ShotSolutions in colloboration with GiveAwayOfTheDay team is offering StepShot for free for those who choose to download it within the next 24 hrs. StepShot is powerful documentation tool that can help you create manuals quickly by just recording the steps.

To start creating a user guide just hit the Screen record button and Stepshot will record the snapshot of your screen/application for each mouse click.

You can then edit the screenshots, annotate them, crop them and perform variety of tasks. If StepShot has added more than required screenshots you can delete them with a single click. While there are up-downb arrows to arrange the screenshots, we would want to see a feature whereby we can drag-and-drop the screenshots to arrange steps. The image editor should also have an option to blur the confidential info that may be contained in the document.

To give your document a pro look, you can insert your company’s logo which will automatically be embedded in the first page of the document created by StepShot.

Once you’re done creating the document, you can share it with DropBox/FTP. The document created with StepShot can be exported in wide variety of formats such as PDF, RTF, HTML, XLS, MHT, JPG. We like the fact they have provided an option to export it in RTF format. This will allow you to open the doc in MS word where you can insert additional info.

Get this tool while supply lasts!

Download StepShot for Free within the next 24 hrs is a post from ReviewOfWeb

Are you looking for an inexpensive way to design your visiting cards, postcards, letter heads and flyers? Take a look at SpringPublisher.

SpringPublisher is a desktop-based software that allows even a non-designer to design nice looking business cards, letter heads etc. with a point-and-click interface.

To demonstrate its usage, we have tried to develop a flyer for ReviewOfWeb.

1. As soon as you run the software you are provided with options to open a blank template, open template library and open an existing template. We chose to open template library.
2. You are then redirected to a window where you can choose from Local template library or Web Template store. Local template library has about 7 sets of templates available while WebTemplate store has around 20 templates available which can be purchased against points.
3. We chose one of the templates from Local template library and got this window. Here you have various tabs available to choose from business card/letterhead/postcard and flyer.
4. We edited the text and replaced our logo with the default one. Here are the results (before publishing). All we did was truly point-and-click.
5. We then saved the project and used the ‘Save As Image’ option, which rendered this output (png):

Some trivia

• The download is nearly 2.3 MB in size and it took less than 2 mins to download and install the software.
• It is available in free and paid editions. Here is a rundown to differences between the two editions.

Improvements we wish for

• Undo feature. If I have resized an image or made a spelling error, I just can’t use the usual “Ctrl-Z” to undo on my Windows machine.
• More output/export options. Most professional printers ask fro eps/ai files.
• Preview. There should be a preview feature that one could use before downloading templates from the web store. We would also like to see more variety of templates for various industries.

Final Words

The software is easy to use and works as advertised. If the above points are taken care of, we see a lot potential in Spring Publisher. Small business/bloggers/freelancers on budget can go for Spring Publisher for their day-to-day publishing needs.

Point and click to create beautiful visiting cards and letter heads – SpringPublisher is a post from ReviewOfWeb

We use to upload our files to Amazon S3 using a Firefox extension S3Fox Organizer and it was fine till we found S3 browser. Not only there is a dramatic increase in upload speed but our Firefox browser also loads up quickly now. (Firefox slows down with increasing number of add-ons)

Here’s our S3Browser review

1. Installation is a breeze. The installable is around 1.5 MB and it took us less than two minutes to download and install the software.
2. Since most of us use Amazon S3 for streaming large files, I think one of the important points we should keep in mind while choosing S3 upload software is to find out the features/speed software makers provide to upload large files. S3 browser supports multiple upload feature. Upload speed has improved drastically since moving to S3 browser.
3. It supports copying and pasting files from one bucket to another. This can help you in renaming your S3 bucket which is otherwise not available as a standard feature in Amazon S3.
4. You can share your buckets with other Amazon S3 users and similarly use buckets shared by other users.
5. The software comes in two flavors, free and pro. Free license is for personal use only. In case you are planning to use S3 browser for your business use, you should get the pro version.
6. Under pro version they have desktop edition and portable edition which cost $29.95 and $39.95 respectively as of June 2011. Once you purchase any of these versions, you get free software updates for life.

Some improvements we wish

1. Didn’t see a warning dialog box while trying to upload a file which is already present on Amazon S3.
2. Look and feel of S3 Browser website is somehow not very Web2.0ish. We found a hanging bullet on this page. Such issues – though minor -  may not evoke confidence in people who may want to upgrade to pro-version.

Final words

After having tried many S3 related softwares’, we think the pro version is worth the small one time investment. Amazon keeps coming up with new features and we found folks at S3 browser are super quick to implement updates to the software.

Looking for a faster way to upload files to Amazon S3 – Meet S3 Browser is a post from ReviewOfWeb

osTicket is one of the best open source ticketing softwares I have encountered. Here are 9 points that may help you while and after installing osTicket. I am not going to repeat what is already present in installation guide but want to compliment it with my findings.

1. Download is available as a .tar.gz extension.  Use unzipping softwares like 7zip to first uncompress .gz and then .tar. Finally you will get a folder lke osticket_1.6.0 (or osticket_x.y.z in general)
2. You only need to upload the contents of upload folder inside osticket_1.6.0, do NOT upload the upload folder itself to your webserver. (Here I am assuming you have uploaded the contents inside support folder. This will be needed in the next steps)
3. After uploading the files above, go to yourdomain.com/support/include and rename the file ost-config.sample.php to ost-config.php. Make sure you chmod it to 777.
4. Now create a mysql database inside your webhost control panel. Note the database name, hostname, username, password. These will be needed in next step.
5. Now you are ready to use the web installation script which can be located at http://www.yourdomain.com/support/setup/
6. Once done with installation, make sure to chmod ost-config.php back to 644 and delete the setup directory.
7. You can go to http://www.yourdomain.com/support/scp/admin.php?t=settings to modify settings. In case you wish to enable attachments for users, click on attachments tab and check various boxes acc. to your requirement. By default the maximum size allowed for an attachment was 1 MB which I found to be quite restrictive so I choose to increase it to 10 MB (10485760 bytes) Similarly I have included .doc, .pdf, .docx, .zip, .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp, .txt as accepted file formats.
8. Attachments folder option is a bit tricky one. You need to give the complete path of the folder where you wish to send the attachments. So I suggest you to create a new folder under support folder called attachments. Now you can either ask your webhost to provide you a complete path to the folder you created above OR create a fie called test.php inside the support folder and paste this code inside it <?php echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];?> Now run http://www.yourdomain.com/support/test.php and you will see the complete path to the folder.
9. When you go to create a new ticket, you will see an additional field for phone number. in case you wish to remove the phone number field follow directions here

Bonus Points -

• In case you use Google Apps for domains and want to set that for incoming emails with OSTicket, use this link (Remember you can’t use Email Piping feature with Google Apps you have to go for Pop Access and enable cron on your webhost)
• In case you get errors in osTicket when an already logged-in user tries to submit a ticket, follow the 2nd point on this post.

9 points to note while installing osTicket is a post from ReviewOfWeb

Quiz Creators (or Quiz Makers) are software programs that enable you to do precisely what their name suggest – create quizzes. Internet is flooded with all sort of Quiz creators, desktop and web based.

The subject for our review today is a desktop based quiz creator -  WonderShare Quiz Creator.

Installing Wondershare Quiz Creator

The current version of Wondershare Quiz Creator is 4.0. The software is around 11.1 MB in size and can be downloaded from this location. It took us less than 2 mins to install the trial. Once installed you will get a prompt asking you to register. If you already have the registration code you can get the tool registered else click “Order Later” to continue with the trial version. The trial version of Wondershare Quiz Creator is full functional, works for 30 days and lets you evaluate all capabilities of the tool. The only difference with the registered version is that the trial version adds WonderShare watermark at the bottom of each produced slide. After you purchase WonderShare Quiz Creator, it will stop adding the watermark to your published content.

Once inside you will be greeted with this window.

Creating Quizzes

Now you can choose to create a new quiz from scratch, import a quiz from excel or open an already created quiz. The latest version 4.0 also allows you to create surveys. ReviewOfWeb’s personal favorite is the capability to import quizzes from already existing excel files. This is a must have feature for any quiz making tools and our research shows that it is non-existent in the big names of eLearning like Articulate Quiz Maker.

If you are working on the tool for the first time in all probability you may not have the required template that you can import in the tool. Wondershare provides a facility to create a new template right from the tool. You can do so by clicking on Wondershare icon on the top left > Import > Create Quiz in Excel

You can also create a new quiz by simply clicking on “Create a new quiz” button. You can create a quiz with 9 question types True or False | Multiple Choice (Single Answer) | Multiple Response (Multiple Answers) | Fill in the Blank | Matching | Sequence | Word Bank | Click Map | Short Essay

Once you select a particular question type, you can add various elements to it like sound, movie and insert math and science symbols with equation editor. You can even add voice narration with the cool Text to Speech feature. You can choose to not provide a feedback for a particular question or provide feedback by question or an answer. A feedback can be customized with images, audio files, link address and mathematical formulas. Check the big feature list.

A welcome addition to the new version (Quiz Creator 4.0) is the facility to resume the Quiz on restart. In the earlier versions there was no such option and quiz would restart automatically.

Publishing Quizzes

You can publish quizzes in number of formats depending upon your requirements.

A quiz can be published to a Quiz Management System, as a a flash based quiz optimized for the web, as an SCORM compliant quiz for your LMS, as an auto play exe for CD or as a word/excel quiz. In addition to publishing quiz, you can also upload questions directly to QMS in the new version and manage questions online.

Cost

Wondershare Quiz Creator comes in various flavors to suit one’s requirements. You can buy a personal license costing $169.95, which as the name suggest can only be used for personal use, it can’t be used for commercial purposes. You can buy a commercial license costing $299.95, which can be freely used by commercial establishments or you can buy an academic license costing $99.95 which can be used by educational institutes. Check the license types.

How to avail 15% discount on Quiz Creator?

1. Click on  this link and select the license you would want to purchase. Click Order Now button.
   
2. On the next page enter WOND-0MX8-QUIZ in coupon code field to get a discount of 15% on Wondershare Quiz creator.
3. Enter your personal, credit details and click on Secure Order button.
4. You’re done.

WonderShare Quiz Creator – Review + 15% Discount Code is a post from ReviewOfWeb

With our lives becoming increasingly dependent upon the internet and lifestyle that demands long hours in-front of the machine, we need a desktop based solution that can help us with managing day-to-day tasks and keep track of them.

One such task management software Swift To-Do List 7 Professional is our subject of review today. Swift To-Do List (henceforth referred as STDL) is the flagship product of Dextronet and they have recently released the new version 7.

Installation

Dextronet allows you to get a fully functional STDL 7 professional 30 days license for trial before making a decision to purchase it. The trial can be downloaded here. The installable is a 5.7 MB exe file. After downloading, it took about 30 sec to install the software on my machine powered by Windows XP Pro. I was greeted by a 7 step Quick Start Guide.

Features

The software come with a big list of features. I won’t be listing all here but the ones that appeal to me.
When you open STDL for the first time it uses the default database by the name MyTasks.stdl. You can choose to create a new database from the file menu.

• Back-Up and relocate database operations can be done at a click of a button. I like the fact that company has given importance to small things, like the “Database Info”  option available under Advanced node – can be quite handy when you make use of back-up softwares.

• There are a host of customization options available under File > options menu. Things like setting up the default database, look and feel of your GUI, setting up reminder etc can be done from this place. If you find yourself sharing your machine with others you may want to password protect your database. The option is available under File > Options > Encryption.
• Task can be organized using folders and folder can in turn have child folders. Folders are organized in the form of a tree view. This is how a typical set-up could like.

• If you don’t like the boring folder icons, you can choose from a list of 140 icons that are available on double clicking a particular folder. Numbers in the brackets show the number of tasks available in a given folder.
  Once a folder gets highlighted on the left, the corresponding tasks can be seen on the right hand side.

• Notes related to a particular task can be penned at the bottom. The whole flow is quite logical. Other than the default columns, you also have the facility to choose from various columns available under “Manage Columns”. Overall, the main window of Swift To-Do list would looks like this (Click to enlarge)

• Double click on a particular task and you will get various options to edit the task. For example, Setting the priority, due date, reminder, notes, adding attachments etc.
• Another important feature that is available only in the pro edition is task emailing. Especially important if you’re working in a team set-up.
• STDL can be run from the USB drive.
• STDL auto saves any entry that you make in the application. Apparently small but a MUST have feature in such softwares.
• You can get the complete list of features here
• Trivia- Keep this link handy when you plan to move your STDL 7 software from one machine to another.

Licensing and Cost

This software comes in three editions lite, standard and professional. Lite is free and quite limited in features. Standard will cost you $44.95 while Professional edition costs $88.95. You can get the detailed comparison for various editions on this page. STDL comes with an unconditional 90 days money back guarantee.

Minor Issues I noted

The only problem I found – nothing related to software per-se -  is the sales home page (landing page) which may not entice me enough to keep reading the copy further. I think they have focused more on telling benefits rather than the features. Geeks like me are normally sold on things like comparison charts (with the competition)

My views

A nice software at a reasonable price. Given a choice, I always prefer to have desktop based solutions rather than their online counterparts. It becomes easy for me to check and use the software even when I am in my car or sitting in a limited internet connectivity area. This software has my full recommendation in that area.

Other than the above, I can see that this kind of to-do list can be of utmost use to people like internet marketers who have to do mundane tasks each time they buy a domain. STDL, in such cases, can double up as a project management software. Lets say you have to buy 50 domains. On all those domains, things like setting up mail server, hosting, installing theme, installing plugins etc is required. With this software you can create a list of such tasks once. Create various domains names as folders on the left hand side tree view and then simply copy the tasks in each of the folders.
Going forward, I would love to see a feature whereby you can create a “task template” and import those tasks at a click of a button.

Discount Code

Dextronet has offered a 25% discount code to all readers of ReviewOfWeb. With this discount code, pro-edition would only cost $66.7 while standard would cost $33.7. Here is how you can avail the discount code:

1. Go to this page to buy professional edition or to this page to buy standard edition of STDL 7.
2. Enter billing details and the code REVIEWOFWEB in the Discount Code box. [This discount code is valid for 3 months and expires on 8th/Nov/2010.]
3. Review your order on the next page and you’re done.

Thanks Jiri for the nice offer.

To-Do List Software Review – Swift To-Do List 7 + 25% Discount Code is a post from ReviewOfWeb

The market and demand for eLearning is increasing at an enormous pace, with it the need to build eLearning content in an quick and easy way is also surfacing. We have reviewed several eLearning content creators in the past. Our subject for this review is Raptivity.  Now make no mistake, this is not a full fledged eLearning content creator but serves as an add-on to them by helping to add STUNNING interactivity in no time.

Intro

Raptivity – A Rapid Interactivity tool provides you with pre-built interactions which are based on best practices in the industry.These pre-built interactions can be called the back bone of Raptivity.  On the one hand they are capable of providing nice looking interactivities in a short span of time, and on the other hand – for the whiz amongst us – they provide a lot of customizations options. The output is in the form of a Flash (SWF) file which can be integrated with almost all eLearning tools out there. Raptivity can also help track  score and responses and can provide this information to eLearning tools for SCORM/ AICC tracking with any LMS.

Raptivity has these products to offer:

• Main Raptivity Software: ( also known as Raptivity Essential)
• Raptivity Turbo packs: Used for 3D, Games , Videos and Simulations
• Raptivity Standard Packs: which are further subdivided into Pack1, Pack 2 and Pack3
• Raptivity Booster Packs: Consists of additional 235 interactions

We wish they could mention the usage of all these packs in some easily accessible location. There seems to be some overlap between usage of various packs. A first-time visitor might feel lost on the website. Also we missed “Getting Started” Links on the homepage.

Installation

• Raptivity essential is about 200 MB in size. Installation was a breeze. It took around 3-4 minutes for end to end installation. We would have liked to find a mention of the size in front of the downloadable, so that one knows the approximate time to download.
• Raptivity provides a free trial for 14 days. The trial version allows you to create 20 interactivities from 35 interaction models.
• Once the trial is over you would need to purchase and activate the software. It took us 30 sec to activate Raptivity using online activation mode.
• If you decide to format your machine or transfer the current license to another machine, make sure that you deactivate the Raptivity software before formatting your machine.
• At the time of review it consumed about 50MB of memory when seen from the Task Manager. Not so resource heavy we can say.

Getting Started

As soon as you double click on the Raptivity icon on your desktop you will be greeted with the screen shown below. UI looks pretty slick. They have kept up with the tradition of Web2.0

To start creating your first Interactivity, click on ‘New Interactivity’. You will get ‘All Packs’ screen which will list Raptivity essentials along with any additional pack that you have installed.

Creating an Interactivity

For the purpose of this review, we will create a survey. Choose Essential Pack > Surveys > Smile Sheet. After specifying values for Size and no of survey questions, you will get this screen.

Survey questions, their font etc can be customized using the text editor on the bottom (marked with arrows).

Output

Here is an output of a quick little survey we created in under 5 mins. Needless to say it was a simple exercise and the task was well done by Raptivity.

Cost

The basic – Raptivity Essential – set up will cost you $550 during the offer period, (normally it goes for $750). If you’re interested for other packs, they have various combo offers on their sales page.

Trivia:

• Other than Raptivity Essential, the rest of the packs are about 50 – 70 MB in size.
• We tried enrolling for their Free Weekly webinar. We did get a canned reply saying we will receive another email on instructions on how to connect, but that mail never landed either in our inbox and or in spam folder. This may be a small issue, but things like this make a long-lasting impression on a prospective customer’s mind.

Parting Comments:

While I would strongly like to recommend Raptivity to focus on usability testing for their website and try to make it more user friendly, Raptivity has left me impressed me thoroughly. Other than the minor points of improvements noted above, Harbinger group has created a rock solid product. It looks like Raptivity is all set to make a level playing field for the small players in the eLearning industry where they need not worry about spending a fortune hiring designers. At a fraction of a cost and time, now they too can create impressive interactivities.

Important Links

• For a quick official overview refer Raptivity’s DataSheet.
• 6 Things you may not know about Raptivity
• Free Trial
• Buy

PS: Thank You Amitabh for the review copy.

Raptivity – Now Add Interactivity Quickly To Your eLearning environment is a post from ReviewOfWeb

Last week we discussed and reviewed Learning Management Systems. Today we will review some of the best eLearning softwares present in the market.

The first question that comes to mind is – what is the difference between an LMS and an eLearning software? Well, an LMS is used to host training content and track results while an eLearning software is used to create the training content, such as presentations, quizzes, which can then be hosted in an LMS.

For our review we have picked three most popular eLearning softwares. Articulate Rapid ELearning solution, Adobe Captivate and Lectora.

Articulate Rapid ELearning Solution:

Articulate is one of the favorite tools for providing e-learning solutions. It enables you to create high quality e-learning products quickly and easily. The Articulate Rapid e-learning  solution makes use of Microsoft Power point for all of its functions. Once installed successfully, it adds an extra option labeled ‘Articulate’ on the same. What sets the e-learning solution apart from many other of its competition is the ease of use. Once you are done with creating a presentation, you can use the ‘Articulate’ option on your power point software and add animations that you want and make a Flash file.

Any learning software also needs the ability to handle questions. ‘Articulate’ does just that. It has a range of built in question handling options with various question types. If these aren’t enough, you could always use the ‘Quizmaker‘ software which is a separate software and develop your questionnaires in a better way. It has the ability to publish SCORM and AICC compliant courses and the ability to incorporate graphics and media.

Articulate Studio Standard edition is priced at $999 while Professional edition ’09 is priced at $1,398.

Adobe Captivate:

Adobe Captivate is part of the Adobe e-learning suite and it allows users to create elearning courses without any programming or multimedia knowledge. Adobe captivate has a wide range of features such as Text-to-speech functionality, ability to produce the output files in a wide range of file formats that includes AVI, which can be used for web streaming and publishing on youtube.

An exciting feature of Adobe Captivate is the ability to let users customize the widgets. Widgets can be created using software such as Adobe Flash and then customized to meet the requirements of the particular course. Existing Power Point slides can also be involved in the projects you create using Adobe Captivate. Presentations can be imported and synced with the captivate files by using the options provided.

The software also has built in templates to make it easy to provide good instructional material without having to incorporate a lot of changes. Adobe Captivate is priced at $249 and does not include other Adobe software such as Flash, which need to be bought separately.

Lectora:

Lectora is again one of the most popular eLearning tools which is developed by the Trivantis Corporation. It can be used to create elearning courses and presentations. Lectora also has the ability to import files from the Microsoft Powerpoint format and incorporate the content to produce elearning content in various output formats raning from a HTML web page, video files and even an executable file.

Lectora supports industry standards such as SCORM, AICC etc which allow for the development of open architecture guidelines for interoperable learning content.

Among the various features of Lectora include the ability to import questions, use multimedia content to produce stand out elearning courses. Lectora supports a large number of automated tools such as title wizards, table of contents, media library, resource manager etc. These tools can be used out of the box and thus provide a great value for money. The basic version of the software is priced at $495 . Add on features can be obtained for a nominal price.

Check out Articulate Rapid eLearning suite, Adobe Captivate and Lectora.

Review of eLearning Softwares. Articulate vs Adobe Captivate vs Lectora. is a post from ReviewOfWeb