Have you ever wanted to record something you were doing on your PC so you could show it to your friends and family?  Maybe it's some cool new way to get something done.  Or maybe it's a set of steps to help someone learn something new.  There have been a variety of different products on the market to do this, both free and at a cost, but I've always found the free ones to be limited and not wanted to pay for the others. 

Now our friends over in Office Labs have recently released a new, free application called Community Clips that can help you record anything on your screen.  It's really easy to install and use, and includes built-in publishing of your videos to MSN Soapbox.  I created this very brief 24 second clip to show you the site and clicking on the install button:

Sample Community Clips Video:

 

OK, I admit that's not much of a video, but it was just a test to see how this worked.  It was amazingly simple process and you can try it too, just follow the steps below.

Start by going to the Community Clips site and click the big green button to download the application as shown in the video above.

After the product is installed, get ready to record.  You can record just a single application, a region of the screen, or everything running on your PC.  Just click the small icon in your system try to start recording what you want (or press Windows+Alt+R).  In the illustration below I'm starting to record an instance of Internet Explorer (one of the several things running on my PC):

Starting a Recording

When you're finished recording, just click the same small icon in the tray and click "Stop Recording" (or press Windows+Alt+T). 

Next, a Window similar to the one shown below will pop up and you can then use the Save button to save your video clip on your PC and then click the Upload button to send your file to MSN Soapbox:

Here you can save and upload your video

Finally, using Windows Live Writer, you can add that video to any blog post using the Insert Video... command, followed by selecting the new video from MSN Soapbox list for your Windows Live ID.

Windows Live Writer Insert commands -- click on Insert Video... Windows Live Writer Video Insert Dialog Box

See how easy it is?  Why not give it a try and show off some of your favorite things you've discovered in Windows Live?  We can't wait to see what you post!