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There are many reasons why you might want to record what you’re doing on your webcam, such as capturing a Skype video call for posterity or monitoring the room while you pop out for a while. One of the best ways to grab footage from a camera connected to your PC is to use the brilliant Debut Video Capture Software (bit.ly/1FTmTJY). This powerful program is free for noncommercial use and can record video from your webcam directly to your hard drive. The software can save the video in all the popular formats, including AVI, WMV, FLV, MPG and MOV; and at different resolutions and frame rates  obviously, the better the video quality, the larger the file size. Debut Video Capture can record everything that’s on your

screen, with audio, if you want to save both ends of a Skype call, or focus on a specific window. It even

has a time-lapse mode for capturing webcam footage at set intervals, and lets you schedule recordings to begin at a time of your choice.

During installation, the website warns that you may be offered extra tools from the same company, so make sure you decline them (we didn’t actually see any offers). Record, annotate and narrate a screencast YouTube has lots of useful how-to videos in which people demonstrate specific tasks and tricks you can carry out on your computer. If you’d like to contribute your own PCbased video guides or screencasts, as they’re properly called install the free program Ezvid (www.ezvid.com). This excellent video editor and

slideshow creator lets you record on-screen activity to create screencasts up to 45 minutes long. You can include a voiceover or keep your film silent or, if you’re feeling shy, the program can read out your text to save you recording your own voice. You can add doodles to what’s onscreen using Ezvid’s drawing tool and stamps, and upload your finished screencasts directly to YouTube.