Remember what it was like to capture video off a computer screen before desktop recording software came along?

You'd mount a big, expensive camera on a tripod, point it at the screen and, unless you had tweaked a bunch of settings or loaded special software, you'd get black bars creeping up and down the screen because of a refresh rate mismatch. And once you solved that problem, you still needed to be well versed in editing tools, video-tape transfer and replication.

The advent of all-in-one desktop recording software was a minor revolution, because it gave ordinary computer users the means to capture anything they could see on their computer, edit it into a finished production and get it onto a CD-ROM or their Web server.

Now, anyone could be a software trainer—or at least share tips and show off cool stuff that they'd done on their computer.

Just as blogging platforms lit the fuse that rocked the world of online publishing, tools such as Camtasia Studio brought screencasting production to the mainstream. And video-sharing sites (think YouTube and Screencast.com) came along to eliminate distribution costs and hassle. The read/write Web took a step forward.

2000s: Cost of Production and Distribution = Low

Then along came "instant" screencasting tools such as Jing, ScreenToaster and Screenr (see ReadWriteWeb's reviews), which have lowered the barrier even further. The cost of these tools is nothing. And because content uploading and hosting is built right in, the time between idea and posted content has shrunk from hours to seconds. Think it, record it, post a link.

If the all-in-one screen recorders are like blogs, these new apps are like Twitter. And they've birthed a new mode of communication: the casual, disposable micro-screencast.

2010s: Cost of Production and Distribution = 0

Meticulously orchestrated and slickly edited screencast productions will always have their place. But now it's also practical to fire off a quick, informal micro-screencast in the time it takes to jot an email or dial a phone number.

And just as with Twitter, a stripped-down feature set and length limitations can be a benevolent deficit. The author has no time to ramble and no temptation to fiddle around, "improving" something that's good enough. (Anyone who has wasted 15 minutes tweaking the formatting of an unimportant document just because you could, raise your hand!)

On the other hand, simple doesn't mean poorly executed. You don't want the equivalent of typos and grammatical errors in your screencast. So, keep these basic tips in mind and you'll make something worthy of the viewer's time and attention.

Three Tips for Micro-Screencasting Excellence

• Prepare
  This is as easy as pausing to collect your thoughts and maybe jotting down on a sticky note three things that you want to communicate. This will help you focus and be succinct.
• Practice
  No one wants to watch you hunt around, looking for the right window or browser tab. A quick dry run goes a long way towards smooth delivery on the first take.
• Pause
  Memorize the hotkey that pauses your recorder (or write it at the top of your sticky note). Use it to stop and regroup if your brain freezes or you start to bumble. It's faster than starting over.

How about you? Are screencasts part of your day-to-day communication? Got a story or tip to share?

Daniel Foster (@fosteronomo) is a marketing writer at TechSmith and edits the company's monthly e-newsletter.

Today, with the launch of Jing 2.1, both Jing and Jing Pro users are getting a bevy of new features which makes the little app we can't live without just that much better.

Although I'm proudly running the $14.95 version of Jing Pro (well worth the money), all Jing users will receive some of today's upgrades.

First on the list is a minor tweak to Jing's aspect ratio feature which will now let you hold down either the Ctrl or Shift key to select the appropriate aspect ratio for standard or widescreen images and videos, respectively.

If you often do more advanced editing using other TechSmith tools like Snagit or Camtasia Studio, you'll be pleased to find that you can now shoot your saved captures and recordings directly to these programs straight from Jing.

Also new today, when uploading to Screencast.com, you'll now be able to specify which folder - great for keeping all your recordings organized. To use this option, you simply create buttons for each of the folders you want to make available from Jing. (Jing supports up to 8 buttons). You can then choose enable commenting on those Screencast.com videos via Jing, providing a more social element to the sharing service.

However, the best feature to arrive in this latest version is one available only to the Pro users - and possibly one that will tempt a few standard users to upgrade their copy. In the new Jing 2.1, Pro users finally have access to their webcam from within the program. No longer limited to screen recordings alone, you can now use Jing to record your very own self, perfect for doing video intros or other webcam recordings.

If you're already running Jing, you can check for the update by going to Settings and then clicking on Help (the question mark button). Then click "Check for Update." New users can download the latest version of Jing from here.

High Quality Video and Direct YouTube Uploads

For just about $15 a year, the Pro version is quite a bargain. Thanks to using the H.264/MPEG-4-AVC video codec, Jing now not only makes it easy to capture high-quality video (including online videos), but also to take those videos to other editors like iMovie, or to video sites like Vimeo or Viddler. The free version of Jing records videos in the SWF format, and TechSmith's Camtasia Studio is one of the few programs that can actually edit those Jing-produced videos.

The Pro version also lets you upload videos directly to YouTube. As with the free version of Jing, you can also use TechSmith's own Screencast.com to host your videos.

In this new version, Jing fixed the one issue that had always annoyed us when we tried to embed videos captured with the software: resizing the height and width of embedded videos now finally works.

New Help Center

Besides updating its desktop software, Jing also released a new 'Help Center,' with lots of tutorials and tips for getting the most out of Jing.

Screenshots and Screencasting

We mostly use Jing to take screenshots every day, and with this update and a subscription to the Pro version, Jing has also become an even more flexible and useful screencasting tool than ever before.