The MS Windows tools of a radio researcher

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The MS Windows tools of a radio researcher

Using the computer everyday to research radio, I thought I might 'show you around' my computer and show you some of the stuff I use to research radio.

Audio tool: WavePad Sound Editor

Using WavePad, I am able to manipulate sound at will. It's not a hard program to use at all. Without this, there would be no sound clips, no improved files from me.

Screen Grabber: MWSnap

I have used every screen grabber known to man and this one is still the one I keep coming back to. With it, I am able to take snapshots of items I see on the internet - and in conjunction with Google News, I can go back in time and clip things out of the newspaper.

Graphics: Microsoft Paint

I realize this is the low end of the totem pole here but I don't have the patience to learn a graphics program. There are plenty of good, free ones out there but I have "mastered" Microsoft Paint. I know that's not saying much... Still, once you learn the program, it's amazing what you can do with it.

Graphics: STOIK Smart Resizer

A brand new tool to me, this tool resizes graphics to almost any size you want, without distortion. This should come in very handy when I have large articles (haven't come across one yet since I got the thing.)

File: Windows "sendto" folder

This is probably the item I cherish most on the computer. I think most people bypass it or use it very seldom but let me tell you, it's tremendously valuable to have a place to put things and know where they are.

With all of my blogs, you can imagine the number of articles, graphics, etc. that I have. Well let me tell you, my computer is completely organized. The "sendto" menu is why.


Completely organized!

Miscellaneous: ClipMate Explorer

Another completely invaluable tool. I can copy whatever I want and go back and select one or 1000 different clips. It save all my graphics, too - and I can see what they are, just by touching it on ClipMate.

It also has a place to store stuff you want to paste but don't want to ever lose - this makes posting tedious things easy, especially since I have so many directories on the FTP server I use.