Zamzar—Free Online File Conversion
Christopher Bell -- School Library Journal, 4/15/2009
On a daily basis, I would find myself trying to convert some file. It became quite a hassle. Then a friend showed me Zamzar, and I couldn’t be happier. Zamzar is a Web-based application that converts files from one format to another. That means you can make movies from YouTube or other streamed videos downloadable. Having used several file conversion tools, Zamzar is hands down the easiest and cheapest. And it’s free.
Go to Zamzar.com and select a URL or browse for a file on your computer. You can convert several different formats of images, documents, audio files, video files, and other selected files. Select the appropriate file type from the drop down menu. Then enter an email address and click the Convert button. It’s that simple!
Zamzar is perfect for students who are trying to get a movie clip from YouTube. At my school, YouTube is blocked by our district’s filters. By using Zamzar, students and teachers can now get a downloaded version of a video that can be played from their computers, plus Zamzar will convert up to 100MB files.
Get on Zamzar’s Web site and start adding all the YouTube videos you want. With Zamzar in your toolbelt, you can flip your .avi files to flash videos (.flv). Those .odt (Open Document) files can easily be morphed into .doc files too. Still have a dinosaur with their syllabi in WordPerfect? Zamzar can help with that, too.
