NewsLookup

Newslookup allows you to find news stories like many other news lookup services. However this one provides you with choices up front. You can select the type of media (newspaper, Internet, radio, or television), region (country, continent), sort by relevance or date, and more. It probably doesn't scour as many sites as Google but the added options can be most useful.

What's That Supposed To Mean?

Merriam-Webster maintains an efficient but fun web site with access to the various dictionaries they publish and some extras you don't find in the average dictionary. Each year they create a top ten list based upon results gleaned from their users. You can click on a word and get the definition from one or more of their dictionaries, or you can click on a speaker icon and download an audio pronunciation of the word.

Marathon Data Base

The MarathonGuide is a data base of marathon races around the world. Not only does it provide access to upcoming marathon races but it also provides information about past marathons. It seems to go back only to about 2000 but it had to start somewhere. You can find past results. All finishers and their times are posted for most races. There are also links to articles about running marathons. You can search for marathons by location or by dates. Once you find the marathon you are looking for you can view results from many of the marathons and search by name or even by time of finish.

A9 The Call Of The Amazon

That's right. Amazon now has a search engine, A9. From what I have seen of it, A9 uses Google results. It does have some neat little tricks of its own however. While it does a look up based upon your search terms in the familiar fashion, it also maintains a search history for you and performs a book search at the same time. All three searches are available from a tab bar on the right side of the screen. You can view all three searches at once or focus on just one at a time. It also provides the searcher with some site info in the form of number of links to this site and it provides a web rank which I'm not certain I understand. CAUTION: Sometimes the number of links are to the host and not necessarily the full domain.

What's Hot & What's Not

Have you ever wondered what everyone else was looking for on the Internet? Well now you have an opportunity to find out. For a long time now many of the major search engines have had different ways of reporting on the hot searches on the Internet. Each one has a slightly different criteria and methodology for tracking the searches so you should read the about sections of these sights when you visit.

The sights are:
Google Zeitgeist (heavy duty demographics)
WordTracker (keyword popularity)
Ask Jeeves (trends, what's happening next)
Yahoo! (Buzz Index)
Lycos (Top 50 searches)

Bon Apetit!

Epicurious claims to be the World's Greatest Recipe Collection. That could very well be the case. But I like it because of its video collection. There are short, but informative, videos on all aspects of food preparation--from how to filet a fish to the various napkin folds. Definitely for the kitchen people.

The Library of Congress Hispanic Collections

Not only does the Library of Congress have tons of reading materials about the United States, it also has an extensive Hispanic collection. It covers historical relationships between Spain and the United States as well as South American, Central American, and lower North American countries. Many of the materials available here are available in multilingual formats.

Godchecker

Maybe Godchecker isn't as thorough as Bullfinch's Mythology, but it's probably more diverse. It's a data base with listings for over 1,600 deities. While it covers the standard Greek gods it also covers African gods, Mayan gods, Norse gods and more. The approach of the writers is a bit humorous but the information they provide is accurate as far as I can tell. A great resource if you're working on term papers about Native American legends, the Chinese Jade Emperor, or even the Valkyries. They're all here.

Going Once! Going Twice! Sold! To The Lady With The Ugly Hat

AuctionZip.com will help you find auctions being held in your area. You simply type in your zipcode and AuctionZip will find auctions within 30 or as far as 500 miles away. You can even get a monthly calendar of auctions so you can mark them in your PDA. The site is mostly about the where and when of auctions but also has news of top five attended auctions and top 10 most viewed auctioneers. What am I bid for this wonderful site?

Do Ya Wanna Dance?

BallroomDancers.com (BDC) is filled with just about everything you could ever want to know about Ballroom Dancing. The site has a BDC Mall where you can buy videos, music or books; a Learning Center to provide dance lessons for the beginners and variations for the more advanced; a Dance Directory of Teachers, Studios, and places to dance and more. Extensive coverage of Ballroom Dancing.

What Do You Do When It Rains?

The kids are home for the summer. They play outside all day and further into the evening than you approve. That's nice when the sun is shining and the weather is dry. But what happens on those dreary summer rain days? Do you really want them to watch cable TV or play video games all day long? Well now there's an alternative.

Houghton Mifflin has the Education Place. This site contains a multitude of activities you can work on with your child on the wet summer afternoons. Dozens of projects and ideas to choose from regardless of your child's interests. You're bound to find something they will enjoy doing. And it's educational as well.

Public Radio Whenever

I am addicted to Public Radio. The problem is those darn teasers they're always throwing at me. "Be sure to tune in to Fresh Air today so you can hear an interview with..." I'm at work when Fresh Air is broadcast. I can't listen. Or can I?

RadioScout has searchable listings of many Public Radio broadcasts. If you hear that ad on Morning Edition and you won't be home for the special interview on All Things Considered you can link to the streaming audio download file and give a listen.

Things That Go Boom!

If your idea of a good movie is one where a lot of buildings blow up, ImplosionWorld has your number. When buildings need to be demolished and you don't have a lot of time, what do you do? Implode it! ImplosionWorld.com has information about implosion demolition. There are videos, picture collections, world's records for tallest, longest, biggest, and more.

What Would I Look Like Wearing...

You look in the catalog, order clothing that looks cute on the model. It arrives at your home and it doesn't look as cute on you. Of course not. You're not built like the model in the catalog. Wouldn't it be great if you could try on the clothes you see in the catalog before ordering? Well you can't go that far but you can do the next best thing. You can create a virtual model online and then use this mannequin to try clothes on to see what they would look like on a body like yours with your height, weight, hair color, etc.

At My Virtual Model you start out by creating a mannequin of yourself based on eyes, nose, mouth, head shape, etc. Register and you can grab your mannequin anytime you want and go to selected store web sites like Lands' End. Then try the clothes on the model. Change the model by having it drop or gain a few pounds and see if the clothes look any better. It's kind of like the old paper dolls only you get to use real clothes on a paper doll that looks vaguely familiar.

"You Might Survive... 'Long As You Don't Inhale"

These are the words from a Tom Lehrer song back in the 1960s. Now you can find out just how polluted your living and work areas are. Type in your zip code and get a detailed report as to what the pollution situation is. Not only that but you can find out who are the biggest polluters in your area. The sight is simply called Scorecard.

Sunrise, Sunset, Moonrise, Moonset and Twilight

The Sunrise/Sunset site will give you the sunrise and sunset times for anywhere in the world. If you live in a major city you get to pick from a pretty extensive list. If you're from a less populated area you're going to need to brush up on your longitude and latitude. The site will even print out a calendar of these times. It has Civil, Nautical, and Astronomical Twilights available. Depending on your operating system there is even a freeware download that you can run in your system tray.

A Bird In The Hand Is Better Than A Bird In The House

A bird in the house is a sign of death according to Old Superstitions web site. Over the ages humans have come up with some of the most interesting and strange superstitions. The Old Superstitions site is a data base of superstitions. There are some old friends--if rats are seen leaving a ship while it is in port, that ship will sink on its next voyage. There are also some you may not be aware of--Playing cards with a dog in the room will cause disputes. A most interesting data base.

One Look And You'll Wonder How You Ever Got Along Without It

OneLook gives you quick access to over 970 dictionaries. These are not just standard dictionaries but specialty and foreign language dictionaries as well. Fast and impressive.

Home Photos

Would you like to have a picture of your home? How about one shot from space? Well you can. All you have to do is go to the ImageAtlas. I've seen these types of sites over the last several years but this was really amazing in it's clarity and ability to key into an exact location. The only thing I don't like about this site is that if you want the image you have to pay for it. Otherwise it shows up on your screen and you can print it but it shows up with a watermark which makes for a less than acceptable image. But if you just want to see your home or business from high up this is a pretty good place to start.

World's Largest Medical Library

The United States National Library of Medicine claims to be the world's largest medical library. It contains access to helpful information for both the public and medical professionals. In addition to information about current trends, it also provides access to journals, books and audio visual materials.

What's In A Name?

My name is Joseph. But what does that mean? Where did the name Joseph come from? A long time ago our names had meaning. To find out about your name origins go to Behind the Name.

The WayBack Machine

The WayBack Machine came to us each week on the Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon Show. One of the cartoons in the middle of the show had the improbable pairing of a genius dog, Mr. Peabody, and his boy, Sherman. Mr. Peabody was smarter than the average pooch and built a time machine called the WayBack Machine. Well now you can enter your very own Internet Time Machine. As long as you don't want to go back any further than 1996. You can visit web sites in previous incarnations to see how they've changed over the years. Even visit web sites that no longer exist. I like to visit every now and then because it's just plain fun. But if you have to justify it, you can say that you're studying the evolution of the Internet. Enjoy the ride!

Who said ...?

Michael Fagan has created several databases and search tools. These can be found at his home page for FaganFinder. What I'd like to suggest here is one of his sites that deals with quotations. It's called the FaganFinder Quotations and Proverbs search. It links to other quotations web sites like Bartelby. Each site has its own spin on quotations from the Psycho Proverb Zone to Mathematical Quotations.

Find Articles at FindArticles

The article search engine FindArticles has been given some new features. Citations can be sorted by relevance, date both recent to old and old to recent, length, and publication. It has several million articles and more than 500 magazines are covered. You can use the basic FindArticles site or go to the Advanced FindArticles page for more control over the citations.

Do You Know What Chemicals Are In Your Cosmetics?

What chemicals are in your shampoo? Your face cream? And the more important question: Are any of those chemicals hazardous to your health? To find the answers to these questions visit Skin Deep: A Safety Assessment of Ingredients in Personal Care Products. Here you can search by brand name or type of product. Products are ranked from 1 to 10 (10 is the worst). Chemical contents are listed and have links with information about their danger levels.

Food! Glorious Food!

The Red Kitchen is a searchable blog. Not only does it contain recipes but links to other food sites. The Red Kitchen itself is searchable. A nice place to visit if you like to cook.

Check Your Benefits

The National Council on the Aging has produced a Benefits Checkup web site that checks over 1,150 public and private programs that help with health care, utility costs and other essential needs. This comes from the AARP Bulletin for June 2004.

What's Your Number?

Looking up phone numbers or email addresses can be tedious. Going from one directory lookup to another and retyping search criteria at each site. The Ultimate Email Directory contains forms for six different directory lookup services. When you fill the form for one directory the information is automatically filled into the other six. When you request the search from one directory, a new Internet window opens. If the results aren't what you were looking for then just close that directory window and you are back at the Ultimate Email Directory and you can click the search button on the next directory.

Smile! You've Got Email :-)

We've all seen them. Those little punctuation marks that are supposed to tell us if someone is happy, sad, or "just kidding." A series of colons, semi colons, commas, parenthesis and more. Well someone actually took the time to define their meanings. The site is called Smileys and Emoticons. Hope you enjoy this. *^_^*

The Ten Commandments of Internet Searching

It never hurts to go back over the basics once in awhile. This is one of those times. A couple years ago a company called Washington Researchers came up with a series of 10 commandments of Internet Searching. These were good suggestions when they first hit the net and they're just as good now.

D-Day: The Longest Day

Sixty years ago the event called D-Day began. Brittanica.com presents a historical retrospect on the events of that day at Normandy: 1944. For those that wish to get a feel of what it was all about, visit this site.

Television Program Guide

TV Tome is a data base of information about television series. It contains information about current shows and some of the older classics (over 2100 altogether). You can find episode guides, info about new shows coming up, or just info about goofs in the series. The latter consists of contradictory statements, continuity errors (i.e. wristwatch on right hand at beginning of scene and on left hand at end of scene).

Watch Those Gas Prices

Within the last couple months gas prices have taken a sharp increase. Here are two sites that will help you find the best price in your area. In my informal, anecdotal test I found Gas Price Watch did not have any prices listed for stations in my zip code area (an urban area). However when looking in the suburbs it had a bit more information. Gas Buddy was more thorough and more recent. It had accurate and timely info for my zip code and those in the suburbs. All prices listed were posted within the last 24 hours whereas Gas Price Watch price posts were from six days ago. My recommendation is to try both for your area and then use the one that is most helpful and timely for you.

Library of Scotland Broadside Collection

Today if you want the news you can check the radio, television, or Internet any time of the day or night. But how did folks get the news before mass media? News was displayed through broadsides which were like the ads and flyers we see posted on office bulletin boards and the local supermarket. These carried the "news" of the day. Sometimes it was questionable as to whether this was news or fiction but it was the source of its time. Now the Library of Scotland has created a web site with over 1,800 broadsides posted between 1650 and 1910. You can search by keyword or use a subject index.

Not For Profit Information

GuideStar is a national database of nonprofit organizations. Basic information (a one page snapshot) of an organization can be had for the asking. If you want more information you need to register. The registration is free and provides information such as financials, 990 forms, contact person/s, Board of Directors, and more.

Sound Bytes

FindSounds is the name of a site that allows you to search for sounds the same way you can search for printed text-containing web sites or images on the Internet. Now you can search for crickets in the night, a fanfare, or the call of a killdeer. You can use keyword searching or go to it's list of examples to get a flavor of the type of sounds available at FindSounds.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum--Online

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) uses the technology of the 21st century to allow virtual visitors into its displays. Not everyone can take a trip to the physical museum. So the museum started back in 1994 to create a presence on the Internet. Today the museum uses technology that allows a virtual visitor to zoom in on a live artifact. They also use technology to effectively create online multimedia presentations.