. This should be a great short computer course of just four sessions with each session lasting about 3 hours (including coffee break). The course is at an Intermediate level, which means you should already know how to start Excel, enter data and move around inside the spreadsheet. The course will cover

• Formatting cells including text alignment 
•  Creating and editing charts
• Headings & labels
• Basic formulas
• Logical IF statements
•  Conditional formatting
• Macros
• Creating and editing Templates
• Absolute & relative cell referencing
• Exporting Excel to other formats
• Importing Excel to other programs

The course includes a 50+ page learners guide plus supporting files including sample spreadsheets, all provided on a free USB drive. So come down and join in the fun. Call Hannah at Wimmera Hub on (03) 53 82 5111 to book!