Vlog It! Free Trial 90 Second Preview

Vlog It! is a new vlogging tool that promises to make vlogging a trunkey operation for many users. The application has been in public beta, but is now available in a "free trial" form. Final release of the program is expected before the end of November with a suggested retail price of $49.95.

Vlog It! is essentially an encarnation of Visual Communicator that has been "feature-focused" and "publishing-enhanced" for the task of vlogging.

My initial impression of the program is very favorable. One easily creates a "talking head" video supplemented with digital pictures and video clips that one wishes to show to the vlogging community. Visual Communicator, of course, can already do this and offers many more features. The BIG news about Vlog It! is that the technical aspects of vlogging are adeptly handled by the program. Selecting an image clip for you video link is as easy as pushing a button. Publishing the video involves nothing more than dragging your image clip into your vlog editor. Poof! All the code and hyperlinking is handled by Vlog It!.

Vlog It! will also chromakey a green screen to whatever background you'd like -- in the video I used a stock "Tech" background that was included with Vlog It! Keep in mind that the green screen and lapel mic used in the video are not included with Vlog It!; however, they are inexpensive items that can be purchased from Serious Magic or any media content vendor. Professional lighting was not used, yet the program did a good job of keying the background.

I encouage all vloggers to download the trial version and take it for a spin. A 15-day Playstream account is included in the free trial. The free trial version is limited to Flash output; however, the shipping version of Vlog It! will also publish to Real and Windows Media formats.

Personally, I'd like to see the application be enhanced to include the option to "Publish to QuickTime" and specifically "Publish to iPod". I like to present my work in multiple formats from within one application -- would save alot of time over doing the "conversion shuffle" with a third party tool.

One Note 12 Beta 1 Released

It's been a busy week, so this is the first post in a few days.

Microsoft has made available to its registered beta testers the first beta of One Note 12. For those unaware, the next version of Office is release 12 and should take place in the fall of 2006 along with the next version of Windows, Windows Vista. One Note 12 may or may not be packaged as an included component of the Office suite.

This is not a public beta.

However, the new features are discussed with some detail at the included link and its sub-links.

Very informative for all One Note and tablet PC users.

Beta Test of Vlog It

This post is just a very quick and dirty test of the drag and drop publishing feature of the Vlog It! public beta from Serious Magic. More posts will likely follow as I become more familiar with the program.

Your video host info is placed into Vlog It! and the video is uploaded to the server away from Blogger during "Publish". One then only need drag a 'Thumbnail" (like the one you see hear) of the video from the publish dialog to the Blogger "Compose Field". Like magic, you're done as Vlog It! does most of the technical work for you.

The beta only offers Flash output in a popup window from the host server, but the final release will allow publishing in Windows Media or Real formats that you can configure to display viewing tools for the user.

At this point the beta is fairly well polished. Those interested in making their vlogging life easier should download the public beta from the Serious Magic web site: http://www.seriousmagic.com/products/vlogit/PublicBeta.cfm