Today, MakeUseOf offers four little-known multimedia authoring tools for your next production. What we have here is the junk drawer of your virtual artistic toolshed, and whether you are a video-maker, a graphic designer, or an audio engineer, these sites are sure to help.

Movietools

Movietools is a rare gem that every video artist should know about. With an array of over 140 video loops consisting of backgrounds, virtual studios, lower thirds, and moving objects, you will never be at a loss for your next presentation.

File formats are only Windows Media Video files, so if you’re running a Mac OS, you might want to check out a free media converter. However, if you are willing to shell out a few extra bucks, you should look at the AVS Video Converter.

All files from Movietools are made in 848×480 for 16:9 scaling and 640×840 for 4:3 scaling. Also, the lower third and moving object loops have been pre-keyed for your video-editing software.

The Freesound Project

As mentioned before by MakeUseOf, the Freesound Project is a collectively growing community that donates sound files for you to insert into your media project. With nearly 116,000 files to date, there is nearly an endless supply of royalty-free sound.

As a given, each file is under the Creative Commons 1.0 Sampling license, and credit is required for each sound creator. Also, each file comes in the format of the user’s choice, so again, it might be good to find a sound file converter such as AudioExpert if you plan on using this online tool seriously.

Another little feature offered by Freesound is the Mootcher open-source programming library. This bit of open-source software allows you to write the FreeSound library into your own video or audio editing software.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Freesound Project focuses primarily on sound bits rather than music. It is possible that you will find music on here, but it is more likely to be a simple recording of a live performance at a parade or a festival of some sort.

The Internet Archive

Taking a cue from the Library of Alexandria, the Internet Archive is an attempt to digitally archive media files that includes moving images, sound files, photographs, texts, and pretty much anything that you can use to absorb information. That being said, it also offers a variety of media sources that can be used on your next project.

Not surprisingly, this site incorporates a great deal of downloadable media that is open to the public domain or is royalty-free. However, this is not to say that all of the media on this site is for you to put your hands on. Each file has its own specific license, and many of these incorporate Creative Commons. Make sure to check both the sidebar and the bottom half of each media page to find exactly what the creator or submitter allows. Some licenses are visible, but others are not.

Detonation Films

Whether you want to add some explosive transitions to your PowerPoint speech or a few action-packed sequences to your latest video project, the pyromania boys at Detonation Films have enough napalm and shrapnel to satisfy the Michael Bay in all of us.

Detonation Films is the ultimate zone for stock video of explosions, rockets, bullet holes, and more. Although many of their videos are for sale, there are a whole lot of freebies for you to download.

Most videos utilize a simple black background which can be done away with using a luma or screening effect, but there are a few with chroma-key green and even pre-keyed clips to easily layer on top of your source video.

In addition to their main site that is full of 4:3 video clips, there is also DetFilmsHD which offers a few pricier, yet sexier, hi-definition explosions.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these sites will aid you in your next big production whether it be a presentation at a conference, an audio mix, or the latest YouTube viral video. Visit them often, for they are constantly updating their material.

What kind of other sources of free media do you know about? Have you ever used any of these sources before with your own projects? What types of projects have you made using them?

Image credits: jppi

One great thing about an application as useful as Dropbox is that other people – like us here at MUO – find interesting ways to utilize it and make it even more useful for others. For instance, you can use Dropbox to share files, manage your photos, sync files on various platforms, and cut time off your school work. You can even recover your lost files with it. Now I’m going to show you how to chat with it as well.

What Is Chatbox?

Chatbox is a free application that adds project collaboration features to the already handy Dropbox. You can use it for commenting and annotating files or for simple project collaboration around folders with relevant files inside. Chatbox stores everything inside Dropbox, which makes installing the app extremely simple as it does not even require you to register an account.

“Chatbox makes it easy to discuss or comment on files shared over Dropbox. Install it, right click on any files / folders inside Dropbox, and start conversations with people you shared the Dropbox folder with.”

If you share a folder in your Dropbox with other people, whether it be your family members at home, a group of friends, or your co-workers at the office, you can essentially comment on important files so that the others know what is going on with them and they are kept up-to-date. Or alternatively, you can just have a playful chat around the files in your Dropbox.

Chats can occur around specific projects with Chatbox, which can be especially helpful if you’re collaborating on a large project that incorporates a lot of different files.

How Do I Use Chatbox?

To get started using Chatbox, head over to their website and download the app for OSX. Right now Chatbox is only available for Mac but you can sign up on the site to be alerted via email once Windows and Linux versions become available.

Once you install the app, using it is as simple as right-clicking on files in Finder and selecting Show Chatbox. This begins a conversation on any file in your Dropbox instantly. As stated earlier, your comments and conversations are stored inside Dropbox, so you won’t ever lose them, and they barely take up any room, in case you were worried about that.

If you share your folder with others you can invite them to join the chat as well.

Conclusion

Chatbox (beta) is pretty light on features in its current state, but it gives you a simple way to communicate with others sharing the same Dropbox folder as you, which is pretty useful, and it is poised to get better. From installation to usage, I was impressed with how easy the whole process was. It will be interesting to see what other features the team adds in the coming weeks to make this app even more of a necessity.

What do you think about Chatbox? Do you like the idea of using Dropbox as a chat utility?

WorkFlowy has the nifty ability of looking and acting much like a regular to-do list, while secretly behaving more like a project management tool or a mind-mapper. It really needs to be seen to be believed “” and then you’ll never want to use anything else for your projects!

Getting Started

Sign-up is really quick and takes you straight to a help page with a demo and shortcuts. Not that you need to learn all of the shortcuts, since it can all be done using mouse clicks. Do watch the “How to Use WorkFlowy” video though as it really shows you the bulk of what you need to know.

Basically, Workflowy is lists, lists and more lists. But, because of some really simple design choices, you can display or hide whatever you need to in order to get your tasks completed.

If you’re like me, you’ll really want to know two very important shortcuts to indent and decrease the indent. It’s easy: simply press Tab to indent and Shift-Tab to go back. So, you can easily create tasks in a sub-list using a Tab. To start a new list, press Shift-Tab.

If you prefer to use a mouse, just look on the left of any given task for a list of options. Or, look to the right of the task for the option to relocate it somewhere else by dragging it.

Instinctively, you’re able to write things out as if it’s a normal text editor. But, because you can collapse, expand and drill down into menus it makes things much easier to keep track of later. You can also drag tasks or lists elsewhere and WorkFlowy will automatically nest them for you. If you mark something as completed, WorkFlowy won’t complete the sub-tasks. However, when you view the list with completed tasks hidden, the sub-tasks will be hidden from view.

Notes

Just when you thought WorkFlowy was everything you dreamed of, it turns out there’s another awesome feature for your lists: Notes.

Every single item on all your lists is able to have a note added to it. Click on the left of your task and choose “Add Note” from the options. This lets you add a little more detail to every point on the list for your future reference.

What Could You Use WorkFlowy For?

You could use WorkFlowy for just about anything, really. As long as you’re organised enough to keep things nested appropriately, WorkFlowy could expand to suit you. I tested up to 25 sub-lists deep and the only problem I found was that I hit the edge of the page. This wouldn’t even be a problem in a drilled-down view.

Specific uses I can think of would include:

• Project Management.
• Planning Events.
• Keep track of your goals.
• Brainstorm.
• Write your bucket list.
• Plan a holiday.
• Write a birthday present list.
• Whatever you want!

WorkFlowy Backup

WorkFlowy has also made it really easy to back up your data. If you do to the bottom of the screen, you’ll see an “Export All Lists” link. This lets you take your data elsewhere as formatted or plain text. Very handy!

Smartphone Apps

WorkFlowy is currently working on iPhone, iPad and Android apps, so your brain-storming and project management will only get easier and more portable with time. This can only be a good thing!

Alternatives to WorkFlowy

The idea of list-making, task management to-do lists, mind-mapping, project management and the like is nothing new. In other words, WorkFlowy have plenty of competition and that will never cease. But, on the other hand no-one is quite like WorkFlowy.

WorkFlowy is simple, quick, expandable and easily exportable. You can also use it to mind-map or to project-manage your whole life. Not many other alternatives can rise to all that!

Have you tried WorkFlowy? What do you use it for? Let us know in the comments!

This round-up is a collection of incredible free online meeting tools that don’t skimp on features even when they are browser-based. Instead, they offer pretty fully featured suites for collaboration even to users with free accounts, but of course, most have additional paid offerings as well. Let’s take a look at the best free collaboration tools so far.

Free Project Collaboration Portal: TeamLab

TeamLab is a project management platform that allows users to import data from Basecamp, build teams and departments, assign tasks, schedule milestones, lead discussions, track time spent on project tasks, generate reports and backup data. TeamLab also utilizes social tools to keep colleagues connected with corporate instant messenger, forums, blogs, and Wiki pages, as well as bookmark, photo and file sharing (uploaded files can’t exceed 25MB). While there’s no indication of the limit of users or projects, the source code is available for deployment if your team wants to host it on your own servers, restore backups and have more general control. TeamLab’s current features are said to remain free, while future offerings, such as document editing and e-mail management, may be available for certain fees.

While TeamLab seems to have the best offerings, there are lots of similar services, including UbiDesk, Huddle and TeamBox, though they all seem to come with more limitations for the free accounts in user or project count.

Document Collaboration Tools: Sync.in & Twiddla

Sync.in is a web-based word processor for people who need to collaborate on the same public document in real-time. It allows users to co-edit notes for brainstorming sessions, planning projects, creating outlines, etc, as well as chat in real-time, identify each others’ color-coded edits, undo unlimited saves, replay edits using an in-document time-slider, and mark versions as important. Sync.in also has a cross-platform launcher for users who want to create new Sync.in notes from their desktop. No sign-up process is required. Users aching for more features, such as selective public access, own team site at “yourTeamName.sync.in” and bulk export, can check out Sync.in Pro.

Twiddla is a neat space for guests to markup webpages, documents and images. It can also serve as a collaborative whiteboard, text editor and chat service. While it also allows voice-conference, I couldn’t find the voice chat feature anywhere on the site. For storage, guests will need to buy accounts, but for general brainstorming and idea exchange, Twiddla has quite a bit of features.

Web-Conferencing Services: Tokbox VideoChat, DimDim, Vyew

While Tokbox has evolved into a business-friendly solution for web-based, video-conferencing, it still offers free, casual video calls for up to 20 users at a time. It also allows users to send video messages, text chat, share YouTube videos in-line, invite friends from Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live, AIM, or via email, as well as embed video chat and recorder widgets. Tokbox offers a very user-friendly interface with virtually no learning curve.

If you’re itching for additional features, check out DimDim which offers public web meetings with a shared whiteboard, annotation tools, live document-sharing, as well as screen-sharing (via a downloadable plugin) and text chatting with up to 10 users (although only one user webcam can be enabled during a meeting).

Vyew is another great web-conference service that offers private rooms, webcam and voice chat for up to 10 users, a conference number you can call to join the private conversation, a whiteboard, screen-sharing (via Java authorization), and ability to leave voice notes in addition to text and annotations on workspace. Free accounts have an ad-supported interface, but I didn’t find any ads while testing in my session.

For desktop-based tools that allow video-conferencing for two or more users, check out the open-source OpenMeetings.

What free online meeting tools would you recommend to work with colleagues? Share your preferred applications in the comments!

Photo credit: deviantdark

There’s no limit to the kinds of things you could commit to doing on a daily basis throughout the year – and possibly beyond that. To get you started, here’s a list of 6 year long project ideas that you might want to try – from creative projects to good deeds. Get started with these guidelines, ideas and places where you can keep your project going for 365 days.

Write a Novel

If you’ve been itching to finish your novel, giving yourself a specific time frame may be the trick to finally getting it done. Set aside a certain amount of time per day and write a set number of pages. Getting organised could be a good way to motivate yourself – setting goals and achieving them can often lead to great momentum.

Louise Doughty, a writer and journalist put together a guide on The Daily Telegraph with tips and exercises for getting through the year. They’re no longer listed on the website, but are still available in the archives, and are conveniently listed on the blog, Learn to Write Fiction.

If you’re stuck for inspiration, check out our guide to finding ideas, and getting organised at the same time.

While most writers probably prefer a distraction free word processor, you could check out Fast Pencil a website not only dedicated to helping you finish that novel, but also offers self publishing options if that’s the route you want to take.

Take One Photo A Day

Possibly one of the most popular year-long projects, and most identified with the term ‘Project 365′, you can commit to taking one photo a day. There are all sorts of different ways you can share your photography, whether it’s on a website designed specifically for this purpose, or through a Flickr group, or even on your own personal blog.

The key to keeping up with this project is not to expect to produce a masterpiece on a daily basis. Life will get in the way, and sometimes you’ll have to get creative to keep up. Be sure to take your camera with you everywhere, and on days when that isn’t possible, use your mobile phone.

If you need some inspiration check out the following links:

• 365 Days, 365 Ideas For Photos
• 365 Ideas
• DP Challenge
• JPG Mag Themes
• Flickr Groups

Take a Photo of Yourself

A twist on the Project 365 challenge is to take one photo of yourself a day. Take the photo in the same place everyday, in the same position, and see what changes you go through throughout the year. Or get creative with the project and come up with interesting self-portraits. If you’re not sure where to start, check out these suggestions from the Flickr forums.

You can share the photos on Flickr, Facebook, your own blog, or on Dailybooth.

Write One Poem/Haiku a Day

Another creative project you can commit to for 365 days is writing one poem or haiku a day.

Post your poems on your blog. We’d recommend Tumblr for a project like this – keeping the method simple probably helps in keeping up with a year long commitment. Another option would be to use Twitter.

If you’re not the creative kind, you could always reverse this and read one poem or short story a day, or even involve your children in the commitment.

Keep a Journal

Whether it’s to document your day as it happens, or just random thoughts and musings, keeping a journal has been said to make for a healthier lifestyle.

There are many reasons to keep a journal. You could write one down something you’re thankful for on a daily basis, or document your day using Bit.ly Bundles. Online services for keeping a journal are endless – whether public or private. For a few private options, check out these 5 simple sites. If you don’t want to sign up for yet another service, you could just settle on using Google Documents, or even Google Calendar.

Alternatively, you could do a podcast a day. Check out Angela’s article on how to put together your own free podcast here, or even do it on the go using your mobile phone.

Do One Good Deed a Day

Most of the 365 day projects are personal or creative. For a different twist, how about committing to doing one random act of kindness a day. Ideally, this is the kind of project that you’d want to keep going beyond the one year limit as well.

If you’re pressed for ideas, check out this list to get you started.

What project are you going to commit to in 2011? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Shutterstock

There are many useful tools out there for project management. One such program you can utilize to keep track of your projects is Microsoft Excel. With Excel’s free templates, you can turn your simple spreadsheets into project management charts and forms.

In this article, I am going to cover a few of the most useful Excel project management tracking templates as well as how to find and install them.

Microsoft Templates

First, it would be wise to see what templates you already have installed in Excel. For the purposes of this article, I will be using Excel 2007, although this procedure should be pretty similar in the Office 2003 and 2010 suites.

When you start up Excel, click on the Office Button in the top left and go to New. A New Workbook box should have popped up where you can select from different templates.

Under Installed Templates, you can view the templates that came with your version of Office. If you don’t have any project management templates installed (I didn’t), you can view the online templates by clicking on the various categories below. When you find one you like, just click on it and click the Download button.

Here are some of the useful Excel project management tracking templates I found:

Plans (Business)

If you go down to Plans and select Business, you will find a lot of helpful templates. I especially liked these templates:

• Projected balance sheet.
• Project team communication plan.
• Business project timeline, schedule, calendar, plan.

Planners

If you select Planners from the list, you will see about 35 planning and scheduling templates that could be used for your project management needs. Some of the better templates in this category include:

• Simpler and Intuitive Task Management – X-TrackAmaze Basic.
• Work – Weekly Planner.
• Project planner.

Search For Online Templates

If you would like to search for your desired templates by name instead, you can do so at the top of the New Workbook box. You can try running searches for the terms project, gantt, time, and schedule.

Since I have already done this for you (you can thank me later), you only need to search for the templates I’ve provided. Here are some of the keepers:

• Project scorecard.
• Project cost summary.
• Project time performance tracking.
• Event management project tracker.
• Project performance tracking and reporting.

You can also find all of these templates online here.

Vertex42 Templates

This website has a few great project management templates of its own. As the site states, these templates are mostly related to project scheduling and that anything more complicated would probably require Microsoft Project or other project management software.

For the purposes of Excel, here are the free templates they offer:

• Gantt Chart/Project Schedule
• Timeline
• Critical Path Method
• Project Timeline

Conclusion

We’ve covered a lot of great project management apps in the past. If you would like to find more free templates online, simply run a Google search for ‘free Excel project management tracking templates’. There are many sites that offer both free and paid templates, so you want to make sure you’re in a site’s free section.

What do you think of the templates I’ve provided? Will you be using them for your project management needs? What other apps besides Excel do you like to use for managing your projects?

Please leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below.

Image Credit: tome213

Scrapbooking is an art form of creating a paper-based collage centered around a memorable photo or set of photos. Traditionally, collages are created using an assortment of papers, markers, frames, rub-on letters, stickers, and other embellishment materials. But now in the age of digital software, scrapbooking can be more accessible for those who don’t want to spend a lot of money on paper resources.

If you’re looking to boost your skills as a photographer or graphic designer, digital scrapbooking is useful hobby for achieving these goals. The following is a sampling of free scrapbooking sites that provide tutorials and free downloads for those wanting to get started with digital scrapbooking.

Free Digital Scrapbooking.com

Free Digital Scrapbooking.com provides a free monthly Scraplifter’s challenge based on a free Photoshop-based template. Of course, there are links to purchase additional file downloads, such as fonts, brushes, custom shapes, etc.

But before you spend money on extra resources, download and open the template (link is on the tutorial page) in any version of Photoshop and see what you can come with on your own. The neat thing about these kind of templates is that you’re not just adding photos to the layout, but you are customizing them based on your own creative ideas. The template is a just a basis to get started.

CottageArts.net

This site provides an awesome list of resources and tutorials on using digital scrapbooking, particularly for Photoshop Elements and or any version of Photoshop CS.

Tutorials include an introduction to Photoshop layers, using fonts and font styles, layer masking, the color picker tool, creating a torn edge effect, and much, much more. There are also similar tutorials for using Corel Paint Shop Pro. Other digital freebies on the free scrapbooking site can be downloaded here.

Computer Scrapbook.com

When you’re ready to get deeper into digital scrapbooking, Computer Scrapbook.com offers several dozen absolutely free starter kits. You sign up on the site, and the kits will be delivered from its supply page. The kits include assorted backgrounds, shapes, and other elements.

Scrapbook Photo Ideas

Oftentimes scapbooking revolves around a series of related layouts based on a theme, e.g. a vacation, the birth of a child, a wedding or wedding anniversary. Sometimes you might work with existing paper and digital photos you already have in your collection, while other times you shoot photos with a scrapbooking theme in mind. Kodak.com has full section for free scrapbooking layouts to get you started.

Smilebox

If you totally can’t be bothered with creating scrapbook layouts and theme packages, Smilebox.com offers web-based application with hundreds of themes (e.g. holidays, sympathy cards, birthdays, and the like) in which you can customize, and  email or blog it for free. Last year, MUO reviewed a similar free site, Scropblog, that you should also check out.

If you’re a scrapbooker, let us know what free scrapbooking sites you use.