Journalists' Toolkit

This resource — Page Design Basics — provides a very simple overview of how to lay out a Web page.

Students new to using CSS often make a mess of it because they do not grasp the utility of DIVs. By introducing these four regions of a Web page, an instructor can help students understand a basic structure that can be created with four DIVs. Font families, colors, and other design elements can be specified independently for each DIV.

For more information about CSS, see the the HTML and CSS Resources page.

What’s the quickest way to whip up a beautiful color palette for a new website?

1. Start with Kuler, a free online tool from Adobe.

2. Register and sign in so you can download a color swatch for your chosen palette(s). Not signed in? Then you can’t download. (Pay attention to WHERE you save the file!)

3. Open Photoshop and find the Swatches panel.

4. Open the Swatches panel menu and select Load Swatches.

5. Find that file you downloaded in step 2 and select it.

6. The last colors in your Swatches list will be the new ones from Kuler (open the Swatches panel menu and select Small List to see the hexadecimal color codes as shown below).

There you have it! To learn more about using Kuler, watch this video at Adobe TV (6 min. 34 sec.).

It’s useful to finalize a color palette in Photoshop before you start coding your CSS. Test all text and link colors against the background colors where they will appear to ensure that the contrast is okay.

Smart Tip: Save the palette as a PNG-24 file and upload to a Web server or Dropbox. Then test it by opening that file on every computer you can get your hands on. Hues and contrast can vary widely on laptops and desktops, Mac and Windows. Make sure your palette will work for all users!

Learn more about Web color and Photoshop: The Mysterious “Save For Web” Color Shift, by Doug Avery.

Switch Sound File Converter is a free program from NCH Software. You can download it here (Mac or Windows).

I have been using this program and recommending it widely for about two years. It’s easy to use, and it’s especially useful for converting WMA format files to WAV so that we can edit them in Audacity (which cannot open WMA files).

However — and the reason I am writing this post — Switch does something complicated and annoying on Windows systems. It didn’t always do this underhanded sneaky thing that it now does, and it has caused many journalism educators (and students) no end of headaches and extra work.

On the official download page, you can clearly see that the company touts the free version: “A free version of Switch is available for non-commercial use. The free version does not expire and includes most common audio file formats.” Call me silly, but I think “free” means free. Don’t you?

Here’s the sneaky part: After about two weeks, Windows users will get a message that they now have to pay for Switch. (I have not seen this yet on any Mac system.) Does this mean that NCH Software lied to you? Not technically. Here is how to get your free version back (instructions for Windows 7; other versions may differ):

1. Close the Switch program completely (if it is open).
2. Open the Windows Control Panel.
3. Select “Uninstall a program.”
4. A gigantic list of program will open. Scroll in the list to find “Switch Sound File Converter.” Double-click that item.
5. In the dialog box that opens next, select “Downgrade to the free version (fewer features but free).” Yeah, I know. This is SO SLEAZY! You downloaded the so-called free version. What is this crap?
6. Click Next.
7. DO NOT click the button in the middle of the next sleazy screen. Just click Next (again).
8. The dialog box closes. Wait a minute or two.

Now Switch will work properly again.

If you would like to see a step-by-step demonstration of how to use Switch to convert audio files, watch this video tutorial (don’t worry, it is actually and in fact free).

As an aid to a journalism training session I agreed to give, I created a short PowerPoint that is aimed at journalism students.

Windows Live Movie Maker Tutorial

Windows Live Movie Maker is quite different from its predecessor — Windows Movie Maker (not “live”). It is less versatile in several ways. To answer my own questions about WLMM, I did quite a lot of searching on the Web. To spare others the trouble and share the answers I found, I made a two-page PDF with links:

Windows Live Movie Maker Tips (PDF, 128 KB)

If you have any helpful WLMM links to suggest, please add a comment.

So you have set up a WordPress.com blog. Congratulations! I’m sure you are feeling proud of yourself — and you should.

I hope you have selected a theme that you like a lot (if not, you can change it easily).

I hope you have written and published your first post.

Here is a list of things you need to do next — and that means now — to make your blog speak for your competence and intelligence. What I mean to say is, your blog looks amateurish if you fail to do these things.

1 ) Change your TIME ZONE to the closest city that’s in the same time zone as you (so that the time stamp is correct on your posts). Change this in Settings (see instructions).

2 ) Give your blog an intelligent TAGLINE (instead of “Just another WordPress.com weblog”). Change this in Settings (see instructions).

3 ) Upload a distinctive PHOTO so people can identify your comments easily (it does not need to be your face). Change this in Settings (see instructions).

4 ) Write something on your ABOUT page (see instructions) so it doesn’t say this: “This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself …” (Nothing says “Amateur!” quite as obviously as an unchanged About page.)

5 ) Customize your blog’s sidebar with WIDGETS (see instructions). For example, if your blog theme has a calendar on the side, you can remove it (why do you need that anyway?). You can add your own blogroll, or links to your own Twitter or Facebook pages. Some blog themes have two sidebars; some have a footer; all can be customized with widgets.

6 ) Learn how to embed images in your blog.

7 ) Learn how to embed YouTube videos in your blog.

8 ) Is the “site title” of your blog something like john’s Blog or maria’s Blog? Is that really the best you can do? Just look at the highlighted posts on the WordPress.com home page to see the clever and creative titles people have chosen for their blogs.

9 ) Delete the “Hello, World!” post. This is the little dummy post that every WordPress blog has as its first post. It looks quite stupid to keep this post on your blog. Learn how to delete it — and any other post you don’t want to keep.

10 ) Learn the difference between TAGS and CATEGORIES. Then decide how you want to use these on your blog.

> Watch and listen to the tutorial.

It’s been a long road to making this tutorial, but finally, it’s finished. This is essentially my entire lecture and demonstration about how to use Audacity, step by step, for journalists and journalism students.

The target audience is people who have never edited audio before.

In honor of the brand-new Olympus VN-8100PC digital voice recorder (see it now at B&H), I made a new, very brief how-to page today:

Olympus digital audio recorders and your Mac

There are still some sadly uninformed people who claim Olympus recorders do not work with the Mac OS. They are wrong!

While I strongly recommend that you invest in the Zoom H2 recorder (see it now at B&H), if you’re on a tight budget, the newer* Olympus recorders are your next best option. I’ve been using a VN-5200PC for several years now. It’s with me pretty much all the time in my purse, and it’s none the worse for being bumped around.

* The ones that save WMA files and include a USB connection.

Most journalists do not need to become code jockeys — but it can be quite useful to know the basics of the language of the Web: HTML. It’s not hard at all to learn a few basic tags, and with those few you can have the ability to create and format hyperlinks, fix silly errors in a CMS in the newsroom, and understand the underpinnings of a technology you use every day.

I have updated the HTML and CSS Resources page here, with an eye toward keeping it short and simple.

Why not take a moment to look under the hood and see the engine of the Web? Oh, and I have some links to get you up to speed on HTML5 and CSS3 too.

Do you need some tips for better blogging? Or maybe a kick in the pants to get started on a new blog? Don’t just sit there staring at the screen!

I’ve added the Blogging Resources page to this site and made some updates.

I must confess, my resources are WordPress-heavy, because it’s my preferred blogging platform. If you would like to make a case for another blogging platform, leave a comment!

FireFTP is a free FTP (file transfer protocol) plug-in for the Firefox Web browser.

Because it is a browser plug-in, FireFTP works the same way on Windows, Mac or Linux.

To learn how to use FireFTP in eight easy steps: View the tutorial (one page).