The Ultimate Link List

[Pierre-Etienne]

I post here useful links classified by categories to help you find what you need... only useful tools, often free to help you create, share and ... do many things. It's not a record breaking collection of links, the following are carefully selected from dozens others, but still already...

... at the moment 100 links posted - (Updates : 29/07/09)


Must Have Links

The Free Dictionary : dictionary, synonyms, pronounciation, games

Wikipedia : for quick search on any topic

RedGrove : ... to take or create online training and test

Snopes : to check if the weird mail you received is based on real facts or ... pure fantasy

Get organized

Doodle : helps you find a convenient date to meet with your friends or colleagues. Extraordinary simple and efficient, and now, even online polls

Remember the Milk : ... ah yes, almost forgot! Efficient task manager also available on iPhone

Remime : for those who tend to need someone to remind them of not-to-be-missed events (birthdays,...)

Project2Manage : free project management system (not that easy to find)

Zoho Projects : part of the impressive Zoho suite, Zoho Projects allows to set (little) free projects. A bit messy on the ergonomy side, can be enough to follow projects involoving several people

Scrumy : slightly unusual project management system offered free with basic features

Visualize ideas & projects

Mindomo : very good "mindmap" tool. Restriction of the free version: maps can not be public (possible to share private maps though)

Mindmeister : other well known mindmapping tool with more connections to other supports

Lovely Charts : offers to create nice site maps, diagrams,... very promising but not tested yet

Gliffy : for tidy & classy (if can be) technical diagrams

Picture Search

Flickr : millions of pictures and a "creative commons" advanced option

Google Image : to quickly find a picture on any topic but ... beware of copyright

Edupics : almost 6.000 images in various topics, mostly drawings

Pics4learning : thousands free use pictures for educational purpose, classified in categories

Freefoto : free use photo bank

Pdphoto : directory with hundreds public domain pictures

Image Editing

Reshade : online pictures resizer

Webresizer : other online pictures resizer

Fauxto : online editing with layers

Befunky : online editing with special effects

FotoFlexer : online editing tool with good critics

Splashup : online Photoshop-look-alike ... looks much more like it than official online Photoshop version

Photoshop Express : here is the offical one... lovely intro though

FlauntR : add frames, text, effects on pictures coming from Flickr, Picasa,...

Superlame : upload a picture and simply add a dialog box, the shaape, color and size you want ...voilà

Video Portals

Youtube : "the" number 1 must

Dailymotion : "the" number 2 must

TeacherTube : pedagogical video portal

Slideshows / Presentations (Powerpoint, Impress...)

Slideshare : the reference in slideshow portals

Authorstream : much less slideshows but still another source of inspiration that also includes podcasts

Imageloop : a fun tool to create and share slideshows with a twist ... too bad added watermarks are so proeminent

(NOTE : tutorial on how to embed slideshows in RedGrove in the forum)

Documents Search

Scribd : an impressive collection of documents ... with 2 limits: not easy to measure source reliability and site search not reall efficient

DocStock : another interesting collection to keep in favorites...

Screen capture / Screencasting

Jing : a complete solution to make screen captures and screencasting and most of all ... it's free

Camstudio : rather appreciated by its users (also free)

Wink : efficient screencasting tool allowing to record audio comments or insert writen indications over screen recordings. Free download o

Snagit : an excellent screen capture tool. Paying solution but the older 7.2.5 version is free of charge (it's there somewhere...)

Online Converters

ConvertPDFtoWord : converts PDF files into Word format

All2Convert : video format converter

Vconvert : other video format converter

Filsh : get online videos et converts them in selected formats

File Sharing

PiccDrop : very easy to share single pictures

uSend.io : easy to host files and send link via email

FilzUp : easy to share files up to 70Mb

FilzUp Images : same thing for images

Screen Sharing / Document sharing

Skype 4.1 : this version allows to share your screen with one contact (good quality)

ScreenStream : very efficient for live screen sharing. You have to install the software but your contact does not (you just send him/her an url to connect to), works very well... when there is no connection problem for your contact

ShowDocument : very useful to quickly share a document, an image, a web site ... but one page at a time (for website)

Vyew : efficient "whiteboard" for live collaborative work

Scribblar : nice, fast, simple online whiteboard

Collaborative writing

Adobe Buzzword : never had to collaboratively write something but it looks good

Google Documents : with a fast growing reputation it becomes easy to find information on the numerous Google Docs features

PikiWiki : for those who would like to use the wiki system, this one is maybe the most reputable one

Creative Commons Audio (sounds / music)

theFreesoundproject : you need to register (for free) but it is worth the (little) effort as the sound database is really good

FindSounds : very good to quickly find a sound, not that good to identifiy its source (title suggest it's free)

Jamendo : THE reference for "creative common" music

SoundClick : the first track I listened to there was nice, so I do mention it (in case you like it too)...

Dogmazic : not a reference in terms of beautiful design but good musical selection

Audio Editing

Audacity : the most common open source software to edit audio track. Efficient once correctly installed ;-(

Tools to create Flash animations ... without knowing Flash (I know... cooool)

Powerbullet : my favorite... not very stable but really simple (a video tutorial here)

The Effect Generator : kind of (kind of!) the same but online

Silex : gorgeous tool allowing to create a whole site in Flash with a kinky editor... well, kinky comes with a little learning time necessary to master the beast

Draw SWF : allows to do animations based on text or images. 2 original features: needs Java Web Start (so so) and allows to create animation from live drawing (yep)

Unusual (did not even think that it could exist)

Teleprompter : and yes, you can use your computer screen as a prompter (never said you needed to)

BlockPosters et Rasterbator : and yees, you can use your printer to create huge posters based on A4 sheets (never said you needed to)

Randomizer : and yeees, you can use your computer ot obtain random numbers (never said you needed to)

Worldometers : and yeeees, you can find scary statistics on this planet (never said you wanted to)

TypeRacer : and yeeeees, you can train to type faster and play at the same time (never said you had time to)

Time Off ... to relax and ...

... work out your brain cells ICI

... watch a nice dance show ICI

... play with your friends pictures ICI

... scare yourself with a spider ICI

... play a little more with your friends pictures ICI

... travel in a weird and unusual worldICI

... play with cubes ICI

... learn how to parc yourself ICI

... dub Bollywood moviesICI





------------------------ Webmater / Design Section ------------------------


Online Web Site Creation

Moonfruit : many good reviews for this tool with free version (with ads), many templates,...

Weebly : simple creation tool

Synthasite : advanced mode with HTML modifications possible, allows widgets

Google Page Creator : Google expertise but not very flexible

Viviti : Beta version offering interesting options

Jimdo : web pages and blogs creation, includes RSS feeds

Web Site Tools

HyperBoards : free forums to use for your site

ProBoards : same thing with another name and another style

Nabble : easy and fast to set up forums, blogs, photos gallery to use for your site

Motigo : forums, guest books, stat counters, calendar for your site ... free to insert

Fonts

Dafont : excellent resource for fonts

UrbanFonts : another very good one

1001freefonts : just in case you need another 1001 to chose from (is Libra your sign???)

Color choices

ColourLovers : creation, display of colors schemes and backgrounds... good source of inspiration

Color Scheme Designer : excellent tool to associate colors but to see what they can look on a site as well (click sample site at the bottom of the page)

CSS tools

Drawter : surprising grid to build your structure and get the html / css code that goes with it

IzzyMenu : too many ads but nice tool to create menus and obtain the matching code

TabCreatr : less ads but not that nice to look at ... your choice