It’s funny how hard it can be to do some simple things using computers. For ages I’ve been looking for an easy way of creating illustrated lectures which can be published as Flash movies (a technology Larry Lessig has used to great effect, but with the aid of serious ad-hoc geekery). Since then, Larry has published a method of doing it using iMovie, which is clearly feasible (if a bit tedious), but has the downside that it produces huge MP4 files. I’ve just come on Soundslides which is still in Beta but does produce Flash files and might be just what I’m seeking.

Update: Just opened my mailbox this morning to find a message from Ian Yorston pointing me at Videocue, which is out of Beta and also works as a teleprompter. It only outputs Quicktime files, though — no Flash, as far as I can see. Still… for $39.95…