Slashdot.org
A general news source for technical-related and open source communities... with attitude. “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.”
Kuro5hin.org
"Technology and culture, from the trenches."
Infoanarchy.org
Anonymity/privacy, copyrights, civil liberties, filesharing, Peer-to-peer.
Gagpipe
Headline satire from around the world. Caution: content may offend.
Somethingawful.com
Don't miss Photoshop Phridays.
Tom the Dancing Bug
Free syndicated comic online.
Ananova News Quirkies
Quirky, odd, weird-ass news from around the world.
The Anomalist
News from around the world, updated daily. News about unexplained mysteries, maverick science, unorthodox theories, strange talents, unexpected discoveries.
Wired News.
"Clear, concise, and complete, Wired News is the essential source for daily news and analysis of the technologies, companies, and people driving the information age. Going beyond traditional technology coverage, Wired News delivers an in-depth, informed insider's perspective on how technology is affecting business, culture, and politics on a daily basis. Launched in 1996, Wired News is available directly via the Web."
The Register
Biting the hand that feeds IT
EZboard
ezboard is the Internet's center for free, easy, and highly customizable message boards. Setting up an ezboard only takes a few minutes, and ezboard is for everyone and for every use: games, entertainment, hobbies, families, business, and everything inbetween. You don't require a website to create an ezboard. Easily add colors, images, and themes to make your ezboard come alive. Personalized. International version available.
Meetup
'What is a Meetup? It's a local gathering of a group of people brought together by a common interest. Real world, face-to-face, maybe over coffee or a beer. Where are Meetups? Meetups happen in 545 locales (cities, towns, areas) in 34 countries. At local cafés, bars, bowling alleys, donut shops, dog-friendly spots, videogame displays, and lots of other places. People vote on where their local Meetup will take place [...] Is this free? Yes, Meetup is a free service. Some venues pay Meetup to be listed and to help coordinate events. (Note: We NEVER force a Meetup to be at a particular venue. Meetups only happen at places that the people vote for.) [...] Do Meetups for a topic happen on the same day in every city? Yes. This is one of the neatest things about Meetup. Of course, due to time zones, Meetups don't happen everywhere simultaneously, they simply happen at the stated time -- in the local time zone -- in each respective city.
YahooGroups
'What is Yahoo! Groups? Yahoo! Groups is a free service that allows you to bring together family, friends, and associates through a web site and email group. Yahoo! Groups offer a convenient way to connect with others who share the same interests and ideas. There are millions of groups that you can join in an easy-to-use, privacy-protected, and spam-protected environment. You can use the Yahoo! Groups service at our web site or through any email program. How much does it cost to use Yahoo! Groups? Yahoo! Groups is free to both members and moderators. Our service is advertiser-supported and is partially sponsored by advertisements inserted into the email messages you receive. Email groups offer a convenient way to connect with others who share the same interests and ideas. Email groups allow you to send email messages to a group of people by sending your mail to just the ONE email address. No more typing in a huge list of addresses! Features include optional online message archives, file storage space, group calendar, chat, polls, optional digests messages, 'no-mail' option while out of town, moderator settings, private groups, customised auto-send messages, etc. etc.'
Google Usenet Newsgroups
Each day, archives the discussions found in Usenet newsgroups so that users can search, browse and post to them easily.
Sam Spade
Each time you connect to the internet you are assigned an IP address, eg. 123.7.14.139 or 208.50.144.68, etc. Each IP address has a corresponding domain name. It's possible to determine an internet user's domain name (Internet Service Provider) by their IP address. Samspade.org has an assortment of online tools that allow IP address and domain name queries, traces, etc.
Altavista's Free Language Translations - "Babel Fish"
Named after the Babel Fish referred to in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Altavista's Babel Fish can translate to and from [as of 16 May 2000] various combinations between English, French, German, Italian, Portugese, Spanish, and Russian.
"The Babel Fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it.
The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel Fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel Fish. Meanwhile, the poor Babel Fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.' (From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)"
Time Zone Converter
Can't be bothered figuring out how your time relates to the rest of the planet? (Aren't smart enough?) Use this free service to convert to GMT or figure out what time it is anywhere else in the world. Very helpful for knowing when to turn up to one-time-only online concerts, radio shows or celebrity chat sessions. Also use it for planning international travel or making long-distance phone calls. The time zone rules on which the converter is based are updated whenever local laws or ordinances change to provide you with the most accurate time converter utility on the Net.
XE.com Online Currency Converter
Since then, we have grown to become the world's favorite provider of Internet foreign exchange tools and services. Independent industry rankings consistently confirm that more people -- and websites -- use our wide variety of simple and powerful currency tools than any others.
Metaspy
"Ever wonder what the rest of the world is searching for? Catch a glimpse of some of the searches being performed on MetaCrawler®, at this very moment! The MetaSpy® page will automatically refresh every 15 seconds.
MetaSpy Exposed provides a no-holds-barred (unfiltered) look at the search queries of MetaCrawler users. This page updates automatically every 15 seconds with a new list of in-progress searches, and is available for mature audiences only."
CD-Recordable FAQ
"CD-R is short for "CD-Recordable". Recordable CDs are WORM (Write Once, Read Multiple) media that work just like standard CDs. The advantage of CD-R over other types of optical media is that you can use the discs with a standard CD player. The disadvantage is that you can't reuse a disc. A related technology called CD-Rewritable (CD-RW) allows you to erase discs and reuse them, but the CD-RW media doesn't work in all players. CD-Rewritable drives are able to write both CD-R and CD-RW discs. All CD recorders can read CDs and CD-ROMs, just like a standard CD-ROM drive." Floppy disks have 1.4 megabytes of storage space, CD's 650 megabytes.
Check out Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ and Mike Richter's Primer on CD-R.
DVD Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers)
“DVD, which once stood for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, is the next generation of optical disc storage technology. It's essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold video as well as audio and computer data. DVD aims to encompass home entertainment, computers, and business information with a single digital format, eventually replacing audio CD, videotape, laserdisc, CD-ROM, and perhaps even video game cartridges. DVD has widespread support from all major electronics companies, all major computer hardware companies, and about half of the major movie and music studios, which is unprecedented and says much for its chances of success (or, pessimistically, the likelihood of it being forced down our throats).
It's important to understand the difference between DVD-Video and DVD-ROM. DVD-Video (often simply called DVD) holds video programs and is played in a DVD player hooked up to a TV. DVD-ROM holds computer data and is read by a DVD-ROM drive hooked up to a computer. The difference is similar to that between Audio CD and CD-ROM. DVD-ROM also includes recordable variations (DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW; see 4.3). Most people expect DVD-ROM to be initially much more successful than DVD-Video. Most new computers with DVD-ROM drives can also play DVD-Videos.” Excerpt from 1.1 What Is DVD?
The Online Books Page - 12,000+ listings
The On-Line Books Page was founded in 1993 by John Mark Ockerbloom at Carnegie Mellon University. He is now a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He remains the editor of the pages, and gladly accepts suggestions for new listings.
Bartleby Great Books Online
The preeminent internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge.
Project Gutenberg - Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts Since 1971
Project Gutenberg began in 1971 when Michael Hart was given an operator's account with $100,000,000 of computer time in it by the operators of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois. His concern was how he would repay the huge value of the computer time he had been given - he had to create $100,000,000 worth of value. Named after the developer of the famous press, at Illinois Benedictine College, Project Gutenberg creates and distributes hundreds of thousands of electronic texts with expired or unowned copyrights in the US. This means that, in certain countries, you can copy and distribute these texts without permission and without paying copyright royalties (although certain rules do apply). A conservative estimate is that it takes Project Guetenberg 50 hours to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, etc. Their Goal is to Give Away One Trillion Etext Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion].
Australian Yellow Pages and White Pages
Search the directories, find Australian Postcodes and World Time and Dialling Codes.
WhereIs Australian Street Atlas - www.whereis.com.au
The Whereis Online site is a fully functional online street directory of Australia's major cities based on UBD™ maps. Use it to search for virtually any street address in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, or Geelong. Coverage is intended to be progressively extended to create an interactive atlas of Australia. [as of 16 May 2000]