Mozy easter eggs

Some people find it fun to place jokes within their applications. We have all seen easter eggs placed within applications from time to time.

Mozy have taken this kind of joke a step further. You don't have to look deep to find a joke.

But it's not always clear what the joke mean. P=NP is an unsolved question computer science.

It is generally agreed to be the most important such unsolved problem. It is also generally agreed to be one of the most important unsolved problems in mathematics; the Clay Mathematics Institute has offered a $1 million US prize for the first correct proof.

If you read their terms you'll find DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL. This is a reference to Saturday Night Live. For people like me it is not easy to understand all of this.

Thanks to davidrothman for pointing this out.

Wink video capture

I just wrote about codecs and screen scaptures. When I was finished with the article I found a cool program called Wink from Debugmode.

Wink is a screen video capture program that allows you to edit it - add annotations, balloons, text and so forth.

Highlights are freeware, easy to use and optimized outputs.

Have a look yourself at the Wink product page.

Screen capture codecs and tools

I have been looking into codec's for capturing the screen into videos. The reason for doing this is to produce videos from the screen wich are both small in size and with the best possible quality. Codecs for movies do not have the optimal characteristics for screen videos.

You can search your self with Google.

Codec	Comment
MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec	Codec that produces the smallest files possible without loosing quality.
FM Screen Capture codec	Codec from the producers of ScreenVirtuoso. Outputs are about twice as big as with MSU.
TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC)	This codec can only be used to encode movies when you have a valid license for Camtasia Studio. You can download this codec free of charge to decode movies.

Capture programs

To use the codec's you need a program to capture the screen to a movie. Google can help out here as well.

Program	Comment
SnagIt	Good to capture still images. With videos you can only capture it, not manipulate it. Read my review here. You can encode with any installed codec.
ScreenVirtuoso	Capture tool with some options. Captures  media output as well. (DVD's, media player etc.)
ALLcapture	Another capture tool. They seem to have their own codec. And their own tool TurboDemo to create something useful out of the capture.

Good luck!

Capture with SnagIt and Camtasia

Screen capture and video capture of the screen? Is it possible and how do I do it?

TechSmith have two programs to do just that. There are of course others, but today I will focus on TechSmith.

SnagIt 8	Camtasia Studio 4
Capture still images and records video.	Captures video with own optimized codec. Still images if you purchase SnagIt bundle.
Very good options for editing your images.	Created to capture video and make movies of output.
Outputs to all common image formats, and .AVI for videos. You can choose codec for output.	Final output includes MPEG, AVI, Flash, RealMedia, QuickTime and executable. You have full control of output settings.

SnagIt - $39.95

SnagIt is a world known and reputable screen capture program. I love it - in addition to capture images (as you can do with alt+print screen) you can do lots to the final image. You can change perspective, add edge effects, highlight text, add arrows, add callouts and more.

If you send screen dumps in emails or make user documentation this a must-have tool.

Camtasia Studio 4 - $299

Charged with good hope after using SnagIt I downloaded Camtasia and decided to try it out.

I expected to find a tool to make videos as easy as SnagIt makes screen shots. But no, I did not manage to do anything usable with Camtasia. I can zoom and pan, but did not manage to do anything else with it.

If you want to make something out of a capture - look into Photodex ProShow first. I have already blogged about it.

Freemind 0.8.0

Earlier I wrote about mind managers. This article will focus on FreeMind from the Open Source Community.

You can see a video here.

FreeMind 0.8.0

A great product - compared to price. It is easy to use and let you focus on being creative. You can change key bindings to whatever you need.

What is bad?

• Open Source. It is not in release 1 yet.
• Java. It's just not good as GUI's.
• Not all key mappings work.
• Menus does not work. I have to press the hotkey after I have found it in the menu.

Novamind

Earlier I wrote about mind managers. This article will focus on NovaMind from the company with the same name.

You can see a video here.

NovaMind

This product did not work for me. I could not make it work the way I wanted. I could not find anything on the menus. They use the new menu system you get with Office 2007. That is images instead of text buttons.

The good?

I think it is a good program if you can make it work.

Visual Mind 8

Earlier I wrote about mind managers. This article will focus on Visual Mind from Mind Technologies.

You can see a video here.

Visual Mind 8

It is fun to see that we Norwegians can make good products! For this is a great product. No doubt about it.

When your purpose is to use your mind and make maps this product is easy to use, and won't distract you with lots of options.

Navigation between branches of the map is easy, you can do lot from the keyboard.

It comes in two flavors to choose from. Except for image export the home version got everything I need.

What is bad?

• The home edition does not allow you to export your maps to images.
• JPEG quality is not good as you can see from the red and green boxes on this image.
• On my Vista it crashed a few times.

Visual Mind 9

This product is currently in beta, and I have not looked at it. But they will ship a client/server version allowing several people to work on the same map. Exiting.

mind managers

Today we will be looking into mind maps and mind managers - software to manage your mind.

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.

Wikipedia

There are lots of people making mind manager software, and I have not the resources to look into every one of them. I have chosen to look into a few products, as you can see below. As I look into it for personal use price is the (almost) most important element for me. That the software works for me, is easy to use and that I feel I have control over it is also important.

How do I use a mind map?

Take a look at this mind map, created with an evaluation version of Visual Mind 8. You can see from the map what I looked into during this article. There are of course many other ways to make use of a mind map. You need to figure out for your self what works for you.

Disclaimer: The map above is a copy from the process. It does not necessarily reflect my final opinion on a product. Please read my product review instead.

What are the two prices above?

I have listed two prices; Price home and Price Pro. Some vendors sell a crippled version for personal use. You will have to read the product homepage your self to find the differences. Usually you loose these features;

• Task management.
• Export to MS Office and some other formats. (Even images.)
• Support for multiple maps in a project.

Product review

This is a short review of the different tools. Read the full article for more information about each product.

Product	Score
Visual Mind
MindMAP
FreeMind
MindJet Mind Manager
NovaMind

For me - I have to choose between FreeMind, Visual Mind and MindMAP. Both are good products that I felt comfortable with.

You can see a video here.