In today’s electronic world, organizing all useful information is a challenging task. This useful information can be in form of web clips, articles, bits of text, images, interesting web links, bookmarks, shopping lists, to-do lists, recipes, tips and many others. It becomes difficult to sort out this information.

If you are searching for free information organizers. Check out the following.

1. Evernote is an outstanding product designed for notetaking and archiving.  You can create notes on the page, drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste them. ”Note” can be a piece of text, webpage or webpage excerpt, image a voice memo,etc. Notes can also have file attachments.

This supports multiple notebooks. To organize your notes, the program allows for multiple tags to a note. It also supports a number of operating system platforms (including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Chrome OS, Android, iOS and WebOS), and also offers online synchronization and backup services.

Evernote offers a mix of a desktop application and web services. Its free account comes with a lower upload limit and other restrictions. Now it is bundled with OpenCandy.

2. CintaNotes is a free, lightweight and easy to use portable personal notes manager. It lets you quicly save and tag useful information.

It supports clipping text from any application and also captures the web or local file link. The program allows tags and has instant search based on tags, text, links or date. It does not support the images.

3. NotesHolder is a user friendly notes organizer. Notes appear in a small , blue screen, and stack on top of one another.

The notes also allow for scrolling. You can create notes by double clicking the top panel and paste a note copied from anywhere but not images. You can add a subject to a note, or set a reminder.

4. AllMyNotes is an outliner application which allows you to store all documents and notes in a single storage file.

Its features include organization of notes with hierarchy boxes, projecting for assignment of priorities to all items, System tray menu, Global search, Password protection of data file and separate folders, 16 skins, Alarm, Spell Checker, Multilingual, etc.

5. Flashnote is a lightweight, user friendly notes manager. It is used when you need a rough copy to save or to process some pieces of a text.

Rough copy can be opened by using the shortcut- key combination and pressing ESC make it hidden.

6. Linked Notes is a free Wiki styled notepad to organize your notes. Notes are arranged into pages having index numbers for easy navigation. A toolbar is also provided for easy navigation(forward, backward and home). You can do basic formatting of your text such as bold, italics, strikethrough, font, etc.

Linked Notes minimizes the system tray and can run from a USB flash drive. You can even import and export pages as text or RTF files format.

7. SimpleNotes is a free and user friendly way of keeping notes, lists,  and ideas.

You can anytime access your notes from anywhere. You even get a plenty of storage space for your notes. Other features include sharing and publishing, secure transfers, multiple backups, instant searches, tagging, etc.

8. Quicknote has a typical user interface with some additional utilities such as simple drawing tool, reminder, unit converter, screen measurer, etc.

9. Delphinus Notes is freeware program used to manage and organize your notes in a secure manner. It contains notes, notepad, calendar and expenditure modules.

Its additional features include showing time in 3 time zones, import and export of notes, autohide function, etc.

Let us know if you have some other notes or information organizers, we would love to have them in our list.

Chris Cornell

Alan Jackson

Darryl Worley

Justin Timberlake

Anthony Hamilton

Francesca Battistelli

Rocket Club

U2

Daughtry

Death Cab for Cutie

Jake Owen

Zac Brown Band

Brad Paisely

Darius Rucker

Madonna

The Specials

Jason Aldean

Maxwell

Jason Mraz

Rascal Flatts

Tim McGraw

David Cook

Mat Kearney

Jennifer Hudson

Kellie Pickler

Web APIs modify the way of content and services are influenced and consumed. Web developers can take benefit of 1000s of APIs to add more content or functionality to their site. We’ve compiled a list of 10 most useful APIs you can consider using for your web site or application.

Google Graph API

The Google Chart API is a tool that lets people create a chart from some data and embed it in a web page, most developers resort to PHP libraries, Flash Components or jQuery based solutions. A lot of these components and libraries require some knowledge of configuration. Google creates a PNG image of a chart from data and formatting parameters in an HTTP request. Many types of charts are supported, and by making the request into an image tag, people can simply include the chart in a web page.

Originally it was an internal tool to support rapid embedding of charts within Google’s own applications. Google Graph API is a simple, free, URL based API that allows you to generate, download and save 9 types of charts.

Currently, line, bar, pie and radar charts, as well as Venn diagrams, scatter plots, sparkling, maps, google-o-meters, and QR codes are supported.

Yahoo! PlaceFinder

Yahoo! PlaceFinder is a great web service that supports world-wide geocoding of street addresses and place names. It allows developers to convert addresses and places into geographic coordinates (and vice versa). This allows web site owners to deliver online content to desktop and mobile users based on their physical location, e.g based on the user’s street address, you can show nearby places like stores. PlaceFinder supports building-level address recognition in over 75 countries, and as well as points of interest, airports, cities, and other place names.

JanRain

Janrain Inc. is a privately held technology company based in Portland, Oregon. Janrain offers software as a service solutions for commercial businesses and websites to connect their sites to the social web. Janrain’s flagship product enables a website’s users to register or login with their existing social network accounts and share content from the site or their activities with friends on multiple social networks. JanRain (formely RPX) is an Open-ID sign on service provider. It allows your visitors to sign-in to your site with their existing accounts on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, LinkedIn or other networks and then publish their comments, purchases, reviews or other activities from your site to multiple social networks.

 Google AJAX Language

By the AJAX Language API, you can translate and detect the language of blocks of text within a webpage using only JavaScript. In addition, you can enable transliteration on any text field or text area in your web page. The language API is designed to be simple and easy to use to translate and detect languages on the fly when offline translations are not available.

You can choose which of the 52 languages to display in the Administration Panel. The list of languages can be shown as text (in the native language of each language), as flag icons, or as both. Flag icons can be confusing and sometimes misleading so I recommend the text option.

Tropo

Tropo is a powerful yet simple API that adds Voice, SMS, Twitter, and IM support to the programming languages you already know. This will allow you to bring real-time communications to your apps. There are many ways you can use voice or sms in your web application, for example – verify phone number, allow visitors to record a voice message and save it online, etc.

 Amazon S3 Storage

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

 DISQUS

Disqus is an online discussion and commenting service for websites and online communities that uses a networked platform. The company’s platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It allows your visitors to choose their identity (Facebook Connect, OpenID, Twitter) when they leave a comment. New comments or reactions from social media network are updated in real-time. DISQUS is available as plugins for popular blog platforms like WordPress, Drupal or Blogger.

Google Font API

Google WebFont API uses CSS3’s @font-face to add web fonts to your site. Currently limited only 18 different font-families. Google WebFont API provides by far the easiest implementation for custom typography. All you need to do is simply hotlink to their style sheet link and then call the font in a CSS style.  The major advantage is that by using StyleSheet served from Google’s CDN, you can save a lot of bandwidth and improve your page load speed.

WebShotsPro

WebShotsPro is a service for webmasters to include advanced website screenshot technology to their websites. This is pretty useful for links pages like directory or portfolio pages by giving a visual cue for your visitors.

Yahoo BOSS

BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is Yahoo!’s open search and data services platform. The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to build web-scale search products that utilize Yahoo! Search technology and data. By combining your unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, you can build innovative experiences that delight your users. BOSS is offered with a low flexible usage fee based on the type of queries. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!’s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure.

Android has lot of apps to playback and manage your tunes. Below is the list of certain apps which manages your music locally.  These apps can run on Froyo or higher. Some of them are available on websites, while others on third party app markets.

1. Songbird – Its an elegant music player for your smartphone which makes browsing and playback more simpler and easier. It has a clean and clear interface with unique “now playing” drawer offering quick access to album art and additional details, including Facebook and Flickr integration. It supports full featured search.

2. Winamp Its a complete music management solutions for your Android 2.1 OS & above. Its some of the features are free and some are locked until you pay $4.99. It supports syncing with Winamp for Mac Beta. You can import and access iTunes from thousands of internet radio stations with SHOUT cast.

3. MixZing is an advanced media player for Android smartphones. It supports unique and more advanced features. One of the best known  feature is that it can retrieve information about the currently playing song at the tap of a single button. Other features include Tag editor, Sleep timer, Graphic equalizer, etc.

4. doubleTwist Player is the best music app available for Android 2.2 OS & above. You may import iTunes playlists, music ratings and playcounts from your Mac/PC. AirSync allows you to sync with your Mac or PC. While AirTwist and AirPlay allows you to stream to an XBox, PlayStation 3, or AppleTV.

5. Cubed or ³, is one of the unique music player for your Smartphone. This app is not rich in features, but it makes all things much more simpler and easier. It has a very smooth, polished and minimalistic screen.

Don’t forget to share your experience about any of the above or any other free Android music player with us.

Once in a while an object or an idea comes along that completely capture the public imagination. The Jaguar E Type. The Ford Mustang. The Coke bottle. The iPhone. The iPhone is so perfect, such an intuitive piece of design, that all handheld communications devices have to follow its lead or suffer the consequences.

It’s the same thing you see in website design, where a specific successful site (like Facebook) dictates the way other sites work, look and feel. Amazon has left its mark on the ecommerce sites you use today; social media sites look like Facebook, or borrow its functionality.

The original functionality of the Windows Phone was a disaster. Trying to borrow Windows functions in a smartphone is like trying to carry a library around on your back: the information is there, but who would want all the effort of trying to extract it? Interestingly enough, Windows’ partnership with Nokia sees two previous titans of the communications industries struggling to keep up with companies that were once their less important cousins: Nokia’s new Lumia is the company’s last-ditch attempt to get back on the bandwagon.

The moral of the story is simple and one that ought to be heeded by the new kingpins. Android, BlackBerry and iPhone have had varying shelf lives, with the iPhone heading the pack for longevity in the era of smartphone technology – but they are all only as potentially successful as their current technology.

Yes, iPhone is still delivering intuitive and engaging graphic interfaces, which guide the user through multiple applications and functions to easily find what he or she wants to do. Yes, Android is mimicking a lot of this functionality to great effect. And yes, Windows Phone’s initial decision to ignore the same interface and feel is the reason why it has had to be redesigned from scratch. In the long term, though, there will be other pretenders – and one of those will win the crown.

Apple’s previously unblemished record for innovation and design genius has suffered a few minor dents in recent months. Nothing major, certainly nothing in the same league as Microsoft having to take the Windows Phone 7 back to the drawing board and start again – but one or two glitches or misdirected apps have popped up and briefly made headlines. Not that those headlines will mean a great deal to the average Apple customer, who is a devoted fan and one of the most loyal brand evangelists you will ever meet.

Microsoft’s absence from the scene (it has been away redesigning the Windows Phone!) has proved pretty expensive for it in terms of market share. In 2010 Microsoft had a 9 per cent share of the smartphone market, while Android was making out better at 26 percent – now, Android takes nearly 50 percent and Microsoft has just over 5.

It’s interesting to note that the company with the biggest advertising presence (Apple) boasts a much smaller share than Android – which came onto the scene later and which still appears to be mimicking the Apple design. The key, of course, is that Android has mimicked Apple’s iPhone while Microsoft made the rather arrogant mistake of assuming that something so popular could be ignored in favour of its clunky original design.

Android is currently on the upswing of the wave that Apple are now riding the other side of. Android handsets are entering the golden age of communication device design, when all the original glitches have been found and ironed out – and extra functionality has been added to make the phone owner’s experience even more intuitive and absorbing.

Apple’s handsets, on the other hand, passed their pinnacle two versions ago – the newest iPhone seems to exist more to make current customers go out and spend more money on new toys than because they have anything extra to give. Though the latest screen and better camera looks like it may prove a turning point in regenerating new interest. As for Microsoft – it has a long, long way to go if it is going to catch up.

About the Author: Roxanne P. is a Freelance and Staff writer who writes informative & creative articles on Technology for various technology company. Her expertise are in writing articles related to internet providers, mobile broadband deals , Social media etc.

Since Android was introduced, more than 400,000 Android apps have been developed and most of them are available for download from the Android Market—the online software stores hosted by Google—but not all are free.

Here is the list of Best Free Phone and Messaging for Android apps. Like the apps and want to give them a try? Have a look….

Best Free Dialer for Android

Dialer One (681 KB)

Dialer One is a simple, small application that replaces Android’s stock Phone application. It allows the user to search through their contacts with the T9 keypad giving them call recommendations along the way as well as giving them the option to browse through their entire contact list. A nice feature of this app is the ability to set contacts as speed dial numbers from a long press on any number.

From the main screen the option button reveals the option to view the call log, view your starred contacts/favorites, view contacts, look up speed dial, and go to the settings screen. The settings on Dialer One are rather impressive, really. Some of the more impressive and thoughtful features include the option to view only contacts with phone numbers, setup a default view (ie. favorites, contacts, most called), language settings, robust color settings, group by contact in the call log, ability to export call log, and to set dialer one to be available in the notification bar.

So, Dialer One is a definite step up from the stock Android dialer and contacts application, but if you are using proprietary versions of Android like Sense then some functionality may be missing.

 Best Free Contact Manager for Android

aContacts (602 KB)

Application for speeding up searching contacts: search by group and company, T9 search, Search in any fields, grouping phone contacts, advanced call log, Callback reminders, Speed dial setting for grid or list view and more.

Contact Group Manager (Free) (558 KB)

Contact Group Manager for the management group and find contacts.
Grouping a number of ways: manually create a group, grouped by organization, grouped by title. You can send Email & SMS to these groups and set group ringtones.
Find a variety of ways: Name, Organization and Title. Now you can search almost all fields (birthday, name, phone number, organization, notes, address, Email, relationships, websites, etc.).Including voice search.

Best Free Browser Texting for Android

GO SMS Pro (2.38 MB)

GO SMS Pro is a beautifully-designed, beastly-performing messaging app that does practically everything you could want in a texting app. GO SMS PRO brings you cool UI, fast and convenient SMS/MMS experience. GO SMS is the most popular messaging app; Very powerful, Cool, Safe, Fully customizable.

The beauty side reflects the MIUI-esque interface that supports themes ranging from Grey to Dark and even Christmas (themes and font packs are downloadable). There’s also a nice setting that launches a pop-up for incoming messages. Users can then respond or delete directly within the window. A good replacement of the default messaging app.

The beastly side is what really makes GO SMS Pro such a great app. For one, the app supports batch actions for deleting, marking all, or backing up. Yes, GO SMS can back-up your text messages to your SD card, email, or Dropbox. You can then restore those messages if you delete or wipe your phone and need to recover. Other methods for browsing messages include searching for a person, phrase, or keyword.

Best Free Browser Texting for Android

MightyText – SMS from Computer (206 KB)

Free, Send & Receive Text Messages from your Computer, sync’d with your Android phone! With Mighty Text Android™ App & Chrome Extension, you can: Send SMS text messages from your computer, Receive SMS text messages immediately as they come in on your Android device, Sync all SMS text messages from your Android device to your computer. But without touching your android device. Unlimited SMS, supported only on Chrome with the MightyText extension installed.

Best Free Instant Messaging for Android

Meebo IM (291 KB)

Meebo is a totally free IM app. Chat with friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, MySpace, Google Talk, Jabber and ICQ. Small file size with clean and clear design, easy to use.

Best Free Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for Android

Skype (7.52 MB)

Make free voice and video calls to anyone else on Skype, whether they’re on an Android, iPhone, Mac or PC, as well as IMs to your friends and family. Skype to Skype IMs, video and voice calls are free* over 3G or Wi-Fi. Make low-cost calls and SMS to mobiles or landlines from your Android. Send pictures, videos and files to any of your contacts. Enjoy high-quality sound when you call anyone else on Skype. Talk face to face or show what you’re seeing with front and rear-facing cameras.

Tango Voice & Video Calls (4.03 MB)

Tango allows you to make free phone calls and free video calls over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Make calls to any other person who has Tango installed on their PC, phone or tablet. Start a Tango call with just voice, and easily move into a video call when you have something to share. It’s easy to use, it’s fun, and it works.
From my contacts, it automatically finds the friends I can Tango. More mobile devices are supported but the desktop client has yet to be developed.

Best Free Voice Activation for Android

Vlingo Virtual Assistant (3.55 MB)

Vlingo for Android combines fast and accurate voice to text technology with the intelligence to listen to what you say, and quickly connect you with people, businesses and activities so that you can get things done while on the go.

Best Free Call & Message Filter for Android

BlackList (481 KB)

This is an advanced call/sms filter and blocker tools. Create a black list and stay safe with your Android phone. This is a simple app, but rich and powerful features to manage unwanted call/text message from anyone. This app works with per caller ID (incoming number) basic. Caller Ids can be organized into blacklist or exception list and configured blocking options. Features include auto reply, logging and other various options. An exception list is limited to the paid version.

Best Free Profile Changer and Automator for Android

Llama – Location Profiles (946 KB)

Tired of your phone going off in the middle of the night? Annoying your colleagues by having your phone blast out your ringtone at work? You need Llama! Llama uses phone masts to determine your location, so that you can change your ringer, vibrate and ringtones depending on where you are as well as the time of day. Llama provides you with sound profiles so you can quickly switch between quiet, loud, silent and normal sound settings.

You can create events and home screen shortcuts to manage your sound profiles and more:

Silence your phone at work. Turn your Bluetooth on ready to connect your headset for a morning run. Set your phone quiet when it’s late at night and you haven’t gone out. Start the music player when a headset is connected. You can also add more events such as turning off WI-Fi or taking other actions on the conditions you set.

One of the question that comes into our mind is, how do you get credible testimonials? Below is the list of some of the sites from where you can collect reviews from all around the world, as well as information about how to encourage reviews from your customers?

1. Facebook Reviews- For local businesses you must have facebook page. Facebook page comes with posting on walls / commenting on the post. You just need to slide this tab over into your visible tabs and encourage your fans to write some reviews.

2. LinkedIn Recommendations- LinkedIn is a social network which can be a big source of reviews, extracted from your recommendations.

If your company has many employees then you must encourage all of them to be active on LinkedIn. This is beneficial for employees as well as for your company. Individuals can get recommendations from customers and with their permission, you can use these recommendations on your site.

In case of indiviuals like doctor, freelancer,etc. running their own business, all the reviews are for themselves.

3. YouTube Video Reviews – People remember more what they viewed as compared to what they read. You must encourage your customers to add videos to their own youtube account about your offerings and how they helped them. And then let you know about the link so that you can add these videos to your channel.

You can even keep a Flip camera in your office and reviews to add to your own Youtube channel.

Experience LG channel is an example of customer review video collection. It has reviews for home entertainment, mobiles phones, computer products, etc.

4. Local Search Directories- There are many local search directories such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle,etc which allow their network members to write reviews about the local businesses. If you have good reviews on such sites you can use them.

Many of these sites are interconnected. Google gets reviews from Google users, as well as from other local search sites like Yelp. Writing reviews on these local search sites will help you to get more Google search traffic for your business. To get reviews from these sites you must claim and update your listing on them.

5. Niche Review Sites – Niche Review Sites are also helpful to get reviews for your businesses. Depending upon business you are in, you may get reviews from these sites.

For example in case of hotels you may get great reviews from many sites such as Trip advisor, Travelocity, as many people visit these sites over the hotel’s main website.

6. Rewarding Customers Who Review – You can reward your customer by offering them some incentives for their reviews. Even local search directories allows you to share coupons or discounts on their sites.
You can offer some incentives to those people made video reviews for your business. You can write special coding on Facebook which will allow you to share some special offers with your fans.

7. Google Alerts and Social Mentions - You can keep a track of brand mentions including your name, business name, brand, and specific product names, and product reviews by setting up daily notifications via email on Google Alerts and Social Mentions.

You can use these alerts to find reviews and can even ask people who have mentioned your brand if you can feature their comments or story on your testimonials.

After collecting all of these great reviews add them to one page on your website.
Don’t forget to give credit for the reviews to the sites they came from, as this may encourage people to add more reviews. If necessary ask the person who wrote the review to add them on your main site.

There is one disadvantage of writing reviews on your Facebook page, local search directories, and other sites and that is you don’t have any control over people reviews they can be either be positive or negative. If you come across any negative review about your business, it is necessary for you respond to it. Your response to such negative review will lead to a positive impression on people.

Now it is up to you. How do you get your customers to write or record reviews about your company?

Getting instant access to a potential audience of millions was easy in the days when just a few TV channels were available and viewers were essentially captive. But with mobile phones and the internet there is a greater degree of fragmentation and the traditional media outlets are not as reliable as they have been in the past. This has allowed application-download services and social-networking sites to become important tools for spreading messages, political or otherwise.

In the US, it was the campaign that eventually got Barack Obama into the White House which became the blueprint for how political groups might use mobile apps to their advantage. As well as fundraising and broadcasting information on mobile platforms, the side effect of a campaign which targeted tech-savvy users was that the candidate in question was by association perceived to be more accessible and in touch with modern needs.

Part of the benefit of politicians and political groups choosing to use mobile apps as a means of promoting their agenda is that they are not just a one-way street, as is the case with print and broadcast media. Apps can allow constituents to interact directly with authority figures, enabling a two-way conversation which might have been impossible in previous years. The instantaneous nature of digital communication is another boon, because short-form messages can be fired off in response to people on Twitter applications and dedicated programs, many of which will satisfy voters more than a letter or phone call.

A second vital aspect of harnessing mobile apps is that they cater to an increasingly mobile community. People are no longer required to stay at home or in the office if they want to access the internet and all of its communicative potential. With mobile web access becoming faster by the month and powerful smart phones with large screens making app opportunities more ambitious, those groups which ignore or misunderstand the modern voters, activists and bloggers will lose out. Those that embrace the mobile world will thrive.

Although few politicians would be willing to admit it, it is now necessary to think of a candidate or a cause in terms of branding. Just as businesses engage with customers and get their image and message on to the pocket-sized device that everyone owns, so must politicians follow this route if they want to walk in step with modern society.

Most current mobile phones echo the way a sat nav deals with location-based services and allow people to broadcast their whereabouts to friends and followers. This is why social-networking sites have become an important aspect of the various political movements, revolutions and revolts that have occurred around the world in recent months. Apps and mobile services that let users experience the way a sat nav deals with problems such as organizing a march or a rally are another facet with which political groups are becoming familiar.

The ways in which mobile apps have revolutionized political groups and the organisation of their activities are many. It is not an overstatement to point out that the changes which have already occurred may be eclipsed by future developments.

About the Author: Roxanne P. is a Freelance and Staff writer who writes informative & creative articles on Technology for various technology company. Her expertise are in writing articles related to internet providers, internet technology, Social media etc.

2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinema-graphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.

In today’s scenario various movies or serial are made, which attract many peoples. Here is a list of Best 2D Animation Software for Free Download (Windows). Take a look….

Note : Some of them has free trial version, but they are still considered free.

2D Animation Software

Adobe AfterEffects

Adobe After Effects is a digital motion graphics and compositing software published by Adobe Systems, used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. Its main uses are the origination of 2D and 2.5D animation, visual effects compositing and finishing (image adjustment, color correction etc.). After Effects can also be used as a basic non-linear editor and a media transcoder.

Animator-9 3.6

Animator is free software developed by Key technologies. It is simple software that takes the multiple captures on your camera and turns it into a GIF file. Most of the cameras now have the option of multiple captures, if you want to turn all the separate shots or images that into an animated shot Animator will do it for you. Animator allows you to stitch individual files together, split the files apart, watch animation files and also create an HTML sample, apart from creating the GIF file that is. Animator-9 needs no installation and requires 436k space. Basically it works as your digital flipbook, with minimum effort and efficient output.

 Animator-DV

AnimatorHD – (formerly AnimatorDV) Windows based software, frame grabber, for creating stop motion and time lapse animation. Allows to create stereoscopic 3D movies taking advantage of motion control systems. Can be also used on film set as a previsualization tool.
For Mac users we recommend the Boot Camp or Fusion.

Anime Studio Pro 5

Anime Studio is a proprietary vector-based 2D animation software for animators. The software comes in two different versions, named Anime Studio Debut and Anime Studio Pro, the first being restricted in terms of possible length and image size, as well as not having all the functions of the Pro version. Anime Studio is available for the Windows and Macintosh operating systems; as well as the English, French and German languages. Anime Studio Pro is available for Linux. Anime Studio is also capable of other styles of animation. It can export its animations as flash cartoons, create cutout-style animation, and, within its restrictions, mimic some pencil-drawn animation. Since it features some basic 3D functionality, it can be seen as a 2½D program.

AniS 1.0

AniS is a unique, easy to use, small, general-purpose image animator tool for the Web. This applet can be used for simple animation of two or more images–you can allow your visitors to have no controls, or a full-set of controls: stop & start; set animation speed; single step frames and change direction of animation sequence; go directly to the first or last frame; movie looping or ‘rocking’ modes. It also allows overlays of other images–if you want to put a map base and some plots or analyses on top of a satellite image, for example. Checkboxes are used to select/un-select overlays. Fade between images–using 8 bit, alpha-component. A slider may be used, or the fading may be animated.

Beneton Movie GIF

Beneton Movie GIF is a free animated GIF editor. It is very easy to use and has all the features you need. Supports 48 file formats such as BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, and AVI. Multiple frames selecting. Drag and drop frames for a quick editing. 20 different effects, divided in 2 big categories: normal and animated. Supports individual frame properties: delay and transparent for each frame. Save and load a batch of frames (frame1.bmp, frame2.bmp, etc.). A complete built-in image editor with many tools (pencil, shapes, airbrush, alpha brush, fill, selection, text). A simple preview window that previews individual frames or the animation with options such as zoom, loop, etc.

Cylekx 2.9

Cylekx 2.9 is bland, unimpressive addition to the line-up of second-tier graphics and animation programs; even for a free program, it’s limited in imagination, functionality, and usability.

DigiCel Flipbook 6

DigiCel Flipbook may not be as well-known outside the industry as the larger commercial animation software packages, but it’s been a staple of animation studios for some time – and with good reason.

Flash Effect Site Builder

Flash Effect SiteBuilder is an interesting little gem of a Flash animation and website building program that’s really a diamond in the rough – or a diamond in the glitz, if you can find the core functionality underneath the glitter and shine. It offers quick, easy site templates for people who want a Flash site but don’t necessarily know Flash well enough to create the desired effects.

Flash Media Show

While nothing revolutionary, the standard edition of Flash Media Show is still a useful tool for people who want to bring their images to life with animated Flash presentations, yet lack Flash or the knowledge to use it.

FotoMorph

For ad-supported freeware, FotoMorph does a fairly decent job of what it sets out to accomplish: it transitions one image to another over an animated timeline, whether morphing one image into another or applying warps/effects to a single image.

GifSplitter 2

GifSplitter can break GIF animation down into individual image frames. Then, you can select any frames of the gif animation, and modify them as you like. Also, GifSplitter will create a .gsf file which can be used in Magic ASCII Studio .

Jumpwel

Jumpwel is an editor to create animated sequences and dynamic objects in HTML pages. You can slide, rotate, and grow the objects–image, text, or button. You can group some objects, and the groups become a new object. Export Flash Macromedia compatible animations or else, an applet player of 16KB plays all animations.

KoolMoves 7.0

KoolMoves 7.0 doesn’t exactly fail at substituting for Flash, but it doesn’t exactly succeed, either. It’s a middle-ground program that offers far more to the novice interested in pre-created, reusable content than it does to the advanced animator and programmer looking to create Flash content from scratch.

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for “Rich Internet Applications” (“RIAs”).

Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to provide animation of text, drawings, and still images. It supports bidirectional streaming of audio and video, and it can capture user input via mouse, keyboard, microphone, and camera. Flash contains an object-oriented language called ActionScript and supports automation via the JavaScript Flash language (JSFL).

Flash content may be displayed on various computer systems and devices, using Adobe Flash Player, which is available free of charge for common web browsers, some mobile phones and a few other electronic devices.

Macromedia Director

Macromedia Director is a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia—now part of Adobe Systems. It allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor, with the user as the “director” of the movie. Originally designed for creating animation sequences, the addition of a scripting language called Lingo made it a popular choice for creating CD-ROMs and standalone kiosks and web content using Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects.

Sqirlz Lite 1.1d

Sqirlz Lite can animate, bend, distort and loop a selected part of any image by drawing an outline around it, and then a second outline to define the shape to be molded into. Any kind of image can be distorted and animated – particularly text, logos, and photographs of people, etc.

Sqirlz Morph 2.1

Squirlz Morph is an unremarkable, forgettable entry into basic image animation software, but it’s not bad, either.

The TAB Manga

The TAB Manga is a simplified animation program priced towards mid-range users but designed for beginners. Allows for simple animations with a limited palette of tools. Exports to multiple formats, mostly targeted towards web or portable media.

Toon Boom Animate

Toon Boom Animate is just another example of Toon Boom’s constant effort to produce the best in digital studio animation software. While this effort makes a few missteps as far as system compatibility, when it comes to the animation features, it sails far ahead of many competitors to offer features that would normally require multiple programs to achieve.

Ulead GIF Animator 5

While I can’t say that I’d pay for it beyond the 15 day free trial, Ulead GIF Animator is still a nicely packaged little program that would be extremely useful for the hobbyist or casual animator. It’s especially good for assembling pre-made images into animated sequences, but has enough functionality to draw decent frame-by-frame animations.