Hopefully you have had a chance to see the tutorials I recently published for Zen Cart. I would like to tell you about a couple of apps I’ve recently been using on my Mac. The first is iShowU, which is a tool for creating videos of what’s happening on your screen. It is simple to use and the video is ready immediately after you complete recording.

I chose the iShowU HD Pro version, primarily because of the watermarking feature, as well as the ability to record keystrokes on the screen. Those features work well, and the video quality turned out well. I have noticed a few issues with this software, specifically with using the Presets feature - a way to save different setting groups. A quick look in the support forum revealed to me that that Neil (the developer) was aware of the problems, and correcting them for a later release.

The second is Stomp. It’s purpose in life is to make video smaller. So if it’s a recording from iShowU or any other video you have lying about - then Stomp can be used to crop it, scale it, clip parts out and also perform a myriad of color corrections and filters.

Stomp did exactly what I would expect it to do. I have only needed to use it a handful of times, and its flexibility in settings as well as its quality output made me glad I had purchased this software as part of the bundle.

Both of these items are available from shinywhitebox in a demo form that is fully functional. The only restriction to the demo version is that watermarks are added to the videos, but at least you can get a feel for what the applications can do. Don’t purchase one without trying out both, since they have bundle packages available to save you some money. Check out both of these at shinywhitebox.com.