IT trainers understand that the best way to teach a desktop procedure is to help the user visualize each step. Overhead projectors were long regarded as the best approach; in recent years, computer-based slideshows and video projectors have extended this philosophy. But even these "modern" teaching aids suffer from the fact that they are static: In the best case, all you can show your students is a short text segment and a couple of screenshots.

Educational videos, typically implemented as Flash animations, are a relatively recent innovation. To play the video, all the student needs is a web browser with a suitable Flash plugin. Because a native Linux application for Macromedia's proprietary Flash format did not exist at first, trainers and teachers had no alternative but to create their own tools for building training videos.

A number of Linux developers rose to this challenge and programmed recordMyDesktop [1] and Istanbul [2]. Both programs are currently at an early stage of development, but lab tests reveal that recordMyDesktop is certainly mature and stable enough for everyday use.

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