WEBVTT - What tools do the HowStuffWorks writers use? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.840 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:14.120 tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there, 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.840 welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.200 an editor How Stuff Works. Sitting next to me, as usual, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:25.200 is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, folks, and today we 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.440 were going to tinker around with some some ideas. Yes, 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.920 basically the tools we use to get our jobs done here, right, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.480 and so we're talking about things that make our lives 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.720 a little easier when we're trying to research, right, publish articles, 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.400 even research things for the podcast, Um and uh, I 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.320 just thought maybe it'd be interesting for you guys to 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.199 hear kind of a collection of the stuff that that 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.600 we rely on on a regular basis. That's true. Now 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.760 we should probably start with, um, the easy stuff. Okay, sure, 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.840 Microsoft Office, Yes, we use Microsoft Office extensively, so Word 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.320 and Excel in particular, not so much with the power 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.559 point power Point yeah, not really a power point company, Yeah, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.440 but word we we I type up all my articles 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.200 and Word and I send them over to the Pallette 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.880 who then eviscerates them and makes them better. And Excel. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.160 We used to track things like our our article assignments 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:23.160 and things like that. If our meta information is put 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.000 into an Excel spreadsheet which is converted into common to 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:31.399 limited file, which sounds it's just as exciting as it sounds. People. Um. 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.000 And then that's the funny thing about this. You know, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.040 you don't really think about office as being that big 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.319 a deal, but you know it's taken a lot of 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.280 refinement over the years. And yeah, you know, I'm I'm 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.319 a Mac person generally, I was an Immiga person before that, 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:46.760 so I kind of I kind of came weight to 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.160 the Windows thing. I didn't even start using Windows until 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.760 pretty much skipped over three, which I'm told I didn't 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.720 really miss much. Well, yeah, I reluctantly started with Windows three. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.440 So I actually came from a perfect background. So Correl, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.360 you know, that was my that was my background. So 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.320 when I switched over to word, I was it was 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.600 kicking and screaming. But these days, you know, I've actually 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.040 gotten very much used to the way word works, and 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.880 it's it's pretty much impossible to find any place other 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.360 than I think a few legal firms still used word perfect, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.040 but it's still very popular and legal, and but I 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.880 like Office. For the next part, I tried open Office, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:28.360 which is an alternative from Sun. It's free, um open 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.840 source stuff, and it's got the entire suite of tools, 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.240 including some of the ones that Microsoft charges extra for. 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.480 Very nice, but you know, sort of lower key if 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:39.760 you will. They don't have a lot of the bells 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.160 and whistles. Um. Same thing with like Google Docs. I've 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.040 used Google Docs once or twice for some some small projects. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.160 But um, you know, for a way to really uh, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.200 to be to be really integrated in the office, you 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.560 pretty much have to work work with a Microsoft Office 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.480 and of course Outlook as well. Yeah, that's very important 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.040 tool for us for coordinating our meetings and calendars and 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.920 things of that nature. Moving away from that basic sweet 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:15.440 what browser do you use or browsers most often anyway? Um? 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.560 Jonathan likes to pick on me because I champion some 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.560 browsers he doesn't particularly like. By and large, I use 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.720 Firefox um are content management system. Uh sort of has 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.799 a problem with Firefox three, So I'm basically using Firefox too. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.320 But if you really want to know all this stuff, 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.760 I use UM, believe it or not. I do use 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.120 Google Chrome on occasion, but I like to try different 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.440 stuff because not only do I like to talk about it, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.720 but I also kind of I'm I'm a sort of 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.280 a beta junkie. Yeah. So I've got a copy of 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:53.480 Opera on my my computer. I've also got Safari for Windows. Um, 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.120 I have Chrome on there somewhere. I even have Flock, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.040 which is another offshoot of my the Mozilla suite of software. 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:02.560 I do have a question for you. Do you have 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.520 Safari on there on purpose? No, I actually do. I 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.280 like so far. I was just wondering if you didn't 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.960 accidentally install it when you were updating iTunes or something, 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.880 even though there's a giant security hole in it. Yes, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.040 I do have a copy of Safari on there, and 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.120 I think it's sort of It's sort of weird because 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.040 I think all of these different browsers have stuff that 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.640 nobody else has. Yeah, there's their little bits and pieces. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.160 You know, they're plug ins buying larger Y use Firefox 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:33.239 and Firefox three is really speedy. There's no giant memory 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.719 league like there is in two. But um, you know, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:38.400 I do like to play around with the other ones 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.240 just to see what they're like. Opera is a really 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.680 nifty browser I think has been overlooked for the longest time. Unfortunately, 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.680 UM and it uh, you know, it's just sort of 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.599 gone by the wayside. And we also use Internet Explorer 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.680 on occasion we don't want to know and there are 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.320 times when I've found the Internet Explorer is is the 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.119 the best browser to ow to a certain web page, 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.960 and occasionally we do use that. I rely on Firefox 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:11.520 for most of my work. I love Chrome, but I 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.120 use Firefox because, like you said, the plug ins are 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.520 very useful, and we can talk a little bit about 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.000 some of the plug ins we use, uh for work. 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.760 But then Chrome just doesn't have that functionality yet, and 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.680 I stress yet when it does have it. But by Firefox. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.159 Now I'm kidding. I really enjoy Firefox as well, but 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.160 I always have both open. I mean, there's no time 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:33.960 you're gonna come by my desk and not see that. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.360 I'm you know, I'm always gonna have a Chrome window 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.440 open and a Firefox window open with multiple tabs in each. 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.400 And um, so let's talk about some of the plug 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.080 ins for Firefox that help us. UM. I use. There's 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.480 most of the ones I use. Collett's the one who 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.279 introduced me to them, but Pillette, being the beta junkie 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.360 he is, tends to adopt, use it, abandon and move on. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.640 May I tend to find one and I'm I'm sticking 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.599 with this one because it does exactly what I needed 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:07.080 to do. So, for instance, I use a Zotero, which 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.599 is one that you recommended to me, like very much. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.919 It's a it's a sort of a bookmarking indexing kind 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.080 of plug in where you can, um, you can bookmark 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.080 a site and it even includes site information when you 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.320 when you bookmarket so it tells you when you access 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:30.120 the site, which is important citation information exactly, yes, website 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.880 c I t e. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.880 U hit me, Yeah, affair. But now the it is 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.080 very useful because, as as uh one of the writers here, 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:45.680 one of the things I have to do when I'm 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.840 citing a source is I have to say when I 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.960 looked at that source. Because being the Internet, things don't 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.839 stay the same all the time. People can go back 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.200 and change stuff. It's not like a book. When a 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:58.920 book comes out, you know you have to wait till 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:00.680 a new edition of that book comes out before you 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.360 see any changes. But on a website. You could theoretically 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.160 cite something and then the next day the author says, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.760 oh crap, I didn't mean to do that, and go 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.000 back and change it, and then it doesn't say what 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.119 it said when you read it. So that never happens 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.080 with us. No, of course not. So what we do 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.600 is we we list when we've looked at a site, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.360 so that way you can say, well, it didn't say this. Well, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:25.960 you know, if you go into a say like the 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.240 Internet archive, you can tell that it did say that 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.080 once upon a time. So that's one of the ones 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.280 I use. Do you have any plug ins that you 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.080 want to talk about, I'm just gonna add to that. Okay, 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.360 sure that you may say, well, you know, when I 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.080 was a student, I used end note. What's the big 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.119 deal about staro? Well, unlike EndNote? So taro is free. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.680 It is completely free and it's beautiful. You can save 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.440 entire copies of a web page or you can just 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.320 save a link. You can make folders, you can tag things. Um. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.040 It's very very useful if you're trying to say, you know, 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:00.960 you can put stuff in a out your podcast and 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.640 say okay wait podcast um, and then it'll bring up 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.920 all the different citations you use for that. So it's 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.320 it's pretty nifty in that regard. Um, let's see plug ins, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.360 plug ins, plug ins. How about DGO, d I, I 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:18.040 g OE, yep, yep. It's um, it's pretty nifty. It's 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:22.480 got a toolbar and it's very like delicious in some ways. 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.400 You can save copies of links, you know, a giant 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.880 list of bookmarks. It's a social bookmarking tool. Um. But 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.960 the toolbar the reason I use I use both of them. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.440 The reason I use dgo UM actually for an earlier 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.880 podcast we recorded a few minutes ago. It's got a 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.920 highlighter tool so you can highlight stuff and actually, if 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.200 you make it public, other people can go on the 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.800 web page and see. As long as you have the 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.040 dgo plug in installed, you can actually see the stuff 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.360 that other people have highlighted are marked up um, which 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.000 can or may not be useful depending on what it 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.040 is they've marked up in why um, But yeah, I 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.800 mean you've got you've got that of available to you, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.320 and you can go back and look at your notes 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.720 and say, oh I bookmark this then, and hey, look 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.720 I know highlighted this and made some notes on it. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.640 So you can have annotations on a web page, which 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.840 is very very useful. Um. I also use ever note. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.840 Yeah that's one of the ones that you you embraced 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.080 and then abandoned. Correct. Yeah, except I'm actually looking at 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.160 my notes now on every note came back to the fold. Yeah, 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.640 I had a problem in which some of my notes 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.760 were deleted. I did a fresh install before I did this, 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.080 so i'm and and everything's there, so so hopefully it'll 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:35.880 stay up. Yeah. I haven't had a problem with it yet. 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:37.800 But yeah, some people did have problems with it, and 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.320 I think you even heard back from someone using another tool. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.960 Will get to in a minute, but um, yeah, every 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:49.840 note allows you to to to either bookmark an entire 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.320 page and inside another inside every note, which you can 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.120 access offline. You don't have to be online to access 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.320 every note. Um. Or you can highlight a section of 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.320 a web page, can just save that, so if there's 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.440 a particular paragraph you want to to refer to later, 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.440 you can do that. It's also it's very useful when 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.520 you're doing stuff like um the podcast preparation, really because 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.440 you can you can highlight sections of text and say, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:15.880 all right, well, this is something that you want to 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.680 talk about this, but you don't want to have the 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.960 whole website up when you're when you're going through the podcast, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.120 because it's too hard to find the information you're looking for. 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.440 You can also make notes, you can highlight, you can 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.040 change text size. UM you can. It's also really really 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.800 useful for screenshots. I found um and because if you 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.400 do a screenshot while every note is open, you can 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.640 you can uh dictate the parameters of your screenshot so 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.400 you don't have to use it doesn't take a shot 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.080 of the entire screen. You can you get the little 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.800 borders that you can um size appropriately and take a 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.640 shot of just the part of the screen you want, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.480 which saves time later on when you're editing photos. That's ah, 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.120 that's very useful for uh. Firefox that use a plug 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.560 in called screen Grab, same sort of thing, does the 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.400 same thing. It's you know, within the web window. Um. Yeah. 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.960 So and then one other Firefox plug in, I can 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.439 talk about fox Marks, which is the synchronized bookmarks application 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.520 where if you're if you're you we're using multiple machines, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.920 you know that it's difficult if you know, like you 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:21.959 might bookmark something on one machine and then you're on 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.240 another machine and you realize that it's you don't have 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.280 the bookmark on that one, it's on your other computer. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.520 That can you get really frustrating. So fox Marks is 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.560 a way where you create a little, you know, kind 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.400 of a bookmark account and you can synchronize bookmarks across 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.280 multiple machines and access them from wherever you happen to 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.280 be at the time. You know, you can also do 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.559 that with Google Browser Sync. Yes, and Opera also offers 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.880 a feature like that too. I was just talking about 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:53.000 the Firefox plug in. I'm the one who has all 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:58.720 the anti very various anti such and such biases like 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:03.960 anti mac bias and all that, right that doesn't actually exist. UM, 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:05.880 let's talk about a few of the other tools I'm not. 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:07.440 Do you have any other Firefox ones you wanted to 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.640 talk about? No, I do have a web tool, so 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:14.200 if we want to go to web, let's UM. I 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:20.120 have something installed on my web host that I use. UM, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.360 and I'd be willing to bet the very few of 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.120 our listeners have ever heard of it. It's called Tasks 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.560 junior UM. It's made by a company called crowd Favorite 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.480 used to be King designed. Alex King came out with 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.720 this a long time ago, and there's a pro version, 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.319 uh paid version, and then this version, which is very 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:42.440 very downscaled. It doesn't have the same feature set um. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.520 But what it is is tasks. Okay, so it's a 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.520 it's a to do list, which is pretty simple, except 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.560 the reason I like this particular program over things like 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.200 remember the Milk, um, which is also pretty cool, um 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.680 or to do dot um dot com. Think I have 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.000 to go look um now that I've said that. So anyway, 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.240 the thing that makes Tasks Junior better than something like 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.480 Remember the Milk, which is also pretty cool, is that 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.560 Tasks Junior allows you to install subtasks. So, for example, 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.840 I'm editing one of Jonathan's articles and I have to 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.280 send it to a co editor, and I have to 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.880 write metaphor it, and I have to upload images for it. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.560 I can put the giant title in there. I could say, 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.640 you know how the Amazon kindle works, and I could say, okay, 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.719 make sure you edit the article, make sure you give 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.720 it to the co editor, make sure you put it 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.559 in the dropbox for someone else for the for the 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:39.440 publisher to pick up and publish. And I can check 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:44.080 off those individual tasks under the heading of the main task. UM. 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.520 So that's an especially useful thing because stuff like Outlook 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.200 that's got the it's got a tasks list, but you 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.960 don't have the ability to do subtasks, so they're all individually, 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.000 you know, loose in there. UM which is UH, which 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.840 is okay, and I'm pretty sure of the crowd. Favorite 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.679 actually offers a hosting service where you can sign up 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.480 to do that. But if you get tasks junior um, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.319 which is essentially donation where you have to install it 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.840 on your own server, and it's it's fairly easy to do, 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.880 but it's really nifty stuff. UM. I use a couple 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.560 of web based UH applications occasionally. UM. There was a 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:23.160 time where I had a little bit of I was 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.920 going through a transition on computers UM and UH because 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.440 yours kept dying. I wasn't going to go into that. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.720 I'm the tech guy who kills laptops, so I'm on 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.840 my fourth one here and UH. But one of the 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.400 issues is that when I get a new laptop, I 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.440 wouldn't necessarily have all the software on it that I 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.360 would need to do my job. And because most of 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.240 our software we're working on licenses, it would mean that 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.360 we have to get a new license for that machine 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.440 so that we could run it legally. Right, one of 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:58.160 those being Photoshop when we that's one of the big 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.240 programs we used to edit art here and um or 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.280 at least one of the ones. I use Photoshop Elements, 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.880 really Photoshop Elements, Yeah, I should be should be specific, 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.800 but um, when I didn't have Photoshop Elements, I at 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.320 least still had access to Photoshop Express, which is a 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:19.240 web based photo editing software. Um, and it's really limited. Yeah, 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.760 you can't do nearly as much on Photoshop Express as 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.960 you could with Elements or some other uh computer desktop 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.560 based uh photo editing software. But I could do enough 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.840 where I could at least make it less of a 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:38.560 task for Polette to to to edit and upload to 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.400 the articles. UM. Fortunately, I know have Photoshop Elements on 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.320 this computer, so I don't have to worry about anymore. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:49.320 But that was that was definitely useful. Yep. Um see, 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.560 I'm trying to think of other desktopy software. Well, I 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.880 use uh, we can talk about maybe the I am 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.040 software we use because I I use Digsby. I know 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.920 you don't you don't you Digsby do you? Oh? Here's 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.760 another situation in which I have run through a gamut 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:11.080 of stuff. I'm a trillion fan. Yeah. UM. I used 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.080 digsby for a while. It is a free and open 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:18.400 source UH chat client. It offers a lot of functions 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.600 that others don't like Google Talk and Facebook Chat and 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.520 my Space chat as well as it can you can 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.840 link it so that you can check your You can 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:31.920 keep a running tab on on your email accounts so Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, mail, 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.560 um it. You can see what the you know when 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.160 new messages come in. You can actually see the indications 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.600 for that without having to go to those websites. You 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.840 can even delete messages from your desktop without going to 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.160 those websites. That's also very handy and UH. For a 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:53.160 while I used Pigeon p I d G I n UM, which, 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.920 as many of you know, I'm sure is UH. A 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.000 Pigeon is a sort of a mishmash of two language 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.440 is together to form a third. Well. This is an 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:08.160 open source I AM Multi i AM protocol client UM, 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.840 sort of like a d M for the Mac. Pigeon 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.439 is is available for a Lennox and Windows and it's UH. 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.760 It's got a lot of the same capabilities, although it's 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.280 really I am based. It's really not a male thing. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.000 I'm a bobber. Well. The other thing about Digsby that 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.840 the other useful thing for me is that it allows 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.440 me to check my Twitter accounts. Yes, and Twitter is 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.440 another one of those tools that we use quite a bit, 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.480 and it's uh. I use it to follow a lot 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.840 of other tech journalists so I can keep up with 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.760 tech news as it's being broken. Um and occasionally I 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.960 send out a little Twitter messages as well, so you 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.200 can always track me down on Twitter and find out, 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.320 you know, when I'm complaining about someone making popcorn in 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.959 the office, because those are the kind of really important 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.800 messages I tend to send out. Yeah yeah, For a while, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:03.560 I was signing up for a lot of those, um yeah, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.040 but every seems like every single day would send me 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.679 another email saying hey, look at this, and I'm like, 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:11.919 what are you doing to me? I'm I already belonged 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.120 to like fifty social networks. I can't I can't join anymore. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.879 Yeah yeah, Well then you got um Twitter and you 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.840 have ji q or hi q. I've never heard anywhere 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:28.159 announced that clerk pounds quippy cork identica. I belong to 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.840 so many of these, and they're basically, um, yeah you 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.560 said the right one, okay. Um, so yeah, there are 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.800 pounds plexo. Yeah yeah, I was gonna say, did you 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.240 see a pounds? Um? There are tons and tons of these, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.200 And there are services like ping dot fm that allow 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:50.840 you to broadcast one tweet to all these different services 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.760 every time, or you know, you can blog to other 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:59.560 services like Blogger and Tumbler and WordPress all the time. 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:01.320 I don't use I don't use most of those in 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.320 my day to day work. No Twitter, but I used 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.000 I have used Ping to write to post to those 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.160 different things. Um. And and friend feed, which is sort 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.760 of a reverse of those, where you know, you can 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.640 have all those post to your friend feed and then 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.960 people can comment to that, which is kind of cool. Um. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.320 And those are tools we used to network with other 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:29.240 tech people or you know, people who have interesting contents content. Um. Yeah, Readers. 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.560 I've used Google Reader. I also used NewsGator. I actually 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.480 meant people who read our website. That's also cool. Yeah, 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.120 I use Google Reader as well. UM. Now I meant 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:44.960 that we could use those two to readers people. Let's 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:46.919 move on to readers, because I use Google Reader as well. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.280 As actually gonna mention I Google. I occasionally use that 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:54.040 to check a billion RSS feeds at one time. Um, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.400 that's very useful. Whenever we want to see what's hot 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.960 in tech or what's the latest news, you can you 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.760 can check many for RSS feeds all at the same time. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.359 And uh and yeah, it's very handy. Yeah. I like 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.879 a NewsGator because it uh, you know a lot of 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.600 people have a remembrance of when they weren't all that 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:18.760 uh friendly, they had some issues with um, but now 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.960 they're now they're totally above board. Now they offer RSS stuff. UM, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.080 you know, you can go online or you can They 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.840 actually bought two different clients. The one for Windows is 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.679 called feed Demon, it was very very popular client, and 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.439 the one for Mac is net Newswire, which was a 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.320 very very very popular client among Mac users. Um. And 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.520 one of the cool things about NewsGator is that if 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:44.400 you use one of those desktop clients, you can set 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.560 it to sync with the web or you know, so 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.080 you can read I can catch up with tech news 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.560 at home, and it knows which articles I've read, so 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:54.439 I won't go back and go oh man, I have 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.680 to go through all these again. I've already looked at these. Well, 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.280 you know, that's one of the advantages is to using 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.960 the at instead. And one of the other things I 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:08.200 wanted to talk about was job which is inbox spelled backwards. 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.720 It's for for uh Microsoft Outlook. Yeah. I had this briefly, 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.320 but I was having some issues. It was causing my 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.040 outlook to crash and it was probably because it was 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.159 interfering with some other program that I also happened to 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.639 have on my computer. It's not I don't mean to 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.280 say that jobny itself was defective. I think it was 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:29.280 just not playing well with so many of the other 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.680 plugins that I already have. Well, each of us has 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.639 a cocktail of software. It's different from everyone else, and 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.720 sometimes it gets a little poisonous. That's the problem. But 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.080 what it does is it's really neat. It indexes your email. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.120 It can tell you who's the most popular person, tells 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.480 you when you're most likely to get a response based 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:48.280 on the analysis of that email. You can look up 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.000 a word and it won't pull it up. You can 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.960