As a journalist, the only thing better than a piece of new equipment is a piece of new equipment for a rock-bottom price. Everyone is doing more with less these days, so it’s more important than ever to take advantage of sales that will boost your toolset without breaking the bank.

Luckily, those doldrum days between Christmas and New Years have become a boon for people who are looking for a good deal, and you can see that phenomenon no better than in the Apple app store. Whether you’re taking advantage of a new device or interested in updating your apps, these four products will become your go-to for on-the-fly reporting and task management — and might make you a better reporter in the process. Read more

My favorite part of the comment section of YouTube is the ability to link a timestamp (say “0:31″) to a particular point in a video, letting someone just click on the “0:31″ in blue and see, in full, the point you’re referencing.

It’s a great way of adding context to your comment, but unfortunately, it currently only works in the comment section itself. Discussing the contexts of a particular moment in YouTube videos, however, can also be advantageous for your journalism.

In my searching for other possibilities to add video context to journalism, I stumbled upon TubeChop—I suggest you give it a try.

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A reader (and fun Tweeter) had a smart idea following our post last week on using ThingLink creatively in journalism. I had to pass it along.

One of the ideas laid out in that post was how to quickly make infographics interactive, adding another meta-layer to the data you already made look pretty. Ivan Lajara, engagement editor for Digital First Media’s East Region, had an idea to make that even simpler:

.@kevinloker I was thinking that Thinglink + Easel.ly just might be the thing

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) October 1, 2012

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Interactives can easily take time, resources and skill-sets that not every newsroom (or individual journalist) has. For those situations, ThingLink is simple tool that anyone can pick up and use today (or, really, right now) and create an engaging experience that helps tell a story.

We’ve written about ThingLink before, but as more notable newsroom uses pop up, it’s worth again walking through where its strengths lay.

To do that recap: take a look at this interactive image that former contributor Elana Zak, now social media producer for The Wall Street Journal, used as an example in our previous piece. It was inspired by this tagged image by Berliner Morgenpost. Hover over the dots.

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When it comes to software and apps to help them work, it’s no surprise freelancers like free apps. But here’s another non-surprise from a recent survey of about 100 freelancers conducted by BestVendor: They also love cloud computing. Most of the top 25 most popular apps from that survey were a combination of both.

Check out BestVendor's infographic to learn more about the survey and see a few of their respondents' also-rans that didn't make the main list this time. Click the image to see the full size version.

In its survey due to be released Thursday, the New York-based start-up site aimed at connecting users with useful apps and software found not one of the top 25 most popular apps cited by the freelancers was a desktop-only program. Some of them have desktop components, but most were cloud-based apps or sites.

So what were the pack leaders? Well, if this were the Olympics, let’s just say Google would be the medal leader in this event, with seven of the top 25 apps the freelancers cited — more than a quarter of the list, including two of the top three. Yet, it didn’t take the No. 1 spot: File sharing and backup service Dropbox bested the big G for that honor.

Beyond file storage and email, several of the tools were directly related to the business aspects of working as a freelancer, with software to help manage projects, invoices, billing and budgeting.

To be fair, the demographics of the relatively small sample of freelancers surveyed about what software and apps they use to manage their work was skewed a bit: 44 percent worked in technology and digital media according to BestVendor. Also, primarily they were based in the U.S. and Europe. But this is still an interesting list of ideas for freelancers looking to add primarily free tools to their tool box.

In rank order, the 25 most popular freelancer tools are:
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