GIMP - Best Free Software

The best free software of the moment is the GIMP: Gnu Image manipulation programme - it's basically a free alternative to Photoshop and the options are endless. I mean I'm an utter beginner at this, and I could knock up the above in about 3 minutes

It is a truly amazing program, and even better for the fact that it's so powerful, and people are writing new plug-ins/additions for it all the time. Open Source, we love you.

For more go here

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Salford Bloggers Do It For Free!

If you live in Salford and belong to a community group, and you want to join the online revolution, go here, to Charlestown & Lower Kersal Social Media Centre. They'll teach you how to get a free blog, where you can post your thoughts, get involved in online debating and even market yourself for jobs.

Safe, mate, d'ye knaa wha meen?

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Salford University MA Journalism

So, that was it then, i went for my Masters in Journalism interview at Salford Journalism department at Adelphi House, Salford. There's a little picture of it on the right here, in fact.

Adelphi House is a pretty imposing red square block of a building. It's right next to the River Irwell and can look quite pretty on a nice day, as you can see from the pic below.

Don't get confused like I did and head for the Culture, Media and Music Department, which is about 500 yards from Adelphi House in a north-westerly direction, across a car park which is pretty windy, grey and desolate. It's the picture I had in my head of what Salford would be like, all burnt out buildings, flat spaces with very little scenery. A pictorial representation of this is shown in the pictures below.
So, the interview. It really wasn't as difficult or challenging as I thought it should have been, just a little 10 question news quiz e.g.
1) Who is Edward Timpson (Tory winner of Crewe and Nantwich by-election),
2) What do Robert Knox and Ayar Aslam have in common (both teenagers, both recently stabbed),
stuff that had been in the news in the past week or so, and a couple of technical questions e.g.
3) What is a leader/byline/masthead,
4) Who are the PCC and what do they do.

From a group interview I was expecting us to explore an issue and for each of us to take a certain position on that issue. What actually happened: we were asked the one fuckin question I hadn't prepared for, the question that people applying for graduate jobs hate to hear: "So, tell me a little bit about yourself." What do you want to know? I'm quite lazy, I don't learn things very quickly, I hate work, I like to know obscure facts and figures, I'm distrustful of authority and I love my bed. That's about it, in a nutshell.

Tell me a bit about yourself, I dunno, it's such a dissembling question, like the interviewer really does want to know that you like Curb Your Enthusiasm and you and your dad smoke weed on a regular basis, rather than doing the graduate thing and "selling yourself". Well, you say, I've been interested in this course since I moved to Manchester, I've been writing for Company A and Company B and etc etc etc. I really can't be fucking arsed to sell myself any more. I've been trying to hock myself out to companies and for jobs since I left university and it's just completely hollow bullshit. They know it, and you know it, and neither of you are willing to admit it.

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Journalism for students

Manchester University Careers Service are offering a journalism taster this month. The two-day course, “Insight into Broadcasting and Journalism” takes place on Monday 17^th - Tuesday 18^th March (9am-5pm) at Manchester University.

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