ASCIi Group

Site Seekers

Each month, a member of the group will give a brief presentation on web sites. Some members present sites based on the same theme (for example, real estate), others tell us about sites that cover a broad range of subjects.

2004

• September - Ric Fischer
  
  
  • Digital Photography Review
    http://dpreview.com/
    
    

    Has reviews on many (if not all) digital cameras. Great advice, tips, and critiques of various cameras. Also covers items related digital photography, like memory cards.
    
    

  • WebHosting Talk
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
    
    

    Forum (discussion) site where all the talk is about web hosting companies, the quality of service they provide, and the level of tech support they may or may not have. Positives and negatives are posted. Ads for special deals are allowed to be posted, but only in certain areas, so you'll know when you're reading a real review (theoretically) and not something posted by a representative of the company.
    
    

  • Digital Blasphemy
    http://digitalblasphemy.com/
    
    

    My favorite site for desktop wallpaper artwork. I've been a member of this site for years. Ryan Bliss, the proprietor, uses 3D rendering software to create surrealistic artwork. It's a one-man deal. He has no employees, although his wife helps him sometimes by giving her opinions.
    
    

  • U.S. Army Center of Military History
    http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/
    
    

    Our Army's history books. Not as dry and boring as it may sound to some people. It has lots of resources about the backgrounds of various wars and such.
    
    

  • Microsoft Encarta
    http://encarta.msn.com/
    
    

    Encarta is Microsoft's encyclopedia. Just under the logo of the page, take a gander at all the different sections available, including: encyclopedia, dictionary, and atlas. The atlas is pretty cool.
    
    

  • Encyclopedia Britannica
    http://www.britannica.com/
    
    

    Arguably the premier encyclopedia project is now available online. You can use some of their resources free and they even have a free trial of their Premium service.
    
    

  • Wikipedia
    http://wikipedia.org/
    
    

    The free encyclopedia. It's almost entirely user-contributed and most articles are available in multiple languages. It's constantly growing and has no particular agenda (like trying to make money). Their home page, which changes daily, is just a fun read of capsule information that can launch you into a virtual adventure down the trail of history.
    
    

  • PBase.com
    http://pbase.com/
    
    

    PBase Photo Database is a photo hosting solution. They're one of my favorites because of the software they use. It's the easiest web-based photo hosting software I've ever experienced. They will host a few pictures for free or you can sign up for their pay service. Supports EXIF data, uploading groups of pictures in either zip or tar format, and you can even create your own style sheets.
    
    (Note: There's no censorship here except for pornography. As such, you may see artistic nudes or glamour photographs that show more skin than you're comfortable with, but it's rare. This is just a friendly warning.)
    
    

  • Sysinternals
    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinte...
    
    

    Provides a lot of great tools for computer consultants, geeks, and people that are curious about the internal workings of their computers. Useful tools for me have been Diskmon (just to use it as an alternative to a drive light) and Regmon (which monitors all access to the Registry). Very powerful programs and they're all free.
    
    

  • Gmail
    https://mail.google.com/
    
    

    Google's got mail! Google is preparing to launch their free email service. They're allowing about a million of their closest friends (the ones that can fit in just one Rolodex) to beta-test their service. I was able to get an invitation from Kevin Rose's website where he had a few thousand to give away, and apparently I was lucky to be able to get one! I had six invitations to give away at the meeting, and I gave them all away. (Bob Nixon had challenges with his computer and somehow clobbered his first one, so I sent another one to him and it didn't work either. Poor Bob.) If you're a member of ASCIi and you'd like an invitation, let me know. I'm sure I'll get more within a few days.
    
    

  • Gmail Tools
    http://marklyon.org/gmail/gmailapps.htm
    
    

    Mark Lyon has gathered together some software for trying to make using Gmail easier. At his site, you'll find programs for porting your existing email over to Gmail, using your Gmai account with a regular email client, and some cool and/or wacky stuff.