Fraps only records an active DirectX rendered screen - which isn't your active desktop. If you want to record a game, that's fine, and it'll do it's job. Also, you can't even record windowed screens. I guess that's the drawbacks of Fraps. It's free for 30 seconds and most people find it just fine. But it is a resource hog. The RAW videos it generates are freaking huge. I recorded an 8 minute fight in Guild Wars, and the size was over 2 gigs.
Another alternative (although not free), is Camtasia Studio. It's 30 day free trial, but I'm sure you can find a torrent.
It's freaking awesome. You can record any active screen area, change the size, and even choose which active screen you want to record (which saves me tons of hours in editing). You can even choose to just talk while you're recording and add the audio that way or make a separate recording and add it to the video later. The interface is really easy. And the biggest plus is how easy it is to import into After Effects. There's plenty of different formats you can record in as well - flash one is a godsend.
I would assume there's probably other software out there, but for me, I've always used it because of it's simplicity and ease of use. If I'm recording in-game stuff, I just use Fraps. But for desktop and active screen recordings, I use Camtasia. Just try it out - if you don't like it, you can always uninstall it. But I've had it on my PC as long as I can remember.
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