Scraster Professional Screencasting is pleased to introduce its most recent satisfied client, LiveChime. LiveChime is a Seattle-based start-up that creates an easy way to add live chat to online classified, auctions and marketplaces “to bring you the best buyer-2-seller results on the web”. Scraster bumped into LiveChime’s Erik Bergsagel on Twitter, where Erik asked his tweeps if they knew of any good professional screencasting services. A few tweets and a phone call later, Scraster was on its way to writing, recording, and producing the screencast for LiveChime’s tight Friday deadline. The video was delivered Friday and will be featured on the LiveChime site soon as the beta product gets closer to its official launch.
Working with LiveChime was a pleasure, but perhaps the coolest thing to come from our new business relationship is that Scraster now has a live chat link on each page of its website. LiveChime was as easy as could be to set up, and we’ve already had a trickle of inquiries–one of which led to a close. Although LiveChime is (for now) primarily targeting the online classifieds market, users of all kinds (like Scraster) can register and stick the chat link wherever they’d like. I’d highly recommend the service to anyone looking for a way to increase their accessibility. Visit the LiveChime website at http://livechime.com for more info. If you’d like to learn more about Scraster, and how Scraster helps companies like LiveChime engage, sell, and educate their site visitors, contact us today via our Get a Free Quote page.
It’s been a quiet month or so at the scraster.com blog, but we’ve been keeping busy. Our office has again moved and is now settled in yet another time zone. Our professional screencast work for clients continues and, perhaps most importantly, Scraster has just rolled out the first major update to our website since we began. Having been impressed with the viability of WordPress as a website content management system, Scraster team leader John Basile coded and designed the new Scraster.com website based on the popular K2 WordPress theme.
You may have noticed that Scraster.com v2.0 employs a Lightbox video player. While the Lightbox player was not easy to configure for WordPress and our chosen video hosting site, we are really happy with the end result. Scraster Professional Screencasting now strongly recommends the use of Lightbox 2 or similar technology to all our clients, as it’s a great way to share large videos (especially HD videos) without having a video player taking up valuable webpage real estate.
What do you think of the new site? Is there anything we’ve overlooked or could be doing better? Let us know by commenting below or by emailing info@scraster.com. If you’re interested in talking to Scraster about the creation of a professional screencast for your organization, please be in touch by using the Get a free quote form. Thanks for visiting. More soon!
For the moment, the professional screencasting software ScreenFlow doesn’t allow for titling in the user’s screencasts. Also, the options for incorporating a user’s keystrokes* into ScreenFlow videos leaves a lot to be desired. Both titling and keystrokes can be achieved with little effort by introducing overlayed transparent images (PNGs) into the timeline. Scraster Professional Screencasting has put together a short HD video to explain this work-around. Please watch in full-screen for best picture.
*Visit keyboardicons.com to download a FREE set of Mac keyboard icons.
Do you have any topics you’d like to see covered in future tutorials from Scraster Professional Screencasting? Do you have a product or service online that could benefit from having a professional screencast? Email info@scraster.com, leave a comment below, or use the Contact form on our website. Thanks.
UPDATE: As of the recent release of ScreenFlow 1.5.1, ScreenFlow now offers titling natively.
For the last couple of weeks, Scraster Professional Screencasting has been on a short hiatus from custom screencasting work for clients. Instead, we’ve been working on the launch of an exciting new project at scrast.net. scrast.net is a site devoted to the screencasting industry, its community, and those folks interested in learning more about the medium. The new screencasting website at scrast.net is still a work in progress, but already, you’ll find news and product reviews, links to professional screencasters, featured screencasts, and more.
Another useful feature of the new scrast.net is the ScreenFlow idea portal at screenflow.scrast.net. It’s no secret to ScreenFlow fans that the user forum at the Telestream website is severely lacking. With no help in sight from Team Telestream, the new idea portal at screenflow.scrast.net introduces a better system for contributing feature requests and discussing ideas for improvement. Based on the crowdsourcing concept of sites like Digg and Wikipedia, the voting system of screenflow.scrast.net assures that the ideas that matter most to ScreenFlow users will surface to the top and to the attention of the software’s developers. The end result will hopefully help keep ScreenFlow in its pole position in the Mac screencasting market. Please share the link with any ScreenFlow users you know because the portal’s true strength is based on the number of contributors and voters. Here’s a TinyURL for tweets: http://tinyurl.com/sf-s-net. Thanks as well for tweeting and otherwise speading the word about http://scrast.net, where “it’s all about screencasting”.
“Let’s face it: Even with Main Street and Wall Street going down the tubes, the tech industry is holding its own. This year saw the release of new mobile devices, software releases from all the major vendors, development of virtualization, cloud computing, and so much more. We can celebrate the survival of our industry through this horrible year, especially if you read and believe all the buzz about 2009 being the “Year of Tech Deployment.” There is a good possibility 2009 will stand out as a banner year on all fronts.
“It’s been said, “Desperate times call for creative measures.” Well, creative doesn’t necessarily mean less effective in this case. In fact, screencasts can be one of the most effective means of training your users because they can watch a video whenever they want and, more important, whenever they need. This can help reduce calls to help desk personnel (or worse yet, administrators directly) and can promote more comfort and productivity in your workforce.”
It’s been a quiet month or so at the 
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