I like Screenflow for Mac but it costs money. Camtasia for PC similarly is highly recommended. Jing and similar are fine for short videos less than a couple of minutes. - Cameron Neylon

screenr.com is fabulous, runs in your browser, very quick to use, uploads straight to youtube if you want. Has set window sizes which helps you fit your demonstration window to include all the action you want. - Jo Badge

Try http://www.screentoaster.com/ - also runs in the browser, and is apparently free (haven't tried it because I bought Camtasia earlier, which is pretty expensive). - Victor / Mendeley Team

mac osx ... also open to ubuntu for the more technical stuff. browser-based sounds fab! thanks guys :) - Anna Croft

Jing is cool if you want quick, easy and short. - Matt Leifer

I like Jing as well - François Dongier

I use and like Camtasia but it is not free - although the 30 day trial is fully functional - Camstudio is free and might work for recording but not editing - Jean-Claude Bradley

Try Screenr.com - excellent. - AJCann

I recommend ScreenCamera because it makes live real-time screencasts on Skype, UStream, messengers, or wherever you can use a webcam. http://www.pcwinsoft.com/screenc... - PCWinSoft

ISHOWU is quite amazing ..its only US $10 or so. creates very compact H.264 codec using files - Hari