Breakdown of the tools you’ve suggested we investigate during the Ben Franklin Project. As you read the list feel free to offer feedback on those you like or those you take for a test drive.
- Survey Monkey — http://www.surveymonkey.com/
- Polldaddy — http://polldaddy.com/
- Google Docs
- Open Office — http://www.openoffice.org/
- Flckr – http://www.flckr.com
- Aviary — http://aviary.com/
- YouTube — http://www.youtube.com/
- Vimeo — http://vimeo.com/
- Blip — http://blip.tv/
- Qik — http://qik.com/
- UStream — http://www.ustream.tv/
- LiveStream — http://www.livestream.com/
- Kyte — http://www.kyte.com/
- Chats – CoverItLive — http://www.coveritlive.com/
- Content sharing – ShareThis — http://sharethis.com/
- Audio Editing – Audacity — http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
- Timelines – Dipity — http://www.dipity.com
- Disqus — http://www.disqus.com/
- ClipMarks — http://clipmarks.com/
- Topix — http://www.topix.com/
- Picnik — http://www.picnik.com/
- Pixlr – http://www.pixlr.com
- FlauntR — http://www.flauntr.com/
- Photoshop.com — https://www.photoshop.com/
- Picture2Life — http://www.picture2life.com/
- DrPic — http://www.drpic.com/
- Freshbooks (http://www.freshbooks.com/)
- BannerSnack — http://www.bannersnack.com/
- Scribus — http://www.scribus.net/ (allows page layout)
- PDF creation — http://www.cutepdf.com/
I saw Photoshop in the list and, you know, it’s expensive. The Gimp, however, is free. http://www.gimp.org
The Gimp is available for both Windows and Linux platforms.
CutePDF is in the list. It’s nice to install as a printer on a Windows system. That’s the easy way to make any printable file a PDF. Mac and Linux do PDF and PostScript without add-ons. For Windows you can edit PDFs without buying Adobe software with GhostScript. GostView is a PDF and PS renderer and companion to GhostScript. With them you can also convert file formats and resolution of graphical documents.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/
Joe,
We were looking at, among others — including Gimp — https://www.photoshop.com/
Thanks for the help with the file converters. That was something the teams were working on to find solutions.
Jon Cooper
PDF creator (free software) can also replace cutePDF (freeware) I think.
PDF creator installs a virtual printer to which you can directly print, like with any other printer. In the end, you get a PDF file.
Try it out.
Pingback: Ben Franklin Project A Success « The Ben Franklin Project
Pingback: DALLA ‘NUVOLA’ ALLA CARTA. IN 29 GIORNI « Senzamegafono
Pingback: Reinventing reporting and “crowd-sourcing” your stories
Scribus pulled the non-intel Mac version, ihave posted it on the news-herald FTP for those who need
Where’s the content coming from? I don’t see Firefox, Internet Explorer etc on the list. Nor do I see social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook where current issues are often discussed. Is this just an oversight or is there a constant decision to get content some other way? If so the description of the project is not very clear on this point.
Otis,
Twitter, Facebook and browsers are common tools already used by our reporters and editors.
Part of this project is finding new tools that our staff — and others — are not regularly using.
Best,
Jon Cooper
Is there any blog/discussion area specific to the production end of using these tools where questions can be answered by anyone who has already produced an edition?
Thanks.
You should try OSS Sharetronix for this. Multimedia short microblogging software.
Production has found a free program that works like Illustrator to build ads in called Inkscape, available at http://www.inkscape.org/
Pingback: Reinventing reporting and “crowd-sourcing” your stories at Headlamp Pictures Blog
A few other open source development tools we have been using for a few years: (Jon asked me to post these as well.)
1. Qmail – no Exchange license fees, has anti-spamming capabilities: Our Stats:
http://mail.nittanyvalley.com/qmailmrtg/index.html
Has web enabled mail as well. We have paid about $500 for support, when needed,over the last 6 years.
2. Typo3 – this is used for NittanyValley.com development. I believe it is the most widely adopted open source web development platform for a CMS in the world. We did a barter with a developer in MD, paid nothing for development. Runs on Linux – Apache – MySQl – PHP
(LAMP), all of which are also free. Much of the development is supported by a non-profit, called the TYPO3 Association. Located in Sweden or Switzerland?
3. PrintAndDeliver.net – also developed for a few hundred dollars, uses LAMP as well.
We had some issues installing Scribus and Gimp on our macs. We run OSX 10.4.11. We now have both programs up and running, however we cannot see our server or print directly from Scribus. We have way around the issue, but I was wondering if anyone else had the same problem and found a solution?
Thanks
For video conferencing: http://www.dimdim.com. I haven’t used this, but a friend of mine used it and said it was easy to use. She said it’s like GoToMeeting but has a video component GTM doesn’t. Maybe we could use it for training, etc.
Ed,
Editors in the Philly cluster have used it for state-wide editor meetings and liked the application.
Jon Cooper
jcooper@journalregister.com
Pingback: Independence Day And Our Declaration « Digital First
What programs did you use to do the layout for the print edition? I’d love to see more detailed info?
We utilized Scribus. You can find it here — http://www.scribus.net/
Great documentation available on the site — as well as a “how to” on Amazon.com.
If you’d like to speak about the program and talk with some of our folks who put it to use please let me know.
Best,
Jon Cooper
VP, Content
Pingback: Cool Links #93: The One About Independence Day « TEACH J: For Teachers of Journalism And Media
I’ve heard http://tnr.com and http://thenation.com are using Drupal-based OpenPublish CMS (http://openpublishapp.com). Was wondering if you have looked at it?
Pingback: The Ben Franklin Project, renovarse o morir | Apuntes de la red
For creating online graphs and time-lines you might like to try Simile Widgets
http://www.simile-widgets.org/
This JQuery plugin creates charts and graphs from accessible table data.
http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/update_to_jquery_visualize_accessible_charts_with_html5_from_designing_with/
Pingback: The Possibility of a Company-wide FREE Ad Tracking/Editorial System « The Ben Franklin Project
Not sure if you are still taking suggestions but for asset management I would highly recommend ResourceSpace: http://www.resourcespace.org/
Its open source, LAMP based. Scales to 10K’s of assets and 10′s to 100′s of gigabytes in storage. Video, documents, images, graphics, audio. Active developer community. We use in an enterprise setting with 100s of user across planet and are very happy with it.
I would replace surveymonkey with a free alternative like http://www.limesurvey.org/
Pingback: Independence from Proprietary Publishing Systems? « IMT Blog
We are actually using Google Sites for our website, since it incorporates Picasa for publishing pictures, and Google Docs Surveys, as well as some really nice features.
For RSS and email updates we use Yahoo Pipes to merge all the feeds from the Google Sites into one, and use Google Feedburner to send out email updates and also to tweet about the new articles as they are up.
Everything you see on http://www.TheVoiceofLSCM.com has been free except of course the domain. If anyone want to know more about how to do all of this let me know!
By the way Aviary can be integrated into Google Apps: http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=3442+17116012818275486668
Alexandro,
Very interested in speaking to you about how you’re doing and how your site is working.
Feel free to email me at jcooper (a) journalregister (dot) com
Best,
Jon Cooper
VP Content, Journal Register Company
Pingback: The Possibility of a Company-wide FREE Ad Tracking/Editorial System
My name is Chris, I’m Canadian. I moved to Egypt 15 years ago. I’m co-owner of a small network of regional websites. I have a lot of experience in web but almost none in print.
We have decided to produce a regional community magazine to cover our town and I am researching where/how to start this project.
We are a very small team (5 people) and small budget; but with large aspirations!
The fun part about living in a place like this is that “anything” is possible. Starting a company or project such as a magazine can be done regardless of experience or education.
The problems come when you are trying to educate yourself. There are no public libraries, or local colleges/universities which might offer training. So of course the best place to look, is online.
What I’m searching for, is to hopefully find some nice people who are willing to impart some wisdom or guide me in the correct direction to find training.
I’d like to find the best methods of managing the magazine. We have freelance writers, 1 editor (with experience), a graphic designer (also with experience), 2 professional photographers, a web programmer and myself. I’m an experienced manager and good at multitasking, but have zero experience as chief editor.
So far I have found the following software: PlanSystem (quadsystems & Van Gennap), onlineredactie dot nl….. and few others which I briefly skimmed.
I’m certain it’s possible to begin with a bunch of excel sheets and word, but seems messy and confusing.
So, that’s me, and I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction, because we are going ahead with this project nevertheless, and I’d love to get it right from the beginning!
many thanks
Chris from sunny Egypt
Pingback: Publisher declares independence | Mediaplanet
For easily creating PDF with a magazine style, you might like Joliprint.
http://Joliprint.com
And I would be happy to assist you in customizing templates for your publications.
Pingback: Hurricane Irene meets Ben Franklin | The Ben Franklin Project
Pingback: A hurricane wanders into a Journal Register Company publishing experiment and the media business is better | Madison.com Labs Blog
Pingback: Online Journalism – The Journalist's Toolbox | Journalism