Creating and Playing swf Files

One of the easiest tools to help show someone how to do something is to create a video of the process. I used to spend a lot of time taking screenshots, cropping them and putting an email or document together complete with pictures of a process to respond to a teacher's question on how to do something on the computer. Then came JingProject. Not only does it facilitate taking a picture of my screen to which I can add text and arrows, but now I can quickly create a video which is even easier! So, I started replying to teacher requests with video when appropriate, and I though I had it made!

Then, came the dreaded "player" issue - a few of the teachers said they couldn't play the video on their computer. So, I checked into it and according to my Tech Guru, Danny, "Some computers aren't smart enough (or we didn't make them smart enough) and the computer doesn't know what to open the video with!" Really?

However, there is an EASY fix! Just drag the swf file into (ontop of) a browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox) and it will play! That's pretty easy! I also got the impression from Danny that once you do that then it should always just play for you in that browser when you click on it. However, since I have already done it, I can't test it!

PS. I just tried to create a JingProject video of the process but I guess you can't take a swf of a swf!