TechIntersect

Sometimes I take it for granted that colleagues and friends know about most of the same technology tools that I know and use, but it just ain’t so! Likewise, they know about things that I don’t know about, so I am taking it upon myself to write a post compiling a list of  the tech tools that I use on a regular basis and hoping that other folks will do the same. (If you do, please comment here with a link to your list.)

These aren’t tools that I’ve heard about and dinked around with a bit; these are things I have discovered that have enough value that I keep returning to them. I will post my list here and I’m hoping you will comment with tools you frequently use as well.

• Google the reigning king of all search engines. I frequently use Google Image Search as well.
• Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (everyone uses this now, right?)
• Wikimedia Commons is a great place to find Creative Commons licensed images.
• Magnatune is an excellent repository of low cost and Creative Commons licensed music.
• Firefox Web browser extraordinaire. Love it for the 3rd party add-on tools
• Stumble Upon use it to find a random website that matches your interests or to drive traffic to sites you like. I use it’s Firefox plugin
• Diigo has all but replaced my browser favorite bookmarks. Save sites you like online, share with others, highlight & comment right on webpages.
• Camstudio is a free screen capture tool that saves AVI and SWF video files.
• Tinyurl is a web address shortening tool. If you send URLs to people shorten ‘em up with Tinyurl
• Edublogs is where I do my education blogging. Free blogs have ads, but paid supporters are ad free.
• Twitter is becoming my communication tool of choice. Love the conversations, and I can still block spammers there.
• Tweetdeck is an awesome program I use to do most of my Twittering.
• Facebook is how I keep up with students, family & friends.
• YouTube is where I post videos
• Flickr is a place I store & share digital photos online.
• ShrinkPictures is a cool little website to “webify” your digital photos too big to e-mail or post online
• Alice is 3-D virtual software that teaches the basics of computer programming, and also lets you make fun, interactive stories
• Scintilla is a text editor that highlights computer programming and html code. I make most of my web pages with it.
• Google Docs is a great way to create online documents you can share & collaborate with. Online surveys are surprisingly easy to create. Includes word processing, spreadsheet, slideshows as well.
• Audacity is an excellent audio editor I love to use.

One tool I would use if I didn’t have Photoshop is Gimp. Gimp is a free photo editing program that is quite popular.

I am sure there are many others I haven’t thought of, but these are the free tools that I use most often. When I need a piece of software and I want to see if there is something free, the first place I look is Sourceforge which is where open source programmers share their work with the world. Check it out, you might find something there you really use and like.

On my wish list is a free non-linear video editor and a free vector drawing tool. Do you know any?

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