Tech support tutorials made easy on linux….
One of the real frustrations with phone tech support is translating step by step what is needed to the person on the other end. I know it sounds easy, but in reality – what if they’ve got xyz theme for their menuing and it’s not there, what if… oh you know – they’ve just got something in a different place than you expect it. The person on the other end usually has to be the eyes and that, many times doesn’t work out great. That’s one reason that I’ve worked to start doing the remote tech support because that way I can BE AT the machine and what seems like an eternity on the phone can actually become a short and quick resolution. Anyway – Newsforge today detailed a way to capture videos of actions on screen in a “how-to” format under linux with ScreenKast and share the how-to video online with captorials.com
Captorials bills itself as the first online visual helpdesk and it really is an interesting idea. Given that ScreenKast is linux based I see some tremendous benefits to the linux community for having easy step-by-step walkthroughs of common linux desktop activities (under varying desktops). However, with virtualization you could likely use the client to capture screen videos of other desktop OS’s.
It does look as though the content is quite sparse at the moment, but it’s a good idea I think and hopefully will gain users (and content.) The success of the video sites like youtube and google videos is a good thing in many ways, but perhaps the next step will be niche video content sites like this. This site is for computer tutorials, but you might envision others for car maintenance,(?) home repair and other small (or possibly large) how-to projects.