WEBSITES TODAY

AS A SNAPSHOT of time, I thought I would ramble on about blogs and those parts of the internet I find useful or interesting. Why not, it could be fun looking back someday!

Social sites were probably kicked-off by Friends Reunited. Soon, came Bebo aiming at younger users. Music and kids combined on MySpace (which has undergone a revamp recently). It is probably fair to say that social sites now are dominated by Facebook, and the professional version of this would be Linkedin.

I have to say that I have not really been interested in any of these social sites; they just seem crass to me — they suck effort and time and give little back. They also have a worrying lack of privacy, and with tie-ins to various personal devices seem to invite identity theft or even “cyberbullying”.

I do not mind Twitter because you can follow interesting people you will never meet, and you can participate in many ways, to whatever level you are comfortable with — and do so anonymously. If you use Twitter, you might find Twimemachine good for searching historical tweets, and Splitweet for managing different accounts.

There are other sites that can sort-of be considered “social sites”, but are less about sharing your life’s minutiae and more about sharing the good stuff.

Unique to the medium is the hyperlink — and the site for sharing links and sites  you like would be  Stumbleupon, I used to use this a lot via the browser toolbar, but it quickly tried to become Facebook, and workplaces put it on the banned list, so it was back to sending links by e-mail and IM!

Tip: to shorten long URL links, I use Tinyurl.com (or the browser add-on button version).

Because the internet is an image-biased medium, I guess social sites really kicked off with digital photographs. I’m thinking here of Flikr, Pinterest, and Tumblr. and recently I’ve seen the rise of Instagram and Backspace for sharing pictures taken with smartphones. Again, though, they’re not really for me.

Having said that, I have used blogging providers, like Blogger and WordPress, and my wife has tied in Flikr to share our  photographs, but it’s easier to just use the blog as it keeps things private yet easy to see/download by the folk that matter.

Over the years, when I have fancied a chuckle, I have headed over to Fark or Reddit. Reddit has an image site that is a lot of fun too — Imgr. If you like Reddit, a really handy tool for searching is Searchreddit. Couldn’t live without it.

With broadband’s growth, videos have taken off, particularly with Youtube and Vimeo. These are the big guys because of the bad press they attract, pop artists launch music promos there, and because people upload illegal things, like TV shows or clips from films.

Other sites cater more specifically for personal videoclips these days, Flikr, Videobam, Dropshots and the like. These are handy for linking to from blogs (but because WordPress allows you to upload directly so these types of site may be mainly for non-bloggers).

If you have big files to share (too big and unwieldy for e-mail), you might need Big File Swapper, Box, or File Factory. But they tend to cost. I therefore prefer blogs as a good free way to upload files that you want people to download. The posts can be secured with a password, or you can give permission levels to the blog.

Very popular a few years ago was eBay. Everyone seemed to be on it, buying and selling.

Tip: we use Fat Fingers to search eBay for bargains that people put on with mistakes or mis-spellings.

Other sites are not really anywhere as near popular as eBay (eBid, Craigslist etc). We sometimes use gumtree for services, buying, selling or giving stuff away. A lot of folk use Amazon to read reviews, download music, or get inspiration.

If  Cowboy Trades worry you, forget Rated People – it was good for a while, but it seems to be getting less trustworthy these days. My Builder is better. I haven’t used Top Tradesmen so far, but it looks pretty good.

Tip: the Government Trustmark scheme is always the best first step though, pop in your postcode and what trade you need and it comes up with pukka certified tradesmen.

For streaming live BBC telly you can’t beat the simulcast.  I’d first check the TV listings for the UK.

On demand telly is good too – BBC iPlayer is a favourite, there’s an ITV player too (STV too), Channel Four’s 4oD, and Channel Five have one as well. Of course you can get channels on Youtube as well.

LIVE Radio is also available on-line to the smartphone or laptop easily enough – BBC Radio One, BBC Radio Two, BBC Radio Three and BBC Radio Four. Classic FM, Clyde 1 FM, Smooth radio, and loads more are available. A good resource is Shoutcast’s directory, or Window’s Guide to Internet Radio.

Streaming music share sites are popular. This is My Jam is a share site for what you are listening to. It connects with Spotify as well. Rivals to Spotify would be Playlist, Grooveshark,  Radio, Soundcloud, Last FM, Jango, Rhapsody, and sites like Blip FM. My wife loves mash-ups, so the Music Mash-Up Charts is a great site. CD Baby is cool too.

Searching music facts is easy with Everyhit, and The song tapper finds songs simply from what you tap in.

I have liked Live Plasma for years, especially good for finding links on music and musicians. A nice graphic searchy thing… lovely.

Some of my old favourite blog search sites have died, but Global Voices is still going, and is really good if you need world news that is not media generated. Wired is always worth a lunchtime check to catch up, as is the famous SlashDot. Or even The Register; I’m a bit techy-geeky at times.

My wife loves The Daily Mail site,  and while I check that too, I also scan HuffingtonUK and Drudge. WorldNews and BBCNews are good, but if the news matters to you, the best thing to do would be to check out PressDisplay – nothing else compares, although The PaperBoy tries, and What the Papers Say does a little bit. Every UK newspaper and magazine is listed at Media UK, the Glasgow results are this. You can then contact them directly or visit the paper’s site.

I adore The Art Loss Register — a website that tracks stolen works of art, so you can find out what’s been stolen and what’s been recovered. To me, this is fascinating. I also use Reference sites — such as The Internet Book List, Literature.org is cool too. Oxford Dictionary is always worth a check. I use the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible site, Sacred Texts site and The Bible Gateway has been handy over the years.

• A good site to track down three letter abbreviations is the Acronym Finder.

Google has great stuff – Translate, Maps, Shopping, Image Search, and the Android app store (Play). People still use Google to search for celebrities when there is a dedicated search engine out there called Valebrity. Then again, there is the International Movie Database (if you must).

Tip: a cool search engine is FactBites – you type in a search, like you do at Google, and the results are facts about the subject — not links to websites.

When I get an e-mail at work that tells a tall tale, I check it against Snopes.  Usually it turn out to be yet another urban legend. I tend not to trust Wikipedia, preferring to use it as a quick guide rather than as a proper authority source.

When I have to telephone a company with an expensive premium rate number, I use GetHuman’s website to track down their normal rate landline number, and call them on that instead.

It is easy to check what broadband speeds, services and providers are available to your postcode – check Sam Knows before doing anything. Checking the ping time, the upload and download speed and keeping a record for reference is freely provided by Speedtest.net.

Checking what drugs have been prescribed is easy enough with RxList or Local Health/ Better Medicine.

Tip: as a responsible parent, I have to check the age rating/ classification of DVDs, games and cinema movies, so I just pop the title into the search box at the BBFC site.

That’s enough for one crazy post. I have managed to avoid holiday, flights, ferries, travel, cooking and lots more… maybe another post another time.

§