So, this month's meeting at my user group was on Macromedia's Captivate software. Since I was the one actually giving the presentation, I figured I'd better spend a little time learning it. After just a few minutes working with it, I was blown away by how powerful it was. The more I dug into the features, the more impressed I was.

At a basic level - you can use Captivate to create simple demonstrations. For example - how do you set up CFEclipse projects. You could create a simple Captivate presentation in five minutes and send it off. I can see using this for clients who need a little help and who are remote. No more guessing - you can show them exactly what to do.

Captivate also has powerful quizzing and simulation features. I played with a sample quiz and it was incredibly simple to set up. Results can be stored in a variety of formats with no additional work.

Something else I really liked were the export options. You can export to Flash (obviously), but also to Breeze, an executable, a cd-rom (and it will add the autorun type stuff for you), as well as Word. Now the Word export is slick. When you export to Word, you are basically creating hand outs for your presentation. This includes screen shots and a place for notes.

All in all - a darn slick tool. I'm hoping to have a few examples online soon.