Web Review – 10,000 Words on Multimedia Tools

While it’s been a while since I’ve needed some free software of these sorts, it’s great to have a recommendation for comparable (with a lower case c) software that can get the job done.  I used iMovie to edit 6 hours of footage I got while on vacation in Costa Rica years ago.  It was scary how intuitive the software was, and in no time I had taught myself plenty of tricks for a sweet end product, edited with extra sounds, titles, fade-aways, and other fun soundtrack stuff.

I’ve also successfully used GoogleDocs, but only for file sharing and as a collaboration tool.  The others, I have no current need for but will keep in mind for future projects.  Great post, though it could use an update.

Maybe I should have written about Stumbleupon.com since that was the awesome site that lead me to this…yet another awesome site and an even better article. This is pretty darn cool for those people that love free stuff and even better for those that love free technology. In this economy who doesnt love free anything!?!? So I tried out “Splashup”, maybe because it was the first on the list or maybe because I’m really trying to get get back into photography. I will say first that it was REALLY easy to log in and get started. I will also say that once I got in I was clueless as to how to use it. That is also way I currently do not have a picture to show you. I did mess around with it and did a few cool things with some photos I already have on my laptop but nothing super interesting came of it. Splashup seems to have most of the features you would expect from photo editing software but the “user friendly” aspect is lacking..or am I dumb?.. or does that make it lacking in being “user friendly”? Tell us in the comments below!!!!!! Either way Liz rocks for introducing me to Stumbleupon… Stumbleupon rocks for introducing me to 10000 words and so on. I’ll try to mess around with it some more and post a funny pic soon.

I always have a hard time with downloading programs and using them, mainly because I am web savvy, but not technically savvy.  I’m sort of afraid of technology.  That’s a confession.  And I try to face my fear every day.  This post on 10,000 Words is great for somebody like me, who wants to learn how to “do stuff” on the computer, but doesn’t want to pay for software she probably won’t bother to learn how to use.  That’s an admission.  While all the tools mentioned on the post were cool, I kept getting distracted by how darn pretty this guy’s website is.  And, how he’s sort of my new hero.  As an online journalist of sorts who just lucked into her job, I am super impressed with the superstars of digital journalism, and Mark Luckie (the webmaster and creator of 10,000 Words) seems like a superstar to me.  You can find out more about him on his personal website, getluckie.net, and he’s recently written a book called The Digital Journalist’s Handbook.

And no, we’ve had no contact with Mark Luckie.  I plan to email him to tell him we wrote about him, but he in no way solicited this post of ours, and all the information included in our post was learned from his websites.  I put links to all the places we looked, so you can look too.  That’s because I love you guys.