20 replies to this topic

[redlion]

Resource Thread title forthcoming.

Keep the suggestions coming guys!

/// Notes
/// I've shamelessly stolen Alodielle's formatting style.
/// gigantapost!
/// August 10, 2012 - Added General Arts and caught up to Futurama's post. Where do Reddit and Tumblr go?

We used to have these threads all the time, and some were even stickied here at one point. But the gist of the thread is that we all use computers and the internet (obviously) but there are so many ways to access information, be entertained, and pass the time, that it's tough to keep up with the times as far as the latest, greatest thing goes. Imagine being forty and just now getting a facebook.

Anyway, this thread will serve as a discussion and list for web optimization sources! Computing optimization too, if you want to get into more of a hardware discussion. Here we can discuss the latest time saving website, or a new, innovative way of accessing pictures linked with a timeline. Or any number of other websites that have become essential navigating tools. Imagine teaching someone to use a computer from scratch, and you want to show them all the coolest things. This is a thread for those things.

Arts, General

Spoiler

• deviantArt - Contemporary art at your fingertips.
• IQDB - Manga Doujin reverse image search.
• Pandora - Free streaming internet radio. (Ad supported or subscription)
• Tineye - Reverse image search from url or file system.

Credits: Turnip

Communications

Spoiler

• imo - The new Trillian or Pidgin except browser based; a multi IM system web client.
• Gmail - Possibly the best free email service
• Skype - Free web calling and face to face.

Credits: HappyAccident, Turnip

Filesharing - (WIP) User-Discretion Advised

Spoiler

• Dropbox - Cloud storage
• IsoHunt - Torrent search. Neutered results though.
• The Pirate Bay - Largest public torrent tracker

Gaming

Spoiler

• Gog.com - Game distribution platform (100% DRM free, games not free though)
• GreenManGaming - Game distribution platform
• Steam - Game distribution platform
• System Requirements Lab - Check system requirements for a given game.

Credits: Freidmont, Skrillex

Knowledge - (WIP)

Spoiler

• The Internet Archive - Literally, the archive. They run the WayBackMachine and host 600k moving pictures (not all are movies), 1.1m audio recordings, etc, etc.
• Project Gutenberg - Almost any book in the public domain can be found here.
• Wikimedia Known mostly for Wikipedia, they also host a dictionary, a species list, a quote bank, educational materials, courses, and sources, and a media commons.
• WolframAlpha - Sort of an academic's search engine.

Credits: Irradium/Russell

Miscellaneous - (WIP) For all the other stuff...

Spoiler

• cryptome - Wikileaks style whistle-blower site
• Goo.gl - Shorten a URL and track statistics about the URLs usage and traffic.
• IsUp.Me - Check for webserver downtime on a specific url.

Credits: Irradium/Russell

News - (WIP)

Spoiler

• alJazeeraLive Not available in most of the US (broadcast), watch online for a different perspective.
• Engadget - Tech news with a vengeance
• Fark - News for nerds with a sense of irony
• Alex Jones' InfoWars - Alternative news.
• TorrentFreak - Latest news for all things BitTorrent.

Credits: Freidmont, HappyAccident

Shopping

Spoiler

• 1SaleADay - Lots of one-day sales with awesome stuff
• Amazon - the cover-all online shop (top level country domain common)
• Amazon Gold Box - One-day sales
• Amazon Local - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• Ben's Outlet - Discount shopping, electronics and housewares
• Daily Steals - One-day sales
• eBay, the most popular online auction site/second-hand shop
• Google Offers - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• Groupon - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• LivingSocial - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• RetailMeNot - Online and offline coupons
• SlickDeals - The best deals from around the 'Net
• Woot - One-day sale of an electronic
• Woot Shirts - One-day sale of a hilarious t-shirt
• The Yetee - Tshirt shopping
• Yugster - One-day sales

Credits: Alodielle, Elindoril, Futurama, Irradium/Russell, Skrillex

Software, General

Spoiler

• Cygwin - Linux look and feel on a Windows machine.
• Giveaway of the Day - Free software daily
• MacUpdate - Portal for sofware downloads for Apple Macintosh computers.
• Ninite - Package install common software on fresh PCs.
• uTorrent - Lightweight cross platform torrent client.

Credits: IcedEarth, Irradium/Russell, Scot

Software, Browsers (and extensions, addons, etc)

Spoiler

• AdblockPlus - Free cross-platform proactive adblocker.
• Addons - for Mozilla Firefox
• Extensions - for Google Chrome

Credits: HappyAccident

Travel

Spoiler

• Kayak - Search nearly all airlines and hotel/rental sites at once
• SeatGuru - Airline seating charts to help you pick the best seat
• TripAdvisor - The best travel reviews online
• TripIt - Plan your trip and share your itinerary

Credits: Alodielle

I invite you guys to go Web 4.0 if you feel like it. I think there are a ton of websites dealing with finding new and novel things that I don't know too much about. I don't know a thing about efficiency websites, or where to get good RSS feeds. Not nearly enough about new media either. How does one browse youtube? Worst. Chanel. Surfing. Ever.

If we get enough awesome stuff, I'll organize this first post into a list with everyone's links, which would make for a handy click-me-when-bored bookmark.

[Scot]

http://ninite.com/ - Bundles all basic software you choose into a single download and installs them all. Good after a fresh format or if you are in pc repair.

[HappyAccident]

Extensions for Chrome:

https://chrome.googl...gory/extensions

Add ons for firefox:

https://addons.mozil.../en-US/firefox/

Ad block plus:

http://adblockplus.org/en/

[IcedEarth]

macupdate.com is a really cool site for loads of mac applications/tools.

[Turnip]

There are a couple of reverse image search sites out there and they're just so helpful! Like... you upload an image (or use a URL) and then it searches for pages that it's on! So it's helpful if you wanna find the source of some photography, or you want to find the artist of some anime image you saw, etc ^^


Tineye is good for photos and sometimes things posted on deviantArt! There are browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari/IE for this, by the way~

IQDB is one of the best ones for *booru image searches, and SauceNAO for images posted on Pixiv~

And Google has it's own reverse image searcher! It only works on Chrom* iirc, but if you go to Google images then press the little camera button, it gives you the link/upload options and bam!

Also, imo is GREAT if you want to get on Skype/WLM/Steam chat/etc if you're on a computer that doesn't have them installed, and it doesn't let you run .exes :3

[Irradium]

I'm already loving this thread.

• Dropbox for file 'hosting' -- http://www.dropbox.com
• Calibre, a great eBook Reader -- http://www.calibre-ebook.com/
• Amazon, the cover-all online shop -- http://www.amazon.co.uk (or whatever other suffix that is 'local' to you)
• eBay, the most popular online auction site/second-hand shop -- http://www.ebay.com
• isoHunt, one of the best torrent indexers -- http://www.isohunt.com
• uTorrent, one of the best torrent clients -- http://www.utorrent.com
• Giveawayoftheday, a site where you can download and use software for free (legally, I might add) that would typically cost you something -- http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
• Cygwin, for Windows users that want to stay with Windows, but merge it with Linux -- http://www.cygwin.com
• Wolfram|Alpha, a 'smarter' alternative to Google -- http://www.wolframalpha.com/
• 'Downforeveryoneorjustme?', a somewhat reliable way to tell if the website you're trying to visit is unavailable to just you, or everyone -- http://www.isup.me
• Goo.gl, a simple way to shorten URLS -- http://www.goo.gl

Right... I think that's it?

Edited by Irradium, 31 July 2012 - 08:19 AM.

[HappyAccident]

I'm already loving this thread.

• Dropbox for file 'hosting' -- http://www.dropbox.com
• Calibre, a great eBook Reader -- http://www.calibre-ebook.com/
• Amazon, the cover-all online shop -- http://www.amazon.co.uk (or whatever other suffix that is 'local' to you)
• eBay, the most popular online auction site/second-hand shop -- http://www.ebay.com
• isoHunt, one of the best torrent indexers -- http://www.isohunt.com
• uTorrent, one of the best torrent clients -- http://www.utorrent.com
• Giveawayoftheday, a site where you can download and use software for free (legally, I might add) that would typically cost you something -- http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
• Cygwin, for Windows users that want to stay with Windows, but merge it with Linux -- http://www.cygwin.com
• Wolfram|Alpha, a 'smarter' alternative to Google -- http://www.wolframalpha.com/
• 'Downforeveryoneorjustme?', a somewhat reliable way to tell if the website you're trying to visit is unavailable to just you, or everyone -- http://www.isup.me
• Goo.gl, a simple way to shorten URLS -- http://www.goo.gl

Right... I think that's it?

Never heard of Givawayoftheday. Looks very interesting thanks for the post!

[Irradium]

Never heard of Givawayoftheday. Looks very interesting thanks for the post!

No problem.

[Alodielle]

Shopping

• 1SaleADay - Lots of one-day sales with awesome stuff
• Amazon Gold Box - One-day sales
• Amazon Local - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• Daily Steals - One-day sales
• Google Offers - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• Groupon - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• LivingSocial - Event and shopping coupons for your area
• RetailMeNot - Online and offline coupons
• SlickDeals - The best deals from around the 'Net
• Woot - One-day sale of an electronic
• Woot Shirts - One-day sale of a hilarious t-shirt
• Yugster - One-day sales

Travel

• Kayak - Search nearly all airlines and hotel/rental sites at once
• SeatGuru - Airline seating charts to help you pick the best seat
• TripAdvisor - The best travel reviews online
• TripIt - Plan your trip and share your itinerary

[HappyAccident]

New email service that could really give gmail a run for it's money:

Outlook.com

It's still in preview mode but if you want to read an article about it:

http://www.engadget....vice-microsoft/

And that reminds me. engadget.com for all the tech news you could want!

Lol that post was all over the place xD

[Blissey]

www.steampowered.com for games, as well as
www.gog.com
www.greenmangaming.com
some of them have cheaper prices, so its best to compare.

www.slickdeals.net for cheap deals
www.woot.com for quick sales

[redlion]

This thread is already awesome. Keep them coming guys, I'm having trouble keeping up! But in a good way!

[HappyAccident]

Skype.com

Great for video chatting and messaging.

[redlion]

I think what this really needs is a sort of browser's guide to Twitter, Youtube, reddit, etc. I don't know if anyone wants to tackle one or more of the above, but social media is sorely missing from the list.

[Blissey]

www.tumblr.com blogging site, specializing in making you obsess over TV shows and movies.
www.pandora.com music streaming

[Elindoril]

I don't got much, but:

The Yetee has a shirt every couple days, a lot of them with geeky references, and they're really cheap for their quality, I've bought a few and love them.

[shaggy111]

Ninite will come in handy when I fix customers computers or I get my hands on another laptop... No more having to update my external.

[Freidmont]

systemrequirementslab.com - tells you if your pc can handle a game
duckduckgo.com - encrypted search engine that doesn't track your searches
reddit.com - what digg used to be, will consume your free time if you let it
-buildapcsales.reddit.com - hardware sales
-gamedeals.reddit.com - game sales
torrenfreak.com - file sharing news
infowars.com - because the government is lying to you
cryptome.org - big brother doesn't want you to see this either

[Futurama]

Add http://www.bensoutlet.com/ to shopping. Massive discounts on products.

Edited by Futurama, 08 August 2012 - 03:00 PM.

[redlion]

BAMP

infowars.com - because the government is lying to you
cryptome.org - big brother doesn't want you to see this either

The top one is a little sensationalist. For instance, this page was a click away from the homepage:
http://www.infowars....to-the-bankers/

The article features this gem.

The truth is that no sovereign nation on earth ever has to borrow a single penny from anyone.

In theory, there is nothing stopping a government from printing up debt-free money and spending it into circulation.

But that is not the way our world works.

Instead, our national governments borrow money that has been zapped into existence out of thin air by central banks.

Now what kind of sense does that make?

Why don’t our governments just create the money themselves?

The author shows a profound lack of understanding of the economic system, particularly the functions of a central bank. International foreign currency reserves is a big boy's league. Average fuckers aren't going to get it. Foreign currency reserves are essential to international trade. Also, I left the formatting how the site displayed it. Seems a little screwy.

But the second site looks more like a whistleblower outlet. Stuck it in miscellaneous.

I'll add all the torrent sites here in a second. I guess public trackers are fine.

[HappyAccident]

Speedtest.net

Calculates your upload and download speeds.

Edited by HappyAccident, 15 August 2012 - 07:34 AM.