Aaron Brandon recently posted on his blog about the “best” screencast settings for recording a screen capture video. Aaron’s tips are good, and as a dialup user, I appreciate his sharing ways in which file size can be minimized without compromising quality and usability.
I’d like to add my own… let’s call them “Best Screencast Security Settings”. These tips will help you reduce clutter and distractions in your video while helping prevent sensitive information leaks.
Before recording a video, here are a few things I recommend doing:
1. Delete your browser history and/or turn off Auto Complete. This will prevent video viewers from seeing where you’ve been on the Internet. It will also keep them from seeing some of your own sites that you’d rather not make public (i.e. your involvement in a specific market).
2. Clean up your desktop. I simply create a “temp” folder on my desktop and put all of my icons in it while I capture. Part of it is to reduce clutter and part of it is to prevent people from seeing what’s installed on my computer.
3. Change your desktop to a solid color for the presentation (blue works well). You can always change it back to what you like afterwards. In my case (true confession time!) I had a “Veggie Tales” graphic on my desktop (legally) from a DVD my son owns (and at his request). That would not look too terribly professional were I to include that in a video product!
4. Open any browser windows and Explorer windows you’ll need before you record. Turn off the folder view. Turn off bookmarks, status bars, and other items in both your web browser and Explorer windows that might give away any sensitive information you’d rather not have exposed.
Here’s an example of why I recommend this: I once wanted to attend a $10,000 a seat workshop to learn a new system but didn’t want to spend the $10,000, plus flight, hotel, meals, car rental, time away from my family… Thankfully, the organizers created a video that showed the results of their test case — and that video had “just enough” hints in it for me to find one of the sites they built. I was able to purchase the product, get on the autoresponder list, and get all of the marketing materials — all for about $100. I didn’t get the whole system but I’m sure I learned a lot more than what they wanted to give away.
So keep your videos “clean” to both avoid distractions from your main point and to help keep private things private.
Thanks for listening,
Tom
Post a Comment