 My Salon Blog colleague Ted Ritzer keeps a list
of Useful
Web Sites (for all web users, not just bloggers) originally
compiled by Kevin Kelly, of Wired,
The Well, and Whole Earth Catalog fame. Kevin no
longer maintains his list, and instead has an intriguing Cool Tools site, but it's only
for the rich -- virtually everything on the site costs money, often a
lot of it. So Ted and I agreed it's time to update the Useful Web Sites
list, and we need your help. What links and free
downloads should every self-respecting Internet user have on their
desktop?
The list should not
include pay
sites, nor should it include news sites, blogs or other sites that
appear on blogrolls (too many, and too subjective). Nor should it
include highly specialized sites (I have a personal list of favourite
genealogy sites, but I realize that few people would consider these
'essential').
To make the list manageable, I've identified 21 categories for the essential links
(let me know if you think I've missed an entire category). If I get
enough response, I'll publish a list of the Top 3 in
each category and keep it on my sidebar or Spurl it (Spurl lets you keep your
web bookmarks online and share them with others).
The examples shown for each category are my personal favourites and
some of them are eccentric, so they may not make the Top 3 list. Quite
a few of them come from the excellent Jason
Lefkowitz' Quality Software list (thanks to Internet Time for the
link):
- Search engines -- e.g. Google
- Converters, voice recognition tools and translators -- e.g.
Reverso
Language
Translation
- Internet browsing tools and aids -- e.g. Firefox browser, Xnews
newsreader
- Website composing and management tools -- e.g. HTML-Kit web page editor
- Publishing tools - e.g. PDFCreator
- Word processing and office productivity -- e.g. OpenOffice
- File and desktop management -- e.g. FilZip compression
software, Furl digital
filing cabinet
- Writing aids -- e.g. The 39 Steps,
Rhymezone
- Reference tools -- e.g. IMDB
movie & TV show database
- Music and book sellers -- e.g. FYE, CDBaby,
McNally Robinson
- Consumer information -- e.g. CNet
product reviews
- File sharing tools
- Internet streaming radio/video -- e.g. ShoutCast
- Connectivity and discussion tools -- e.g. Thunderbird e-mail, SightSpeed videoconferencing, Trillian
IM and chat integrator, Skype VoIP
- Multimedia tools -- e.g. PhotoPlus
image editor, IrfanView image viewer
- Website/RSS feed aggregation tools -- e.g. BlogLines site aggregator,
Spurl online bookmarking
- Network/community builders and expertise finders
- Software download sites -- e.g. Download.com, Tucows
- Investment tools and information -- e.g. MLS real estate finder
- Electronic Payment and LETS tools
- Anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware/adware utilities -- e.g. SpyBot anti-spyware
What are your essential links and invaluable free downloads?
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