It's hard to believe, but I've been writing this column for two years. To celebrate, I've decided to let you in on a few of my trade secrets. This week's column is a how-to guide explaining how and where I get my information. If you're interested in journalism and technology, follow some or all of these steps.

Looking for an obscure source for a story? Trying to find some information on your beat?

Are you a journalist-entrepreneur, with a new business to launch? Whether you're planning a new mobile application or starting a consulting company, we have a list of free, must-use tools.

A while back, I introduced you to a few online tools for crowdsourcing. "Crowdsourcing" refers to relying on the wisdom of a crowd to help answer a question or learn more about a particular topic. Typically, a user of a social network will "crowdsource" a subject by asking all of his/her friends and then responding to replies.

In the aftermath of the recent earthquake tragedy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, media organizations all over the world are taking different digital approaches to covering the story. Various technologies and tools are being used to measure the tragedy and to tell the harrowing stories of its countless victims.

One of the most difficult things to do when conducing an extensive digital search is organizing your findings. Enter Zotero, a simple (and free!) Firefox extension that helps you manage all that information.

About five years ago, there were a number of free services that launched enabling anyone to create a digital toolbar. We experimented with one of the early providers, Conduit, to develop one specifically for multimedia journalists. On it, we offered a hand-picked selection of RSS feeds we thought every journalist should read, several how-to guides and tipsheets, a list of conferences we recommended, lots of resources and web tools for journalists and much more.

Regardless of whether you work for a print publication or for broadcast, chances are good that your news organization also has a website. One excellent way to enhance any story is to include some sort of data visualization with your work. This way, you'll be able to incorporate colorful, moving charts and graphics into your articles to provide better context and to offer your readers a chance to interact more with your story.

There are a number of free data visualization tools available for free.