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Best Free Stuff Online

As e-commerce takes hold and more Web sites begin charging for content that used to cost you nothing, good free stuff is getting harder and harder to find. For our third annual guide, we scoured the Internet, tossed aside the dreck, and found worthwhile downloads.

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Best Graphics and Sound Tools

Choosy Mothers Choose GIF

If your Web site is just too static-looking, an animated GIF or two may be in order. These little moving pictures are easy to construct using the step-by-step wizard in this offbeat Alchemy Mindworks shareware. And all other aspects of GIF creation are also handled with ease--including conversion from AVI to animated GIF, transparency, and text effects. 7 min. $20, 30-day free trial. gifcon32.exe, 1.39MB, www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html

Show Me the Monet

Want a Degas on your desktop or a Hopper on your home page? Hundreds of paintings and drawings have been digitized at the WebMuseum. This downloadable fine art, grouped by artist, covers all those original masters you've seen Sister Wendy rave about on PBS. When the Webmaster calls himself a curator, you know you're in for a highbrow treat. sunsite.unc.edu/wm/

Hard Disk Café

Sometimes you have the best sound track for your presentation on a few CDs--but you can't keep switching discs for your sound cues and do your presentation at the same time. For those occasions, CD Copy's ability to save audio disc tracks as .wav, .raw, or MPEG files is just what the spin doctor ordered. 2 min. cdcopy.zip, 373KB, members.aol.com/mbarth2193/cdcopy.zip

Hep Tunes From Beatniks

Install the Beatnik plug-in (see "Best Free Browser Plug-Ins"), and you'll find no end of professional mood music and sound effects. Here in the Beatnik Showcase, HeadSpace shows off what cool composers across the Web have done with the company's music-editing software--and it's wildly impressive. You can download music clips or just audition them at the site. www.headspace.com/beatnik/

Sound Studio

If you've got a series of so-so sound effects and music clips, spice them up with Cool Edit 96. Its effects studio includes echo, flange, reverb, stretch, pitch change, and more. Unless you register the shareware, you're limited to two effects per editing session--but that's still enough to Hendrix up a flat WAV collection. 4 min. c96setup.exe, 2MB, www.syntrillium.com/cool.htm

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