I get frugal-feeling at the end of the year. Not just from holidays – but also back to school, the family cluster of birthdays, and all the other events we celebrate. And I love creating things to share like short videos, or cards and gift tags and family calendars, and especially planning all the parties. Plus, we’re so nerdy there are cool classes my husband and I might take together, or as tutorials to help understand an interesting topic better. Yeah – I take classes for date night.
So I look to the internet of FREE things.
Here are some of my favorites:
Image & AV Editing: At work I only have access to simple editing tools like the ones provided in the Microsoft 365 suite of tools. But it’s not a key part of my job to do image or video editing. So for my personal projects I love:
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program (www.gimp.org) It is an opensource photo editing application as good as Photoshop without the $$$ and available for Windows, iOS, and many Linux/Unix variations. I love how full-featured it is, as well as the extensible library of features that the project continues to develop.
Inkscape is the vector graphics equivalent to GIMP (inkscape.org). Like GIMP, developed initially for Linux/Unix OS, it has been made available for Macs and PCs. It is perfect for creating graphics and logos that incorporate text and smooth curves.
I’m new at using DaVinci Resolve but am learning with the free version about editing and improving audio and video clips. It scales up ($$$) for many powerful features but the free version is great for learning. (www.blackmagicdesign.com)
Shout out to Capcut for a tool that is easy & quick video editing (www.capcut.com) Disclaimer: The developer is ByteDance, which might make you think twice if you are concerned about privacy.
Productivity tools: In that vein, if you don’t like the idea that Google can see everything, try Libre Office (www.libreoffice.org). It has word processing, slides, and spreadsheet applications that keep your information private with compatibility of Microsoft file types.
Cavana (www.cavana.com) is great for making exciting page layouts for flyers or events with lots of stock photos and formatting family calendars with all their available templates.
The Noun Project (www.thenounproject.com ) is also a good resource for icons and stock photos. Although there is a licensing structure, for free downloads you may only be asked to cite the creator.
Educational: DFCI has an amazing resource for all staff in access to LinkedIn Learning, HR develops classes with their Learning & Development office that are also great – my favorite is one for setting SMART goals. The IS PMO offers bite-sized, but instructor-led classes taught by your colleagues for DFCI Project University including project management, process improvement, change management, tools, and soft skills curriculum. And this year we are hosting a PM Symposium with a theme of Transformation & Change. We’d love to see you there. See the intranet page with more information. You will sign up and get the presentation link in Healthstream.
Some other favorite free educations platforms are:
Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) – this non-profit creates videos and lessons for students covering many STEM topics from k-12 and even early college level. Also SAT & AP prep. It’s a great resource for anyone who needs or wants to supplement their schooling or for folks looking to dust off the cobwebs on a topic.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the free courses available from Harvard and other institutions on Coursera. Coursera has many topics and certificates and is heavy in the STEM arena and include some project management classes too (www.coursera.org.)
Project/Task Management: While there are a lot of tools already available for us at DFCI for when we need scheduling, task tracking, and planning (Like Project, Planner, Smartsheet, Jira, ServiceNow, etc.),when sharing the tasks for Thanksgiving meal planning for a big group of friends and family you’ll probably want to use something else.
Todoist (www.todoist.com) is great for this while not feeling like work for a handful of users. Atlassian Jira (www.atlassian.com) also has a free version, but also a ton more stuff we wouldn’t need and higher learning curve.
Freedcamp (www.freedcamp.com) allows for unlimited users if you’re hosting a big party!
Bonus: Kickoff (www.kickoff.pmi.org) from PMI is a cool tool I came across that could even be helpful for work. It’s an assessment and guiding tool for people new to project management who need some orientation to the key definitions and steps to a project.
Savings / Coupons:
Honey browser extension helps you save $$ by automatically applying discounts. This is wonderful since it’s automatically applied. Rakuten collects cash back for you. This is nice, but you do have to circle back to it to get the cash. Also check your credit card; they may also have a savings/coupon/points earning extension.
Entertainment: I know listening to broadcast radio is free, but subscription streaming services for you to listen to your favorites can sure add up. Radio Garden (www.radio.garden) is a way to listen to broadcast/streaming radio stations from around the world. My favorite is to keep up with college radio stations out of broadcast areas, and to listen to different languages and cultures. Coverage is better in Europe and North America, but South America, Africa, and Asia are all represented. (I didn’t see any on Antarctica.)
Lastly, in real space you may know that your local library may have a ton more than books – like metal detectors(!), movies, games, and loaner computers. And online there is Libby and Hoopla to download books, including audiobooks to a reader device without having to leave the house.
Wow – This is only scratching the surface! There is so, so, so much more out there. Tell me about your favorite free internet thing in the comments.