Mama Kat Thursday: I like Free!

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The Mama Kat prompt I'm doing today is to,"Write a post inspired by the word Free.
I'm big into finding whatever online resource I think I need or want for FREE--whether that's website builders, blogs, online portfolios, video editors or what have you. |It's my thing. It's what I do.
If I can find something browser-based, I prefer that over having to down-load software, though I have occasionally done so. I
So I'm going to share some of my favorite Free online resources!

For Blogging: I prefer Google Blogger
It easy to set up and easy to use. Lots of great templates and you can adjust colors on text, backgrounds, everything.
 Plus it's got lots of widgets to customize your blog with to make it work for you and widgets for posting affilitate ads, if you want.
Plus Blogger also offers a completely Free ad program, called AdSense, that you can sign up for to earn $ and you can control where those ads are located and what ads you don't want.
(Though, how well it earns depends on your blogs number of visitors and their clicks. )
Most importantly, Blogger doesn't require any additional hosting service (unlike Wordpress.org and some others) and--what I consider most important, because it's Google and Google favors it's own stuff, your blog is automatically submitted to Google Search--because it's Google.
No extra steps for getting found in Google search.


My Favorite Free Website Builder:  Yola.com
It's ad-free. It's got lots of free templates. You can use it for anything, but it's in particular aimed at small business, so it's has lots of e-commerce widgets. It's got drop-and-drag elements and is relatively easy to set-up--but all these things have a learning curve if you've never used them before, regardless of how "easy" they're supposed to be. Your free site name will be mywebsite.yolasite.com.
Like most website builders, they have paid levels of varying prices for more features.
Once you've got a website built, then you need to submit it to Google's Search Engine and Yola support provides detailed tutorials on how to do that.
That is always the "extra step" with any website.
(You can find my Bevstuff Yola on the links list above right if you'd like to visit)

Favorite Free Online Photo Editors
#1)  Ribbet.com  It super easy to use with a tons of Free photo effects, stickers, frames, text and so on all very visually organized, very intuitive. 
It's still browser based currently, but they're working on a down-loadable Ribbet, because Adobe flash requires enabling for anything Flash nowadays. (I signed up to beta-test the new download, so, right now, I have that. It's actually a little nicer to use and faster.)
Ribbet also offers a paid premium level, but they have so many more free features then premium ones, they're hard to beat!

Pixlr Online Photo Editor
#2) Pixlr used to be hard to use, but recently they've completely revamped their editor and made it comparable to other Free, easy online photo editors!
You'll want to check out their Flash-free Pixlr X! 
The editing tools are a row of black and white icons on left side, so not as highly visual and intuitive as Ribbet, however Ribbet does includes a link to Pixlr Express in their Pro features.
But if an advanced photo editor is what you're looking for, then you want...

#3)  PhotoPea is a new kid on the block. It's Free and browser-based photo editor.
(Apparently, Ribbet is going to link to them, too with something they're calling, Ribbetfly.)
 Photopea's tools are tools are simple black and white icons and strangely, all the same tools that Pixlr used to have that I thought quite useful, but challenging to learn to use--so in that way, it is advanced.
I suppose if you hang out with Ribbet, you'll end up with access to both Pixlr and Photopea.

Free Graphic Desgin Software
Inkscape is rated among the best and is a totally free, open source vector graphics design program comparable to Adobe Illustrator,
Corel or Xara X----but, unlike them--Free!
  It is a down-load, though and not browser based.
The graphic program I currently have has all the same features, but if I was in the market for a new program, Inkscape is the one I'd choose.


Free Online Portfolio

 If you do design work or art, you might want to set yourself up with an Online Portfolio!
I recommend:  Crevado.com  
I found this one by researching "best free online portfolios" online and, believe me, I looked through many. Some either had limited features or were hard to understand how to use.
Crevado is free, browser-based, incredibly easy to understand and work with and has plenty of choices of format to select from for what works best for you. I loaded about 20 items. 
(If you look at my links list on the upper right, you can visit My Art Portfolio.)

 Free Online Video/Music Editor
The one I love to use for editing my gaming video's is 123 Apps
It's free and completely browser based, so no software down-loads. They recently updated their Video Cutter, so it's no longer Flash and this link takes you right to it.
 123Apps also has a video converter and audio converters, both with tons of format options, plus both simple and pro audio cutters, an audio joiner and a webcam video recorder and voice recorder.
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Note: I'm not in any way affiliated with any of these companies and this article represents my own opinion. I'm just sharing some of the things I like and I've found useful. 
(Photos are from Pixabay.)



Thanks for Visiting!

Comments

KatBouska said…
Fun! I love a great free app or website that can make my job easier!
Feb 1, 2019, 12:28:00 AM
John Holton said…
The A to Z Challenge blog is on Blogger, and since I'm a moderator I end up writing some over there. I'm not really a fan, but to each their own.
Feb 4, 2019, 9:03:00 AM
Kim (The ReInVintaged Life) said…
Thanks for all the info presented here; I am all about free stuff! I concur with Blogger; I was with them for many years before getting my own domain, and in between when I decided to veer in a different direction.

I love graphics, so I will have to check out Inkscape. I'm currently using GIMP, which I love...but I am looking to be able to do more with fonts than I can there. I got the hang of what I needed to do, but there was a learning curve with GIMP, too, and I haven't quite figured out how to do what I want to do with fonts. Also, if you want free for commercial and personal use fonts? Font Squirrel is a great resource. And for all kinds of photos/vector graphics/etc free for personal and commercial use/editing/and using without attribution, Pixabay can't be beat! I use a lot of their photos and am going to start linking to the artist/photographer's page there even though it's not required, because these photographers are amazing.

I know you didn't ask for free stuff links, but when you posted free stuff, I just couldn't help myself! And you have the info if you ever have need of those resources.

Thanks for stopping by my Writer's Workshop post; hope to see you again soon!

Kim
Feb 4, 2019, 7:29:00 PM

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