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Ask Engadget: best Skitch replacement?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Benjamin, who feels a little let down by the most recent changes to Evernote's image-sharing software. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "Hi guys. I'm a graphic designer who, until recently, used a desktop app called Skitch to quickly share images with clients. I loved being able to just click and drag a portion of my desktop, click "share" and have it uploaded in a seconds. Of course, Evernote has screwed with it, so now it won't default to keeping my pictures private (not so good for the clients, or my reputation) and the new layout hides the sharing feature in a stupid drop-down menu. Frankly, a really useful piece of software has been ruined, so can you suggest a replacement?" We feel your pain Benjamin, even if we did have to slice out your more colorful descriptions of Evernote from your e-mail. A site favorite has been ruined by the changes, and as such we're on the hunt for an alternative. Jing, from TechSmith lets you share screenshots and even record video on your desktop. Slingshot is a Mac exclusive that'll set you back $3, but uses the cloud service of your choice (Dropbox, Imgur etc) Of course, this is the moment where we turn it over to our amazing commenters, who we hope will share the skinny. You never know, maybe some enterprising indie dev has already created the program to replace that hole in our lives -- friends, head down below, grab the candle and bang on.
Create GrabUp-style functionality with Dropbox and Jing
Before Snow Leopard was released, we were enjoying GrabUp for super-simple sharing of screenshots. It was a great little utility: After a brief setup, it automatically sent any screenshot to its servers (or your own) and added the resulting URL to the Clipboard. It was fast and very useful. Snow Leopard killed it by changing the naming convention of screenshots. The developers haven't fixed it (in fact, Google now throws up a danger warning when I try to access the site) and it looks like they aren't going to. We posted a fix not too long ago, and today we found another approach on the Dropbox wiki that uses Dropbox and Jing. You get free online storage for up to 2GB of screenshots, and an easy way to get the URL of your screenshot where you need it in a hurry. Here's how it works. First, download and install Jing (it'll work with the free version -- more on that later) and get a Dropbox account (again, the free version will work). Once your Dropbox install is all done, create a destination folder in your Dropbox's Public folder -- maybe "screenshots," for example. Now it's time to fill in the Jing preferences. Read on...
Evernote + Screencast ready for prime time and paid use
Two of my preferred Mac-friendly cloud services have now made the jump to actually accepting money from subscribers, which is a good thing (really, it is!). TUAW favorite Evernote has moved from private to public beta, and Techsmith video hosting site Screencast.com is now at 1.0 release status. Both services are now offering trial/free plans alongside their premium plans for paid subscribers. The Screencast.com site is already integrated with the free Jing Project capture tool for Mac and the pro-level (and, at least for the moment, Windows-only) Camtasia Studio app; you can also upload screencasts that you create with almost any tool you like (including ADA multi-winner Screenflow) in a variety of formats for hosting on the service. Selecting which of your screencasts to share and which to password-protect is very easy, and the service automatically sets up RSS and iTunes feeds for the folders you choose to make public.The 60-day trial account includes 200 MB of storage and a 1GB transfer limit; paid plans start at $6.95 a month. Evernote's private beta grew to include over 125,000 users (ahem), and the new public beta includes an option for a $5/month premium user plan that increases your monthly transfer quota/new note cap from 40 MB to 500 megabytes and gives you SSL for all data, priority access to the text-recognition queues and tier 1 customer support. Plus you get a snazzy t-shirt while supplies last (pink elephants on parade!). The web interface to Evernote has also gotten a facelift, with full drag-and-drop support and an improved clipper feature. Can't say yet if they've fixed the session timeout issue that ate a long note my wife was writing last night, but I surely hope so. In a conversation a couple of weeks back, Evernote CEO Phil Libin shared some future directions for the product with us as well as a couple of tips from his personal use of Evernote. First, what many are waiting for will be coming very soon: a native iPhone client for Evernote (shipping shortly after the App Store opens), including one-button publishing to Evernote and location tagging for every item you create from your phone, like a trail of breadcrumbs leading you back to that favorite restaurant or bargain spot. (Phil's tip: whenever he parks his car at the airport, he takes a picture of the parking spot and sends it to Evernote to help jog his jetlagged brain.) Second, the upcoming platform-wide features for Evernote will soon include more granular controls on publishing and sharing, a revamped Windows client, Evernote for Blackberry, and audio notes. (Phil's tip: he uses Evernote notebooks to share collections of photos or screenshots, like this accidental poetry from CNN rundown.) Later this summer we should expect to see the first public release of the Evernote API, which will permit third-party devs to add features to the service (personally I'd love to have a business card postprocessor tool, which Libin sees as a good 3rd party opportunity). Other future features are yet to be publicly disclosed, but Libin hinted that the image-processing power of Evernote's servers may be bent to teasing out specific features of photographs. Faces? Product barcodes? Geotagged landscapes? Can't wait to find out. Meanwhile, the free Mac version of Evernote (read Brett's original review here) is downloadable at evernote.com.
Jing makes screen captures slick and easy
It's always something: just as I start to write up a Mac 101 on screen grabbing, along comes something cool, free and pretty: Jing for Mac. Built by the screen capture savants at TechSmith (developers of Windows tools Camtasia and SnagIt), Jing combines a lightweight, one-click image or motion capture tool with a free 200 MB hosting account at Screencast.com. The result is a fine way to quickly get 'casual' captures online and shared with a minimum of fuss. The motion captures are saved as .swf Flash video, which is either a bonus or a drawback depending on your perspective.The current-but-one version (labeled a 'project,' not a beta) gave me a smidge of trouble on a dual-monitor setup, but the current 1.2.4 version seems to be working better, and it also cleared up a conflict with Growl. I'll do a few captures here and get a gallery together to see how they look. Jing isn't going to replace power tools like Snapz Pro, ImageWell or Skitch, but it's pretty good at what it does. Also, as Laurie pointed out, the Jing installer comes with a handy 'autoinstall' AppleScript that copies the application and then unmounts the disk image -- particularly useful for those friends and family (you know who they are) that seem to get confused and end up running applications from a mounted .dmg instead of installing them properly.Thanks Laurie & Dave
