One of our new favorite tools here at Plimus is Jing, a free (for now!) service from your friends at Techsmith. If you don't know Techsmith, maybe you know one of their popular products, like SnagIt or Camtasia.

Anyway, we have no business connection to them, so let's stop the free advertising - except for Jing.

OK, imagine you have a customer who is having trouble using your software - how do you get support to them? Oftentimes, you have to get on the phone for extended periods of time, or get involved in very long-running email conversations...which normally end up with frustration for all concerned.

Jing is a hosted service that basically lets you take a quick-and-dirty flash movie of you doing something on your screen, then share it across the Web.

An example, you say? Sure. Many vendors ask us how they can, for instance, change their payment method to receive revenue. In the past, I've written long and involved emails. Now I can simply include this link.

How are you going to do this? Here's the scoop:
   * Go to jingproject.com and download the software - happily it's
      available for Windows and Mac
   * You'll have to re-start your computer after you install, as it doesn't appear
      to be one of those programs where you can avoid that step
   * By default, it'll set itself up to run whenever you start the computer. This
      drives us crazy, so we switch it off - right click the icon in the system tray,
      select More then reset some options...we'd add a video, but it turns out Jing
      can't record itself!
   * Now, once it's running, you'll see sort of a half-sun at the top of your screen.
      When you mouse over it, it'll drop down three options - click the + sign and
      you're off to the races

Of course, there's plenty more information over at jingproject.com. We, however, have found this to be a very valuable tool for getting a message across quickly and easily - hopefully you'll agree!