Multimedia

Audio
c|net's Make Some Noise! Adding Audio to Your Site
A great intro to bring sound to your pages, including how to record sound, how to get it on your page, and what's this streaming audio thing?

Sound Advice
Everything you need to know about sound on the Web, including how to create audio files and where to get free ones.

Harmony Central: Sources for MIDI Files
A big list of MIDI file collections.

Audio/Music Utilities
Hitsquad Shareware Music Machine:
The Mac page boasts an impressive list of editors and players for your audio needs. The Windows page has many editors and players to help add a little zing to your page. All the programs are rated for quality and the size of the file is listed.

Crescendo Midi
Download page for the music plug-in.

Macromedia's Sound Edit 16
Soundedit 16 and deck 2 (editing package for macs)

Animation
c|net's A Step by Step Guide to Creating Animated GIFs
A great overview of making GIF89 animations.

Webreference's Optimizing Animated GIFs
Helps you drastically reduce the size of your animated GIFs.

Web Review's Boss Animation of the Day
Come here for inspiration!

Totally Hip: Free Set of Animations
From the makers of WebPainter, a downloadable set of nice little animations.

Animation Utilities
GIF Builder (Mac)

GIF Construction Set (Windows)

Web Painter (Mac & Windows)
Highly acclaimed GIF animation building utility...free downloadable demo.

Macromedia Shockwave/Flash It's trickier than building GIF animation, but a lot more powerful! Flash boasts the ability to support sound in its animations. Plus, it's vector based, or mathematically drawn, so the files are super small.

Video
Adobe's Video for the Internet Series
A fantastic overview of how and why you'll want to add video to your personal pages using Adobe Premier Video Editing Software; the tutorial takes you through the steps for getting video on the Web for a fictitious Aunt Tilly.

Apple's Quicktime Technology
A full overview of Apple's desktop video format and technology.

Video Utilities PC/MAC VIDEO VIEWERS
StreamWorks Player:
multiplatform player of networked audio and video, works like a plug-in for your browser.

Multimedia viewers list:
Various multimedia viewers are rated and assessed for quality, and with links to the download sites.

Apple's Quicktime Plug-in
Download page for Apple's multiplatform movie plug-in.