Thursday, February 14, 2008

There are a ton of websites I use regularly that I don't think I've ever mentioned here because they seem like common knowledge, but today I got to thinking that maybe they aren't. For example, no matter how many times I mention it, it seems like there is always someone in our office who has never heard of Snopes. (That probably says more about our turnover than anything else.) So here's a few:

IMDB: Just kidding, everyone already knows this one.

Google Maps: ...is the best! True dat! Double True!

Okay, seriously now...

AMG: All Music Guide, like IMDB but for music. In fact, I actually like its sister site, All Movie Guide, better than IMDB, though it's still in beta.

Metacritic: Collects reviews on all kinds of media from various sources and combines them into an aggregate "metascore."

Snopes: Urban legend and hoax debunker. Whenever you get an email warning you about the latest carjacking scheme or that Barack Obama is a terrorist, you can usually count on Snopes to make you feel stupid for having believed it for a second.

(This website has become so popular that email hoaxes now tend to include "I checked it on Snopes and it's TRUE!" Notwithstanding, check it on Snopes and you will probably find that it's not so much.)

The Drudge Report: Not always the most accurate, but almost always the first with breaking news. Mostly politics, some entertainment gossip.

ConsumerSearch: Sort of like Metacritic but for consumer goods, they gather multiple professional reviews from various sources and use them to determine a winner. Epinions is a good site for consumer reviews, but it's gotten cumbersome lately.

Weather Underground: My favorite weather site, it has very detailed information from neighborhood weather stations, if you need that data for a project or a log or something.

Dinkytown: I don't know what's up with the name, but this site has every kind of financial calculator you can imagine. Very useful for simple models and projections (How long will my money last, etc.) I use it at work all the time.

Zillow: Map of real estate values. Careful, if you haven't seen this one before, you may end up spending the rest of the day looking up the market value of all your friends' houses.

That's probably enough for now, but I'm sure there are tons I've forgotten.

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