My focus lately has been on building rapid eLearning presentations. To begin with, I had to look at a lot software. I downloaded, installed and un-installed so much software that now that its done, I am kicking myself that I didn't do it with a Microsoft Virtual PC image. I thought I would put together a list of links to some of the software I looked at for those who might be interested. (no particular order)

• Articulate Studio
  • Presenter -lets non-technical users create e-learning courses by adding narration and interactivity to a standard PowerPoint® file.
  • Engage - produce dazzling interactions that turn passive viewers into active learners.
  • Quiz Maker - comprehensive yet easy-to-use quiz creator for making highly customized Flash-based quizzes, assessments and surveys without the need for difficult programming.

• WildForm Flair
  • Easily create outstanding Flash and video presentations, convert PowerPoint to Flash, author demos, tutorials and simulations and generate LMS compliant quizzes.

• CamStudio
  • Open source software that is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs).

• Jing Project
  • The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.

• Camtasia Studio

  • Camtasia Studio makes everything from training videos to PowerPoint presentations to lectures look better.

• Adobe Captivate
  • Adobe® Captivate® 3 software enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills.

• VLC Media Player
  • Open source cross-platform media player.
  • It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs.

• Videozilla
  • Videozilla is a complete video conversion tool for video files AVI, MPEG, RM, MOV, ASF, WMV, SWF, FLV, MPEG 4 (IPOD/PSP/Mobile), M4V, 3GP, 3G2 via a right-click menu on the selected video files.

• Aone FLV Converter Suite
  • Ultra WMV MPEG AVI to FLV Converter - powerful, easy-to-use video to SWF/FLV converter, which can convert AVI to FLV, MPEG to FLV, WMV to FLV video, AVI to SWF format.
  • Ultra DVD to FLV Converter is the easiest-to-use and fastest DVD ripper software to convert DVD to Flash files for online distribution
  • FLV to AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod Converter is a professional FLV converter software which can convert Flash Video FLV to AVI, FLV to MPEG, FLV to WMV, FLV to MP4 format.

• Swiff Player
  • Swiff Player is a Free stand-alone player that enables Web Designers and Flash Users to easily play their Flash movies

• Smart Soft Video Converter 
  • AVI files to MPEG (MPEG-1, MPEG-2), WMV, and RM.
  • MPEG files (MPEG-1, MPEG-2) to AVI, MPEG, WMV, RM.
  • Quick time files (MOV) to AVI, MPEG, WMV and RM .
  • Windows Media files (WMV, ASF) to AVI, MPEG, WMV, RM.
  • Real Media files (RM and RMVB) from AVI, MPEG, MOV, WMV, and ASF.
  • DVD, SVCD and VCD.

• uTIPu
  • record videos of your screen
  • share videos immediately (no post-processing)

• SnagIt
  • lets you capture, edit, and share exactly what you see on your screen

So what did I end up keeping?

1. Articulate Studio
2. CamStudio
3. Jing Project
4. Aone FLV Converter Suite
5. Swiff Player
6. SnagIt