A free screencast and whiteboard app for iPad

Came across this reasonably new iPad app: PageSend. It is free and does two important jobs very well.

1. It's a very nice screencast  app. It supports  writing/typing/drawing, provides choice of colors and line thickness and allows multi-page boards. The only downside is that it is not integrated with Dropbox -- the finished product can be emailed or viewed at pagesend.com


2. It's a great whiteboard app. You need to create pagesend.com account(s) then you and any other users you invite can use your iPads as a common whiteboard in real-time. Multiple users can write simultaneously. 

Screencast software for your laptop

While the screen session recording using online apps is great for quick one-offs, if you plan to produce many sessions, it may be easier to have the software installed on your laptop. Here's the best software for screencasting.

Windows 7

 

The best free one seems to be CamStudio (open source). It's got tons of features, which is either a plus if you are a tweaker, or a minus if you want something super simple.

Jing gets good reviews. Free version limits recordings to 5 minutes. Paid version is $15/year.

Wink is another well-liked app with no "catch".

Mac: Ok, gloat away. If you have MacOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later, your can record using QuickTime X (quick tutorial on this)

Linux: Istanbul is the top choice here.

Online apps for screencasts: screenr vs screencast-o-matic

This is a quick comparison between the free versions of screenr and screencast-o-matic.  

screenr.com, 5-min limit, must register using one of Google/Facebook/Twitter/Yahoo/LinkedIn/WindowsLiveID accounts, must save first to screenr.com and then can download mp4 file or post to YouTube.

screencast-o-matic.com

15-min limit, do not have to save to screencast-o-matic site, export to YouTube or download file (choice of mp4, flv, avi, or animated gif formats).

Winner: screencast-o-matic.com

Screencasting

A screencast is a video capture of the actions on a user's computer screen, usually with accompanying audio commentary. It is a quick and easy way to explain anything that can be displayed on a computer screen. There are a number of online tools that are free and need no software installation.