After reading Collin’s entry on

Screencasting and FYC, I decided to see whether I could line up a free
screencasting app.  For kicks as much as for generative digression, asides
from more demanding and rigorous projects occupying my time as the semester
rolls to a conclusion, of late I’ve felt compelled to tinker with new
software–"new" in the sense that I don’t have a terrific aptitude for using it. 
For the most part, I’ve been messing around with Flash lately, while taking
breaks from writing.  But screencasting…never given it much thought. 
All the motive I need.

I poked around the web, following the link to
Will
Richardson’s entry and

Jon Udell’s column.  Then, by way of
another site,
I found the
entry in wikipedia on screencasting, and then, checked out each of the
software apps listed.  Let. Me. See. 

Camtasia 2.1 for $299 or
Wink 1.5 for free.
Camtasia?  Wink?  Camtasia?  Wink?

Wink 1.5 doesn’t have audio capabilities yet (I read somewhere that the 2.0
concept includes audio and an undo option), but other than that, I’ve found it
surprisingly feature-rich.  Plus, it’s easy to use (not for Mac, but as a
PC user, no Garageband or TinderBox for me now, either).  Capturing,
cropping, resizing, adding comment balloons and next arrows–all a breeze. 
Probably a sluggish download, but

here’s my unremarkable first try. Basically, it’s just a few screenshots clicking through the stuff I’m writing about here, links and so on.

I didn’t plan it carefully before I put it together; hence, in the first
try you’ll see an odd mix of tabbing between the stuff on screencasting and
other stuff I was looking at today on

Google Print (check it out, if you haven’t already).  I was encouraged
to find several texts related to

comp/rhet rendered into searchable goodness.  Really something, that.

I don’t have any decided conclusions about screencasting and FYC; mostly I’m
just thinking it over.  But I think it productively excites the "what if"
questions we need to continually ask and answer (ahem…act upon)–about the
implications of discord (or outright contradiction) between cross-disciplinary
principles and however-wrought conceptions of what constitutes composition.