101 fabulous and very useful websites
By101 online nuggets
Every now and then someone will send you a link that’s filled with online juicy goodness.
Here’s one passed on by a friend, and although you pick up on many of the core popular sites after you’ve been making and surfing websites for a while, you’re never to seasoned to pick up some new ones.
I’ve selected 11 which are worthy of particular note from the 101 but do check out the full list via the link at the bottom of the page.
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘The superfast way to send large files over the web.’
I say: I currently use sendthsfile.com to transfer large files, but this is worthy of a look. I seem to recall trying this site a long time ago – probably when I was still on a dial-up connection – but it looks straightforward, user-friendly and free.
Newsmap
marumushi.com/apps/newsmap
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘A wonderfully graphical – and customisable – display of news stories from around the world.’
I say: I need to work out how to get my blog and my websites on this feed as a ‘viral’ way of getting people to click on them. Check it out either as a webmaster tool or as a way of organising feeds.
Only2Clicks
www.only2clicks.com
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘If you use just a few websites, this lets you create a home page that has links to them all. Simple, free and practical.’
I say: As a big fan of speed dial on Mozilla Firefox, this is the cross-browser solution as you can set it as your homepage. This is the way to access your favourites, so why can’t I find the equivalent for Internet Explorer … or am I just not looking hard enough?
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘To-do lists, notes, ideas and calendar. Excellent for juggling projects and much more versatile than a ring folder.’
I say: This looks really useful for work and personal use … expecially when on the move. You can keep everything together in the one place, share it or make it private. Reminders, journal, calendar, photos … I like it, worthy of much closer inspection.
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘More than 7,500 free fonts (for Mac and PC), so you can at last stop using Copperplate for your party invitations.’
I say: I’m not a big user of fonts, except when I’m making banners for websites. Still, there are thousands of fonts here, who’s going to stick their nose up at a resource like that?
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘A clever way of searching for video clips on the internet – from uploaded episodes of your favourite soap to comedy home-video moments.’
I say: A great way of looking for everything in one place … I think ‘aggregator’ is the current term for this, but it does exactly what it claims to do. Try putting ‘Dr Who’ in the search box … it brought back around 83,000 entries!
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘Spoof Wikipedia-style encyclopaedia where nothing is true…’
I say: Just a bit of fun really … who has time to write this stuff? Actually, who am I talk as the writer of this blog? Looks just like Wikipedia – cheeky, but funny.
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘Possibly the most dangerous site on this list, Zoopla gives sale prices of recently sold homes and – the tricky bit – estimates the value of the rest. We dare you not to look.’
I say: I agree with the Telegraph … check out your house, build your profile, see how much everybody else’s house is worth. Now I’ve started I can’t stop.
Home For Exchange
www.homeforexchange.com
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘One of many sites where you can swap homes with someone else for a period. This is less cluttered than some of the others and has a good geographical spread.’
I say: A big database of house swaps. Use the advanced section as you basically want to know ‘Where do I want to go?’ and ‘Where do they want to move to?’ I tried to swap my house with one in Italy … but no-one fancied the Cumbrian rain for some reason!
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘The Amazon of the second-hand book world. More than 13,500 booksellers selling 110 million books. If it’s not here, it’s not worth looking for.’
I say: I’ve never heard of this site before, but I did a search for my favourite series of books at the moment, the ‘…for Dummies’ books, and there were loads of them selling for 50p + postage. Add it to your favourites, use it to shop around.
The Daily Telegraph says: ‘Travel writing with a twist. Click on the destination you have in mind and be prepared to be inspired. The site also offers travelogues, news, books reviews, blogs and slideshows.’
I say: A great take on the tripadvisor.com breed of website … use it alongside all your other favourite travel websites. I like the ‘Ask Rolf’ section.
Fancy another 90 websites?
Read the full article in telegraph.co.uk and check out their online Digital Life section.
Facebook comments:
