Hank Voss
03-05-2010, 01:56 PM
Disclaimer. I am not at all techy, so I probably won't be able to answer questions on these. On the other hand, these tools have made my life much easier, so if you don't know about them, they may be something you want to try. I am certain there are also many other helpful tools that are currently being used, and that I would find helpful. If you are using some such free tool. Please post about it here.
Favorite Free Technology On-line Resources
1. Gmail. This is a free email account with a ton of advantages. Did I mention it was free? Wheaton college uses it for all their student and faculty e-mail.
2. Zotero. This is absolutely incredible FREE resource for organizing notes, bibliographic information, writing papers, etc. You can watch the videos to get a feel for it at www.zotero.org . I use this multiple times every day. It is second only to my word processor. (Also see http://nerdlets.org/2009/10/29/a-guide-to-using-zotero-in-biblical-studies-collecting-annotating-and-citing-bibliographic-data/ for a blog on how to use zotero by a theological educator.)
3. PDF-x Change Viewer. This is a FREE jewel. It allows you to write, highlight, copy and paste from PDF documents. You can only copy and paste from a pdf that was converted by from an e-document, not one that was scanned, but you can write take notes, etc. on any kind. I use this every day. (Most copiers now let you scan and e-mail the document to yourself or copy on paper. I now scan everything instead of making copies.)
4. Free Back-up software. You get two gigabytes free at: https://spideroak.com/ If you have a friend sign up, you get an extra gigabyte free. The advantage to this is that it backs up your key files every day, for free! This can be a great safety net.
5. Create PDF Files from Any Program. While some operating systems (Mac OS X?) and programs offer PDF export natively (such as OpenOffice Writer), you can create a PDF from any program using a PDF printer. The following are all free. I use CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com), but other options are Bullzip (http://www.bullzip.com) and PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/).
6. Skype. Chat for free with friends and family around the world. www.skype.com
Favorite Free Technology On-line Resources
1. Gmail. This is a free email account with a ton of advantages. Did I mention it was free? Wheaton college uses it for all their student and faculty e-mail.
2. Zotero. This is absolutely incredible FREE resource for organizing notes, bibliographic information, writing papers, etc. You can watch the videos to get a feel for it at www.zotero.org . I use this multiple times every day. It is second only to my word processor. (Also see http://nerdlets.org/2009/10/29/a-guide-to-using-zotero-in-biblical-studies-collecting-annotating-and-citing-bibliographic-data/ for a blog on how to use zotero by a theological educator.)
3. PDF-x Change Viewer. This is a FREE jewel. It allows you to write, highlight, copy and paste from PDF documents. You can only copy and paste from a pdf that was converted by from an e-document, not one that was scanned, but you can write take notes, etc. on any kind. I use this every day. (Most copiers now let you scan and e-mail the document to yourself or copy on paper. I now scan everything instead of making copies.)
4. Free Back-up software. You get two gigabytes free at: https://spideroak.com/ If you have a friend sign up, you get an extra gigabyte free. The advantage to this is that it backs up your key files every day, for free! This can be a great safety net.
5. Create PDF Files from Any Program. While some operating systems (Mac OS X?) and programs offer PDF export natively (such as OpenOffice Writer), you can create a PDF from any program using a PDF printer. The following are all free. I use CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com), but other options are Bullzip (http://www.bullzip.com) and PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/).
6. Skype. Chat for free with friends and family around the world. www.skype.com