The love that dare not speak it’s name… Yes, love for vendors. <shudder> Oh, I mean I love my new employer, but other vendors, no never. Although, there was this one time, at band camp… Well, I don’t think we need to go into the details here,

Let me just express a little love for a vendor that might not hit everyone’s radar every day, but one that I use almost daily, especially while I’m working on a book. That’s TechSmith, and their excellent tools Camtasia and Snagit. I was introduced to Snagit by Apress, who required their authors to use the tool while working on screen captures. They even provided a licensed copy. I dutifully installed it and started using it. I was impressed. Although, I found out it was like 17 versions old or something. I finally got a new copy and it was just flat out amazing. It’s gotten better with every version until the new one will do multiple types of screen captures from a simple click of the “Print Screen” button. I just love it. I was introduced to Camtasia when I was recording some videos for Andy Warren (blog|twitter) (two years on and I still owe him more, someday Andy, someday). Wow! What a great tool. Easy to use, it stays out of your face, but editing and everything is really easy. I haven’t used the latest version, but I’ll bet it’s just as good as the last one I used. And, the company is active in the community. No, not so much the SQL Server community, but certainly in the teaching and presenting community. They really do help out. And, if you see them at trade show or something, ask about the spork. Trust me on that one.