Free tools and websites

Images and Videos

Take a Screenshots:

1. PicPick: This free tool sits on the tray and lets you take screenshots of your desktop. The advantage of this tool is that besides the common features, such as letting you take a picture of the entire desktop, a region or a free-hand region, it lets you easily add text and paint over the image you just taken a snapshot from. Think of it as a light weight screen capture tool which has a better then Paint application built in.
2. WinSnap 1.1: Notice I say 1.1! post 1.1 the application became shareware. But you can still search and find the 1.1 version. It has wonderful support for that extra cosmetic touch that makes the screenshots you take worth putting in official websites and software documentation. It can be configured to automatically add shadows and contour which makes a big difference.
   
3. Jing :  Free and easy way to take a screen shot and upload it to a predefined hosting location. Then get the URL in your clipboard, ready to be sent in an email or chat. You can annotate the image before sending. Will also record short flash clips of your screen and send/upload the same way.
4. firesho Is great, but different. It is a browser plugin. So it works great and has tons of great features (built in edit, upload the image to the web...), but this is your tool if what you need is to mostly take screenshots of webpages. It will not help you for desktop apps. (both IE and FF supported)
   

Edit Image:

1. Paint.NET: For the power user, I can't think of anything better than Paint.NET. I love it. It handles layers, effects and formats.  Can convert and compress, crop, add effects, text. Great replacement for Photoshop for the not-so-professionals. plus, you are guarantee to be able to edit the project anywhere, anytime, since the app is only one download away...
2. Pixlr.com is an online version of what Paint.NET does. Even though it is web based, it looks and feels fast and responsive and I find it a real competitor to installed based application like Paint.NET. For the occasional user or as an alternative to have regardless of the computer you are on, it is a great URL to keep in mind.
   
3. Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is the best, easiest way to compile several images into one. Most commonly used to stitch several pictures into one panoramic view.
   Another huge reason to use this ICE: it can export to HD View and Silverlight Deep Zoom.
4. Animated gif file? combine one of the tools above with Beneton Movie GIF to create animated images
   

Manage Images:

1. Picasa: From the house of Google. Why is this the best? because my mom is using it! Picasa is great for managing your huge library of pictures (handles video as well). It imports them directly from your camera, helps you put them in folders, label them and add captions. It also has great (as in easy) tools to fix the pictures, crop them and some basic effects (turn a color picture to  B&W for example).
   Another great thing about Picasa is its transperent integration to Picasaweb, letting you upload and share pictures online with the click of a button.
   

Record Video (screen capture):

1. Wink requires installation, and is not the smoothest application in the world. However, it is very well suited for tutorials and lets you easily (integrated) add annotation over the recorded video. In includes the ability to set points that require the user to click "continue" and you can record as a matter of fps or as "actions". Actions works well since for software (web) tutorials, you don't need to record something that changes constantly like video, so it translates into huge savings in the size of the output (flash). cons? no audio. 
2. CamSudio is another installed based application. This one takes the more "record video" approach. The output is video, so you do not have the option to "click to continue" you have with Wink. Saying that, it records audio. 
   
3. Jing. See above.
   

Edit Video

1. So you recorded video on your digital camera, but it is a huge AVI file and out of 3 minutes, you would probably want to take few seconds here and there to make it well... less boring? usually, out of 3 minutes clip you take you really want to keep less than 1/3 of the footage. Not to mention that you may want to concatenate 3 other clips you took into one clip. Windows Movie Maker to the rescue! Yes, it is not as powerful as commercial alternatives like Adobe Premiere Elements 7 or Corel VideoStudio X2, but it is free, and most probably already on your computer! Notice there is a XP and a Vista version out there (Download only from Microsoft site!). It lets you cut, concatenate and add effects, and it is SIMPLE. then save it as a wmv file which is great (not as good as H.264, but WMM doesn't support exporting to that).

Data Management

Share data/Media

1. TinyPic is the place to put an image if you want to be able to sent a link to it instead of attaching it to emails, or embed it in a webpage or a blog post (and not host the image yourself).
   

CD/DVD Burning/Backup

1.  CDBurnerXP is not the best maybe, but it is free and it has one great version not many other applications have: a portable one! That means you can put this baby on a USB drive and take it with you when you go to your family visit next Christmas, and when it is time to burn that DVD or CD, you don't need to wonder what on earth did this relative of yours put on his pc.. you have your own ready to go mean lean burning machine in your USB drive...
2. Burn any video file into a DVD for free using DVDFlick. As simple as it gets, but also lets you (if you want) add a menu and stuff.
   
3. Rip/Backup a DVD: You got a Wedding DVD? think it will last forever? Of course not, so you should create a digital copy which you should then have at least 2 copies on 2 separate hard-drives. A free tool for the job is  DVD Decrypter . It will create a perfect 1:1 image of your DVD on your drive. You can just copy the entire folder from place to place for backup or burn it into new DVD-R if you want.
   

Backup

1. Mozy is a desktop to "online/cloud" backup utility. I love it because it is flexible, you can easily control what files, folders, types sizes you want the utility to continuously monitor and as they change, to backup. The fact that once you set it up it just runs and does its thing, without further human "trigger" or intervention giantess that when the time comes and you need that backup... it will be there. you get 2GB free which is all you need for those word docs, xls and misc files. As for large media (pictures) this is my strategy
   I use mozy to only backup pictures that are newer then 50 days (you can do that). Once a month I backup media files to an external HD, so I just need Mozy to make sure that if I forget, or something happens before the monthly backup I still have all my pictures...

Network, VPN and communication

VPN

1. AlwaysVPN great for two reasons: if you are not in the USA, some sites (hulu?) may block you from accessing them. With AlwaysVPN you get US IP address, so you are clear there, and bandwidth is good so video is possible. Second, if you are in an airport or public wiFi, it is better than nothing (still, I don't recommend you trust them with using sensitive sites like your bank and credit card company.

Just For Fun

Screen Saver and Background

1. PhotoJoy Is a real eye candy. It makes cool background images for your desktop using your own pictures. Why cool? you need to check it out!. It also has some innovating screen-savers. while they are cool, I usually recommend just letting the monitor turn itself off after 5-10 minutes. It saves energy and saves the planet!