For those who may be wondering, the answer is: 14 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes, and 30 seconds. That is how long it takes for a son to answer all of his father’s mindless questions about switching from a PC to a Mac. Which is a shame, too, because with a handy piece of software called Jing, everything could have been explained AND DEMONSTRATED in less than a minute.

Available for free and in a Pro edition at www.jingproject.com, Jing is like an interactive VCR for your computer. It allows you to capture images and record video and audio from your screen’s desktop and share it through email, IM, and the Internet.

Mac and PC compatible, the software allows users to convey information visually, effectively and efficiently. It’s perfect for how-to videos and on-line demonstrations.

To use Jing, simply select the area of your screen you want to capture, decide whether you want to take a picture or roll camera. Once finished capturing, choose a method of distribution.

Your first option is Screencast. Every Jing user creates a free account at www.screencast.com. It can host your captures and offers 2 GB of free monthly storage and 2 GB of bandwidth.  You can choose to make the account private or public.

If Screencast isn’t your thing, you can send the material to Flickr (if it’s a picture), a user designated drive, ftp site, or copy it directly into an email or document.

When choosing to upload to the interweb, Jing throws the url or embed code (you choose) to your clipboard. Simply paste the url in an email or IM and it’s ready for use. Put the html embed code in your website or blog and you’ve instantly got a player.

If you want to step it up a notch, Jing Pro, at $14.95/year, allows a bit more sharing freedom and also strips the Jing logos and tie-ins from your uploaded captures. With all the same features as the free edition, videos can be captured in MPEG-4 or .SWF for smaller and clearer files. The free version records .SWF video and .PNG images. With Jing Pro you also can upload directly to your Youtube account.

The possibilities for using Jing are really quite expansive. Maybe you’re having problems with your editing software. Make a video and send it to that editor friend of yours. Maybe you need to give feedback on a print your intern sent you. Snap a picture and tear it apart. Maybe you’re location scouting on the fly and you want to show some pictures ASAP. Jing works great for slide shows.

Overall, the software is fairly simple. It’s an innovative approach to work that’s speedy, reliable and saves boatloads time. A techie friend of mine wished the buttons were a bit more intuitive. Instead of having to scroll over them to discover their function, he wanted to know what they did just by looking at them. Less than two seconds later, he was running the program like a seasoned professional…I don’t think it mattered too much.

Working in career development, I use Jing mostly to critique student resumes and demo reels.  When version after version after version comes across my desk, I don’t have to schedule a meeting to fix the problem. I can simply record my review of the student’s work and email it back. In the end, the process cuts back on time and makes it easier to talk one-on-one with students about the things that really matter.

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