We love freebies that help us with our websites and digital ministry, and we’re pretty sure you like free stuff as well. So, every so often we’ll review a new group of free web tools, apps, or graphics to check out. We hope you find lots of creative ways to use them in your ministry.
TinyTake: Screen Shots Made Easy
Sometimes you just want to take a quick screenshot of something to pass on to a ministry team member. Or, you’d like to record a brief video of yourself talking about your church which you can then pass on to a recent visitor. For these kinds of situations, there are numerous free tools available. One I really like is TinyTake.
TinyTake is a PC-only application that is easily accessible from your notification area (or system tray). There are three buttons to choose what you want to do: take a screenshot, record a video, or upload a document for quick sharing. If you are taking a screenshot or recording a video, you can click and drag crossbars around to select what you want to capture or record. You can also quickly capture an entire screen or record from your webcam.
Still unclear about why you might want to do a screen capture or record a video? Here are a few examples:
- Take a short video of yourself adding some new content to your website. Share that with a volunteer.
- Take a screenshot of something that isn’t functioning properly on your website. Share that with a developer.
- Take a video of your class, small group, Bible study, etc. Send it to someone who is in the hospital or homebound.
- Take a screenshot of a web ad you think is effective. Share it with your marketing team.
- Take a screenshot of a Bible application you use. Share it with your congregation in a blog post or on Facebook.
TinyTake is free, but it works on the sharing principle. The more people you invite to create an account, the more space you get for your recordings. In fact, it’s the only way to get more space at this time; you cannot buy additional storage.
So, show us some Aboundant love…here’s our link where you can create your own free TinyTake account and help us earn more storage space. Thanks!
Evernote: Your Digital Brain for Your Ministry & Life
Evernote is one of the first tools I open on my laptop, and I wouldn’t want to do my work without it. It’s not exactly a new tool by any means (it came out in 2008), but I’m amazed at how few people I know who have really tried it out.
In a nutshell, Evernote is a place to put just about any kind of digital content that you’d like to have access to and search later. Your content will be available from just about anywhere–there are free computer applications and mobile apps, and your data is always available via the web too.
- Text notes you create. The editor looks like a basic form of your typical word processor. (I write my manuscripts in Evernote and keep stock responses to queries there as well.)
- Photos you wish to save. You can take photos right from within the app (assuming you have a camera of course) or from your device’s stored photos. Evernote will recognize and index text–even from handwritten notes!
- Entire PDF documents. (I love to use this feature for all of my PDF ebooks.)
- Audio recordings (again, there’s a built-in recorder).
- Emails. (I like to send receipts from my email to a special Evernote email address that is automatically included with an account.)
- Entire web pages or portions of them.
- Lists. (You could easily do away with your to-do app if you wish.)
- Reminders.
So in other words, just about anything you want to create, access, search, or archive can be put into Evernote. It’s incredibly powerful, fast, and…well, free. If you find you need more storage space or need a few other nifty features, there is a pro version that costs $xx per year. Most users find the free account is perfectly adequate for quite a while, though.
I’ve really only scratched the surface of what Evernote can do. The best way to learn is simply to try it out, and to explore the MANY other apps that integrate with it. There’s only one real secret to moving from an Evernote Novitiate to an Evernote Evangelist: use it every day for as many different purposes as possible.
Got a creative use for one of these apps? Share it in the comments below.
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