Writers and Editors - Mastering multimedia

• Lifehacker (a blog with tips and downloads for getting things done)
• Lifehacker Top 10

Evolution of a photographer T-shirts (an evolution even in the T-shirts)

The Best Online Backup Services for 2016 (Michael Muchmore, PC Magazine, 2-24-16) You never know when your hard drive is going to crash, or when you're going to accidentally overwrite a key file. Use an online backup service to automatically and securely protect your documents, photos, and other media.

Pecha Kucha and the art of liberating constraints (Garr Reynolds' blog, Presentation Zen, 9-28-07) "The Pecha Kucha method of presentation design and delivery is very simple. You must use 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, as you tell your story. That's 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Slides advance automatically and when you're done you're done. That's it. Sit down. The objective of these simple but tight restraints is to keep the presentations brief and focused and to give more people a chance to present in a single night. And here's an example, by Daniel Pink: Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides Then Sit the Hell Down (Wired, 8-21-07)

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." ~ coach John Wooden

Riding the Juggernaut That Left Print Behind (David Carr, NY Times, 7-20-14) "As somebody who lives in the news cycle, is far too engaged on Twitter and has almost as many devices for consuming media as I do fingers, I’m not so much a digital native as a digital casualty....We are all on that train, the one that left print behind, the one where we are constantly in real time, where we know a little about everything and nothing about anything, really. And there is no quiet car."

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me (especially in teaching) and I'll understand.”
~ modern adaptation of "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." ~ attributed to Confucius
***
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."

The Today show had a story about "Fiftysomethings taking their turns as interns." The theme: Laid-off publishing professionals forgo pay to pick up Internet skills. Pros previously making six figures in traditional print outlets but unemployed because of dislocation in the industry took on internships at wowOwow, a network for women over 40, hoping for better prospects in electronic media. Read or watch the story here.

"The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all."
~ Harry S Truman

When you're figuring out what to write, ask yourself this key question: Who's your audience, and what do they need or want that you have?

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
~Sir Ken Robinson

"A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules.... It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness."
~ novelist Edith Wharton

Tech tips for the basic computer user (Pogue, New York Times)

No (on what literary editors do and why they reject pieces), by Brian Doyle, for Kenyon Review

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
~ Flannery O'Connor

"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes.'
~Marcel Proust

"There is no excellency without difficulty."
~Ovid

"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings."

~ Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, often quoted as rephrased by William Faulkner: "Kill all your darlings"

"When a new writer defends his 'style,' the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn't an artifice. Real style — voice — arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer's character. When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation — an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example."
~ Bill Roorbach

"The ego is a primitive device installed in your brain to tell you when to flee from tigers. Unless you regularly interview tigers, it will misinform you during any interview, hectoring you with concerns about your next question or whether you dressed properly."
~ Eric Nalder, Loosening Lips

Loosening Lips (Eric Nalder's Art of the Interview)

"If you think training is expensive, try ignorance."
~ Tom Peters

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."
~ Ernest Hemingway

"Technique alone is never enough.You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder."
~ Raymond Chandler

"Writing freezes thought and offers it up for inspection."
~ Jack Rosenthal

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(pat at patmcnees dot com)

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Letters of Note

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Contemporary Latin American Short Stories

Mastering multimedia

Improving your interviewing, writing, and speaking skills,
mastering multimedia, computer technology and development, scanning and repairing and organizing photos and adding metadata,
making the most of Word, Gmail, and other software, equipment, and tools
· Mastering multimedia
· Recording phone interviews(Rights, technologies, and processes)
· Tech tips and tutorials for computer users

· Computer and online security
· Ransomware
· The Dark Web
· Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, explained

plus NFTs, the Metaverse, and DeFi· Improving your writing, reporting, and speaking skills
· Microsoft Word, Excel tips and shortcuts
· Transcribing and dictation tips and transcription software
· Tips for using Gmail

· Equipment, software, tools, and tutorials for working in multimedia
~Principles and history of computer code, word processing, equipment and software
~Audio tools, technology, and tutorials(including Choosing the right microphone)
~Audio recording equipment and tutorials
~Text-to-speech tools (TTS)
~Recording phone interviews
~Audio editing software and tutorials
~Digitizing records, tapes, and CDs
~Tutorials for radio
~Video production and editing
~Video tutorials

~Digitizing photos(scanning and repairing them and adding metadata)
~Scanning and indexing magazines and newspapers
~Organizing and storing photos
~Finding photos and other images
~Finding old photo collections
~Archiving digital media
~File extensions, listed and explained

Why are topics such as Toastmasters and multimedia training listed here? In today's market, you need to know not only how to write a sentence, develop a narrative, hold the reader's attention, explain complex ideas clearly in plain English, and so forth, but also how to attract people to your work, build a platform, work in multimedia, and so forth. Additional links to improving your sentence-writing craft will be found under Style, grammar, word choice, and pronunciation (editing yourself and others). See also Films, plays, and documentaries

I've included a section on equipment here because for many of us new equipment, while it promises much and often delivers, almost always comes with a new learning curve and a fair degree of anxiety before the equipment is mastered. I remember that day in 1981 when I opened my first computer and burst into tears at the thought of pressing a wrong key and destroying it. There have been many computers since then, and I still get nervous. With multimedia the amount of equipment has proliferated and is taking over my office -- yours, too?

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THE BASICS OF MULTIMEDIA

• (Re)defining multimedia journalism: New storytelling forms inspire us (Mindy McAdams, Medium)
• No Fear Guide to Multimedia Skills (Mindy McAdams handout for National Writers Workshop)
• Mastering Multimedia (Ronald A. Yaros, American Journalism Review, Aug/Sept 2009). It’s not enough to post some text and then simply throw some video into the mix. To keep readers’ attention and enhance the audience’s understanding, it’s critical that each ingredient in a rich multimedia stew is placed precisely where it makes the most sense.
• I'm Ira Glass, Host of This American Life, and This Is How I Work (Andy Orin, Lifehacker, 7-23-14) Great behind-the-scenes detail on how-to, or how-we-do-it, and technology.
• Journalism 2.0 (a digital literacy guide for the information age, Knight Citizen News Network)
• JournalismTraining.org (searchable database of journalism training that meets your needs)
• Vermont Folklife Center Fieldwork and Research Guides
• Location Sound: The Basics and Beyond (Dan Brockett, on Ken Stone site, 10-21-02).
• The Basics (Jay Allison on recording in audio for public radio, Transom Tools)

• Knight Digital Media Center Multimedia Workshop (regular workshops and online tutorials)
• Knight Digital Media Center tutorials (KDMC tutorials on audio, computing, data visualization, Flash, mashups, photography, public records, reporting, social media, video, and Web development), seminar archives (rich in material--browse by year or by topic), and blogs.
• Tips & Takeaways from "Tell your Story, Then Write it" Panel (McNees, The Writer's Center, 2016) Use writing prompts to summon memories. Don't remember your stories; remember "beats" and actions. Find out the names and stories behind old family photos. Don't be overprepared; ask "dumb questions." Learn importance in storytelling of voice, gesture, and facial expression. Avoid self-aggrandisement and pompous language; being likeable is important. Be on the lookout for stories; if an important occasion goes wrong, think about how you can turn that into a story.
• Lifehacker's Step-by-Step Guide to Digitizing Your Life
• PSD Stack (Photoshop tutorials and design resources)
• Tip Sheets: Photojournalism archive (1996-2010) (David Shedden, Poynter Institute)
• There’s Lots of Tech Help, Yes, on the Internet by Azadeh Ensha (NY Times, 12-24-08). A good list of online-help sites.
• Time-Coding Transcripts. This blog from the Audio Transcription Center provides a good argument for going to the extra time and expense of time coding a transcript, using this interesting recording and transcript from the Kentuckiana Digital Library as an example.
• Web 2.0 top tools and resources
• Oral History Tutorial (Matrix, Audio-Tech, somewhat technical -- to help researchers implement several important aspects of audio technology in the field, studio, and research lab)
• Transom Tools (Jeff Towne)
• Introduction to Oral History Manual (Baylor University Institute for Oral History)
• BBC Advanced Audio Tips(for radio, but with applications for personal history interviewing). NEW (for students): Hands on History: A Guide to Oral History (download free PDF). The Hands on History videos appear not to be accessible in U.S. but some of the how-to-build-a-castle type instructions are.
• Family Oral History Using Digital Tools. Technical whiz kid Susan Kitchens reviews equipment and, as a consultant, can help you with technical questions. Of particular use may be this series: From Digital Audio Recording to Audio CD: Part 1 - Audio into Audacity; Part 2: Making minor edits to increase sound level; Part 3: Exporting your recording to a file format that iTunes can use and creating an Audio CD and Part 4 (Dividing the audio into sections based on topics of discussion using Audacity’s Label Tracks, "to come").
• Alpha Geek: How to digitize cassette tapes by Rick Broida (Lifehacker)

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WORKSHOPS AND UNIVERSITY OFFERINGS:
• Future Media Concepts (excellent, expensive training in small classes in DC, New York, Philly, Boston, Orlando, Chicago and Irvine, CA)
• Docs in Progress (Silver Spring, MD)
• Browser extensions (Journalist's Toolbox) One of many pages of useful links, to resources ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) tools to podcast, ChatGPT, LLMs, data tools, domestic violence, gun violence, how to fact-check images online , journalism basics, etc. Worth a look.
• Tools That Fight Disinformation Online (search by name, type, or keyword, or just look thru the list)
• Knight Digital Media Center (UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, includes Multimedia Storytelling Institute, Data Visualization, Data Driven Maps, Video Storytelling, and so on)
• Multimedia Bootcamp (University of North Carolina School of Journalism)
• Society for News Design (SND)
• News U (Poynter). Among courses offered: Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling
• Online News Association
• Ourmedia (powering change through environmental media)
• Maine Multimedia Workshops
Please let me know of other training opportunities worth listing here (email to pat at patmcnees dot com)

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Digitizing records, tapes, and CDs

• Get Those Records, Tapes and CDs Onto Your Smartphone (J. D. Biersdorfer, NY Times, 12-25-19) Must-read. Ready to convert your older analog audio to more portable digital formats? Here’s how to make it happen. The do-it-yourself approach is not for everyone, but audio conversion services will happily digitize your old analog media for you — for a price. This can range from $15 to $35 for each record or tape converted, but some companies include restoration and sound-cleanup services as well

"Choose a digital format for recording. Uncompressed or lossless formats like WAV, FLAC and AIFF preserve more of the original audio for higher-quality sound, but compressed formats like MP3 create smaller files." And much more.

• Copying tapes, LPs or MiniDiscs to CD (Audacity)

Costs? Some examples
• Digitize Audio (Parrot Video Services) and other digitizing services
• Memories Renewed
• EverPresent
• Media Digitizing Price Schedule (Media Preserve).
• Audio Digitization and Processing Fee (University of Memphis).

• DiJiFi (frequently asked questions--that you may want to ask as you search for a vendor/service)

• Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. (The Trichordist, 6-18-12) Pay for commercial recordings, so artists don't starve!

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Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, explained

(Crypto, NFTs, Web3, Ethereum, the Metaverse, Tether, Stablecoins, the Dao, and DeFi)

"Victims lost more money via crypto than any other form of payment."~Emma Roth

Wikipedia: "A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items, and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership." "NFTs have been used as a speculative asset, and they have drawn increasing criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with validating blockchain transactions as well as their frequent use in art scams. The NFT market has been compared to a Ponzi scheme."

• What is Ethereum? Brief explanations for What is a blockchain? What is Ethereum? What is Ether (ETH)? What are smart contracts? Terminology: blockchain, Ethereum, ETH, EVM, nodes, accounts, transactions, blocks, smart conracts.
• Blockchain, explained (Investopedia, 6-25-19)

• The Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto (Kevin Roose, NY Times, 3-18-22) Crypto is a lot of things – including terribly explained. An excellent explainer.

What happens when a company gambles big with crypto:
• Crypto Was Always Smoke and Mirrors (Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 12-12-22) "A writer who runs his newsletter as a side-hobby played a key role in taking down FTX. A reminder that investigative journalism doesn't require the backing of a traditional news outlet; you just need an obsession and a little bit of specialized knowledge."~Simon Owens, honoring James Block, a 30-year-old Michigan psychiatrist who investigates financial crimes as a hobby, in a newsletter called Dirty Bubble Media.
• FTX’s $32 billion valuation was a fantasy, but nobody bothered to look at it closely (David Wallace Wells, Opinion, aka What Stage of Capitalism Is Sam Bankman-Fried?, NY Times newsletter, 11-21-22) "Cryptocurrency is little more than a decade old, and yet it has passed through several reputational phases: first, as the lawless province of black marketeers and hard-core libertarians obsessed with escaping government oversight; then as a speculative market in which many of those people made an astonishing and enviable amount of money; then as an investment sector for adventurous normies who might previously have turned to simple day-trading; then as an “asset class” eyed by big-money investors and establishment banks. It was only at the start of last year’s N.F.L. season that Matt Damon, unknowingly standing on the precipice of a coming “crypto winter” in which the value of Bitcoin fell by two-thirds, endorsed Crypto.com and reminded millions of Americans that “fortune favors the brave.” ...The death of FTX has been called crypto’s “Lehman moment,” but it was not the first such collapse — it follows the implosions of Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, Terra and Luna, among many others."
• Investor Losses From FTX’s Implosion Are Growing (Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Stephen Gandel, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni, NY Times, 11-17-22) The crypto exchange’s collapse is stoking fears of contagion across the industry. Meanwhile, FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is still speaking out. SBF, as Mr. Bankman-Fried is known, blamed “messy accounting” for the company’s losses, which could run into the billions. See Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself (Kelsey Piper, Vox, 11-16-22) FTX and his hedge fund Alameda Research had gambled with customer money without, he claims, realizing that’s what they were doing. Alameda — which he also owns — had borrowed far more money from FTX’s balance sheet for investments than he had realized, which ultimately left FTX vulnerable to the crypto equivalent of a bank run.
• How the FTX crash reveals the esports industry’s crypto partnership problem (Alexander Lee, Digiday, 11-17-22) The collapse of FTX last week left the cryptocurrency industry reeling — the esports industry caught in the crossfire. The situation made clear that esports is vastly over-reliant on brand partnership revenue, particularly from riskier industries such as crypto and gambling.
• A guide to handling crypto during a divorce (Vinamrata Chaturvedi, Quartz, 2024) Click through six pages.
• Michael Lewis (Once Again) Tells the Biggest Story in Finance (Alexander Lewis on Jane Friedman's blog, 11-22-22) Central to most of Michael Lewis’ works (The Big Short, Liar's Poker) are larger-than-life characters who find themselves at the center of major industry or societal shifts. Given that Lewis was working with Bankman-Fried for half a year before FTX’s fall, it’s safe to say that there’s much more to this already captivating story.
• FTX crash is eerily similar to the Bernie Madoff scandal, ex-regulator Sheila Bair says (Matt Egan, CNN Business, 11-15-22)

• Blockchain For Beginners: What Is Blockchain Technology? A Step-by-Step Guide (Nick Darlington, Blockgeeks, 9-22-21)

• What is a DAO in Crypto? Ray Dalio, YouTube video explainer, 43 minutes, 7-17-21) A DAO, or a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is a company set up to run by code on the blockchain. The people who own tokens associated with the DAO are responsible for voting on changes and proposing new ideas to keep the DAO up and running and improving. Dalio is author of Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
• Why Your Group Chat Could Be Worth Millions ( Max Read, Intelligencer, New York Magazine, 10-24-21) What’s a DAO? It’s a little bit cryptocurrency, a little message board, a little bit pyramid scheme.
• The Story of the DAO — Its History and Consequences (Samuel Falkon, The Startup, 12-24-17)
• Web3 is the future, or a scam, or both (Peter Kafka, Vox, 2-1-22) At its core, Web3 is a rebranding of crypto and blockchain, the technology based around a worldwide network of computers that talk to each other and validate and record transactions without human intervention or centralized oversight. It’s entirely possible that this is all Web3 will be: an interesting way for people to collect and/or speculate on digital artifacts.
• Mapping the celebrity NFT complex (Max Read, 2-2-22) Where do celebrities even hear about “bored apes”? Who is recommending that they buy one? Is this really the best thing any of them can think to do with their money and fame?
• What Is DeFi? (Alyssa Hertig, CoinDesk 9-18-20) DeFi is short for “decentralized finance,” an umbrella term for Ethereum and blockchain applications geared toward disrupting financial intermediaries. This financial technology is new, experimental and isn't without problems, especially with regard to security or scalability. Wikipedia has a pretty good writeup about Decentralized finance (DeFi) and excellent links to more stories and explanations.

• What is the point of crypto? (Emily Stewart's excellent "explainer," Vox, 5-16-22) Crypto is a solution in search of a problem — or problems. The strongest case for crypto is that it’s money outside the hands of banks and government. Crypto can also be expensive to use and trade. “There’s a lot of bad, excessively financialized, Ponzi-like things you can find in crypto, absolutely no question about that,” said Nic Carter, partner at venture capital firm Castle Island Ventures. “I think that’s the price we have to pay for building a financial system that’s more permissionless, right? It’s also more permissionless with regards to fraud.” Plus, "You don't literally own an item. You own a pointer to an image on a game company's servers. They can alter it or delete it. If they go out of business, it's gone. It's purely a marketing term."
• New to the Crypto World? Here Are the Terms to Know. (NY Times, 8-6-22) Terms to know: bitcoin, bitcoin mining, blockchain, Coinbase, cryptocurrencies (bestknown: Ether, Dogecoin and Tether), DeFi,NFT, stablecoin, web3, and 'the Merge.' Plus The Latecomer's Guide to Crypto (Kevin Roose, NY Times, 3-18-22) Explanations you might need, if you're new to the topic. "These days, 'crypto' usually refers to the entire universe of technologies that involve blockchains — the distributed ledger systems that power digital currencies like Bitcoin, but also serve as the base layer of technology for things like NFTs, web3 applications and DeFi trading protocols."
• The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Cryptocurrency (BlockchainTechnologies.com) “Cryptocurrency is the next evolution of money.” "A cryptocurrency (also called a crypto-coin, crypto-asset, crypto money, or token) is an internet-based medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure the digital exchange of financial transactions, control the creation of new units, and verify the transfer of it. Cryptocurrencies are considered to be decentralized and digital, where the transfer between users is peer-to-peer (P2P) and confirmed via a process commonly called mining. They are fungible to be used on everyday goods and services, just like government issued currencies, such as Dollars, Euros, Rupees, or Renminbis."

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• My Crypto Confession (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 11-23-22) Sam Bankman-Fried was a member of two cults: the cult of crypto and the cult of effective altruism, a philosophy that seeks to do the most good for the most people. 'This strange juxtaposition was too delicious for mainstream news organizations to resist. In retrospect, the whole thing looks like a nesting doll of fraud: a sketchy crypto product, built on a berserk approach to protecting customer assets, wrapped inside a fraudulent effort to “philanthropy wash” his ill-gotten wealth....Crypto was supposed to give us trust in a trustless world. Instead, FTX created a shadow banking system outside of federal assurances for checking accounts; in other words, it injected an untrustworthy institution into an otherwise trusting relationship between customers and their brokerage accounts.'
'Effective altruists helping to distribute SBF’s wealth built a big, powerful system whose central actor didn’t do what they wanted and didn’t seem to ultimately care what they wanted. Good intentions are worthless in the face of bad outcomes.'
• What the crypto crash tells us (Robert Reich, 6-16-22) 89 years ago today the US government moved to end the Ponzi schemes that led to the Great Depression. Now it's time to end the crypto bezzle.
• The man who got fired by his DAO (Casey Newton, Platformer, 2-10-22) The public face of Ethereum Name Service did a bad tweet. Does web3 fix this? 'An aspiration that people have for what we have taken to calling “web3” is that you could potentially take certain messy, emotional human processes and clean them up by putting them on the blockchain. “Smart contracts” write their terms directly into code, and actions they take are both public and irreversible. Enthusiasts believe this sort of “trustless” system can enable people come together to work on projects that they otherwise might not. If you get enough of those people together to work on a project, you might have a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. The Ethereum network, on which many DAOs run, describes them as “a safe way to collaborate with internet strangers.Remember when thousands of people came together within days to raise $47 million in an effort to buy a copy of the Constitution? The DAO is how they did it.”
• Blockchain Explained (Investopedia) Blockchain is a specific type of database. Blockchains store data in blocks that are then chained together. Different types of information can be stored on a blockchain but the most common use so far has been as a ledger for transactions. Decentralized blockchains are immutable, which means that the data entered is irreversible. For Bitcoin, this means that transactions are permanently recorded and viewable to anyone. [But read other entries!]
• Half a Billion in Bitcoin, Lost in the Dump (D.T. Max, New Yorker, 12-6-21) For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill.
• Are You Missing Out on the Metaverse? (John Herrman, NY Times, 11-2-21) Pitches for the future of the internet are banking on an old trick: FOMO. Have you heard about the metaverse? Even if you didn’t tune into Mark Zuckerberg’s 81-minute video disquisitionon the future of human interaction, which culminated with the rebranding of Facebook as Meta, the term has been bubbling up this year. See also Are We in the Metaverse Yet? (John Herrman and Kellen Browning, NY Times, 7-10-21) Crypto people say they’re building it. Gamers might already be living in it. The art world is cashing in on it. Web veterans are trying to save it. But what is it?
• The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding (John Cassidy, New Yorker, 5-17-22) As an inevitable crash occurs, many of the swindles and alleged swindles are coming to light. "Despite the proliferation of scams, and the fact that drug dealers and extortionists have long been among the most enthusiastic adopters of Bitcoin, it would be unfair to dismiss the entire crypto phenomenon as a fraud. The goal of disintermediating major financial institutions, and eliminating (or, at least, sharply reducing) some of their onerous fees, remains a worthy one....But, ever since big money got in on the crypto game—venture-capital firms, hedge funds, and, lately, some of the big Wall Street banks themselves—there has been a great deal of expensively produced puffery and flimflam surrounding the entire industry..."
• Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions? (Zeke Faux, Bloomberg, 10-7-21) In July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen summoned the chair of the Federal Reserve, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and six other top officials for a meeting to discuss Tether. The absurdity of the situation couldn’t have been lost on them: Inflation was spiking, a Covid surge threatened the economic recovery, and Yellen wanted to talk about a digital currency dreamed up by the former child actor who’d missed a penalty shot in The Mighty Ducks. But Tether had gotten so large that it threatened to put the U.S. financial system at risk. A wild search for the U.S. dollars supposedly backing the stablecoin at the center of the global cryptocurrency trade—and in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators and prosecutors.

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• Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains (Josh Stark, AIB, 4-13-22) 'If law, money, and government are the infrastructure of our civilization, then Atoms, Institutions, and Blockchains are some of the raw materials this infrastructure is built with....This is the problem that blockchains solve. They are a new source of hardness, with new strengths and weaknesses, which make them a suitable complement to address the limitations of Atoms and Institutions.

' “Hardness” is defined as the capacity of a system to make something very likely to be true in the future. Hardness is most useful where it is customizable or programmable — where humans can choose something specific we want to be true in the future.'

'This is my answer to why crypto matters, what problem blockchains solve, and how Ethereum can change the world.'
• Scarcity, ownership, and the inexorable rise of NFTs (Margot Atwell, On the Books, 4-9-22) Web 3, including Blockchain and NFTs, makes the argument that everything can and should be monetized.The only pleasure provided by NFTs is a speculative, acquisitive pleasure. This former Kickstarter employee questions the value of NFTs for writers and creators. She believes there are substantially less complex ways for writers to get paid.
• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Explained In 5 Minutes (YouTube, Simplilearn. 6-8-21). What makes any item non-fungible? (YouTube) (a) Exchangeability, (b) unique digital signature, (c) tradeability, and (d) distributed public ledger. So now you understand?
• NFTs: What Are They and How Much Should Writers and Publishers Care? (Jane Friedman, 11-2-21) If Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the money of the future, NFTs are your unique possessions of the future that can be sold for money. NFTs are a small component of a larger movement that predicts an upcoming shift from what is called web2 to web3. For book publishing specifically, one of the most immediate use cases of web3 could be a decentralized registry and distribution service for royalties, rights, and licensing.
• Interview: Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum In which we talk about the big shifts in crypto. (Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 9-1-22) "Ethereum, the blockchain platform he co-created (with Gavin Wood) has become the platform for the entire web3 world, and best-loved because he’s very clearly just a smart, friendly guy who just wants to build cool stuff and not rip anybody off." Smith talks "with Vitalik about proof-of-work vs. proof-of-stake, the recent crash in crypto markets, cryptocurrency security, decentralized governance, 'startup societies', and more."
• Trade Your Crypto. Buy Your NFTs. And Pay Your Taxes. (David Yaffe-Bellany and Ron Lieber, NY Times, 3-26-22) In 2021 the I.R.S. moved the question about whether you sold, exchanged or “otherwise” disposed of any financial interest in virtual currency. It’s now high up on the 1040 form — above even where you list your wages. What you need to know.
• From contemptuous to indifferent to curious to pretty damn excited: my journey to web3 (Adam Davidson) A series of posts showing his changing views, from Never Buy Bitcoin to "How Wall Street, financial regulators, and NPR showed me how disastrous entrenched bureaucracy can be" to "Why I would have made Planet Money a DAO if such a thing existed at the time (I’ll also explain what a DAO is)" to "I’m still wary of cryptocurrency, but I’m very excited about web3, DAOs, and other blockchain models."
• He thought he was logging in to his cryptocurrency account. Then hackers stole his life savings. (Ken Dilanian and Michelle Cho, NYC News, 5-14-22) Philip Martin lost $165,000 worth of Ethereum The FBI says it can't help him. Hackers had spoofed the url, changing it so slightly that it even fooled his web browser — which prompted him to automatically enter his log-in and password.

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• The Many, Many Beautiful Cartoon Women of Web3 (Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 4-18-22) Flower Girls, girlboss, 90s Babes--the women in crypto may be having more fun than the men, especially with Boys Club, 'a collective for women and nonbinary people who are interested in learning about crypto....Boys Club, which calls itself a “no bro zone,” recently launched a podcast and started hosting monthly talks on crypto-related topics at a restaurant in Brooklyn....They are also developing their own norms around the buying of NFTs, and many participants emphasize the tokens’ value as long-term investments, as opposed to quick cash-outs.' Good reading and links to more.
• Why social networks won't stop pushing NFTs (Casey Newton, Platformer, 7-7-22) Crypto crashed just as Twitter, Meta and Reddit rolled out NFT avatars. Now what? The NFT boom of the past couple years appears to be conclusively over for average consumers. For big social networks, though, it appears that the work is just getting started. The latest platform to embrace non-fungible tokens is Reddit, which on Thursday announced the arrival of “blockchain-backed collectible avatars” — unique profile pictures from artists riffing on Reddit’s “Snoo” alien mascot, giving purchasers the right to use them on and off the site.
• The Emperor's New Blockchain (Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, 3-22-22) "There is no practical way to build a real company entirely on the blockchain. While Andreessen and other venture capitalists tell people to “just build,” cryptocurrency products have become a quicksand of engineering talent, playing the same game that the industry has with the media — that the future isn’t here yet, but when it is, you’ll know that you were early. It’s the perfect kind of con — one that plays to the arrogance and intelligence of the mark."
• Code Is LOL (Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, 4-18-22) "If you believe that cryptocurrency cannot cause the widespread harm that Asbestos did, consider that much of it is wrapped up in the dollar-backed stablecoin Tether, a coin that is most certainly not backed by actual dollars, but some combination of loans and certificates of deposit. If Tether crumbles, it will cause a massive crash in the market as 82 billion dollars of Tethers are traded for whatever they can get. "And, of course, there’s also the chance of a regular old crash, like the one from 2017 to 2018 that sent Bitcoin from over $19,000 in 2017 to under $3,400. What’s important to know is that we have no real idea of why it crashed, or why it climbed to today’s price (around $40,0000 for one BTC), or why any of this happens." See also "It's Like the Early Days of the Internet" (The biggest lie in cryptocurrency, peddled by the biggest names in tech.)

• Venture capitalists pass on board seats to secure deals in hot crypto start ups (Miles Kruppa, Financial Times, 3-25-22) Founders of digital asset groups seek to avoid investor oversight in new Silicon Valley trend. Many founders want to limit the involvement of outside backers. The result is that many cryptocurrency start-ups, one of the fastest growing areas of tech investment, have avoided the same amount of investor oversight as other large private companies.

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• Crypto collapse erases more than $1 trillion in wealth, forcing a reckoning for everyday investors (Tory Newmyer, Jeff Stein, and Nitasha Tiku, WaPo, 1-25-22) Some are rethinking their plans; others say they are invested for the long term.
• Romance scammers collected $139 million in crypto last year (Emma Roth, The Verge, 2-14-22) Victims lost more money via crypto than any other form of payment.

"If someone pitches you on a 'great' Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does."
"Our systems are breaking or broken, straining under neglect and sabotage, and our leaders seem, at best, complacent, willing to coast out the collapse. We need something better. But a system that turns everyone into pretty digital landlords, that distills all interaction into transaction, that determines the value of something by how sellable it is and whether or not it can be gambled on as a fractional token, sold via micro-auction, that's not it." Read the comments, too.

• Op-ed: The good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to non-fungible tokens (Jordan Awoye, Awoye Capital, 2-2-22)
• ‘You’re playing with fire if you don’t report it.’ What happens if you don’t disclose crypto activity this tax season (BDore, cfp, CNBC, 1-25-22) There’s a question about “virtual currency” on the front page of your tax return, making it clear you need to disclose crypto activity. If you don’t report transactions and face an IRS audit, you may be hit with interest, penalties or even criminal charges.

• Line Goes Up: The Problem With NFTs (video, 2+ hours) This long video essay-critique by Canadian media critic Dan Olson went viral.

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• What’s That Problem With NFTs, Again? Jesse J. Rogers grapples vigorously with Dan Olsen’s “Line Goes Up,” 1-28-22)
• In response to Olson's video essay, Casey Newton (1-27-22) highlights some very real shortcomings in the next-generation internet, outlining Three things web3 should fix in 2022 (1-27-22):

---Make crypto transactions safe, reliable, and approachable to normal people.
---Make a moderately efficient blockchain “computer.”
---Develop technologies for mitigating harassment and abuse. And follow Newton's many links to further reading.
• The day NFTs went mainstream (Casey Newton, Platformer, 1-20-22, @CaseyNewton) The crypto vs. normie. Are you a circle or a hexagon?
• NFTs Have a Climate Problem (Hiroko Tabuchi, NY Times, 4-14-21) Making the digital artworks stamped with unique codes requires colossal amounts of computing power, and that means greenhouse gases.
• Are NFTs being used to launder money? (Martin Cheek, Fortune, 2-11-22) "Although transactions are recorded on a public ledger, purchasers can remain anonymous, a huge boon for anyone looking to discreetly wash assets. There’s no mechanism in place to prevent launderers from creating multiple accounts and transferring assets between them to further obfuscate the trail."

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• Museums Are Cashing In on NFTs (Scott Reyburn, NY Times, 3-25-22) Last year, NFTs, usually pegged to the high-flying but volatile Ethereum cryptocurrency, took the market for art and collectibles by storm, with sales estimated in the tens of billions. Auctions are making millions of dollars off art work held in museums' permanent collections. There’s money to be made, but most institutions are wary of getting involved and few have explored this digital asset as a fund-raising mechanism.
• One Year After Beeple, the NFT Has Changed Artists. Has It Changed Art? Hardly at All. (Blake Gopnik, NY Times, 3-3-22) "On March 11, 2021, all of one year ago, Mike Winkelmann, whose nom d’artiste is Beeple, sold a collage of computer illustrations for $69 million simply because that collage came attached to a digital certificate called an NFT. That colossal price launched a mad scramble among creators of all kinds — illustrators, musicians, photographers, even a few veteran avant-gardists — to join the NFT gold rush."
• Kleptocracy, Oligarchy and Cryptocurrency (Ed Zitron, Where's Your Ed At, 3-2-22) For Russians wanting to hide their money, "cryptocurrency is slow, awkward, and bad at being a currency. It is an unstable store of value, even in the case of stablecoins, and requires more currency to move the currency. It has a horrific learning curve, is rife with scams, and, crucially, even if you receive it, turning it back into another currency requires a bank that’s able to provide that currency. Right now, you’ll need cash because Visa and Mastercard (who owns Maestro) have blocked services in Russia, meaning that you’ll need to go to one of the huge lines to get to an ATM. It isn’t just wonky and slow. It’s also astoundingly impractical - and doesn’t solve any of the woes that face the Russian people under these sanctions. I’m not even getting into mining - it just isn’t remotely viable for most people.
"Crypto prices are horribly manipulated by - you guessed it! - those with the means to do so, which is about as close to the definition of a kleptocracy as you can get. And if you’re wondering how it’s an oligarchy, you should remember that 0.01% of Bitcoin’s holders control 27% of the supply, and people with large amounts of cryptocurrency can overwhelm and change decentralized finance products using their large amounts of centralized power - in this case cryptocurrency tokens."
• Hypocrisy and The Consequences of Monkey Laundering (Ed Zitron, Where's Your Ed At, 2-16-22) The NFT industry is full of nasty little hypocrites. What odds are more formidable than the value of your asset being dictated by a totally anonymous and untraceable person? Shadowy oligarchs can (and have) wield massive amounts of money in total silence to profit off of the people they’re conning into joining the system. Full of links to explanations and examples. One reason "the crypto industry - and many NFT pioneers - fear regulation is that what they're doing clearly maps to numerous different kinds of fraud that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission specifically warns people about."

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• We Found the Real Names of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Pseudonymous Founders (Katie Notopoulos, BuzzFeed News, 2-4-22) The buzzy NFT collection has raked in millions and the eager support of dozens of celebrities. But its founders’ anonymity raises questions about accountability in the age of crypto. Who and what is the power behind a multi-billion dollar entertainment-company-meets-scam.
• The blockchain collection Molly White's essays. "I have come to believe that these technologies are so harmful that I cannot ethically continue to ignore them, and must instead do my best to educate and advocate against their wider adoption.
• The Case for ‘Digital Gold’ Unravels as Bitcoin’s Plunge Deepens (Akayla Gardner, Bloomberg, 1-21-22)
• Bitcoin price falls sharply amid Wall Street sell-off, with value cut in half since November (Tory Newmyer and Rachel Siegel, WaPo, 1-22-22) Investors are fleeing riskier assets from tech stocks to cryptocurrencies as the Federal Reserve weighs whether to launch a U.S. digital currency.
• Cybersecurity threat gets federal attention and changes are coming (Spectrum News, 1-21-22)
• Crypto, Web3, and the Big Nothing (Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, 1-21-22) See also his On the Value of Time To quote: "Creating a predominantly play-to-earn gaming industry (which will not happen), you are actively participating in and fueling more broken and sad people, while quite literally empowering the whole hustle culture mindset. A core tenet of hustle culture is believing that you should be optimizing your day to extract the most value out of it, always hustling, missing sleep and avoiding relationships so that you aren’t distracted from making money."

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• Why gamers hate crypto, and music fans don't (Casey Newton, Platformer, 2-3-22)

• Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3 (Tim O’Reilly, Radar, 12-13-21) Are Web3 and NFTs the future or a scam? The person who defined Web 2.0 nearly two decades ago comments—with needed history and context—on Web3. (H/T Jane O'Reilly)

"The term Web 3.0 was used in 2006 by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, as a look forward to the next stage of the web beyond Web 2.0. He thought that the “Semantic Web” was going to be central to that evolution. It didn’t turn out that way. Now people make the case that the next generation of the web will be based on crypto...“Web3” as we think of it today was introduced in 2014 by Gavin Wood, one of the cocreators of Ethereum. Wood’s point is that the blockchain replaces trust in the good intentions of others with transparency and irrevocability built into the technology....Cryptographic mechanisms ensure that once transactions are verified as valid and added to the blockchain, they can’t be tampered with later. The same mechanisms also ensure that all transactions are signed and executed with appropriate “permissions” (no one should be able to send digital assets from Alice’s account, except for Alice herself)....I love the idealism of the Web3 vision, but we've been there before. During my career, we have gone through several cycles of decentralization and recentralization."
• Why Blockchain Is Hard (Jimmy Song, Cryptocurrency, Medium, 5-14-18)
• How Blockworks is building a crypto media empire (Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, 2-15-21)
•OSINT (SecJuice) A selection of articles related to OSINT (open source intelligence), written by members of the Secjuice writers collective. Secjuice is a volunteer led collective of 100+ writers focused on cybersecurity, information security, network security and open source intelligence. See, for example, The Pig Butchers (Michael Eller, Secjuice, 12-30-22) Pig butchering is when scammers fatten up a pig before sending it off for slaughter. But the scammers aren't fattening a pig, they're fattening their pockets, as in Fraudulent Cryptocurrency Trading Portals (Michael Eller, LinkedIn, 8-30-22)
• What does blockchain mean for health care? (Christopher H. Loo, KevinMD, 12-22-2020) Think of the blockchain as the internet “on steroids.” "A blockchain is a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. The key concept here is that the blockchain is immutable, decentralized, secure, transparent, self-governing, and self-regulating." It sez here, this is going to revolutionize the health care industry.

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• Is the music industry's future on the blockchain? (Casey Newton, Platformer, 11-23-21) Royal's Justin Blau and Paradigm's Fred Ehrsam on how selling royalties directly to fans could end predatory record deals. The idea with the startup called Royal is to take the traditional record industry model, in which the label might keep 80 percent of all future royalties, and flip it to one where the artist keeps 80 percent. The potential for more consumer applications of crypto has been apparent since Ethereum was created. At one point the record label doesn’t necessarily need to be a part of it at all.
• The Rise of the Crypto Writer? On What Literary NFTs Might Mean for the Book World (LitHub,6-25-21) Walker Caplan on Blockchain, Blake Butler, and the Uneasy Intersection of Art, Tech, and Money. As NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, flooded the Internet, everywhere from Twitter to The New York Times, Butler had an idea: he turned that scrolling action into a GIF, pages flashing before the viewer’s eye, and minted the GIF as a non-fungible token. An NFT is a digital asset backed up by the ethereum blockchain that represents a real-world or digital object like a piece of art or a video.
• Small Group of Insiders Is Reaping Most of the Gains on NFTs, Study Shows (Joanna Ossinger, Crypto, Bloomberg, 12-6-21) Study from Chainalysis shows that early access via ‘whitelist’ helps. Highly sophisticated investors get most of NFT profits.
• NFTs Can Offer You a Token to the 'Digital Country Club' (Timothy Collins, Real Money, 8-7-21) NFTs are non-fungible tokens, which can get pricey. When people buy those cyberpunk-style NFT images, they aren't buying a JPEG; they're often buying into a community with access to events and more. Kind of like paying to join a country club whose events they don't go to very often.
• 6 Best Crypto Cold Wallets You Should Be Using (Zen Ledger) This is so weird I had to post it. There are hot or cold crypto wallets. Who knew?
• Why most NFT owners are insufferable on social media (Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, 10-6-21) "NFTs were supposed to be about supporting art, but in most cases, the art is beside the point.... It doesn’t take you long to draw parallels to multi-level marketing companies (MLMs).... Crypto enthusiasts like to compare owning an NFT to buying a limited edition concert tshirt from your favorite band. But at least that tshirt has some tangible value....Outside of Bitcoin itself, most everyday people would struggle to name a single Blockchain product. So forgive me if I’m a tad skeptical of yet another wave of Blockchain technology hype."
• Are expiring copyrights the next goldmine for NFTs? (Elaine Hu, Coin Telegraph, 7-3-22) Most people think of digital art when it comes to NFTs, but in the future, expiring copyrights could be preserved, refreshed and repurposed using nonfungible token technology.
• A Crypto True Believer Makes His Case (Charlie Warzel, Galaxy Brain, 11-19-21) Dispatches from a weird economy. "The point for me where crypto clicked and I became a true believer was getting interested in Ethereum and smart contracts and the whole permission-less part of the system where people can almost build anything they can imagine without needing to fit into somebody’s conception of what the internet and technology should be like."
• LA Blockchain Summit curated annual conference & expo of the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry
• The Truth About Blockchain (Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2017) It will take years to transform business, but the journey begins now. "The technology at the heart of bitcoin and other virtual currencies, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. The ledger itself can also be programmed to trigger transactions automatically."

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• The Problem With NFTs (Dan Olson's popular two-hour video, Folding Ideas, 2021) If someone pitches you on a "great" Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does.

• How Snap is sidestepping the metaverse (Casey Newton, Platformer, 12-7-21) Forget your interoperable, NFT-based future — Snap is betting directly on hardware and developers. While other companies are painting grand visions of the metaverse via press interviews and op-eds, Snap has been quietly focused on two of the ideas that can actually bring it into existence: steadily improving its hardware every year or so, and attracting developers by giving away that hardware and offering them ways to profit from it. What will set it apart is new hardware: augmented reality (AR) glasses and virtual reality helmets that will bring us together in a series of linked experiences that occupy an ever-increasing share of our waking hours. Platforms have taken to calling this "the metaverse."

• What is blockchain technology? (BlockchainTechnologies.com)

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Equipment, software, and other tools and tutorials for creating multimedia

AUDIO TOOLS, TECHNOLOGY, & TUTORIALS

~Audio tools and technology
(including Choosing the right microphone)
~Recording phone interviews
~Choosing a microphone
~Audio editing software and tutorials
~Tutorials for radio
~Scanning, repairing, and organizing photos
~Video production and editing

• Transom.org’s tools page This used to be a showcase and workshop for New Public Radio. The site is totally changed now, so I don't know where things are but it used to provide the best in-depth reviews of digital recorders, microphones, editing software and more.
• 7 Digital Recording Devices for Oral History Interviews (Audio Transcription Center)
• One Simple Trick To Improve Credibility (Bill Andrews, Discover, 4-18-18) "In all cases, the listeners thought the speakers in the clips with better sound production were more credible, and their topics more interesting. As the paper’s abstract succinctly sums up, “Despite identical content, people evaluated the research and researcher less favorably when the audio quality was low, suggesting that audio quality can influence impressions of science.”

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• Glossary of audio terms (Atlantic Technology)
• The Basics (Jay Allison on recording in audio for public radio, Transom Tools)
• The B&H Handheld Digital Audio Recorders Buyer's Guide (Sam Mallery). Some advise going to this website, calling B&H (The Professional's Source 800.606.6969 or 212.444.6615), and letting one of their knowledgeable sales people help you decide what to buy. Another good source of audio gear: BSW (800.426.8434).
• Audio Resources (Mindy McAdams, Journalists' Toolkit)

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• CNET product reviews (equipment in many categories) and reviews of freeware (free software downloads for Windows). Or check out reviews at Macworld.
****Digital Audio Field Recording Equipment Guide (Andy Kolovos's excellent list, Vermont Folklife Center). See also his list of list of Audio Field Recording Equipment Guide -- Retired Equipment (mostly analog)
• Audio-recorders often recommended for interviewing for personal and oral histories. The links here take you to the Amazon page, where you can most easily read details--even if you are buying equipment from a local retailer. (If you do buy through these links, I get a tiny referral fee.)
---Zoom H1n Handy Recorder. "“The Zoom H1 is my favorite (of several) portable digital recorder for all-purpose recording. I’m using it primarily for recording oral histories and this fits the bill. The quality of the stereo recordings are top notch and I have no complaints…” –Eliot Rosewater, on Audio Transcription Center site. The Zoom H1 is available only through third-party sellers.
---Zoom H2n
---Zoom H4n handy recorder
---Tascam DR-40 portable digital recorder (read the comments and buy the windscreen, too, if you'll be recording outdoors)
---Marantz Professional PMD661 (handheld professional broadcast quality recorder and hence more expensive)
• Which voice recorder will best capture my parents' oral history? David Gee wants to record his parents telling their life stories sothat their grandchildren can listen to it. What sort of voice recorder should he use? (Jack Schofield, The Guardian, 3-21-13) He recommends a good quality dictation machine, such as the Sony ICD-PX312 (he's British--maybe that's why it's harder to find here?) and the Tascam DR-05, among others.

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• Portable Digital Recorder Comparison (Transom.org, fall 2009)
• Pixlr (a watered down version of Photoshop)
• How-to digital media and multimedia tutorials (Advanced Media Institute, UC Berkeley)
• Podcasting: Telling Stories in Sound (Advanced Media Institute, UC Berkeley)
• Why pay for Office and Photoshop when you can get these alternatives for free? (David Nield, Popular Science, 1-30-18)
• CreativeLive.com
• An introduction to digital audio recording (Association of Health Care Journalists, 9-28-07)
• How to digitally record and transcribe an interview (Jack Dougherty, 11-12-13)
• Audio In Close Up - Which Lavalier Should I Use? (Dan Brockett, on Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro website, 4-7-08)
• Microphones (B&H)

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• Hindenburg Journalist (this links to a 30-day trial for this user-friendly audio editor--audio producing software designed especially for radio, audiobook producers, podcasters, and home users. The Danish manufacturer Nsaka has posted several tutorials here, and Jeff Towne's review on Transom.org may also be helpful. Oral historian Elisabeth Pozzi-Thanner says, "In those rare cases when I agree to record someones voice long distance, because I really can not get to them in person, I use the oral history audio editing software Hindenburg Journalist."
• How to Find an Audio Recorder That's Right for You, part 1 (Dan Curtis, personal historian). Here's part 2
• How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media and Longevity of Recordable CDs and DVDs . Thanks to Dave Morrison ("Nerd in a hurry") for those links. Dave recommends not buying the cheapest blank CDs available. For a few cents more per disc, you can buy a brand that is "made to a higher standard," such as JVC/Taiyo Yuden.
• Field Recording in the Digital Age and Guide to audio recording equipment (Andy Kolovos, Vermont Folklife Center). See also his list of retired equipment, mostly analog
• Audio technology tutorial (Historical Voices, somewhat technical, not entirely up-to-date, but useful)

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• Web Audio: MP3 Streaming (Joshua Barlow's tutorial, Transom.org)
• Switch Audio File Converter Software (convert or compress sound files from one format to another within minutes of downloading)
• Ask Doug: Choosing a Digital Audio Recorder ( Doug Boyd, DigitalOmnium, 12-29-12). A site with many helpful entries.)
• Oral History Association on Technology
• Soundslides (a rapid production tool for still image and audio Web presentations)
• Storycorps (Andrew Shaffer, Oral History Association blog, 11-13-15). The good, the bad, and the ugly about the StoryCorps app.
• Room Acoustics Primer (this one's for listening to music)
• Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes (PDF)
• History of various media (Richard Hess)
• Remote Recording Survival Guide (Tom Lopez, Transom.org, 6-1-02, on the equipment you'll need if traveling to record at remote locations)
• Recording Highs and Lows (Barrett Golding, Transom.org)
• HOW TO: Convert DVD (VOB) Files to Editable MPEGs (Scott Nadsan, Ensemble Notes, 1-13-11). One of many Tips & Tricks, including, for example, a six-part "crash course" on video conversion.

CHOOSING A MICROPHONE

• "A very handy device is the Olympus TP-8 microphone. It is a small earbud that you plug into the microphone jack of a recorder, place the earbud in your ear, hit "record," and hold the phone over that ear. It costs $23 on Amazon: (Olympus TP-8 Telephone Pick-up Microphone), $20 at B&H Photo Video. Since it does not connect directly with a phone, it works with any phone, landline or cellular.

~ Dan Keller on AHCJ listserv
• Microphones (B&H)
• Choosing the Right Microphone:An Overview of Popular Short Shotgun, Supercardioid, Hypercardiod and Cardioid Microphones (Dan Brockett, on Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro website, 1-7-08).
• Rode NT1KIT Cardioid Condenser Microphone Package A studio condenser microphone, for voice and general studio use. Read the comments.
• Audio In Close Up - Which Lavalier Should I Use? (Dan Brockett, Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro website, 4-7-08)
• Stereo-Types (Jeff Towne, Transom.org, on collecting stereo sound)
• What Microphone Do I Get? (Jeff Towne, Transom.org, 6-11-01)

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Transcribing and dictation tips and tools and software

Note the dates on articles, as details often change.

• Audio | podcast | transcribe (Journalist's Toolbox's excellent links to transcription resources and issues)

"Editor’s note: Before using any transcription tool, think about the security of your data. Read these articles from Politico and the Freedom of the Press Foundation about security issues with these tools and apps.
---My journey down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app (Phelim Kine, Politico, 2022)

Otter.ai has saved reporters countless hours transcribing interviews, but 'there's an awful lot of personal data and the potential for leakage of sources.' According to a former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, "any journalist who transcribes an interview with a confidential source and puts it up on Otter has got to live with the possibility that Otter will wind up giving that transcript to the FBI."

---How secure are journalists’ favorite transcription tools? (Martin Shelton and Yael Grauer, Freedom of the Press Foundation, 2022)

"In an informal poll we heard from more than 50 journalists about their favorite transcription services and what they liked about each. Given the necessity of transcription, we emailed and researched the top 5 most referenced services — Descript, Otter.ai, Rev, Temi and Trint — and asked: How safe are these services and what are they doing to protect your data and your private recordings and transcripts?" "For sensitive interviews, it might be best to transcribe it yourself." For example: Otter.ai "The Ferrari of transcription tools. Note privacy issues on free version, which give you 600 free minutes of transcription. Paid version has more privacy."
What to do if you "are working with sensitive material — recordings that could put someone at risk if they were made public or turned over to authorities. If you have access to a service that does use two-factor authentication, like Rev or Otter.ai, it’s time to turn it on."

• Otter.ai is limiting its free plan to 30-minute transcriptions starting December 1st (Chaim Gartenberg, The Verge, 11-23-21) Down from the previous 40-minute limit.
• AI-powered transcription service Otter.ai can now record from Google Meet (Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, 1-21-21) Otter.ai, the A.I.-powered voice transcription service that already integrates with Zoom for recording online meetings and webinars, is bringing its service to Google Meet’s over 100 million users. In this case, Otter.ai will provide its live, interactive transcripts and video captions by way of a Chrome web browser extension.

• Otter.ai (the "Otter app"), or "Otter, your AI-powered assistant" (AI being "artificial intelligence"). Available for Mac and Android, dictate 6 hours a month for free, and more if you refer someone. You have to go through and edit/clean it up, especially with technical terms, but it beats transcribing entirely yourself.
• Otter's Quick-Start Guide
• Otter's online tutorials
• There’s No Perfect Transcription App, But Otter Is Getting There (Jared Newman, Fast Company, 5-10-18) The transcription app Otter is launching a premium service as it seeks to become the Dropbox of voice recording. "Otter’s AI-driven transcriptions are far from flawless. Misinterpretations are common, and the app has a strange tendency to chop one stretch of dialog into multiple lines, sometimes even mid-sentence."

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• The Best Transcription Services (Signe Brewster, Wirecutter, 6-30-2020) Wirecutter found Temi to be the best option for people who need audio transcribed quickly and inexpensively. Adding in 2020: "After additional testing, we still recommend Temi for most jobs and GoTranscript when you don’t mind paying more for perfect accuracy."
• Audio Transcription Software or Dictation Software? (Flawless Transcription, 9-28-16) With speech to text software, the user talks into a microphone at their computer and what they say is is typed out in a text document. Dragon Naturally Speaking is "dictation" software, which learns your voice over time, making speech recognition more accurate the more you use it, and you give the software grammar commands to end sentences & start new paragraphs. Transcription software such as Express Scribe allows the user to load an audio or video file and hear it played back, using either keyboard hot keys or a foot pedal, and the transcriber types the words they hear into a text document. With transcription software, a document can be time-stamped, to indicate what was said at Minute X or Minute Y.
• Say What? A Non-Scientific Comparison of Automated Transcription Services (Roxanne Khamsi, The Open Notebook, 12-17-19) What I like about this science-writer survey is (1) It explains all options; (2) There's a chart showing relative costs of the services; (3) Automated transcription returned transcripts faster than Rev did, and "the accuracy of the machine-transcribed text seemed to have more to do with the quality of audio recording and clarity of pronunciation than what service was used." (Use better equipment and you get faster transcription.) Carl Zimmer says he thinks automated transcription has only recently passed an accuracy threshold that makes it useful.
• How a Gig Worker Revolt Begins (Nathaniel Popper, NY Times,11-19-19) Rev was just a small start-up offering online transcriptions. Now it’s the latest symbol of a gig-economy company whose workers are fed up with outrageously low fees. According to a colleague, Rev explains "that pay went down for the easiest jobs and went up for harder jobs. They wanted to incentivize workers to take the harder jobs that tended not to get selected. If a Rev subcontractor takes some easy jobs and some hard jobs, they would see no changes in their take home pay." Rev offers The Full Story. (One option: Develop your own roster of transcription workers, hire them directly, and pay them better.)

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• The best automatic transcription tools for journalists (Ren LaForme, Poynter, 11-20-17) "We tested (or tried to test — more on that later) eight of the most popular transcription tools aimed at journalists, including Dragon Dictation, Happy Scribe, oTranscribe, Recordly, Rev, Sonix, Trint and YouTube." Their accuracy rates are low." They found Trint "the best choice for automatic transcription for journalists." Why? Read the story. See how they are all rated for accuracy, timing, cost, and for general comments about differences among them. Rev (human transcription) earned the highest rating for accuracy (82%. vs 61% for Trint, which is automatic)
As one journalist observed, one advantage of the automated transcription is that the audio and transcription are embedded together, so you can put your cursor on line 20, where X says "not until the cows come home" and hear what's said aloud as you read the words. As another journalist observed, "keep in mind that if you are doing anything confidential, whatever you put on the cloud can be accessed by the government simply by asking the third party running the cloud service; they do not need a court warrant."
Trint is the go-to service for some journalists. One journalist uses Temi, the automated wing of Rev, because he listens to the recordings a few times anyway, and the automated transcripts are good enough to start with--though for his own voice he uses Dragon. Another journalist finds that Temi does a better job than Trint and, while not perfect, is less expensive. She makes edits while reviewing the transcript. Another journalist uses Trint to do the first draft, which he exports to his computer, then makes corrections listening to audio on ExpressScribe, which he can control with a foot pedal (which speeds things up).
• The Best (Free) Speech-to-Text Software for Windows (Kannon Yamada, Make Use Of, 11-2-17) I like his side-by-side comparisons of what was actually said and how it came out in the transcription.
• Finally, an easy, quick way to transcribe audio, for free (Leah Fessler, Quartz, 12-19-17) Docs, Google’s free, cloud-based response to Microsoft Word, has a dictation software tool called Voice Typing (it comes pre-installed and requires no plugins).
• From Your Mouth to Your Screen, Transcribing Takes the Next Step (By John Markoff, NY Times, 10-2-19) Improvements in automatic speech transcription are beginning to have a significant impact on the workplace.

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• Automatic Transcription Services Compared: Which Should You Use? PopUp Podcasting, Dec. 2017) PopUp Podcasting ran two audio files through several automated transcription services and then rated them. "The leader of the pack is Rev, which isn't really automated transcription" (humans are involved, being underpaid, of course). Jump to individual reviews for Rev, Go Transcribe, Trint, Pop Up Archive, Happy Scribe, VoiceBase, Spoken Data, and Sonix, and read the individual reviews after that initial report card.
• CLK Transcription, for medical transcriptions, highly recommended by two healthcare journalists. CarolLee hires single moms and her service is fast (usually 72 hours) accurate, easy to deal with, and priced fairly, they say.
• Rev (Rev.com) Recommended by several journalists as "pretty good," better than most because it uses professional transcriptionists instead of software, and $1 a minute for its basic service. Also good at providing another transcriptionist when you have problems with the first one. BUT: 'There Is a Point Where a Person Can't Do Anymore' (Bryan Menegus, Gizmodo, 11-12-19) The dirt-cheap transcription service Rev is lowering the already precarious minimum pay for its independently contracted workforce to a base rate of 30 cents per minute. Not fair pay, says the Rev transcriber. One writer said she's happy with Speechpad.
• Express Scribe transcription software (NCH software, professional audio player software for PC or Mac designed to help transcribe audio recordings--there is a free version and a premium version). Foot-pedal-controlled digital transcription audio player. A typist can install it on their computer and control audio playback using a transcription foot pedal or keyboard (with 'hot' keys).
• Google suspends transcriptions of recordings from its voice assistant in Europe (Jennifer Elias, CNBC, 8-2-19) Google "announced a temporary suspension of voice recording processing by its Google Assistant product in the European Union learned that a contractor the company had partnered with to improve the tool’s accuracy had leaked snippets of more than 1,000 private conversations, including some that contained medical information, to a media outlet. Although Google Assistant isn’t a transcription service, the incident underscored that high-tech speech recognition systems are vulnerable to security issues." (H/T Roxanne Khamsi, The Open Notebook, for the quote.)
• AltoEdge's USB Foot Pedal.
• Review of Dragon Naturally Speaking 13 Premium (TechSpective)
• Transcription Tips (National Archives)
• Transcription Center Tips (Smithsonian tips--both general and specific--keep clicking and go deep!)
• Types of Transcription Explained: Verbatim vs. Intelligent vs. Edited Transcription (Globalme, 7-19-19)

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• How to Transcribe Audio to Text (Ofer Tirosh, Tomedes Translator's blog, 9-18-2020) The tricky part of transcribing audio to text is identifying the speakers, if there are multiple speakers--which is easier with video. One of the challenges with large-scale transcription jobs is working out how to transcribe it all within the client's deadline; a large rush project might require multiple transcribers.
• Tools and Tips for Rapid Transcription, Part 1 (Paul Lagasse, Active Voice, 12-9-14) Here he describes how he prepared for an on-site reporting and same-day summary-preparation job at a day-long conference in downtown DC. In Tools and Tips for Rapid Transcription, Part 2 (12-23-14), Lagasse covers his activities on the day of the conference itself. In Tools and Tips for Rapid Transcription, Part 3 (1-22-15), he discusses the tools and techniques he uses to turn his notes and recordings into a polished final product for the client--two of which are linked to below (FRedit and FileCleaner). Read about all the tools he recommends for editing transcripts, and see his rave review of NCH Software's Express Scribe.
• FRedit (Paul Beverley's powerful scripted global find and replace system, one of a series of his powerful editing macros)
• Editorium's FileCleaner plugin, which "allows you to clean up common typos including superfluous formatting; extraneous spaces, tabs, and returns; and stray punctuation. "FileCleaner cleans up common problems in electronic manuscripts, including multiple spaces, multiple returns, unnecessary tabs, improperly typed ellipses, ells used as ones, and so on. It turns double hyphens into em dashes, and hyphens between numerals into en dashes. It can also remove directly applied font formatting (such as Times 12 point) while retaining styles (such as Heading 1) and character formatting (such as italic and bold), quickly cleaning up those messy documents imported from other word processors or OCR programs."
• Ten top tips for transcribers (Liz Dexter, LibroEditing,
• How to Transcribe An Audio File With Express Scribe (ajiv Poddar, Scribie blog, 5-11-11)
• General Transcription Business Handbook + Style Guide by Christina Routon. (On Amazon you'll find more books on transcription as a business. I have not reviewed any of them.)

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• Transcribing oral history interviews (Pat McNees site)
• Indexing and Transcribing Your Interviews (Library of Congress, Veterans History Project)
• Transcription and Editing (U.S. Army Guide to Military History)
• Speaking Black Dialect in Courtrooms Can Have Striking Consequences (John Eligon, NY Times, 1-25-19) "Researchers played audio recordings of a series of sentences spoken in African-American English and asked 27 stenographers who work in courthouses in Philadelphia to transcribe them. On average, the reporters made errors in two out of every five sentences, according to the study. The findings could have far-reaching consequences, as errors or misinterpretations in courtroom transcripts can influence the official court record in ways that are harmful to defendants... While Pennsylvania court reporters must score 95 percent accurate on tests in order to be certified, the reporters in this study were fully accurate, on average, on just 59.5 percent of the sentences."
• Google suspends transcriptions of recordings from its voice assistant in Europe (Jennifer Elias, CNBC, 8-1-19) The voluntary action comes weeks after the company admitted some private conversations were available to contractors who evaluated the accuracy of Google Assistant’s speech recognition. The company admitted in mid-July that partners who work to analyze voice snippets from the Assistant leaked more than 1,000 private conversations to a Belgian news outlet. Some of those messages revealed sensitive information such as medical conditions and customer addresses.

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RECORDING PHONE INTERVIEWS

Rights, technologies, and processes

Do you have a right to record what someone else is saying? If so, is that right limited? Can you video-record a police officer interacting with someone?Can you record and publish a phone interview?Having recorded something, can you share it with the world?

People have very different opinions about what works best, and technology is rapidly improving, so read everything here! Can it record both inbound and outgoing calls, are you in control of the audio, is it easy to hit a button and record or do you have to jump through hoops?
• Recording Phone Calls (Jeff Towne, Jay Allison, transom.org, 2-26-09). The excellent Transom.org (for National Public Radio) offers advice non-NPR people can use. Not advice for dummies!
• Tape recording laws at a glance (U.S., state by state, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)
• The right to record keeps inching its way through the courts (Grayson Clary, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 2-13-23) Every federal court of appeals to address the question agrees: The First Amendment protects your right to film police officers engaged in the performance of their public duties. A recent court’s decision also underlines the unreasonable difficulty that members of the press and public still face in holding police officers accountable when they violate the rights the First Amendment plainly guarantees.Too many courts of appeal have still managed to avoid ruling on whether the right to record exists; too many more have found creative reasons to avoid enforcing it when violated. At some point, the Supreme Court’s intervention will be necessary to make the right a practical reality nationwide. Without the deterrent effect of a meaningful damages remedy, it’s hard to see how a bare announcement that the press and public have a right to record will change officers’ behavior.
• Recording Phone Calls and Conversations (Digital Media Law) State and federal wiretapping laws may limit your ability to record telephone calls or in-person conversations (including by recording video that captures sound. Breaking those laws may expose you to risks of criminal prosecution or a civil claim for money damages. Read this before you proceed.
• State Law: Recording (Digital Media Law) Each state has its own wiretapping statute and its own rule on how many parties need to consent to the recording of a phone call or conversation in order to make it lawful. State law also varies on whether or not (and under what circumstances) you are permitted to use recording devices in public meetings and court hearings. See the state-specific information on recording laws
• Record Your Own Radio Documentary (a tutorial by producer David Isay, Sound Portraits). An interview guide and an interview list.
• Going Digital (Jordan Raphael, Online Journalism Review 1-12-04).
• The Easiest Way to Record Phone Interviews? Have the Subject Use an iPhone to Record Themselves ((Neal Augenstein, MediaShift, December 10, 2012--he's talking to journalists, but for high-quality audio on public media)
• Tape-A-Call (Personal historian Wendy Ledger tested some call-recording apps for iPhone and recommends this one, for those who need to record a lot of phone interviews.)
• How to Record a Podcast Using Skype (Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani, Skype for Interviews, Digital Podcast, 22-minute online video, free) " If you can get both parties using Skype you can create exceptional quality. You can also use Skype out which will give you a telephone quality on one side and broadcast quality on the other side."
• How to Record Skype Conversations: Tools, Resources, Tips (Amit Agarwal, Digital Inspiration 6-7-06)
• Six essentials for recording phone interviews (Science Writer's Handbook)
• Practical Tips for Recording Phone Calls, Conversations, Meetings, and Hearings (Digital Media Law)
• How to Record Phone Calls to a Hard Drive Automatically (Alexander Poirier, eHow, 11-5-10)
• Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes (PDF file)
Apps and other tools
• Dynametric telephone and webinar recording equipment
• The Olympus TP-8 telephone recording device (a telephone pick-up microphone, $18.95, records both sides of a conversation). You plug it into the microphone jack on your digital audio recorder, put the earpiece in your ear and press the record button. The microphone in the earpiece picks up both sides of the conversation on either a landline or cell phone.
• Search for "telephone recording device" at Amazon, B&H, and other vendor sites for other options.
• FreeConferenceCall.com. With this free bridge line service, both parties dial the same number and key in an access code and press #9 to record, After the call, FreeConferenceCall emails you a link to the recording, which is available as both a WAV and mp3 file. The recording quality is good (don't know if it is good enough for micromedia). You may wonder, as FeeFighters.com did (and explains): How Can A Free Conference Call Be Free?
• How To Record Skype Video – Skype Video Call Recording Tools (ReelSEO.com online video guide--this is a review of various software options)
• Hindenburg (this audio editing software records Skype calls directly into the software. Call via Skype, record the interview, edit the interview.)
• Free Skype call recorder: http://voipcallrecording.com/
• Recording Skype calls in video-audio or audio-only with Evaer software (inexpensive--you get better sound if you record audio only)
• NoNotes.com (with this app, which you can use on an iPhone, you can record outgoing or incoming calls (stored in the cloud), paying by the minute, and you can get transcription, too (quality varies). Some interviewers don't like losing control of the recording.
• FreeConferenceCallHD.com. You login, schedule and manage conference calls, can download a call and play it as an mp3.
• Audio Hijack Pro (record any audio from applications like iTunes, Skype, or DVD player
• Esonic One-Touch Mobile Cell Phone Recorder U2 (gets some so-so and negative reviews)
• SuperTintin, another Skype video call recorder (and as described and rated on C/Net--some negative)
• GoToMeeting (good for recording various types of group conferencing (products: GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining).

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AUDIO EDITING SOFTWARE AND INSTRUCTIONS

• Hindenburg (radio editing software). See Hindenburg guides
• Hindenburg Journalist (multitrack audio editor designed for podcasters, audio producers and radio journalists, focused on storytelling)
• Editing Audio: Hindenburg vs WaveLab vs Audacity (Linux vs Mac)
• Hindenburg (Jeff Towne, Transom, 10-25-10) Transom "Tools Editor Jeff Towne has been testing some alternatives to ProTools and just test-drove Hindenburg from the Danish Company, Nsaka, and finds it has the advantage of being designed specifically for "us". Jeff says, "It’s built by radio people for making radio stories, podcasts and other documentary-style productions, rather than multi-track music projects. The developers seem intent on keeping the program simple and stable, easy to learn and use, even by non-technical people."And they have a free version. For both Mac and PC. Check it. "-Jay Allison,
• How Hindenburg Journalist Stole My Heart (Rick Coste, Podcaster News, 3-7-15) "You'll see references to Audacity, Garageband, Adobe Audition, Reaper, and a few others. I was a Garageband man myself when it came to the final mix of my shows. Audacity has always been my tool of choice for editing. It's because they were both free when I started out and didn't take too long to master....o what it is it about Hindenburg Journalist that stole my heart? One word… “Organization”....what sealed the deal for me is the fact that it’s geared towards those of us who produce shows focused on narrative....A typical episode that I produce contains twenty audio files or more. These represent the narration, voice artists, music, effects, and show branding files. What Journalist allows me to do is add these files into an organized structure using ‘clipboards’."
"I have used Hindenburg several times to clean the audio track in my video recordings. Does a great job."-Dave Bloom

• Audacity: download for free here (it's a free cross-platform sound editor). (Have old cassette tapes you want to transfer to your computer? You may be able to do so through Audacity, with a line cord connected from a tape player.)
• Audacity Forum
• Audacity tutorials step-by-step instructions for performing common tasks in Audacity
• More Audacity tutorials , as well as Tips

• Switch Audio File Converter Software (convert or compress sound files from one format to another within minutes of downloading)
• Lynda.com (self-paced hands-on learning for software such as Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Final Cut, InDesign, Photoshop, $25 a month) -- a lot of people swear by this site!
• Edit Smarter with Larry Jordan (newsletter and other resources)
• Top Tutorials & Tips (an Audacity wiki).
• Mindy McAdams’ Superfast Guide to Audio Editing (on Audacity), Part 1 (PDF), and here’s Part 2 .
Download them, save them, and print them out.
• Simple guide to editing in Audacity (text with visuals, from Steeple).
• Using Audacity (a multimedia presentation, one of many useful Teacher Training Videos from Russell Stannard (http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/).
• Digital Editing of Field Audio (Vermont Folklife Center)
• From Digital Audio Recording to Audio CD: Part 1 - Audio into Audacity and Part 2 - Basic Audio Edits (Susan Kitchens, Family Oral History Using Digital Tools)

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AUDIO RECORDING AND EDITING EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, AND TUTORIALS

• Recording During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Jeff Towne, Transom, 3-16-2020) A guide to some best practices for in-person recording, plus alternatives for recording remotely-- covering mic sanitizing, windscreens, covers, booms, etc. For complete safety, you want to record remotely, and Jeff offers options for recording by phone and Skype, along with apps and devices to help with it all.
• Audio Recorders (Berkeley) Scroll down for reviews of different professional quality audio recorders. For radio-quality recording you will want a good microphone.
• Audio Tools (Transom Tools), a showcase and workshop for New Public Radio
• One Simple Trick To Improve Credibility (Bill Andrews, Discover, 4-18-18) "In all cases, the listeners thought the speakers in the clips with better sound production were more credible, and their topics more interesting. As the paper’s abstract succinctly sums up, “Despite identical content, people evaluated the research and researcher less favorably when the audio quality was low, suggesting that audio quality can influence impressions of science.”
• The Basics (Jay Allison on recording in audio for public radio, Transom Tools)
• Modern Recording Techniques by David Miles Huber (Audio Engineering Society Presents)
• All About Digital Audio, part 1, "The Basics" (Hugh Robjohns, Sound on Sound, May-Oct 1998).

---part 2 (Quantising and Oversampling),
---part 3 (Error Detection/Correction),
---part 4 (Digital Tape Recording Formats ),
---part 5 (Disk-Based Recording Technology ,
---part 6 (Making Connections & Digital Clocking).
• The Art of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering, and Production by David Gibson
• Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins by Bjorgvin Benediktsson
• Teen Reporter Handbook (Radio Diaries)
• The B&H Handheld Digital Audio Recorders Buyer's Guide (Sam Mallery). Some advise going to this website, calling B&H (The Professional's Source 800.606.6969 or 212.444.6615), and letting one of their knowledgeable sales people help you decide what to buy.
• Another good source of audio gear: BSW (800.426.8434).
• How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media and Longevity of Recordable CDs and DVDs . Thanks to Dave Morrison ("Nerd in a hurry") for those links. Dave recommends not buying the cheapest blank CDs available. For a few cents more per disc, you can buy a brand that is "made to a higher standard," such as JVC/Taiyo Yuden.
• Oral History Tutorial (Matrix, Audio-Tech, somewhat technical -- to help researchers implement several important aspects of audio technology in the field, studio, and research lab).
• Digital Oral History Workshop (Baylor University's online guide to principles in selecting and using digital equipment and software for recording, preserving, and disseminating oral history)
• BBC Advanced Audio Tips(for radio, but with applications for personal history interviewing). NEW (for students): Hands on History: A Guide to Oral History (download free PDF). The Hands on History videos appear not to be accessible in U.S. but some of the how-to-build-a-castle type instructions are.
• DIY Resource: How To Record High-Quality Sound With Your Phone (Theresa Chin, Innovation Lab, Youth Radio, 2-26-15)
• The Easiest Way to Record Phone Interviews? Have the Subject Use an iPhone to Record Themselves (Neal Augenstein, MediaShift, December 10, 2012--he's talking to journalists, but for high-quality audio on public media)
• Family Oral History Using Digital Tools. Technical whiz kid Susan Kitchens reviews equipment and, as a consultant, can help you with technical questions. Of particular use may be this series: From Digital Audio Recording to Audio CD: Part 1 - Audio into Audacity; Part 2: Making minor edits to increase sound level; Part 3: Exporting your recording to a file format that iTunes can use and creating an Audio CD and Part 4 (Dividing the audio into sections based on topics of discussion using Audacity’s Label Tracks, "to come").
• Glossary of audio terms(Atlantic Technology -- check out their Learning Center)
• Portable Digital Recorder Comparison (Transom.org, fall 2009)
• How to Find an Audio Recorder That's Right for You, part 1 (Dan Curtis, personal historian). Here's part 2
• DIY Toolkit: Fundamentals Of Field Recording (Rafael Johns and Teresa Chin, Innovation Lab, Youth Radio, 2-26-15)
• Field Recording in the Digital Age and Guide to audio recording equipment (Andy Kolovos, Vermont Folklife Center). See also his list of retired equipment, mostly analog
• Location Sound: The Basics and Beyond (Dan Brockett, on Ken Stone site, 10-21-02).
• Mindy McAdams No-Fear Guide to Multimedia Skills (with links to equipment, resources) and Part 2 of the quick-and-easy guide to audio editing
• Audio technology tutorial (Historical Voices, somewhat technical, not entirely up-to-date, but useful)
• iPhone: The Missing Manual by David Pogue (see his many "missing manual" guides to technology)
• Oral History Association on Technology
• Recording Phone Calls (Jeff Towne, 2-26-09). The excellent Transom.org (for National Public Radio) offers advice non-NPR people can use. There are reviews and advice here on Analog Phone Couplers and Hybrids, Digital Hybrids, Cell Phone Taps, Skype and Computer-based Telephony, etc. Not Advice for Dummies! Someone recommended to me the Olympus TP-7 telephone recording device ($14.95) for use with my Olympus recorder. Search for "telephone recording device" at Amazon, B&H, or other vendor sites and you'll find many options.
• How to Record Skype Conversations: Tools, Resources, Tips (Digital Inspiration 6-07-06)
• Soundslides (a rapid production tool for still image and audio Web presentations)
• Richard Hess's Media Formats and Resources (tape and magnetic media), Digital Audio resources), and his tips and notes -- pretty technical.
• Acoustic primer (this one's for listening to music)
• Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes (PDF)
• Remote Recording Survival Guide (Tom Lopez, Transom.org, 6-1-02, on the equipment you'll need if traveling to record at remote locations)
• Choosing the Right Microphone:An Overview of Popular Short Shotgun, Supercardioid, Hypercardiod and Cardioid Microphones (Dan Brockett, on Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro website, 1-7-08).
• Audio In Close Up - Which Lavalier Should I Use? (Dan Brockett, Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro website, 4-7-08)
Superfast Guide to Audio Editing(Audacity) Download it and print it out.
• Audacity: download for free here (it's a free cross-platform sound editor). (Have old cassette tapes you want to transfer to your computer? You may be able to do so through Audacity, with a line cord connected from a tape player.)
• Your Inside Source . Order Larry Jordan's free monthly newsletter to learn about mastering Final Cut Studio and Digital Media. See his helpful Editing Resource Library.
• Switch Audio File Converter Software (convert or compress sound files from one format to another within minutes of downloading)

• Fileinfo.com provides well-organized sections of information on such things as file types, software, quizzes, tutorials, and answers to file-related questions. It provides, among other things, an alphabetically organized (by extension)
• Key to compressed and uncompressed audio formats. Here's another such list:
• File-extensions.org.
• Mastering equipment, software, and other tools for interviewing, writing, editing, designing, and creating multimedia (Writers and Editors site)

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Text-to-speech tools (TTS)

• Google Cloud
• How to Use Google's Text-to-Speech Feature on Android (Lifewire)
• Natural Reader A professional text to speech program that converts any written text into spoken words. The paid versions have more features.
• Nuance Select a voice and enter text into the box to hear how Vocalizer can be the voice of your brand.
• TTS Reader
• Word Talk UK A free text-to-speech plugin for Microsoft Word. It will act as a 'text reader' and create a spoken version of the document which it reads back to you while highlighting the words. My fairly new computer doesn't have WordTalk on it, but I can highlight a passage in a Word document and in "Review" mode click on "read-aloud speech" to hear text read aloud. It's fairly robotic sounding but clearly useful.

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TUTORIALS FOR RADIO

• When This Guy Talks, NPR Listens (Paul Farhi, Washington Post, quoting media trainer David Candow about how to come across better in front of a microphone). From Paul Farhi's story about media trainer David Candow ("When This Guy Talks, NPR Listens") Farhi: "In radio, 'the big adjective is a verb'... a single punchy verb can describe someone better than a string of flowery adjectives. For example, Candow recalls a radio story about a 105-year-old woman named Alice. The reporter told her listeners that upon their first encounter, Alice 'flits' into the room. 'Flits!' repeats Candow. That one verb is 'more powerful than any description I can make up.'"
• 10 Books Every Radio Broadcaster Should Have on Their Shelf (Kathryn Milewski, Live365, 5-7-21) Or borrow from the library (and if the library doesn't have them, suggest that they order some of them).
• Audie Cornish’s Long Struggle to Remake the News (Sarah Larson, New Yorker, 3-24-23) Cornish has watched the media evolve, experiment, and experience dramatic layoffs. In “The Assignment,” her CNN podcast, she’s trying to find a new way forward. She believes in what she does—making intimate, news-oriented work that “focusses on a real person, not a celebrity or media-trained person”—and believes that it can succeed.
• As Low-Power Local Radio Rises, Tiny Voices Become a Collective Shout (Kirk Johnson, NY Times, 1-6-18) Low-power nonprofit FM stations are the still, small voices of media.A knowledge of geography is essential if you are running a tiny, 100-watt radio station. But in the last year, a diverse new wave of stations has arrived in urban America. “Alternative” is the word that unites them.Weird is good. Low-power FM stations can typically be heard for about three and a half miles if a bigger station or obstacle does not block the signal. What low-power urban radio creates, believers say, is a sense of community.
• BBC Tips for Radio News (useful for anyone gathering and editing audio)
• BBC Academy (training and development)
• How Sound: The Back Story to Great Radio Storytelling (PRX.org and Transom.org) How Sound's previous iteration was Salt Talk
• BlogTalkRadio 101 (screencast tutorials and live training to help get started as a host)
• Getting Started in Internet Radio (Gerry Michaels, Studmuffin Media)
• Gathering Audio, Part 1 and Part 2: A Practical Guide (Brian Storm, Media Storm). Here's more on audio Mindy McAdams, Journalists' Toolkit)
• After Hurricane Maria, AM radio makes a comeback in Puerto Rico (Ryan Bell, CJR, 4-23-18) “After the hurricane, Puerto Rico’s journalism industry was left in disarray. To cope with the lack of power and poor communication channels on the island, journalists pooled resources and formed reporting collaboratives....Contrary to predictions and global trends in the industry, radio proved itself in this circumstance to be vital....Young people in the under-35 demographic are listening to radio news for the first time in their lives. Radios are at the center of a culture shift. Neighbors sit together drinking coffee and listening to the news.”

• 10 Books Every Radio Broadcaster Should Have On Their Shelf by Kathryn Milewski (Live 365)

---Beyond Powerful Radio: A Communicator’s Guide to the Internet Age by Valerie Geller

---Broadcast Voice Handbook: How to Polish Your On-Air Delivery by Ann S. Utterback

---Essential Radio Skills: How to Present and Produce a Radio Show by Peter Stewart

---Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio by Carol Miller

---Radio Secrets: An Insider’s Guide to Presenting and Producing Powerful Content for Broadcast and Podcast by David Lloyd

---Radio Broadcasting: A History of the Airwaves by Gordon Bathgate

---Radio Content in the Digital Age: The Evolution of a Sound Medium by Angeliki Gazi, Guy Starkey, and Stanislaw Jedrzejewski

---No Static: A Guide to Creative Radio Programming by Quincy McCoy -

---Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock 'N' Roll Animal by Wolfman Jack with Byron Laursen (memoir of the legendary 1980s radio personality)

---This Business of Radio Programming by Claude and Barbara Hall

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VIDEO PRODUCTION AND EDITING

This is an area where you may not know what you don't know. In an article on "Prepping Still Images," on Larry Jordan's Edit Smarter, for example, I learned this: "[I]mages on our computer are not the same as images we see in video. They differ in color space, color sampling, gray scale, bit depth, and, worst of all, the aspect ratio of their respective pixels.

"Computers display all images using square pixels. Almost all video displays an image using rectangular pixels. And converting between these two aspect ratios is going to drive all of us mad — because it seems that no two video formats use the same shape pixel. This means that we need to size images on our computer to compensate for these different aspect ratios."

• Knight Digital Media Center video tutorials, including tutorial on Editing in Final Cut Pro.
• Episode 1, Nieman Storyboard's 5-part video series about visual storytelling: Field Testing with independent video producer Alexander Trowbridge (Episode 1: In which our correspondent explains what he's doing in a bean field with a selfie stick) What working on a farm taught a journalist about visual storytelling.
---Episode 2: How to take your journalism to new heights with a drone Drones are small, simple and cinematic — but they also come with a lot of rules and restrictions.
---Episode 3: Everything you need (and more) to shoot great selfie video Building the perfect camera rig that lets you be in — and out of — the story
---Episode 4: The go-to tools for editing video don't need to include a fast laptop or big monitor This mobile editing challenge proves you can produce great video anywhere
---Episode 5: Video essentials, solo production and — of course — camera gear To end the series, Alexander Trowbridge grabbed a clamp and a camera to record a few final thoughts.
• Lynda.com, Learning @ Your Own Pace (Lynda Weinman's tutorials on tools and techniques in digital media, design, and development), some free, some only by subscription, $25 a month)
• Your Inside Source. Order Larry Jordan's free monthly newsletter to learn about mastering Final Cut Studio and Digital Media. Edit Smarter, Master Final Cut Studio and Digital Media with Larry Jordan. See his helpful Editing Resource Library.
• Avoiding Mistakes: Why ‘Videographer’ Might Not Be the Right Hire for Your Film Shoot (Debbie Brodsky of DMB Pictures) 'I was looking for someone to film an out-of-town video shoot and posted in an industry Facebook group that we were looking for a “videographer.” When I got the explanation of why this insulted the people in this group, it made a lot of sense.' The difference between the terms videographer and cinematographer.
• BBC Academy (BBC's center for training, where you'll find the Colleges of Journalism, Production, Leadership and Technology--many free and online, some commercial.
• Movies at Home: A Guide to Film Editing (Elisandra, Octane Seating, 5-20-17). Great information and lmany useful inks to practical advice and resources on film editing, recommended by Brooke Krueger's Girl Scout troop #2056, which found it helpful in earning their "Digital Movie Maker" badge.
• Video Journalists: More Crews, More Coverage, More Ratings (James Careless. Television Broadcast, or TVB, archive) Video Journalist (VJ) is a "fancy term for a one-man band camera-toting reporter" “Teaching people how to use the camcorder is only 10% of the process,” Michael Rosenblum tells TVB. “90% is psychological. Reporters need to learn that they can shoot their own footage, while camera people and editors need to learn that they can report.” Rosenblum runs a 3-week VJ boot camp.
• Choosing your video biography playback options.
• Ten tips for getting started with 360-video journalism (Nicolas Magand, Global Editors Network, Medium.com, 2-22-18)
• aero Quartet. This Barcelona firm (of three) specializes in digital video and movie repair and tailored services to save you from digital disasters. I learned of them from someone who recorded a video interview but failed to save it in a file protocol they could recognize or use. The firm "translated" it for them.
• What journalists need to know about interviewing for video (Casey Frechette, Poynter, 2-6-13). See also (same writer and venue) How journalists can improve video stories with shot sequences ( 8-13-12) and What journalists need to know about digital video editing (11-16-12) and 9 key elements that can help journalists be better video storytellers (2-27-12)
• TED film guru gives students tips on filming presentations (TEDEd, 11-25-14)
• Nashville TV station’s surveillance crash story shows how to write to video (Al Tompkins, Poynter, 12-15-11, asks WTVF reporter Nick Beres how he created a compelling video story from an incident for which he had surveillance video but almost no audio).
• Media College (free site, with tutorials and articles on many aspects of audio and video, including tutorials on lighting techniques)
• Videomaker. Many, many articles about audio and video software, video editing hardware, and help with video lighting techniques.
• Video 101 (a/k/a/ Production 101 -- tutorials on the fundamentals of film and video production--including video clips, flash animations, and explanations)
• The Difference Between LCD, LED, Plasma, and OLED TVs, Explained as Fast as Possible (Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker)
• Video University (master the art, techology, and business of video production--articles, forums, guides--and sales of instructional books and CDs)
• Vimeo Video School (lessons, tutorials, and sage advice on how to make better videos)
• Creative Cow video tutorials
• The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide (Adam Dachis, Lifehacker Night School)
• Multimedia Shooter's tutorials
• How to fail at online video (Glen Canning's tongue-in-cheek guide to how to do it wrong)
• Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro resources, including all this on video editing
• Media College Video Camera Tutorials
• Apple tutorials
• Editing Resource Library (Edit Smarter, with Larry Jordan)
• GeniusDV tutorials, including Learning to Use Modifier [shortcut] Keys in Final Cut Pro (GeniusDV.com)
• 2-pop (digital filmmaker's resource site, including forums)
• Strobist (learn how to light your photographs
• Capture analog video using a digital camcorder (VideoHelp.com)
• The DV Show (podcasting the ins and outs of digital video)--looks like you have to pay to see the good stuff.
• Editing for the Web (Thom Lieb, skip ahead to basics on images and sound)
• Edit Smarter (Master Mac's Final Cut Studio and Digital Media with Larry Jordan)
• Family Legacy Video Producer's Guide (CD-ROM)
• The Top 3 Prosumer HD Camcorders Under $2,500 (Dan Curtis, 8-24-11)
• Restoratioon Tips & Notes; Media Formats and Resources (Richard Hess, 2007)

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Archiving digital media

• Dodging the Memory Hole 2017 (Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, RJI Online) Dodging the Memory Hole 2017: Saving Online News on Nov. 15-16 at the Internet Archive headquarters in San Francisco. Speakers, panelists and attendees explore solutions to the most urgent threat to cultural memory today — the loss of online news content. Like on Facebook, follow on Twitter, sign up for newsletter.
---Changing media landscape adds yet another challenge to archivists of born-digital news content (Sonia Paul, Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, 11-17-17)
--- Collective Cookbook: Best Practices in Visual Archiving Between News Organizations and Individual Collections (PDF, Matthew Hellman, RJI Online, DC. 2016)
---Lightning rounds: Archiving news at the Internet Archive (PDF, Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive | Oct. 14, 2016). Saving online news.
• Protecting Family Archives (Jim Michael, Personal History Center, 5-28-19) Understand the media and what's needed for them to be useful after a lot of time: paper, photographs, analog audio and video tape, digital media (survivability, readability).
• Hard-core data preservation: The best media and methods for archiving your data (Jon L. Jacobi, PC World, 2-29-16) Daily backup isn’t archiving. If you want your data to survive the decades, you need to use the right tools.
• Personal Archiving: Keeping Personal Digital Video (Digital Preservation, Library of Congress)
• Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video (Yvonne Ng, WITNESS)
• What Activists Need to Know About Video Archiving and Preservation
• Planning to Preserve Video for Human Rights (WITNESS on YouTube)
• Deconstructing Digital Video for Activists (WITNESS on YouTube). What is a video format? A codec? What do 1080 and 720 refer to? What about “i” and “p”?
• What Is Video Metadata? (WITNESS on YouTube). What is video metadata, where can it come from, and how useful (or harmful) is it to activists and their advocacy work?
• What Metadata to Capture Key pieces of contextual information about your video that needs to be captured at the time it is created. This metadata is critical to the video’s authenticity, and to the ability to find, use, and understand the video.
• Take the Social Tech Census: A New Tool to Map the Best Digital Resources for Advocates (Susannah Vila, WITNESS blog, 4-18-12)

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VIDEO TUTORIALS

• How to know when your video is too long? (video by Jeff Walker, author of Launch: An Internet Millionaire's Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams) Jeff's a proponent of giving away your best stuff--because people will come back for more. If you're teaching, not just selling, you're providing content, not just an infomercial, he says -- and for people interested in learning what you're teaching, two or three hours is not too much. But you have to have a compelling message for your target audience--tight and compelling--and not one minute longer.
• Video Training and Tutorials (Lynda.com) Learn about videography and motion graphics, including tutorials on storyboarding, color correction, lighting, and video editing in After Effects, Premiere Pro, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro.
• How to Make Tutorial Videos (TechSmith/Camtasia Studio)
• Best Microphones for Recording Video (Matt Smith, TechSmith blog, 2-21-18)
• Camtasia 9: Screen Recording Tutorial (YouTube)
• Camtasia 9 Tutorial: How to Make a Video with Voice Over Narration (YouTube)
• How to Get the Perfect Lighting for Video (Justin Simon, Techsmith, 10-3-18)

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SCANNING and REPAIRING PHOTOS, and adding metadata

Organizing and storing photos

Do read the comments. See also Scanning and repairing photos

• How to Plan a Group Reunion Photo (The Swedish Organizer, Organizing Photos)
• The Best Way to Organize a Lifetime of Photos (Geoffrey A. Fowler, WSJ, 4-21-15) Apple Photos, Adobe Lightroom, Shoebox, Lyve and Mylio put your entire picture library in your pocket
• Upload the Pictures, and Let Google Photos Do the Rest (E. Justin Swanson, Personal Tech, NY Times, 6-3-15)
• Organize Old Family Photos With the Parking Lot System (Denise May Levenick, The Family Curator, 7-9-15)
• Google Photos Review: Why Google Beats Apple at Organizing Your Life’s Memories (Joanna Stern, WSJ, 6-2-15)
• Less is More: Avoiding Photo Overload (Rebecca Robinson, APH blog, 2-11-15)
• Bye Bye, iPhoto: Apple Reboots With Photos for Mac ( Geoffrey A. Fowler, WSJ, 2-5-15) New OSX App Makes a Case to Pony Up for iCloud Storage
• How to Organize Photos (Better Homes and Gardens)
• How Can I Organize Generations of Family Photos? (Walter Glenn, Lifehacker, 10-21-13)
• Digital Photography Super Guide: How to Organize Your Photos (Michael Muchmore, PC Mag, 11-12-12)
• A Beginner’s Guide to Backing Up Photos (Terry Sullivan, NY Times, 1-11-18) If "you’re snapping away without a backup plan for your photos, beware: In an instant, you could lose them all, forever." First, understand "image resolution." Use a combination of hard drives and cloud backup--and how to choose each. Plus tips on how to store, organize, add context.
• Cloud Photo Storage: The Best Ways to Bank Family Pictures (Wilson Rothman, WSJ, 4-22-14) Exploring the Best Options From Dropbox, Flickr, Shutterfly, SmugMug and Google
• Dropbox Alternatives for Agencies and How to Migrate (Wiredrive, a software company)
• Why You Should Always Have More Than One Backup (Melanie Pinola, Lifehacker, 11-16-12)

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Finding photos and other images

(the wide world available to photo researchers)

"Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's free."

Finding a image on the Internet does not mean it's copyright-free or that you can use it without permission or payment. And "royalty-free" does not mean "free"; it means you pay only once. Authors: Free sites (where anyone can post images) do not include "model releases" and problems can arise if you use someone's recognizable image on a commercial product such as a book without such a release/permission.

Publications label some images, including photos of famous people, Editorial Only, which means they can be used to accompany a news article but not for commercial purposes. To use them in a book, you should clear permissions.

The images you find through Yahoo and Google have rarely been posted there by the copyright owners. Do your homework on copyright and other rights issues. See in particular Clearing rights in the visual arts.

Below are links to good sources of photos, some of which are reviewed here:

---11 Best Image Search Engines For Visual Content
---Free and commercial stock photography sites (Jourdan Wilkerson very helpfully describes and compares many sites, indicating price range or if free)

---Stock Agencies Reviews (Stock Photo Adviser)

• Adobe Stock
• American Heritage photos (via Shutterstock)
• American Memory (a Library of Congress project, with many public domain images). See especially Digital Collections .
• Animation and Cartoons (Digital Archive)
• AP Images(for professional image buyers)
• Artbeats (stock footage you can use)
• ArtCyclopedia
• Art History Archive
• Art Images for College Teaching
• Artnet
• Art Resource (fine art images from museums around the world, and if their search engine doesn’t find what you want, talk to their real person: 212 505 8700 or requests@artres.com)
• Art UK ("Uncovering the nation's art collection"--photographs of all of the UK's publicly owned art, including railway posters and over 210,000 oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real--inviting the public to tag the photos)
• Astronomy Picture of the Day (fabulous NASA images of the cosmos, such as Moon Behind Lava Mountain)
• Atlantic, The. Archived Photos of the Week

• Barewalls (posters and prints from famous photographers and artists)
• BBD Motion Gallery (Getty Images)
• Bettman Archive is now part of Getty Images.
• BFI Film Forever (British Film Institute Archive, online--sharing the BFI’s knowledge of British film and television)
• BFI YouTube channel
• Bigstock Photo Images and video.
• Biodiversity Heritage Library (Flickr)
• Bing Image Search
• The British Library (images on Flickr). See The British Library offers over a million free vintage images for download (Neil Bennett, DigitalArtsOnline, UK, 7-31-17) These centuries-old copyright-free images include everything from from book illustrations to photos (on a wide range of subjects).
• CanStockPhoto (stock photos)
• CanStockPhoto: Medical stock photos and images
• Canva (free and premium photos)
• Cartoons, comics, anime, manga, panel stories, graphic novels, and animation (Writers and Editors links) More about content than images, but possibly helpful.
• Cepolina (international site)
• CIA maps (world, regional, country, ocean, and time zone maps, from World Factbook)
• CIA World Factbook (aerial photos from around the world)
• Clipart.com (clip-art, photos, illustrations, fonts, sounds)
• Compfight (a public photo sharing service)
• Corbis (absorbed by Getty Images, a major, expensive photo site, for professional productions)
• CreateHERstock (authentic stock photos featuring melanated women)
• Creative Commons search, now Openverse
• Creative Market (a paid service, with graphics, fonts, themes, photos and more, from independent creators)
• Critical Past (vintage stock footage and stock photo images from 1940s). See FAQs page: How to Buy Video Clips and Still Photos

• Digital Archives Collections (NARA) (National Archives and Records Administration) Superb links to historical photo collections, such as photos from the 1939 World's Fair from the Library of Virginia's Prints and Photographs collection and the US Geological Survey Photographic Library (with its over 400,000 photographs taken from 1868 to the present--searchable by categories such as Earthquakes and Pioneer Photographers).

• Digital Public Library of America (a consortium that offers one-stop access to digitized holdings from more than 1,300 institutions). Check out its interesting exhibitions (by theme), such as "Children in Progressive-Era America" and "Prisoners at Home (Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps)"
• Dreamstime (royalty-free images)
• Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900 by Joan L. Severa

• Fashionable Folks Hairstyles 1840-1900 (a book)
• Fashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats, 1840-1900 (a book)
• Flickr Flickr's pool of images comes from amateur and professional photographers sharing their work on its platform
• Flickr Commons (help describe Library of Congress photos by adding comments, tags)
• Flickr Creative Commons search
• Flickr: The Library of Congress photostream Flickr makes available 3,000 photos from two of the Library of Congress's most popular collections). At Flickr Commons you can help ID what's in photos by adding comments, tags)
• Fold 3 (Ancestry) Collections of original military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served in the military. Many come from the U.S. National archives, The National Archives of the U.K., and other international records.
• Foodie's Feed (free images of food in high-res)
• Forgotten Treasures: NYPD Unearths Over 100 Years of Photos Documenting NYC’s History (CBS New York) “You won’t see these images anywhere else. They’ve just been down here and recently unearthed,” NYPD senior photographer Kristina Fetkovich said. CBS2 went down to the basement of police headquarters, where the NYPD photo unit has rooms of boxes and file cabinets – filled with departmental photos from the 1800s to today.
• Footage.net culls stock photage from other sources, including lots of newscasts and historical footage.
• Fotolia (now Adobe Stock).
• Fotosearch (large collection of stock photography and footage "with extended legal rights")
• Free Art (not free, but not expensive, and millions of choices)
• FreeDigitalPhotos (easy search, well-organized)
• Free Historical Stock Photos
• FreeImages (previously, Stock.XCHNG; now owned by Getty Images) free stock images, but with stricter requirements now, so check each image for rights.
• Freepik (free vector graphics, PSD, icons and photos)
• Free Range
• FreeStockPhotos.com (check out excellent links to free photo sites along right side)
• Free to Use and Reuse Sets (Library of Congress content that is free to use and reuse)

• Gallery of Graphic Design (check out the categories!)
• Gender Spectrum Collection (Vice) A stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés.
• Getty Images Beautiful stock photos. You pay for a royalty-free license for any photo you want to use, with licensing on an image-by-image basis, or you can buy packs of photos for a flat price.
• Getty Open Content (stock footage from archival film to contemporary HD video, including daily entertainment video; royalty-free stock footage as well as better selections, by subscription)
• Giphy This 'animated search engine' lets you download movie GIFs, memes, and short movies.
• GoGraph (royalty-free stock photos and web graphics)
• Google Images Good for basic image searches, using keywords.
• Google advanced search (you can search by CC license across all file types)

• Holyland photos
• Image*After (free images and textures)
• Image Base (images free, under Creative Commons License)
• Indiana State Archives photos (one of the best of many state photo archives)
• Internet Archive (sorted by categories)
• Internet Archive Book Images (Flickr, a fabulous collection of images)
• iStockphoto (now part of Getty Images)

• Kave Wall (professional-quality closeups and macro-photography --images in categories such as fire, food, holiday, money (household), toys, tattoos)
• Kobal Collection (bought by Shuttersock; now part of Getty Images) Images from earliest days of the cinema to latest releases)

• Larry Edmunds bookshop (movie books, movie posters, lobby cards, photographs and scripts in Hollywood California)
• Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse Sets From the wonderful collections at the Library of Congress.
• ***Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog Huge, wonderful collection (containing many collections!) of historical prints and photographs; some images downloadable immediately, others for a small fee)
• Library of Congress webcasts
• LibreStock (a free search engine that scans and indexes stock photos from more than 40 websites)
• Life Magazine Photo Archive (hosted by Google, organized by decades). No information about clearing permissions for use in various media.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). See Los Angeles County Museum makes 20,000 artistic images available for free download (Open Culture, the best free cultural & educational media on the web)
• Luminous-Lint ( “... probably the finest free resource for the history or photography that exists anywhere in the world")

• Maps and mapmakers (Writers and Editors)
• Maps.com (royalty-free maps)
• Map Resources (royalty-free vector maps)
• Medical and scientific images and illustrations (Writers and Editors) Another whole set of links to resources.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 375,000 Public-Domain Images in Creative Commons (ArtNews, 2-7-17)
• Molly Maps (inspired custom hand-drawn maps and views)
• MorgueFile (public image archives)
• Moving Image Archives (cousin of Internet Archives)
• Moving Image Gateway (UK, over 1,900 websites relating to moving image and sound materials, subdivided in 40 subject areas, British Universities Film and Video Council, BUFVC)
• Moving Pictures Archives (and while you're there, check out other Internet Archives: Television, feature films, news and public affairs, VHS, anime, etc.)

• Nappy (beautiful photos of Black and Brown people, free)
• NASA Image Galleries
• NASA Space Launch images
• National Archives (excellent resources, including wonderful wartime photos)
• National Gallery of Art Images (NGA Images) Open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain.
• New York City buildings in 1930s "Every Building on Every Block: A Time Capsule of 1930s New York" (James Barron, NY Times, 12-28-18). See also NYC Municipal Archives Collections (NYC Department of Records & Information Services), which also has photos from 1940s, etc. And see New York Public Library Digital Collections
• New Old Stock (vintage photos from public archives, free of KNOWN copyright restrictions)
• New York City Municipal Archives (over 870,000 images). Gothamist reports nearly 1 million old NYC images released

• New York Public Library Digital Collection (672,153 images digitized from the library collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, etc.--yours for a small fee)
• New York Public Library Public Domain Collections, yours to use for free. Creative librarians have put together some creative remixes, such as Navigating the Green Book (a travel guide published between 1936 and 1966 that listed hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, etc. where black travelers would be welcome) and Fifth Avenue, Then and Now. See also New York City street views from the late 1800s and the 1900s .
• New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive (Jennifer Schuessler, NY Times, 1-6-16)
• • NIH Images and B-roll (National Institutes of Health) now apparently NIH Image Gallery
• The Noun Project (photos and images of icons and other things--e.g., hair)

• Ohio History Connection (one of the best of many state photo archives)
• Old Magazine Articles
• Open Photo (images grouped by category-- images, vectors, and video )
• Openverse (was Creative Commons Search) aggregates Creative Commons searches for open-license images and other content on several sites, including Europeana Pro, Flickr, Google Images, Open Clip Art Library, Pexels, Pixabay (free images & royalty free stock), SpinXpress (libraries of video, art and audio files), Unsplash, Wikipedia Commons, and YouTube video repository.
• Open Video Project (shared digital video collection)

• Pexels (free stock photos, searchable collection) See, for example, stock photos of animals
• Photogrammar , a web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI). Click on the interactive map to find photos from a particular area in the United States.
• Photos of the Great Depression and New Deal (FDR Library and Museum)
• Photos from the Great Depression (roughly 1600 color photos taken during 1939-1944 in U.S., P.R., and Virgin Islands, focusing mostly on rural areas, farm labor, and aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working)
• PicMonkey by Shutterstock, Pro or Basic subscriptions)
• Pinterest Visual Search Tool
• Pixabay (mostly free photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage and music)
• Pixel Perfect Digital
• Pond 5 (royalty-free archival and historical footage--"of vintage lifestyle, historical classics, wartime imagery, and more." See review on Stock Photo Adviser.
• Postcards, online archives:
---Curt Teich Postcard Archives)
---CardCow (vintage postcards)
• Prelinger Archives (over 2,000 films, of which How to Use the Dial Phone (1947) is only one example!
• Prints and Photographs Reading Room (invaluable collection at the Library of Congress). Check out various collections, organized alphabetically and by subject/format overviews. See Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress)Looking for something but you don't know where to start? Ask a librarian.
• Prison photos. Search for that phrase for photos of penitentiaries and you'll find a wide range of photos.
• Project Gutenberg (public domain ebooks--search the illustrated books)
• Public Domain Archive
• Public Domain Review Excellent for science-related images

• Raw Pixel
• Remembering the Fifties (links to 50s sites)
• Reverse Image Search Engine: Google
• Reverse Image Search Engine: TinEye
• Rijks Studio (an innovative digital application that makes a large part of a collection of 150,000 masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, in the Netherlands, available to all, free of charge)

• Shorpy (historical images of America)
• Shutterstock A leading agency, with a large stock of royalty-free stock photos, less exensive than Getty, with rich supply of search filters.. Also videos, subscription model.

• A Space of Their Own (My Modern Met story about forthcoming database of female painters, printmakers, sculptors, etc., active in the United States and Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries.
• Sports images All American: The Power of Sports exhibit, National Archies Museum
• State photo archives are excellent sources of images.
• StockSnap.io (free high-resolution stock photos)
• Stockvault (searchable)

• Timelines and timeline tools, designs
• TinEye (reverse image search engine)
• TONL (culturally diverse stock photos)

• Universal newsreels (from before television)
• Unprofound (images grouped by color)
• Unsplash Freely usable images.
• USGS Multimedia Gallery Explore our planet through photography and imagery, including climate change and water all the way back to the 1800s when the USGS was surveying the country by horse and buggy.

• Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive (Michael John Goodman)
• VideoHive (stock footage)
• Vintage Music Album Covers
• Visual Connections (formerly Picturehouse; directory of suppliers of stock photography, illustrations and footage, photographers, and font foundries
• Visual Hunt. Good for finding free or inexpensive images for blog posts--search for those that are "permissions free" (Creative Commons) advises Jane Friedman.
• Visual resources online (American Library Association, links to great sites, historical societies, etc.)

• Washington Area Spark (2000 historic photos of DC activism now online)
• The Watercolour World (a visual history of the world through documentary watercolours painted before 1900)
• Wikipedia Commons (the free media repository) (what's useful about this page is that links to resources are organized by category (e.g., automobiles, animals, extinct animals)
• Wikipedia Commons public domain images (click on subjects such as extinct animals, Life Magazine photos--great link searches)
• Wikimedia Commons (almost 25 million freely usable media files, but read Reuse guide for licensing requirements)
• William Williams collection of immigrants to United States (part of the New York Public Library Digital Collections)
• WordPlay (Free clip art for your blog)
• WorldImages (this database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project)
• WorldofMaps.net
• Yahoo Image Search
• Yale Digital Content, explained in this press release: Digital Images of Yale’s Vast Cultural Collections Now Available for Free (with slideshow). Yale has adopted an open access policy--which means you are free to view the images but you need permission to reproduce them. Yale's digital collections include images from the Peabody Museum, Center for British Art, University Art Gallery, Library Map Collection, and Walpole Library Prints and Drawings.
• YouTube videos. New York in the mid 1930's in Color! (YouTube video, 41 minutes, shot between 1935 and 1939) and The Thirties in Colour (YouTube video, Docs&Stuff, BBC, 58 minutes) You'll find many such compilations of video footage online--and it's up to you to learn/figure out who owns the rights and how to clear permission to use parts of it.

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Finding old photo collections

• 13 Websites for Finding Old Family Photos (Maureen A. Taylor, Family Tree)
• Woman Discovers Over 30,000 Secret Photos Left Behind by Her Mother (Jessica Stewart, My Modern Met, 3-19-18) When Masha Ivashintsova passed in 2000, she left behind boxes of belongings and memories, which remained untouched until late 2017. It was only then that Asya Ivashintsova-Melkumyandiscovered over 30,000 negatives and undeveloped film—as well as personal diaries—in an attic, all of which detailed the turbulent details of her mother’s life. Cleaning their attic, they found a large box. "When we opened it up it was full of negatives and prints. They were all carefully packaged in mail envelopes with dates and comments on them." Be sure to look at this story as the photos are wonderful.
• How to Navigate Dead Fred’s Genealogy Photo Archive (Melina Papadopoulos, Family Tree Magazine)
• The Life of Vivian Maier, the Nanny-Turned-Photographer Whose Incredible Story Was Nominated for an Oscar (Jenny Zhang, My Modern Met, 2-23-15) Vivian Maier may have been virtually unknown during her lifetime, but she will go down in history as one of the most iconic photographers alongside the names of masters like Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
• Man Rediscovers 1970s Sydney Street Photos in Old Cupboard (Alice Yoo, My Modern Met, 5-21-14)
• Nearly Lost 1950s Street Photos of New York (Alice Yoo, My Modern Met, 10-14-11)
• Couple Finds Envelope of Photos in Barcelona Flea Market, Spends 16 Years Identifying Photographer (Jessica Stewart, My Modern Met, 4-17-17)
• Vintage Photo Finds Is an Online Collection of Old Pictures Found at Flea Markets (Michael Zhang, PetaPixel, 12-15-14)
• How To Store Old Family Photographs (Lisa Lisson, Are You My Cousin?) 'What does “archival safe” mean when it comes to storing your photographs? Archival safe means the photo box, album, sleeve, etc is lignin-free, acid-free, PVC-free and has a neutral pH to prevent the degradation of your photos. Photo boxes are a popular way to store family photographs. Even when you use archival safe photo boxes, there are ways to further safe guard your precious photographs.'
• Preserving Your Family and National Treasures: Archiving, Conservation, and Preservation (Pat McNees website)

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Scanning, archiving, and
indexing magazines, journals, and newspapers

• PrintFriendly Make any web page print friendly & PDF. (You can eliminate photos and ads and make a clean PDF).
• A Scanner and a Mission: An Interview with Paul Ford (David Barringer, AIGA, 6-5-07) "Hewlett-Packard made a big fuss about putting 80 years of Time magazine online. It took HP Labs and a consulting team a year to do it, and the online archive is still limited: it provides the text of the articles but not the actual images of the pages. Other periodicals, including magazines like The New Yorker and newspapers like the New York Times, have put their content online but have stopped short of providing reproductions of the very pages as they were laid out in the original print editions....Harper's Magazine, on the other hand, has gone all the way...".associate editor Paul Ford created what he calls "a massive, interlinked, searchable document that provides quick access" to 157 continuous years of Harper's—with illustrations and all. Working alone, without any consulting team and without fuss, Ford has been a man with a plan, a scanner and a lot of patience."
• Rob Dubbin Q&A with Paul Ford (final issue of Wag's Review, Issue 20, Fall 2015) Paul Ford "marched into Harper's and digitized their entire many-thousand-issue back catalogue with what he would later describe to me as 'XSLT, Java, PHP, Perl, scotch tape, and glue.'" Q&A about the process.
• Google Shuts Down Ambitious Newspaper Scanning Project (Search Engine Land, 5-20-11). Basically it's efforts to make the world's newspapers available online for free are ending and it will help newspapers make them available for a charge, is how I read this.
• Thinking of scanning records?(Cardiff University, Governance and Compliance) "Scanning, if undertaken properly, and for the right reasons, can make information more accessible and reduce the amount of physical space taken up by paper records. But it can also have serious cost and legal implications." A checklist and discussion.
• Digitization (Smithsonian Institution Archives). Start on this page to find some good technical info.
• Top 10 Portable Scanners 2016 (Wiki.ezvid.com, The World's Video Wiki)

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FILE EXTENSIONS, LISTED AND EXPLAINED

For those of us puzzled by those phrases after the period: doc, mp3, and the like
• Audio file types (FileInfo.com -- an alphabetically organized (by extension) key to compressed and uncompressed audio formats). Here's another such list: File-extensions.org.
• Understanding file sizes (GreenNet, UK) To help you tell the whales from the minnows.
• FileInfo.com, a searchable database of thousands of file extensions with detailed information about the associated file types (both compressed and uncompressed). You can use FileInfo.com to look up information about unknown file types and find programs that open the files. Along the left you'll find categories of common file types: text files, data files, audio files, 3D image files, raster image files, vector image files, page layout files, spreadsheet files, executable files, game files, CAD files, GIS files, Web files, Plugin files, font files, system files, settings files, encoded files, compressed files, disk image files, developer files, backup files, and misc. files. Who knew?? Subsections of the site (helpful for personal historians, especially) include:
~ Answers to common questions about file extensions
~ Audio File Types (includes compressed and uncompressed audio formats, which contain waveform data that can be played with audio playback software. This category also includes MIDI files, musical scores, and audio project files, which typically do not contain audio data).
~ Video File Types (a wide range of video formats, which use different codecs to encode and compress video data)
~ Software Information (another helpful section of the FileInfo.com, with information about popular software programs and a star-rating system to indicate a program's popularity).
~ Page Layout file types
~ Vector Image Files . It sez there: "Vector graphics are made up of paths, rather than individual pixels. These paths can be used to represent lines and shapes within the image. Most vector image formats can also include colors, gradients, and image effects. Since vector graphics store image data as paths, they can be enlarged without losing quality, which makes them a good choice for logos and other types of drawings. Common vector image file extensions include .EPS, .AI, and .SVG. Other image file categories include Raster Graphic and 3D Image files."
• Richard Hess's Media Formats and Resources (tape and magnetic media), Digital Audio resources), and his tips and notes -- pretty technical.

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Improving your writing, reporting, and speaking skills

• Analytical writing for science & technology (T.M. Georges)
• Associated Writing Programs
• "Basic" plots in literature (Internet Library)
• Bulwer-Lytton Contest (craft the worst opening line for a novel)
• Choose the right way to tell your story (API)
• Conferences, workshops, and other learning places
• Design Makeovers (Layers Magazine)
• Poynter. Training (Essential Skills for the Digital Journalist, and other training, in person or online). See also Poynter's Syllabus Exchange (encouraging educators to share ideas and teaching materials).
• Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes (Stephen King's now-classic article, which appeared in The Writer in 1986, reprinted on the Great Writing site).
• Joyce Carol Oates on Productivity
• Layer Magazine (a how-to magazine for everything Adobe)
• Math Test for Journalists (Phil Meyer, UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Math Test #2 for Journalists (Stephen Doig, ASU, inspired by Phil Meyer)
• Memoir, biography, and personal histories
• Mind Mapping, Tony Buzan (YouTube video), useful for note-taking, creativity
• My Rules of Information (Marylaine Block on how to find the information you need, which may not be on the Internet)
• Narrative nonfiction
• News University (NU), Poynter’s online training for journalists, inexpensive and often free, with funding from one of the Knight Foundations--check out their excellent lineup of courses!)
• No train, no gain

• Training for newspaper journalists
• Patrick Cassidy's Investigative Reporting links include many pages of excellent practical advice, such as Writing the Project: Using Story Structure to Shape Your Reporting (James Neff, Kiplinger Reporting Program)
• Plain English (before-and-after examples from Plain Language website)
• The Power of the Opening Sentence (Alan Rinzler, The Book Deal)
• Poynter Online links to articles on attribution; bylines, credit lines, authorship; corrections; credibility; fact-checking; grammar, spelling, typos; photomanipulation; plagiarism
• Rx for Writers (topical index for articles and transcripts on writing for children (Institute for Children's Literature). I am told the newsletter subscription is well worth $20 a year.
• Scared Speechless? Join Toastmasters (Washington Post story by Pat McNees)
• ShawGuide to Writers Conferences and Workshops
• Statistics Every Writer Should Know (Robert Niles)
• Ten Rules for Writing Fiction. Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, the Guardian asked several authors for their personal dos and don'ts. Read what Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, and AL Kennedy (part 1)and Hilary Mantel, Michael Moorcock, Michael Morpurgo, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Philip Pullman, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Colm Tóibín, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson (part 2) have to say.
• Thirty tools for writers (Roy Peter Clark)
• Tip Sheets: Online & Media (David Shedden's useful links, Poynter Institute)
• Tip Sheets: Writing and Editing extremely helpful long list of articles from the Poynter Institute, thanks to David Shedden
• Toastmasters International website
• Tom Robbins: "My Advice to Writers" (on Alan Rinzler's writing blog)
• The Top 100 Freelancer Blogs, many of them about improving your skills (Heather Johnson, Bootstrapper)
• When This Guy Talks, NPR Listens (Paul Farhi, Washington Post, quoting media trainer David Candow about how to come across better in front of a microphone)
• "Write now is good" (Kristin Gorski's remarkably eclectic blog about words, sweat, and inspiration)--plan to spend some time here!
• The Writer (magazine for writers at all levels)
• Writers on Writing (the New York Times series) Requires free membership
• Writing Tics: Now You See Them, Now You Don't (The Subversive Copy Editor, 7-22-10, an interesting way of framing a common problem)
• Writing with Numbers (Journalist's Toolbox links)
• Writing workshops (Preditors and Editors’ list and links)

Top 10 Blogs for Writers (Brian Clark, Copyblogger)

copyblogger (Brian Clark's excellent copywriting tips for online marketing success)

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Tips, tricks, shortcuts and "macros" for working with Microsoft Word and Excel

And why to use InDesign instead of Word for book design

How to find online help when your personal techie is sleeping, on vacation, or otherwise unavailable. Word is a powerful piece of writing software that is commonly used in publishing, but it is NOT considered adequate page-layout software and should not be used to design a book that you want to appear to be professionally published.

• How to speed up Microsoft Word with Track Changes (Hazel Bird, Word Stitch Editorial, 9-11-24) Track Changes and comments can cause Microsoft Word to become slow or sticky – by as much as 97%. For copyeditors, proofreaders and writers, this slowness can crush efficiency. But with a bit of flexibility, it’s possible to speed up Microsoft Word when you’re working with Track Changes and comments.
• On the problematic exchange of Word and Pages documents: How to edit .pages files on Windows (Lewis Painter, MacWorld, 3-14-17) While admittedly it’s not as simple as it is on macOS to open a .docx file using Pages, here's how to open, edit and even re-export .pages files on a Windows PC. [I post these links after reading half a dozen messages between publishing professionals about how problematic it is for two people exchanging Pages and Word documents (which get corrupted, mostly because of recent changes in Pages, as Mac "dumbed down Pages 09 into an app, removing much of its functionality"), typically ending with comments like "My client had to pay me hundreds of dollars to salvage his corrupt files and get the book to print."]
• How to remove [a pesky, unwanted] horizontal line in Word documents and the annoying line break will not go away if we press delete or backspace. This video will show you how to get rid of a horizontal line break in just one click. (Minh Nguyen, YouTube). Suzanne S. Barnhill has another post on the same problem: Troublesome Lines as well as several Word tutorials, many of them on other problems that crop up in Word. Here's Debbie Burke's solution (on Microsoft/Mac site).
• Keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft 365 Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Onenote, etc.
• 10 Common Problems With Microsoft OneDrive and How to Fix Them ( Lance Whitney, PC Magazine, 6-24-23) Microsoft OneDrive doesn’t always behave itself, but you can get the file-backup and synchronization service back on track if you know the right tricks
• Lyonizing Word: Workflow for Writing (Jack Lyon, An American Editor, 10-16-17) Tools that help authors write without the problems that are almost inevitable when working in Microsoft Word (e.g., inconsistent and meaningless formatting, document corruption, fouled-up footnotes, incorrect AutoCorrect “corrections”). See also Lyonizing Word: Helping Authors Write (Jack Lyon, An American Editor, 2-7-18) How to Restrict Editing in Word.
• Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word by Jack Lyon, a new book that will be good news for users of Editorium (Jack Lyon's helpful "macros" for dealing speedily with mind-numbing tasks that eat up time, done manually in Word) and Editorium Update. For wordsmiths who work with Word, "In no time at all, he'll have you recording, running, borrowing, and modifying macros to make your work shrink and your income grow." See also Lyonizing Word: The Next Character Macro (a series of essays by Jack Lyon on using Microsoft Word, especially macros, to best advantage during the editing process), on the An American Editor blog)
• How to Teach Word a Scrivener Trick (Wendy Sunshine on Jane Friedman's blog, 4-2-24) For her latest book she wanted a tool that Auto-generated outlines, let her easily jump forward or back among chapters and sections, let her easily reorganize material in a modular manner, using high-level drag-and-drop (like cut and paste, but on steroids). Could Word be coaxed to approximate Scrivener’s powerful visual and modular drag-and-drop feature? Sunshine explains how to make Scrivener’s “bulletin board” with “notecards” organizational tool, its navigation pane, and its drag-and-drop flexibility help you re-organize a manuscript.
• Establish a Delegate (#29 of 36) to share control of your Gmail account
• The Gift of IFTTT (#30 of 36) The service IFTTT (If This, Then That) automates tasks between Web-based apps. And it has a Gmail channel. So the combinations of IFTTT recipes featuring Gmail are almost endless. Here's a few stellar examples: Save starred emails to Evernote. Add incoming receipts to a Google Drive spreadsheet. Email yourself phone messages. Get emailed weather reports.
• The Professional Editor: Working Effectively Online II — The Macros (Jack Lyon, on An American Editor, 3-3-14). See also Working Effectively Online VIII — Macros Redux. (If this looks like Greek at first, you are not alone.)
• 8 Microsoft Word Shortcuts You Probably Don’t Know (Becky Worley, Yahoo! News, 3-14-12). For example, add the date: "How many times a day do you type the date? If you do it even once, that's too much. Next time, just hit Alt-Shift-D (or Control-Shift -D on a Mac) to add the date automatically."
• PDF Converter (free PDF-to-Word converter, online -- no programs to download).
• Two Hidden Features in Microsoft Word (nonbreaking spaces and optional hyphens, Robert Levy, on Save the Semicolon, 5-16-11)
• Two of My Favorite Microsoft Word Track Changes Tips (David Blatner, Creative Pro) 1. Keyboard shortcut for Show/Hide Changes. 2. Track Changes in InDesign, and you want to accept or reject just one person’s edits, just place your cursor in one of their edits and then choose Accept/Reject All Changes by This User from the Track Changes panel menu.
• In response to a writer who said "Microsoft Office 2019 won't read Word .doc files that I created in 1997," another writer said "Try LibreOffice, a free Open Source office application, that can read "even my ancient WordPerfect files."
• FAQs on Suzanne S. Barnhill's Word Tutorial site
• Making the Most of Word (Shauna Kelly)
• Word Tips (Allan Wyatt's useful site)
• Powerful Word Tips, Tricks, and Ideas: https://wordribbon.tips.net/index.html
• Tips.net (with sections on Microsoft Windows, Word (Word 97-2003), and Word (Word 2007-2016); Excel (Excel 97-2003) and Excel (Excel 2007-2016).
• Microsoft Excel Tips, Tricks, and Ideas!: https://excelribbon.tips.net/index.html
• The World Cup of Microsoft Excel (Jacob Stern, The Atlantic, 12-1-22) How can watching people fiddle with spreadsheets possibly be this fun? Watch the Microsoft Excel World Championship 2022: Finals (Video, Financial Modeling World Cup)
• How to Turn a Style Sheet into a Custom Word Dictionary (Andy Hollandbeck, Copyediting, 2-12-15)
• How to sort lists in Word (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting 8-1-16)
• How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Word 2007 and Word 2010 (Shauna Kelly) Or How to do same in Word 2003 and earlier versions
• Create different headers or footers for odd and even pages (Microsoft Word)
• Automate Typing With Word (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 11-21-16) Includes rejecting an autocorrection.
• Make a custom tab on Word's ribbon (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 11-14-16)
• Keyboard shortcuts in Word (Microsoft)
• Shortcuts in Editing (really, 8 shortcuts in Word, from CMS Shoptalk)
• What to do with an edited Word file (Adrienne Montgomerie, Right Angels and Polo Bears). What to do when you get back from an editor a ms. that contains "tracked changes." See also Track changes – how to find it, how to use it (Liz Decker's series on LibroEditing, which includes Customizing Track Changes and Working with Track Changes in a document . Plus QA Trick for File Names (though I'm not sure I get this one!).
• Little Known Word Shortcuts (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 9-19-16)
• How to Use "Find" and "Find and Replace" Features in Microsoft Word Documents (three methods, Wikihow). See also Macro tools and editing software for editors and proofreaders (Macros are simple programs that allow you, with one or two keystrokes, to automate tedious search-and-replace tasks and other mind-numbing copyediting chores). See especially Macros for references, citations, footnotes and endnotes.
• 10 Ways to Navigate a Word Document (Copyediting.com, 4-28-14)
• Word Tool to Check Document Structure (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting.com, 6-8-15)
• Navigating Word by Leaps and Bounds: Part 1 (3-12-12) See also Part 2 and
Part 3.
• Effective Onscreen Editing: new tools for an old profession by Geoff Hart (available electronically or as book from Lulu.com). See online: Using Microsoft Word's "track changes" editing feature: a short guide for authors and editors. See also his Track Changes Tips and Tricks in Word (Copyediting, 4-2-15)
• How to find Chinese characters in an MS Word document (Pinyin News. blog of Pinyin.info)
• Shareable Copy-Paste Character Sets (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Tech Tip, Copyediting.com, 5-28-15)
• How to Insert Symbols in Word (Copyediting.com, 6-23-14)
• Three Other Ways to Insert Special Characters in Word (Copyediting.com, 12-11-14)
• 5 Ways to Select Text (Copyediting.com, 4-21-14)
• Tips for Working with Authors Who Aren't Microsoft Word Experts (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit Blog, 10-2-14). See also Deciphering a Redlined Manuscript (Carol Saller, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1-16-12)
• Download Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to the Tools of the Trade (for up to Word 2003) by Hilary Powers, $10.25, 80 pages, or order the book for slightly more (Lulu.com)
• Or Making Word 2010 Work for You (Hilary Powers, EFA, Lulu). "Tames Microsoft Word."
Both help with track changes, macros, styles, templates, and personalizing the program and the screen to meet your needs and taste.
• Table won't flow to second page (Word Tips). That's on Allen Wyatt's Word Tips Or Powerful Word Tips, Tricks, and Ideas or WordRibbon.Tips.Net for users of Word 2007, Word 2010, and Word 2013.
• Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Word (U.S. keyboard)
• Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Word 7 (this and the next few are courtesy of Claude Kerno)
• Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts
• Windows keyboard shortcuts in OS X (for Mac)
• Shortcuts for
iOS (when using a keyboard with an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch)
• Keyboard shortcuts for Android
• Resources for Word (and other Microsoft Office software) users (Liz Broomfield, LibroEditing--excellent instructions on using Word functions such as auto-correct, styles, margins, bullet points, case toggling, tabs, etc.)
• Microsoft Word 2010 for Medical and Technical Writers by Maxine Okazaki and Peter Aitken (available in print and Kindle editions), described here by Piedmont Medical Writers
• Getting Started With Microsoft Word Styles for Book Layout (Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer, 2-1-13). (But it is not what Joel himself uses to design books.)
• Maximizing Word's Status Bar (Andy Hollandbeck, Tech Tips, Copyediting, 6-10-13)
• How to Remove Personal Data from a Word File (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 9-21-15)
• Get More Space in Word: The Disappearing Ribbon Trick (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Tech Tips, Copyediting, 5-17-13)
• How To: Merge Changes From Multiple Word Documents (Copyediting, 11-5-12)
• 100 Essential Tips for Microsoft Office 2010 (Jill Duffy, Edward Mendelson, PCMag.com 6-16-11)
• The Editorium (Jack Lyon's program add-ins that make Word do a number of things it can't normally handle). For example, FileCleaner for Microsoft Word cleans up common problems in electronic manuscripts, including multiple spaces, multiple returns, unnecessary tabs, improperly typed ellipses, ells used as ones, and so on. It turns double hyphens into em dashes, and hyphens between numerals into en dashes. It can also remove directly applied font formatting (such as Times 12 point) while retaining styles (such as Heading 1) and character formatting (such as italic and bold), quickly cleaning up those messy documents imported from other word processors or CR programs. Click here for a page on Using found macros. Jack Lyon's book Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals comes so highly recommended that I have just ordered it myself, despite the $35 price tag.
• EditTools for MicrosoftWord , with macros for achieving consistency in style, especially useful with medical citations--for correcting incorrectly abbreviated journal names or odd/incomplete/inconsistent punctuation (e.g., N. Eng. J Med. the first time and N Engl. J. Med the second, when the client wants N Engl J Med), the only limitation being the dataset. You add the incorrect form in the dataset for The Journals portion of EditTools the first time you come across it; then that incorrect form gets corrected automatically. The Journals macro highlights in green journal names that are correct, leaving only the incorrect names and those not in the dataset, says Rich Adin, whose firm released this Microsoft Word add-in. Other features: Superscript Me (changes bracketed in-text references to superscript references), Insert Queries (to the author), and a Toggle macro (change one letter or sign to another by pressing a key combination). There's a free 15-day trial period for the macros.
• Electronic Editing: With Your Computer, Not Just On It (Hilary Powers' presentation to BAEF, 3-16-04--notes by Dawn Adams). Plus a tip sheet, with macros, for the same presentation.
• HP Learning Center: Microsoft Office and Adobe (free online classes, available 24/7; topics include Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint,Digital Photos, etc. Go to www.hp.com/go/learningcenter.
• Keyboard shortcuts for Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007 (Microsoft Support). And see Some of the most useful Word shortcuts (Microsoft Most Valued Professional site)
• Tracking Changes with Word 2003
• AnyCount (software that counts words or characters in any file format, and unlike Word counts footnotes and textbooks, too -- available for one-month free trial).
• Macro tools and editing software for editors and proofreaders (McNees, Writers and Editors)
• Macros etc. for references, citations, footnotes and endnotes (McNees, Writers and Editors)
• Count Anything (a free word-count utility for Windows in a variety of file formats)
• Allen Wyatt's Word.Tips.net
• Why Use InDesign Instead of MS Word? by David Blatner, InDesignSecrets.com (for those of you stubbornly and very very slowly trying to format a book in Word)
• WORD VS. INDESIGN and other common first-time questions from our design customers (Jonathan Gullery, Publishing Basics 5-29-08)
• 7 Reasons NOT to Use Word to Typeset Your Book (Walt Shiel, View From the Trenches 5-21-11)
• Why Use InDesign Instead of MS Word? (David Blattner, InDesign Secrets.com, quoting Bevi Chagnon, a consultant for the federal government)
• Word PC e-mail list. Frequented by Word MVPs (most valued professionals), it's one place to ask for help when you've done all you can to resolve a Word problem.
• Microsoft Word MVP FAQs. Word's Most Valuable Professionals resources include Word Tutorials, links to articles on other sites, and reviewed and recommended books.
• Word Processing (James Marshall's helpful articles on About.com)
• Word tutorials by "most valued professionals" (as named by Word), including a tutorial on creating an exclusion dictionary (making a word that Word thinks is spelled correctly show as a spelling error).
• Word Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Your Text by Andrew Savikas ("exposes the inner workings of Word and releases your inner hacker" for those who know how to use VBA code)
• Word 2010 Beta available free from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx
All the Office 2010 Beta is now available.

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Tips for using gmail

• Keyboard shortcuts for Gmail (Gmail Help)
• Create a Gmail signature (and other Gmail how-to's)
• 36 Gmail Tips That Will Help You Conquer Email (Eric Griffith, PC Magazine, 5-21-16)
• Use Dots in Your Email Address (part of PC's 36 Tips piece) The best known secret of all time about Gmail is that it ignores dots in your email address. So yourname@gmail.com is the same as your.name@gmail.com or even y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e.@gmail.com. They all go to the same person. Might seem useless, but you can still see the pattern, so it's a great trick for signing up for newsletters or sharing your email address—you can tell who's sold your name to spammers, for instance.
• Add a Plus to Your Address (36 Tips, continued) Another time-honored Gmail address trick: Gmail ignores anything after a plus sign. So yourname+pcmag@gmail.com goes to the same place as yourname@gmail.com. The difference is, this alias is incredibly handy for filtering messages, as Gmail filters do see what's after the plus. Thus, if you sign up for every newsletter with yourname+news@gmail.com, you only need to filter on messages sent to that address, rather than on every individual newsletter sender. (This doesn't always work however, as many services don't allow signups with emails that have optional characters, of which the plus sign is one.)
• Back Up Every Message (#22 of 36 tips)
• Send From a Different Address (#25 of 36)
• Turn Messages Into Tasks or Events-events (#27 of 36)
• Canned Responses (#16 of 36 Tips also!) Stop typing so much, especially the same message over and over. The Canned Responses experiment in Gmail Labs is a must for those repeated, redundant, repetitive responses. Activate it and type up a response mail. Click the arrow in the lower right corner of the message composition pane and select "Canned responses." You'll get the option here to save the message, or apply an already saved message to the current window. If you re-write the canned reply, you can resave it with the same name for future use.
• How to set up Gmail with aliases and import other inboxes (April Glaser, Wired, 3-15-16)
• Out of office or vacation reply (Gmail Help)
• Muting or ignoring conversations (Gmail Help)
• Message translation (Gmail Help)

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Acoustic Primer (GK Associates). This is really about acoustics for listening to music in a room, not for audiovisual productions, but it may be of interest for those more advanced than I am (a large crowd).

adamwilt.com on DV, DVCAM & DVCPRO formats . Explore the site and you may find material you can use.

Adobe keyboard shortcuts

Adobe tutorials for Creative Suite (free, Layers Magazine)

Ask Dave Taylor (online tech support about Windows, Mac OS X, iPhones, iPods, Sony PSPs, search engine optimization, online advertising and HTML). Lots of how-to explanations on his site. I also rely on Claude Kerno, or PCTutor, for tech help; he also has an archive of helpful articles.

Audio Field Recording Equipment Guide, Andy Kolovos's list of retired equipment, mostly analog (Vermont Folklife Center). See also his important Digital Audio Field Recording Equipment Guide

Audio Restoration, Media Formats & Resources (Tips and Notes), Richard Hess

The Best Free Software of 2012 (Eric Griffith, PCMagazine, 4-2-12). See also Best free software of 2010 (Eric Griffith, PCMagazine), Best free software of 2009, and Best Free Apps for Your Phone

Tech tutorials for computer novices

Copy and paste, keyboard shortcuts, hyperlinks, passcodes, binary code, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DNS, rebopting router, and other techie stuff

• Tech Tips & Resources (Ashby Village) How to do meetings (Zoom, Skype, Google Duo, and Skype), Streaming basics, Manage your passwords, Internet scams and phishing, Cognitive games, Find your lost iPhone, Emergency resources: Alternatives to the "panic button", and much more. Very useful, Ashby Village!
• How to Copy and Paste (Four methods, wikiHow) How to copy text, images, and files from one place and paste them into a different location on a Windows or Mac computer, as well as on an iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device. See other computer topics wikiHow has tutorials for.
• How to Reboot Your Router Go to May 30, 2018 in the Kerno.biz archives, where you'll find lots of practical tips.
• What to do if you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled (Apple Support)
• Hyperlinks 101 ( Adrienne Montgomerie, ACES News, 1-1-19) Reprinted from Copyediting, probably, whose material ACES took over.
• Free Code Camp Learn to code for free. Build projects. Earn certifications.
• HTML Tutorials. And Stuff. (HTML Dog) Everything HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (the most common languages used in making web pages). Tutorials, techniques, examples, and references.
• PHP Tutorial for Absolute Beginners (YouTube video)
• What is HTML5? (Chamber of Commerce)
• HTML for beginners (on WhoIsHostingThis?--insight into 473 hosting companies from thousands of user reviews). Basics about html, tags, meta tags, formatting, forms, tables, etc.
• HTML Cheat Sheet (Digital.com) "HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) has come a long way since Tim Berners-Lee invented it in 1991. HTML5 is the latest version supported by modern web browsers. Our HTML cheat sheet has a full list of all HTML elements, including descriptions, code examples and live previews. Scroll down to browse all HTML tags alphabetically or by their category, or download it as a PDF."

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• HTML Tutorial (w3schools.com).
• W3Schools With pages explaining different elements of HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and more, this doesn't teach you the basics of web design and coding but it's a good reference site for looking up commands and tools.
• Code Academy Learn to code. Start for free, then decide whether to continue with premium.
• Hello Scala (Alvin Alexander) Free download of a book you can read more about on the author's Twitter feed, along with other useful tips on computer programming. See also the Amazon writeup for his book Functional Programming, Simplified: (Scala Edition) Read the comments (favorable, but not for the print quality)
• Converting HTML to WordPress – Step-by-Step Guide (Nick Schäferhoff, WebsiteSetup, 2-14-18)
• A Detailed HTML Overview
• Six Keyboard Shortcuts Every Computer User Should Know (Adam Dachis, Lifehacker, 8-31-11) For Mac users.

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• Use Google to Search Within a Single Website (Marziah Karch, Lifewire, 10-9-18)
• Anatomy of an HTML page (John Espirian, UK, Part 1, building blocks of HTML). Part 2: headings, images and lists; part 3: comments, tables and special characters; part 4: quoting and citing; part 5: the 'head' element that allows so-called metadata (information about our pages)
• Cheat sheet for commonly used HTML tags (Computer Services, Temple University)
• Learn About Domains & HTML (MarcaRia.com Network) A tutorial on HTML code, Web pages, and domain names. (Hat tip: Dakota Lowe)
• Code Review: A Beginner’s Guide to Computer Programming and Web Development Helpful material from SafeStars about HTML & CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and more advanced topics: PHP, Python, Ruby and C/C++) H/T Sandra Beals
• Special entity codes in HTML (letters with accents, other foreign characters, currency symbols, math symbols, etc), part of an excellent larger site Computing with Accents, Symbols & Foreign Scripts (Penn State)
• ICO Convert (a tool to convert headshots of authors into icons for your Word files, favicon images for your website, or PNGs.
• Karen's Directory Printer (quickly print the list of files in your computer's directory).KarenWare.com, which also publishes Karen's Power Tools Newsletter
• Personal Computer Tutor newsletter archives (Claude Kerno, my former computer guy, writes these, which help me understand the mysteries of my little computer-and-printer etc. universe)
• Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User (Pogue's Posts, 10-2-08, but much of this is still helpful for novices)

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• Hacked and Hijacked: What to Do if Your E-mail Account Gets Compromised (Jon Chase, Switched, 2-24-11)
• What I Did When My Email Was Hacked (Besides Panic) (Paul Solman, Next Avenue, 1-21-13). Paul Solman of 'PBS NewsHour' details the break-in of his Yahoo Mail account — and Next Avenue offers advice to hacking victims
• An Internet Scammer Reveals His Tactics (video, MoneyTrack, Next Avenue, 2-8-13)
• How exactly does binary code work? (video, José Américo N L F Freitas, TED Talk) Imagine trying to use words to describe every scene in a film, every note in a song, or every street in your town. Now imagine trying to do it using only the numbers 1 and 0. Every time you use the Internet to watch a movie, listen to music, or check directions, that’s exactly what your device is doing, using the language of binary code.
• Twitter's Help Page (has links to all the major e-mail services' support pages)
• Inside My Laptop. My computer guy referred me to this when telling me from afar how to replace the battery inside my laptop. It has great practical guidance for many makes of laptops.
• mac roundtable podcasts
• MacBreak Weekly (hosted by Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, Alex Lindsay, Rene Ritchie, on TWiT) "Get the latest Apple news and views from the top names in Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad journalism."
• Podfeet Podcasts (Technology Geek Podcasts with an EVER so Slight Apple Bias!) Blog posts, podcasts, videos, tutorials)

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• iPhone Update (C/Net) iPhone and iOS News)
• Macsolvers' blog/a>(Tips 'n Tricks using Macs, smartphones, etc.) and Twitter posts
• Upgrading your macOS without forethought could cost you money – Part 1 (Dale Komai, Macsolvers' Blog, 10-4-17) on upgrading to High Sierra). See also Part 2 and
Part 3.
• Techbyter Worldwide (Joe Bradley and Bill Blinn's technology program--you can listen to podcasts going waaaaay back--High Tech, Plain English, was the tagline for the show that started on WTVN Radio's Sunday morning line-up)
• What is my IP address? (go to this website when you need to know your IP address--it will show onscreen).

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• How to take a screenshot (capture an image onscreen)
• How to download files from the Internet (how to download download programs, zipped files, HTML files, graphics, and clipart, etc. from various places on the Internet)(Autumn Web's tutorial)
• Gizmo's how-to guides and tutorials
• Ethernet Ports Are for Ethernet Cables—Here's What That Means (Bradley Mitchell, Lifewire, 12-11-17, illustrated) Ethernet ports go by other names also, like LAN ports, Ethernet connections, Ethernet jacks, LAN sockets, and network ports.
• What Are Bitcoins? How Do Bitcoins Work? (Paul Gil, Lifewire, 6-21-18) And why are bitcoins so controversial? (Other Cryptocoin examples: Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Peercoin, Feathercoin.)

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• How to Find a Computer Network Address (Bradley Mitchell, Lifewire, 4-9-18) Network addresses digitally identify devices to help them communicate
• The Hotel Hackers Are Hiding in the Remote Control Curtains (Patrick Clark, Bloomberg Business Week, 6-26-19) Back doors to your personal data can be found in everything from smart fish tanks to Wi-Fi pineapples.
• Computer Networking Tutorial - Internet Protocol (Bradley Mitchell, Lifewire, 4-21-18)
• Using Winzip to download zipped files (tutorial by Roxy Flanagan, about the mysteries of working with "compressed files," files made smaller for travel on the Internet)
• How to: Convert DVD (VOB) Files to Editable MPEGs (Scott, Ensemble Video). Part of a series Ensemble provides on video conversion.
• Download Mysteries Solved (The Newbie Club)
• Basic HTML That Everyone Should Know (Michael Rohde, HTML Goodies)
• Banner Primers (Joe Burns, HTML Goodies). Learn to make your own advertising banner from scratch
• 30 steps that make javascript fun to learn (Javascript Primers, HTML Goodies)

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• DNS Stuff (on-demand troubleshooting tools help you find and solve problems with your email, DNS and connectivity - fast. Tools tell you "what the world thinks" and offers trusted 3rd party validation. At the top of landing page you'll see your I.P. address. For advanced computer users -- the tools are fun to play around with, says my computer guy.
• Office 2013: the real startup guide (Peter Deegan) Things you should know that Microsoft won’t tell you: saving money, installing, configuring and using Office 2013
• How can I prepare for a tough coding interview in one week? (Quora) Do's and Don'ts from a trainer.
• Top 25 Cybersecurity Experts To Follow On Social Media In 2019 (Scott Schober, author of Hacked Again, on Cybersecurity Ventures). Following their posts will make you aware of things you never thought of worrying about.
• VLC Media Player. VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols (VideoLAN). Here are answers to frequently asked questions
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Tech tutorials for computer novices and semi-novices

help wth HTML and other techie stuff

• Basic Computer Skills (YouTube, Edith Cowan University) New to a computer? Start here.
• So Much for ‘Learn to Code’ (Kelli María Korducki, The Atlantic, 9-26-23) In the age of AI, computer science is no longer the safe major. See section on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Coding (Journalist's Toolbox AI)
• How to Create a Website from Scratch (Berkeley Boot Camp)
• Beginners Guide to PowerPoint

• Help Desk Geek (Why Your Laptop Won’t Turn On and 9 Ways to Fix; Can’t Type in Windows Search Bar? Try These 15 Fixes; How to Downgrade Google Chrome to an Older Version; How to Type the Tilde Symbol on Chromebooks and Windows PCs; etc.

• Lifehacker Tips, tricks and no-fail cheat sheets to do everything better. Now in your inbox daily.
• Lifehacker Top 10 (in various categories)

• Free Code Camp Learn to code for free. Build projects. Earn certifications.
• PHP Tutorial for Absolute Beginners (YouTube video)
• Tech Tips & Resources (Ashby Village) How to do meetings (Zoom, Skype, Google Duo, and Skype), Streaming basics, Manage your passwords, Internet scams and phishing, Cognitive games, Find your lost iPhone, Emergency resources: Alternatives to the "panic button", and much more. Very useful, Ashby Village!
• How to Copy and Paste (Four methods, wikiHow) How to copy text, images, and files from one place and paste them into a different location on a Windows or Mac computer, as well as on an iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device. See other computer topics wikiHow has tutorials for.
• Tips, Tricks, and Guides (Online Tech Tips) You may be bombarded with ads. Maybe they tell you how to stop them! But subscribe, because they provide some useful information and explanations.
• How to Find Out an Unknown Caller’s Number ( Nicolae Bochis, Online Tech Tips, 8-11-22) Stop random strangers from wasting your time
• Top 11 Technology Websites and Blogs (TechPout)
• How to Reboot Your Router Go to May 30, 2018 in the Kerno.biz archives, where you'll find lots of practical tips.
• What to do if you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled (Apple Support)
• Hyperlinks 101 ( Adrienne Montgomerie, ACES News, 1-1-19) Reprinted from Copyediting, probably, whose material ACES took over.
• ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web (Ted Chiang, New Yorker, 2-9-23) OpenAI’s chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer? This article starts with an explanation of how each time a photocopier reproduces an image, it shrinks it somewhat, so it's not accurate. "Compressing a file requires two steps: first, the encoding, during which the file is converted into a more compact format, and then the decoding, whereby the process is reversed. If the restored file is identical to the original, then the compression process is described as lossless: no information has been discarded. By contrast, if the restored file is only an approximation of the original, the compression is described as lossy: some information has been discarded and is now unrecoverable. Lossless compression is what’s typically used for text files and computer programs, because those are domains in which even a single incorrect character has the potential to be disastrous. Lossy compression is often used for photos, audio, and video in situations in which absolute accuracy isn’t essential. Most of the time, we don’t notice if a picture, song, or movie isn’t perfectly reproduced."
• What is HTML5? (Chamber of Commerce)
• HTML for beginners (on WhoIsHostingThis?--insight into 473 hosting companies from thousands of user reviews). Basics about html, tags, meta tags, formatting, forms, tables, etc.
• HTML Cheat Sheet (Digital.com) "HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) has come a long way since Tim Berners-Lee invented it in 1991. HTML5 is the latest version supported by modern web browsers. Our HTML cheat sheet has a full list of all HTML elements, including descriptions, code examples and live previews. Scroll down to browse all HTML tags alphabetically or by their category, or download it as a PDF."
• What are UTM codes, and why are they so important? (Buffer) UTM codes help you track the performance of each of those links so you can see where your traffic is coming from. See also
What Are UTM Codes? UTM Tracking Explained (Spinutech)

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• Use Google to Search Within a Single Website (Marziah Karch, Lifewire, 10-9-18)
• Anatomy of an HTML page (John Espirian, UK, Part 1, building blocks of HTML). Part 2: headings, images and lists; part 3: comments, tables and special characters; part 4: quoting and citing; part 5: the 'head' element that allows so-called metadata (information about our pages)
• Cheat sheet for commonly used HTML tags (Computer Services, Temple University)
• Learn About Domains & HTML (MarcaRia.com Network) A tutorial on HTML code, Web pages, and domain names. (Hat tip: Dakota Lowe)
• Code Review: A Beginner’s Guide to Computer Programming and Web Development Helpful material from SafeStars about HTML & CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and more advanced topics: PHP, Python, Ruby and C/C++) H/T Sandra Beals
• ICO Convert (a tool to convert headshots of authors into icons for your Word files, favicon images for your website, or PNGs.
• Karen's Directory Printer (quickly print the list of files in your computer's directory).KarenWare.com, which also publishes Karen's Power Tools Newsletter
• Personal Computer Tutor newsletter archives (Claude Kerno, my former computer guy, writes these, which help me understand the mysteries of my little computer-and-printer etc. universe)
• Tech tips for the basic computer user (Pogue, New York Times, 10-2-08) Oldies but goodies.
• Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User (Pogue's Posts, 10-2-08, oldies but goodies, much of this still helpful for novices)

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Principles and history of computer code, word processing, equipment and software

• Computers can be understood (Nelson Elhage's blog and website)
• Word Processors Through Time: Before MS Word & Google Docs (Custom Writing) This infographic explores what people used before MS Word and other modern word processors became a thing.
• What Is Code? (Tech Target) in computer science, code refers to the computer program algorithms, made up of symbols from a source alphabet, that represent the set of rules on what actions the program is expected to perform. Essentially, it is our human language, translated by a coder into lines of code that a computer can understand and respond to. A number of computer coding languages are in use today: PHP, Java, JavaScript, and Python, explained.
Markup language is also part of machine language as it dictates to the system how a page should be formatted. A number of different coding languages are in use today and each has different benefits and applications they are most commonly used for, such as: PHP, Java, Java Script, and Python.
Examples of markup languages include:

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

XML (Extensible Markup Language)

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language)

DCML (Data Center Markup Language)

SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)

Clear as mud? Read the article and look for more on those terms.
• Special entity codes in HTML (letters with accents, other foreign characters, currency symbols, math symbols, etc), part of an excellent larger site Computing with Accents, Symbols & Foreign Scripts (Penn State)

The Dark Web

• What is the dark web? How to access it and what you'll find (Darren Guccione, CSO. 7-1-21) The dark web is part of the internet that isn't visible to search engines and requires the use of an anonymizing browser called Tor to be accessed.
• The Dark Web (Wikipedia entry) An interesting overview of the good and bad aspects of the Dark Web, with links to lots of articles about it. "The darknets which constitute the dark web include small, friend-to-friend peer-to-peer networks, as well as large, popular networks such as Tor, Freenet, I2P, and Riffle operated by public organizations and individuals. Users of the dark web refer to the regular web as Clearnet due to its unencrypted nature. The Tor dark web or onionland uses the traffic anonymization technique of onion routing under the network's top-level domain suffix .onion."
• An Inside Look at the Good, Bad and Complicated Parts of the Dark Web (Harmon Leon, Observer, 2-9-2020), 2-9-2020) "Dark Web is a catch-all term for the part of the internet that isn't indexed by search engines; it contains sites that don't show up on Google searches. What you need is a Tor browser to give you access to .onion websites, which are only available on the Tor network....It officially got its modern-day start in 2000 with the release of Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication. Another important piece of the dark web puzzle was the rise of cryptocurrency in the 2010s, which kept financial transactions under the radar and opened up the black-market arena."
• In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom, a book about helping a loved one die, is an unlikely source for this explanation:

"I ask Jack about the dark web, and Jack tries to tell me."

"Well, basically it's like Yelp.The dark web is this tiny part of the deep web, where you have these encrypted sites that require specific software to access. But once you're in, it's almost like a new-age version of the classifieds, but better because vendors have reviews. The better their reviews, the more likely you'll actually get what you're buying. They're paid in Bitcoin. It's a file stored in a digital wallet. You can pay for it with a credit card or through wire transfer, or trade for it with other goods, and then you buy stuff with it."

"Basically, you set up your computer to do some really complex sums, and occasionally a Bitcoin will pop out. But at this point, it's so complex, even with a really powerful computer it could be years before you get a hit."

She concludes that it is not a comfortable place to purchase what she wants.
• Dark Web: A cheat sheet for business professionals (Dan Patterson, Tech Republic, 10-26-18) Nefarious profiteers use the encrypted internet to sell stolen data, drugs, and weapons. Facebook and the UN use it to protect dissidents and journalists. This guide shines a light on the Dark Web.
• What is the Deep and Dark Web? (Kaspersky) A haven for anonymity. The open web, or surface web, is the “visible” surface layer. All commonly public-facing websites accessed via traditional browsers like Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox are contained here. The deep web rests below the surface and accounts for approximately 90% of all websites. This deep web also includes the portion that we know as the dark web. The term "deep web" refers to all web pages that that are unidentifiable by search engines. Deep web sites may be concealed behind passwords or other security walls, while others simply tell search engines to not “crawl” them. The dark web is a very concealed portion of the deep web that few will ever interact with or even see. In other words, the deep web covers everything under the surface that's still accessible with the right software, including the dark web. It is not illegal to access the dark web. H/T Kaspersky!

Digital and online security (and cyberattack)

Malware (trojans, viruses, worms), ransomware, hacking attacks, phishing,

and other notes on cybersecurity and the Dark Web

How to protect your computer and other electronic communication devices

• Digital Safety Kit (Committee to Protect Journalists, 7-30-19) How to protect yourself and your sources through secured digital accounts, devices, and online communications. Practical advice to help journalists navigate digital threats like phishing attacks and specific concerns about crossing borders, when authorities may seek to inspect devices.
• The Default Tech Settings You Should Turn Off Right Away (Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 7-2422) These controls, which are buried inside products from Apple, Google, Meta and others, make us share more data than we need to. For example,
---"Google products, including Android phones and web services like Google search, YouTube and Google Maps, are tied to Google accounts, and the control panel for tweaking data management is on the website myactivity.google.com.
---"Meta’s most important settings can be reached through the privacy checkup tool inside the settings menu.
---:On Amazon’s website, some shopping lists — like items saved on a wish list — are shared with the public by default, which can be revealing information. Visit the Your Lists page and set each shopping list to private."
• Ascension cyberattack caused after employee accidentally downloaded malicious file ( Sara Powers, CBS News, 6-13-24) Last month's cyberattack on Ascension hospitals nationwide happened because of what an investigation determined was a simple employee mistake. Ascension brought in a third-party company to investigate the attack, and now says the attacker gained access to its systems when an employee working at one of their facilities accidentally downloaded a malicious file.
---Criminals likely stole personal information in Ascension cyberattack, health care system says (Lisa Schencker, Chicago Tribune, 6-13-24) Cybercriminals stole files from hospital system Ascension that likely contained personal information, Ascension said, about a month after revealing it had fallen victim to a ransomware attack. Ascension said it has evidence that the attackers took files from seven of the system’s 25,000 file servers. It believes those files may contain protected health information and personally identifiable information for some individuals.
---The state-by-state impact of Ascension’s cyberattack (Healthcare Dive, 5-17-24) Healthcare Dive is tracking pharmacy operations, emergency rooms statuses and potential care delays across Ascension’s hospitals.
• Tech giants to offer free cybersecurity services to small and rural hospitals (Aaron Bolton, Montana Public Radio, 6-26-24) Investing in the latest cybersecurity tools is more important than ever for hospitals big and small, says cybersecurity expert Beau Woods. They’ve become prime targets because of valuable patient data that can be sold or held for ransom. Cyberattacks slow doctors’ ability to treat patients and can even force hospitals to send patients elsewhere for treatment, delaying care and putting patients’ lives at risk.
• How to avoid phishing scams (blog post)
• Online account security (Freedom of the Press Foundation) Most online attacks aren’t fancy. Attackers most commonly try to access your accounts by guessing short, predictable passwords, or by sending phishing emails designed to trick you into sending them your credentials in a malicious login webpage. Fortunately, the defenses are also simple.
• I Gave AI My Search History and Here's What It Told Me (Leo Notenboom, Ask Leo! Confident Computing) For as little as $2/month you can help, and view askleo.com without ads. For $5/month you'll also get the The Ask Leo! Tip of the Day. I was drawn to his 7 Takeaways on Paywalls. See also his Best Takeaways and My Most Reference Articles.
• Everything you need to know about cybercrime (MalwareBytes) What’s the difference between antivirus and anti-malware protection? Brief descriptions of malware, ransomware, adware, spyware, phishing, data breach, and many more forms of trouble.
• How to Turn OFF Geotagging for Photos On iPhone and iPad (Waseem Patwegar, Techbout) By default, iPhone records your Location Information on photos that you take using the Camera on your iPhone. However, it is easy to Turn OFF Geotagging for photos on iPhone and prevent your location information from being recorded on photos.
• Internet Protection – Computer Safety for Kids & Teens (Norton LifeLock) Scroll down past a few paragraphs to a long list of links to excellent websites and webpages about internet safety, protection from cyber-harm, fighting online predators, online sexual predators, and online safety and cybersecurity tips for kids, parents, family, and friends.
• Russian government hackers are behind a broad espionage campaign that has compromised U.S. agencies, including Treasury and Commerce (Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg, Washington Post, 12-14-2020). One of several stories referred to in Heather Cox Richardson's summary story about a major security breach.
• Hacker News (Ycombinator) For computer nerds and the curious.
• Is That Website Legit? Check if a website is legit or a scam; check a site's reputation.
• How Not to Pay the Price for Free Wi-Fi (Stephanie Rosenbloom, Travel, NY Times, 6-8-14) Visit sites with 'https' in the URL, use a virtual private network, sign up for two-step verification, and turn off what you are not using. Explained.

Here are the websites to visit to set up security freezes:
---TransUnion: transunion.com/credit-freeze
---Experian: experian.com/freeze/center.html
---Equifax
---National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange: www.nctue.com/Consumers
• Equifax, Experian, TransUnion to remove some medical debt from credit reports (Kerry Dooley Young and Joseph Burns , Covering Health, AHCJ, 4-6-22)

• How digital financial services can prey upon the poor (The Economist, 1-29-2020) Mobile-money accounts have helped deliver “financial inclusion”—making financial services accessible to the tens of millions with a phone but no bank account. But they have downsides too....Many 'free' apps are in fact paid for in customer data. In every country people gaily sign away their rights to privacy by clicking consent buttons without having understood or even read what they are agreeing to." Etc. A solid discussion of how the poor can be preyed on.
• The best browser 2020 (Carrie Marshall, Tech Radar, 8-18-2020) The best browsers for speed, privacy and customization.
• The Webcam Hacking Epidemic (Dan Massoglia, The Atlantic, 12-23-14) It'd be easy for policy makers to correct gaps in protections against remote access tools used to spy on individuals. So why haven't they? Read about Remote Access Tools, or RATs. See also Webcam Security: How To Make Sure Nobody Spies On You (Pixel Privacy)
• Best Cell Phone Coverage (Reviews.org) What’s the point of a cell phone if you can’t use it? See also
Guide to Finding the Best Cell Phone Coverage (WhistleOut) and
Mobile Network Experience Report USA January 2020 (Open Signal)
• The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire (Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 7-27-2020) An eccentric Dutchman began living in a giant underground facility built by the German military—and ran a server farm beloved by cybercriminals.
• What's Phishing and How Can You Avoid Getting Hooked? (Norton Internet Security) Phishing is a con game. Phishers are tech-savvy con artists and identity thieves who use spam, fake websites, emails, phone calls and instant messages to trick people into divulging sensitive information like passwords or account numbers. How to avoid them and what to do if you've been the victim of a phishing scam.
• Phishing prevention and email hygiene (especially 2FA) (Harlo Holmes, Director of Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation, 8-4-21) Most people are hacked via phishing attacks. Phishing is a social-engineering attack where an adversary crafts an email (or text, app message) in such a way to trick you into divulging information that could be used against you or your network; gain access to, and ultimately commandeer your account; or introduce malware and/or viruses to your machine. One of the most important advances in credential security is two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication (or “2FA”) relies on the idea that services are more secure if you access them with something you know (i.e., your passphrase), and something you have (i.e. physical access to your phone). Turn on two-factor authentication for any and all services that you can, starting with your Gmail account. Better yet, get a security key, a small device that you either plug into your computer, or connect to your phone wirelessly, if it supports NFC, to enable this securely.
• What Is Two-Factor Authentication? (Brain Station) Links to subtopics along left side.

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• Anatomy of a malicious script: how a website can take over your browser (Paolo Mioni,CSS Tricks, 7-13-18)Has it ever happened to you that your browser gets hijacked and innumerable pop-ups come up, and you seem to be unable to close them without quitting the browser altogether, or clicking 25 times on the “Back” button?
• Hidden Threats: How to deal with Website Malware (Greg Zemskov, Plesk, 4-23-18) "Malicious scripts are code fragments that, among other places, can be hidden in otherwise legitimate websites, whose security has been compromised. ... At this point, the malicious script (JavaScript for example), which is usually obfuscated, is responsible for downloading and executing what is known as the payload.
"A malicious URL is a link created with the purpose of promoting scams, attacks and frauds. By clicking on an infected URL, you can download a malware or a Trojan that can take your devices, or you can be persuaded to provide sensitive information on a fake website."
• How to remove malware from your Windows PC (Eric Geier and Josh Norem, PC World, 5-6-19)
• The NSA files decoded (The Guardian) Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations, explained. How US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security.
• Without encryption, we will lose all privacy. This is our new battleground (Edward Snowden, The Guardian, 10-15-19) It is striking that when a company as potentially dangerous as Facebook appears to be at least publicly willing to implement technology that makes users safer by limiting its own power, it is the US government that cries foul. This is because the government would suddenly become less able to treat Facebook as a convenient trove of private lives. Edward Snowden is a US surveillance whistleblower.
• Four ways Edward Snowden changed the world – and why the fight's not over (Trevor Timm, The Guardian, 6-5-14)
• What Journalists Need to Know About Password Managers (Yael Grauer, Business Journalism, 6-13-18) Reporters should view password management software and tools marketing themselves as next-generation solutions with skepticism, and dig in deeper to see how these new technologies will address any drawbacks that have been documented and exposed.
• Internet Safety Guide For Seniors (VPN Smash)

• Defending against cyberwar: How the cybersecurity elite are working to prevent a digital apocalypse (Steve Ranger, Tech Republic, 7-28-17) Cyberwar has evolved from the theoretical to the ominous. TechRepublic went inside one of the defenders vs. hackers war games that's helping countries prepare to defend themselves. Many governments are now spending vast sums on building up their capability to wage war on digital systems, with the US, Russia, and China seen as the most advanced in their capabilities. Incidents such as the 2015 hacking attack on the power grid in western Ukraine, which caused a blackout leaving hundreds of thousands without power, have shown the effectiveness of using digital attacks against critical infrastructure.
• Freezing Credit Will Now Be Free. Here’s Why You Should Go for It. (Ann Carrns, NY Times, 9-14-18) A year after the Equifax security breach, most people have not frozen their credit records. Consumer advocates recommend freezes to foil identity theft."Security freezes, often called credit freezes, are “absolutely” the best way to prevent criminals from using your personal information to open new accounts in your name, said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy nonprofit group. Free freezes, which will be available [Friday, 9-22-18], were required as part of broader financial legislation signed in May by President Trump."
• 21 Terrifying Cyber Crime Statistics (Jack Foster, VPN Geeks, 9-25-18)
• Cybersecurity Research: All In One Place (Cybercrime Magazine)
• The jargon-free guide to computer and internet security (Jon Watson, Comparitech, 10-28-17)

• Google is shutting down Google+ for consumers following security lapse (Ashley Carman, The Verge, 10-8-18) You may feel uneasy on learning who could access what of your personal information.
• 11 Things to Consider When Connecting to Free WiFi (Infographic, Jack Foster, VPN Geeks, 8-23-18) #4: Don't use your credit card or internet banking. #6 Use an antivirus. #11. Disable sharing.
• The Most Common Types of Cyber Security Attacks (Bill Jefferson, Top VPN Canada) How they work and steps you can take to protect yourself against: Socially engineered trojans, malware, phishing, mining cryptocurrencies viruses, AI-powwered attacks, denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), man-in-the-middle attacks (aka session hijacking). "One way to protect yourself would be to use a premium VPN service to mask your IP and hide your location, in conjunction with a good firewall and antivirus."
• The inside story of the world's most dangerous malware (Blake Sobczak, E&E News, 3-7-19-- for energy and environment professionals) "Investigators soon discovered a dangerous hacking tool that would usher in a new chapter in the global cyber arms race, much like the Stuxnet worm that damaged Iranian nuclear centrifuges at the start of the decade. The discovery of the Triton malware, named for the Triconex line of safety systems it triggered, echoed from the ancient Saudi city of Rabigh to a research institute in Moscow, and from California to Tokyo."
• Are You Keeping Yourself and Your Work Safe Online? (Laura K. Curtis, 9-9-14)
• IdentityTheft.gov Report identity theft and get a recovery plan. IdentityTheft.gov is the federal government’s one-stop resource for identity theft victims. The site provides streamlined checklists and sample letters to guide you through the recovery process.
• What Are the Most Effective Ways to Prevent Identity Theft? (TopVPNCanada)
• A 9-step guide to prepare for GDPR compliance (Javvad Malik, Information Management, 9-21-17) n May 2018, the General Data Privacy Regulation will take effect, significantly altering the way organizations handle and store data. GDPR applies to all organizations that control or process data within the EU as well as those that control or process data related to EU residents. The comprehensive regulation is primarily intended to strengthen security and privacy protections around individual data, which it enforces by subjecting organizations to stricter requirements, adding new requirements – such as breach notification – and increasing fines on organizations that fail to comply.

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• The Best Online Backup Services for 2016 (Michael Muchmore, PC Magazine, 2-24-16)
• Cybersecurity resources (American Hospital Association)
• How Hackers Target the Hotel Industry Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report, which comprises
more than 53,000 real-world incidents during the year, shows hotels are a consistent target of point-of-sales attacks. Via the wonderful Robert McGarvey (Hotel Data Breaches and You: Welcome to Anxiety, 7-17-18) "Accept also that airport public wifi is radically unsafe." See also: Russian Hackers May Be Targeting Your Hotel and Your Data (8-14-17)
• How protected is your online privacy and what steps can you take for data protection (elsewhere on this site)
• Avoid Fake Security Messages (Claude Kerno, June 2018)
• The Difference Between Antivirus and Anti-Malware (and Which to Use) (Alan Henry, Lifehacker, 8-21-13) "Antivirus is a confusing matter: it's called antivirus, but there are tons of other types of malware out there. So...do those programs also scan for spyware, adware, and other threats? Here's how to make heads or tails of it all, and which tools you can trust to keep your PC clean."
• What’s the Difference Between Viruses, Trojans, Worms, and Other Malware? (How-to Geek, Lifehacker, 6-10-10) Viruses wreak havoc on your files. Spyware steals your information without your knowledge, scareware holds your PC hostage until you pay a ransom, trojan horses install a backdoor, and computer worms use the network to send copies of themselves to other PCs.
• What is Malware and How to Defend Against It? (Kaspersky) Malware, short for "malicious software," refers to a type of computer program designed to infect a legitimate user's computer and inflict harm on it in multiple ways. Malware can infect computers and devices in several ways and comes in a number of forms, just a few of which include viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware and more. It's vital that all users know how to recognize and protect themselves from malware in all of its forms.
• Baseline publications produced by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) ) Documents to help you with everything from setting up your first computer to understanding the nuances of emerging threats.

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• Security Primers published by the MS-ISAC (Center for Internt Security)
• Understanding Website Certificates (Security Tip (ST05-010), National Cyber Awareness System, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security)
• How to avoid getting hacked when shopping online (Seth Rosenblatt, C/Net, 12-16-14)
• What's Next if You Got a New Computer for Christmas (Techbyter Worldwide). Software for protecting yourself, explained: PC Decrapifier, NiNite, LibreOffice, Malwarebytes, LastPass, CCleaner, and so on. Note to self: Re-read at leisure.
• Hacked and Hijacked: What to Do if Your PC Gets Compromised (Jon Chase, Switched, 2-23-11, on dealing with malware)
• Malware: what it is and how to prevent it (Adam Baratz, Ars Technica 11-11-04)
• How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi Networks (Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker, 11-14-14)
• Online privacy (many resources, including the next two)
• What Is VPN For? VPN Benefits Explained (Claudio R., Anonymster, 1-18-17) A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is basically a series of computers networked together over the Internet, so you bypass the server of your ISP (internet service provider), so that nobody can snoop into your personal affairs. Explains how VPN encryption and protocols work and how they can protect your internet connection. Reviews best VPN systems.
• KeePassX (a free, open source, cross-platform password manager)
• Cheap Tricks: The Low Cost of Internet Harassment (Julie Angwin, Pro Publica, 11-9-17) Most tech companies have policies against working with hate websites. Yet a ProPublica survey found that PayPal, Stripe, Newsmax and others help keep more than half of the most-visited extremist sites in business.
• How to Stay Safe While Online (Chiron, Gizmo, 6-9-14)
• 5 online backup services keep your data clean (Brian Nadel, Computerworld, 2-6-12)
• Top 10 Simple Things Every Computer User Should Know How to Do (Whitson Gordon. Lifehacker, 9-8-12)

Ransomware

• Defending Against Ransomware A Resource Guide from the PCI Security Standards Council. 30%of users open phishing emails, and more than 12 percent click on their attachments. Phishing emails are a common delivery vehicle for ransomware. These emails look legitimate, such as an invoice or electronic fax, but they include malicious links and/or attachments that can infect your computer and system. Criminals are attacking businesses with a type of malware that holds business-critical systems and data hostage until a sum of money is received. See additional resources in PCI's Document Library.
• The ransomware business is booming, even as enforcers shut down some major players (Lauren Feiner, The Verge, 2-5-24) Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42, the threat intelligence firm, found a 49 percent bump in victims reported by ransomware leak sites, totaling nearly 4,000 posts to those sites from different ransomware groups. Unit 42 said the uptick was due to the massive impact of attacks that exploited zero-day vulnerabilities, which are security flaws that developers have yet to identify.
• The Extortion Economy Podcast: Exploring the Secret World of Ransomware (U.S. Companies and Ransomware, ProPublica, 12-20-21) The technology that enables ransomware may be new, but extortion and ransom are not. So why is this happening now? And can it be stopped? A five-part series on a new podcast from ProPublica and MIT Tech Review, The Extortion Economy, aims to find out.
• Why It’s Hard to Sanction Ransomware Groups (Renee Dudley, ProPublica, 5-23-22) The Russia-linked ransomware gang Conti avoided the sanctions that hit Russian banks and businesses after the invasion of Ukraine, spotlighting the difficulty of reining in cybercriminals. Meanwhile, confused victims face uncertainty.
• Tip sheet offers solid advice for covering hospital ransomware attacks (Karen Blum, Covering Health, AHCJ, 6-29-21)
• US recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers (Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen and Alex Marquardt, CNN, 6-7-21) The Justice Department said it seized approximately $2.3 million in Bitcoins paid to individuals in a criminal hacking group known as DarkSide. The FBI said it has been investigating DarkSide, which is said to share its malware tools with other criminal hackers, for over a year. The ransom recovery, which is the first seizure undertaken by the recently created DOJ digital extortion taskforce, is a rare outcome for a company that has fallen victim to a debilitating cyberattack in the booming criminal business of ransomware.
• Justice Department is launching a ransomware task force (Brian Fung, CNN Business, 4-21-21) On site of article is ongoing CNN updates on video.
• The Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack and the Perils of Privately Owned Infrastructure (Sue Halpern, New Yorker, 5-19-21) For years, businesses have resisted efforts from the federal government to hold them to robust cybersecurity standards. In the US there have been nearly a thousand reported ransomware attacks on our critical infrastructure since 2013. This includes transportation services, wastewater facilities, communications systems, and hospitals. "Until the private companies that own much of our critical infrastructure—including our election systems—are required, by law, to meet rigorous cybersecurity standards, we all remain vulnerable."
• Clinical Trials Hit by Ransomware Attack on Health Tech Firm (Nicole Perlroth, NY Times, 10-3-2020) No patients were affected, but the incident was another reminder of the risks in the increasingly common assaults on computer networks.
• FBI warns ransomware assault threatens US health care system (AP, WTOP. 10-29-2020)
• Justice Department is launching a ransomware task force (Brian Fung, CNN Business, 4-21-21) The DOJ effort highlights how cybersecurity threats have become a major focus of the Biden administration, particularly following other recent high-profile network security incidents such as the Russian-backed SolarWinds hacking campaign and the Microsoft Exchange server vulnerabilities that Microsoft has attributed to Chinese hackers.
• How Did ‘Ransomware’ Get So Bad? (Shira Ovide, NY Times, 10-5-2020) Hackers are freezing information and demanding ransom. Who is behind this, and what can be done?

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• A City Paid a Hefty Ransom to Hackers. But Its Pains Are Far From Over. (Frances Robles, NY Times, 7-7-19) More than 100 years’ worth of municipal records, painstakingly digitized by Audrey Sikes, the city clerk for Lake City, Fla., and her team have been locked away after a cyberattack.
• Big-name sites hit by rash of malicious ads spreading crypto ransomware (Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 3-15-16)
• URLs, Authors, & Viruses (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 11-13-13)
• Backing Up Is Easy to Do (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 5-7-14).
• Free CyberCrime Resources for the Justice Professional: An Interview with Ben Spear (Justice Clearinghouse,
• Playing It Safe (Rich Adin, on Sandboxie, Cryptlocker (Crilock) Ransomware, and Startpage).
Soaring price of Bitcoin prompts CryptoLocker ransomware price break
You’re infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins (Dan Goodin, Ars Technica 10-17-13)
• How to Harden Your Browser Against Malware and Privacy Concerns (Chiron, Gizmo, 11-26-14)
• Top 10 iPhone Security Tips (PDF, Kunjan Shah, White Paper, McAfee)
• Hack Your Life in One Day: A Beginner's Guide to Enhanced Productivity (Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker, 12-18-12).

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• Resources on the Preservation of Materials in Ethnographic and Oral History Collections (PDF, Andy Kolovos, Marcia Segal)
• Retro Media: Memory and Memories Lost (SUNY Buffalo Library's long list of obsolete technologies and media formats for which, even if the media still exist, equipment and storage technologies are not always available)
• Technology stories by Farhad Manjoo (Slate) Excellent articles.
• 2-Pop Digital Filmmaking forums

Lifehacker's 20 Top 10s of 2007

Other World Computing (where a colleague buys all his Mac memory upgrades, at lower prices than Mac direct)

Product reviews (Layers magazine)

Websites, organizations, and other resources

A GREAT READ

A+ blogs and newsletters (plus podcasts)

Blog roll, too

Book news, reviews, interviews

+ Talk radio shows & podcasts, author interviews & profiles, literary journals, book lover communities

Books for book clubs

Best reads and most "discussable"

Books for writers and editors

Great search links

Fact-finding, fact-checking, conversion tables, checking fake news and misinformation, fact-checking by topic, news and info resources

Memoirs (recommended reading)

BOOK AND MAGAZINE PUBLISHING

Acquiring, swapping, or selling books (plus donating, borrowing, and lending)

New, used, rare books, Amazon, etc. Where to donate or recycle.

Agents and book proposals

Plus querying, the art of the pitch (different for books than for magazines), beta readers, the book deal, subsidiary rights

Book collaboration, ghostwriting

Communicating and marketing online (Web 2.0)

Social media, SEO, podcasts, AI and ChatGPT, blogs, ezines, survey tools and online games

Freelancing, contracting, telecommuting

AB5 and the gig economy, taxes and deductions, consulting, contracting, insurance (health, disability, liability) and tools for independent work

Getting published (starting out)

Job banks, publishing marketplaces

Job boards and sites posting freelance gigs

Marketing, publicity, promotion

Ads, book promotion, intelligent radio programs, newsletters, platform, book packaging, marketing a product and yourself as an author, growing your audience

Publishing (and e-publishing)

Ebooks/digital publishing, audiobooks, and changes in publishing. See also Self-Publishing

Self-publishing and print on demand (POD)

Indie publishing, digital publishing, hybrid publishing, POD, how-to sources. See also publishing and e-publishing.

So, You Want to Write a Book!

The heart of Sarah Wernick's website

(with her family's permission)

WRITERS AND CREATORS

Adding images, sound, story, humor

Multimedia, data visualization, visual storytelling, songwriting, cartoons, maps, charts and so on

Awards, grants, fellowships

Plus contests, other sources of funds for creators

Conferences, workshops, and learning places

Plus book fairs and festivals, writers colonies (residencies, communities, retreats)

Corporate and technical communications

Content marketing, copywriting, speechwriting, marketing, training, and writing for government and organizations

Fiction writing and editing

Literary and commercial (including genre)

Film, drama, and documentaries

(plus TV and cable)

Journalism and journalists

Local and regional organizations and events

Major writers organizations

Mastering multimedia

Writing, reporting, transcription, multimedia, equipment, computers, software, computer security, tech tips, cryptocurrency, Dark Web

Media pros and other allied professionals

Translators, indexers, designers, photographers, artists, illustrators, animators, cartoonists, image professionals, composers

Memoir, biography, and corporate history

Nonfiction

including personal essays and academic writing

Poetry and verse

Science and medical writing

Specialty and niche writing

Groups for writers who specialize in animals, children's books, food, family history, the outdoor world, resumes, sports, travel, webwriting, and wine (etc.)

The writing life

Writers on offices, standing desks, rejection, writer's block, writers groups, procrastination, and other features of the writing life

ETHICS, RIGHTS, AND OTHER ISSUES

Fair use, public domain, book contracts, licensing, permissions, rights clearance, reversion of rights, digital rights, DMCA takedown notices, net neutrality

Ethics, libel, freedom of the press

First Amendment issues, banned books, free speech, invasion of privacy, online privacy, data protection, plagiarism, libel, censorship, media watchdogs, FOIA, protection for whistleblowers

EDITORS AND EDITING

For and about editors

and for copyeditors, proofreaders, indexers, and translators--and clients!

Preface, foreword, or introduction?

The order of the parts of a book

What goes on the copyright page

Style, grammar, diction

Acronyms and initialisms *** Apostrophes *** British vs American punctuation (some Canadian) *** Capitalization *** Commas, serial commas, and semicolons *** Dashes, em dashes, ellipses, colons, slashes, and commas *** Editing and proofing marks *** Exclamation points *** Hyphens *** Parentheses, brackets, and braces *** Periods *** Quotation marks and italics *** The debate about 1 space or 2 between sentences *** Umlaut and diaeresis *** Punctuation generally

Tips on tact and tone

And views on the author-editor relationship

Quick Links

Mastering multimedia

THE BASICS OF MULTIMEDIA

Digitizing records, tapes, and CDs

Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, explained

Equipment, software, and other tools and tutorials for creating multimedia

AUDIO TOOLS, TECHNOLOGY, & TUTORIALS

CHOOSING A MICROPHONE

Transcribing and dictation tips and tools and software

RECORDING PHONE INTERVIEWS

Rights, technologies, and processes

AUDIO EDITING SOFTWARE AND INSTRUCTIONS

AUDIO RECORDING AND EDITING EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, AND TUTORIALS

Text-to-speech tools (TTS)

TUTORIALS FOR RADIO

VIDEO PRODUCTION AND EDITING

Archiving digital media

VIDEO TUTORIALS

SCANNING and REPAIRING PHOTOS, and adding metadata

Organizing and storing photos

Finding photos and other images

Finding old photo collections

Scanning, archiving, andindexing magazines, journals, and newspapers

FILE EXTENSIONS, LISTED AND EXPLAINED

Improving your writing, reporting, and speaking skills

Tips, tricks, shortcuts and "macros" for working with Microsoft Word and Excel

And why to use InDesign instead of Word for book design

Tips for using gmail

Tech tutorials for computer novices

Tech tutorials for computer novices and semi-novices

Principles and history of computer code, word processing, equipment and software

The Dark Web

Digital and online security (and cyberattack)

Ransomware

Websites, organizations, and other resources

Scanning, archiving, and
indexing magazines, journals, and newspapers