Windows/Mac OS X only: Free screenshot and screencast sharing application Jing—which we first mentioned a year ago—turned one this week, and to celebrate they've significantly upgraded their free storage and transfer offerings. You now get up to 2GB of screenshot and screencast storage and 2GB of transfer per month on Screencast.com, which is 10 times the space and double the bandwidth. I'm a huge fan of Jing as the easiest cross-platform tool I've used to quickly share screenshots or screencasts (it's great for offering quick tech support). Anything you make with Jing can automatically be saved to Screencast.com, a local folder or network drive, an FTP server, or even Flickr (new since we first covered it) for quick sharing. Jing is freeware, Windows and Mac OS X only.

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The second alpha release of the inventive Linux media player Amarok has hit the web, and while there's a new look and some cool new tweaks, there's really two big reasons to take a look—namely, Windows and OS X. You heard right: The next full release of Amarok, one of our readers' favourite media players, will be cross-platform. At the moment, only Linux users can reliably run the testers' release, so I loaded it up and decided to share some early screens to let you all glimpse at the other open source, extensible, innovative app that's coming soon.

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Choosing a file format for screenshots isn't just a guessing game, as tech blogger Amit Agarwal knows all too well. Luckily, he's decided to share his well-tested knowledge on which file types fit which types of shots. If you're trying to grab still shots of a video, Flash animation, or high-resolution wallpaper:

... Always go with JPG instead of PNG because the image file size would be smaller without much degradation in the quality ... To give you example, this Wall Strip video on YouTube would take around 92kb when saved in PNG format but that would fall to 20kb if we changed the format from PNG to JPG. Surprisingly, there isn't any remarkable difference in quality.

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Reader Chimera says that you can use the iPhone 2.0 software's built-in screenshot-taking ability to save images of Google Maps to your device before you leave the house (and the fast Wi-Fi connection) for directions at-the-ready. This technique is especially handy for iPod touch owners, and would work with any handheld device with maps and and screengrab capabilities.

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Windows only: Free application Bug Shooting is a simple but powerful screenshot application designed to make sharing screenshots via email or with bug tracking applications a cinch. In fact, the application is set up to work with several popular bug tracking applications out of the box, but it also integrates with your default email client, Skype, or any other application on your desktop with the right setup. The application supports several markup options and advanced screenshot features—like screen magnification—that we've primarily seen in commercial apps like SnagIt in the past. Bug Shooting is freeware, Windows only, requires .NET 2.0.

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Mac OS X only: Freeware application GrabUp automatically uploads screenshots to the internet and pastes the URL in your clipboard for quick and easy sharing. The application installs as a preference pane in your System Preferences and integrates with your Mac's default screenshot shortcuts. So if you hit Cmd-Shift-3 and select an area for a screenshot, it's automatically uploaded to the GrabUp servers and the URL is copied to your clipboard. You can enable or disable GrabUp through the preference pane, and if you enable GrabUp for your menu bar you can go through the history of your screenshot upload URLs. GrabUp is freeware, Mac OS X only. For more robust alternatives, check out previously mentioned Skitch and Jing.

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Firefox with Stylish or Greasemonkey: The talented designers who redesigned your Gmail are back with that similar look for Google Calendar. The Google Calendar Redesigned user style is now available for download as a public beta, and gives your GCal that slick look you've come to love in your inbox. After the jump, get a few full screenshots of what your GCal looks like wearing the Redesigned style.

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The latest version of the free, open-source email manager, Thunderbird, is in the wild—in an alpha release rough enough around the edges to earn the code-name "Shredder." It doesn't have all the features promised for Thunderbird 3 yet, but you can see where it's headed. I installed "Shredder" in Windows XP, and I'll show you what's there, and explain what's coming soon, after the jump.

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Windows Only: Reader-recommended application FastStone Capture is lightweight and feature-rich screen capture tool. In addition to saving its captures in a multitude of formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIFF and PDF), FastStone Capture can send any screenshot to your image editor of choice, printer, email client, open it in a Word or Powerpoint doc, or upload it to an FTP site. There's no need to send the capture to an image editor for simple tasks however, since FastStone Capture's built-in editor can easily handle simple annotations and editing tasks such as cropping, adding text, arrows, highlighting, watermarking or enhancements like drop shadows or frames. FastStone Capture is freeware, Windows only. Sharp eyed readers noticed that the new versions of FastStone Capture are no longer freeware, updated to link accurately to the handily portable freeware version. Thanks guys!

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Lifehacker reader Samar liked the quick-write convenience of the GmailThis bookmarklet, but wanted to dig deeper to find a solution that would both work with his (and our own) favourite Windows keyword launcher, Launchy, and run whether or not Firefox (or any default Windows browser) was already open. We're glad he did, because he's come up with a one-line command that lets you open new Gmail composition windows from anywhere. The tip, and screenshots, after the jump.

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