Thanks to all who voted in this category!

To see a full breakdown of winners in each category, click HERE.

1. Twitter
2. Google
3. Facebook
4. YouTube
5. AOL
6. Hulu
7. Wikipedia
8. Yahoo
9. Netflix
10. Pandora

What do you think of this list?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Also, Deluxe Membership is now available, click here to join for free.  View the results of the “Best of 2009″ by clicking here.   Click here to enter to win a $250 Visa Gift Card from The Conservative Journal!

Thanks for reading!

Rick

For most of us we got on the computer every day we check our email our Facebook than we go straight to either News Sites or Blogs or Forums. I know that it’s taken me years to find Blogs that I sit down and enjoy reading on a daily basis. So I am going to do a Top 5 on my Technology Internet Blogs and I hope some of you guys will leave me some feedback on what you think or what blogs you like to read so anyways off I go.

Top 5

1. Engadget – Engadget has to be my number one Internet Blog. They have great new information that is updated from all around the world all day long. I really love the writers and I enjoy learning about the news they have to offer. They show new gadgets,hardware, and software news. If you want a good site to read professional computer news check it out.

2. Lifehacker – I have read Lifehacker for years and they still continue to provide me with new and good content. Sometimes though I do find their material immature and not informative. But they have a wonderful community that seem very intelligent so I continue to read this Blog.

3.Gizmodo – Gizmodo is basically the bridge between Lifehacker and Engadget. It is alot more mature feeling than Lifehacker but their writers still do not have the polish of the writers on Engadget. They also update multiple times daily but not as quickly as Engdaget seems to. If you want a nice Blog that is not to in-depth go and check out Gizmodo.

4. Hackhound – Hackhound is a security forum that has many hacking tools that are free but are worth more to me than many paid tools. The community is nice but they don’t appreciate stupid people. If you think you are computer intelligent and would like to learn more about computers and security I recommend that you check out Hackhound.org.

5.Penny Arcade – This is actually a web comic about Video Games but it is also a great site to read about Video Games and Tech News. If you read both Gabe and Tycho’s daily updates you will glen knowledge from the intermost circles in video game and tech society I strongly recommend if you haven’t checked it out to do so now.

It has nothing to do with design and absolutely lacks in style and taste but this website is officially my favorite laugh out loud spot.  Indulge yourself at Awkward Family Photos.

Hello folks!

HERE‘s a good collection of 50 websites you should really visit!

Outstanding!

Thanks to MaximumPC for sharing!

create your own visited country map

Occasionally I have some time on weekends to read online, and stumbled across www.wordl66.com on Ben Groundwater’s excellent travel blog in the Sydney Morning Herald. Ben is a Y generation backpacker who writes really well. His recent blog was about choosing your next travel destination and how it is more exciting to try new destinations rather than places you have already been, although they are proven and you had a great time. So, go to world66.com and simply enter in the countries you have visited and the site gives you an excellent map of the ones you have already visited and the countries you still need to conquer. I could not believe how little of this planet I had covered in all my years of traveling. Look at the huge blank spaces in Canada, Eastern Europe, Asia an Africa!

To me, travel is the ultimate educational pastime. There is so much out there to see and experience, I just hope I can do it all in time!

If you missed my earlier post discussing what exactly EnergyFLA is, click here.

EnergyFLA.com is the headquarters for information about the prospects of offshore drilling in Florida.  The site features an e-mail newsletter than fans of the project can easily sign up for and keep up-to-date with news straight from the core of EnergyFLA.  The site also featuers links for contacting the governor and legislature in Florida so you can let them know that you stand in firm support of the project.

Also very useful is the multi-media under the “Resources” tab.  This page features videos and interactive content that further explain the groups goals for offshore drilling in Florida.  If all this isn’t enough to convince you support the project, just head back to the homepage and look at the “Missed Economic Opportunity” bar where you can see possible funds for the state of Florida ticking away.

To visit EnergyFLA.com, click here.

To visit all recipients of the Check This Out! Award, click here.

What do you think of the EnergyFLA efforts?  Remember, send in your questions and check back Saturday to view answers to all of your questions regarding the project.

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Also, Deluxe Membership is now available, click here to join for free and you could win a brand new netbook!

Thanks for reading!

Rick

Also, be sure and use the new rating feature, found at the bottom of comments and posts!

Let me ask you this, have you ever felt like the frustrated artist.

That you know deep down inside you’re just bursting with creativity but the only thing you’ve ever really drawn successfully are the curtains.

Well, let me introduce you to a great little resource by the name of Be Funky, an entirely free browser based application that lets you unleash your inner Banksy by at least turning your photos into works of art.

For this is what it does, and brilliantly easily too. With one click of the mouse you can transform photographs into stencil drawings, cartoons, fine line sketches and dayglo half-tone Warhol paintings amongst many other inbuilt styles and then fine-tune them as well.

And not only that, you can access all sorts of other customisable goodies too, adding frames, speech bubbles, shapes, even a beard and devil horns to a picture of your Mother-in-Law if your creative muse so dictates…assuming she doesn’t possess either already.

Getting started is simple as well, you upload pictures via an elegant little interface and you can even select those images you already have online on social networks accounts like Facebook, My Space or Flickr.

Plus once you’re done, Be Funky is just as slick in allowing you to share your masterpieces, sending the finished results to your desktop, back to those same community accounts or you can just as easily email your work to your soon to be impressed friends.

Plus it does all this without need for registration, although it does only take a minute to create an account and then you’ll be able to save all of your prized creations.

I think Be Funky is terrific, it’s one of those websites which is part serious application, part frivolous fun but wholely ‘just one more go’ compulsive.

But don’t just take my word for it, visit Be Funky and draw your own conclusion.

* Hi Folks – A bit of an addendum to my enthusiasm for BeFunky. A few weeks after my review the site has been upgraded with even more options to funkify your images. That’s good, but they’ve proceeded to moneytize features that were gratis before and while they still have a free service, those images now come with a BeFunky logo stuck in a corner. Although if you’re crafty you can add a bit of bottom ‘padding’ to your picture with a basic photo editor before using BeFunky and then simply crop that logo off. You didn’t hear that from me though, right.

No puppies were harmed in funking up these photographs

I’ve been talking about Alpha Inventions and all of the great help it’s been in furthering my site for nearly a year now.  While I’ve been praising and using Alpha Inventions nearly I every day, I’ve also been using a smaller blogging utility called Blogsurfer.us, formerly known as Condron.us.

Blogsurfer.us allows you to submit your blog into a continuous shuffle of blogs, leading to an increase in traffic.  While the traffic numbers don’t really rival those of Alpha Inventions, Blogsurfer.us has its benefits.  For starters, Blogsurfer is extremely stable and has a very precise feel.  Blogsurfer displays a timer in the top left corner that displays how many more seconds until the next blog will appear.  This is extremely useful in assuring yourself that you have enough time to bookmark blogs you are interesting.  Also unique to Blogsurfer is a forum for users to interact and exchange blog URLs.  Submitting your blog to the rotation is also extremely easy; you simply press “Add Blog” and type in your URL, e-mail, and category.  I can usually pull out about 10 unique visitors per submission, wihch is definitely worth the 5 seconds it takes to enter the blog information.  Be sure and check out Blogsurfer.us today!

To visit Blogsurfer.us, click here.

To view all winners of the weekly “Check This Out!” award, click here.

What has worked for you in increasing blog traffic?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

Also, be sure and use the new rating feature, found at the bottom of comments and posts!

1.           HowStuffWorks.Com

Are you the type of person who loves to know how things work? Well if you are then this site has everything you could possibly want. You can search directly for the topic of your choice or browse by categories. These include Computers, Food, Geography, Adventure etc. Each topic is explained simple on easy to read pages with simple diagrams where appropriate. The Site also contains quizzes, puzzles, videos and Top 5’s and much more.
 
 

2.        SuperCook.Com

Wondering what you could you make with the food left in your fridge? Add the food items and SuperCook will provide you with a list of recipes that match.
 
 

3.        TripIt.Com

This great site allows you to store all your travel plans in one place. Airline, Hotel etc. no matter where you book. You can easily share and access your travel plans and you will also get notifications of travel delays.

4.        Drop.IO

Want to easily move files from one computer to another or quickly give your friends a file? Create a drop and drag files here for users to download. That’s it – simple!
 
 

5.        Scribd.com

Scribd allows you to Upload, share and publish documents. The real beauty of this site is that you can find a huge collection of books uploaded here. If you are thinking of buying a book and would like to read some of it first then the chances are it is here.
 
 

6.        PopUrls.com

The top stories from the top news/info sites on the web. Twitter, Google News, Twitter, Flickr, Digg all in one place.

7.        Aneki.com

The source for World Rankings of countries. From the richest to the most unstable to the countries with the best airports. You can find it all here.

Time & CNN  have collected their  50 Best Websites 2009, a diverse and wide range  of sites. My own photography site was not included in this group, but it has just been updated with exciting new work, including some very real  and authentic portraiture of working people And some creative approaches to portraits, annual reports, and corporate photography for companies large and small, in Seattle and around the world.

Seems it is too early, it is still August now, and most of them I never heard before,

1. Flickr
2. California Coastline
3. Delicious
4. Metafilter
5. popurls
6. Twitter
7. Skype
8. Boing Boing
9. Academic Earth
10. OpenTable
11. Google
12. YouTube
13. Wolfram|Alpha
14. Hulu
15. Vimeo
16. Fora TV
17. Craiglook
18. Shop Goodwill
19. Amazon
20. Kayak
21. Netflix
22. Etsy
23. PropertyShark.com
24. Redfin
25. Wikipedia
26. Internet Archive
27. Kiva
28. ConsumerSearch
29. Metacritic
30. Pollster
31. Facebook
32. Pandora and Last.fm
33. Musicovery
34. Spotify
35. Supercook
36. Yelp
37. Visuwords
38. CouchSurfing
39. BabyNameWizard.com’s NameVoyager
40. Mint
41. TripIt
42. Aardvark
43. drop.io
44. Issuu
45. Photosynth
46. OMGPOP
47. WorldWideTelescope
48. Fonolo
49. Get High Now
50. Know Your Meme

New Orleans, four years later. The 50 Best Websites in 2009, according to Time Magazine. The world’s tallest wooden building will be build in Norway. Cool!

Right, I want you to stop what you’re doing and I want you to go to a website called Free Rice.

Well not right now obviously, first I want you to keep reading but afterwards I do want you to go to a website called Free Rice. In fact I implore you.

Because not only will you get a chance to test your intelligence and learn some stuff but in your own little way you’ll be helping to fight World hunger as well.

And I know how fanciful that sounds but it’s absolutely true. Let me explain.

Free Rice is a very neat little website that is run by the United Nations World Food Program and one which lives up to the name because its sole purpose is to provide free rice to some of the poorest people of the World in over 75 countries.

And it does this with your help using simple but fun vocabulary tests, alongside some other quizzes, that for every one of your correct answers the various large companies who sponsor the site donate 10 grains of rice.

Not alot obviously but when hundreds of thousands of people are taking the challenge every single day that’s a lot of bowls being filled.

On the day before I posted this, the site says 22,659,350 grains were donated and since Free Rice was launched in October 2007 a total of 66,691,160,670 grains of rice have been contibuted so far. That’s 66 billion, crikey, I wouldn’t want to count ‘em.

But apart from the fantastic charitable aspect of the site, it’s just simple addictive fun. You’re given a word and asked what it means from a choice of four options. And oh they start off easy but begin getting harder and more obscure until you think they must be making the buggers up.

With 60 levels of difficulty as well, which for every 3 correct definitions you go up a level and for a wrong ‘un drop down a level, there’s a distinct sense of achievement when you beat your previous best. Of course that’s when they start hitting you with words like ‘dyspeptic’ and ‘vituperation’ to define.

And I was dyspeptic and hurled plenty of vituperation at the computer screen when those came up I can tell you.

Not that I knew it immediately, because then I didn’t know dyspectic meant bad tempered and vituperation meant verbal abuse. At the time they just meant I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was, but I’m a little bit cleverer for knowing them now.

So do the clever and charitable thing yourself, go to the Free Rice website by clicking this link and the first thing you should do before starting the tests is to select the Options Tab and click the button for it to remember your own tally of contributed rice. Trust me, you’ll be returning to the site plenty more times yet.

Tell your friends about Free Rice too, and if you know any kids definitely tell them about it, they’ll be the ones to benefit most other than those to whom a simple bowl of rice means so much. And if they object at first, make the little darlings visit.

Between a bit of coercive vituperation and helping to donate some food for the most needy, Bob Geldof would be proud of you.

From the AASL These are the Best Web Sites for Teaching and Learning

All teachers/librarians should take a look at these sites and see how they can use them in the classroom.

“The “Top 25″ Web sites foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover.

• Organizing and Managing
• Content Collaboration
• Curriculum Sharing
• Media Sharing
• Virtual Environments
• Social Networking and Communication

The AASL just released there best websites for teaching and learning. It is a great resource for all teachers.

Organizing and Managing

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.2 – Organize knowledge so that it is useful.
• 2.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information.
• 3.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.

Diigo

Need help in organizing your favorite websites? Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows users to save websites, as well as tag them, add sticky notes and annotations, and share them with other users in various groups.

Tip: Sticky notes are an effective way to start a virtual conversation among teams of students on the merits of a website.

Google Reader

Overwhelmed with all the information on the Internet? Google Reader is a tool for gathering, reading, and sharing all the relevant blogs and websites you read on the web.  This easy-to-use tool constantly checks sites (blogs, news sites, and webpages) that have been selected by you, scans them for updates and new content, and then organizes them in the Reader for easy access. Reader is a great organization tool to keep current with educational trends, research and news!

Tip: This is a great organizational tool for students to keep current on their research topics.

Simply Box

If you’re a visual learner, then this is the tool for you! Simply Box is a tool that allows users to capture, share, and organize anything found on the web into an unlimited number of “boxes” and then share with friends, groups, students, or the world. However, rather than saving lists of bookmarks, it allows users to capture just a part of a webpage, whether it’s a headline, a paragraph, a photo, or a video. Items can be saved and organized.

Tip: As students collaborate on projects, this tool makes it easy to organize, cite and keep track of the individual resources culled from various websites.

back to top

Content Collaboration

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 1.3.4 – Contribute to the exchange of ideas within a learning community.
• 3.1.2 – Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners.
• 3.1.4 – Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.

Mindmeister

Be creative — think maps! Mindmeister and Bubbl.us are both online mapping tools:  Mindmeister is better for middle and high school students, while Bubbl.us is for younger students. Both websites allow users to think visually, collaborate, and share ideas through concept maps.

Tip: Effective tools for teams of students to collaboratively brainstorm what they know about a subject and what questions they want to research.

Polleverywhere

If you want to get learners’ attention, then ask a provocative question. Poll Everywhere is a voting platform that can be used in classrooms and libraries to gather answers to a particular question. Participants vote by sending a text message via their cell phones or by voting on the web.

Tip: Use this survey tool to involve and connect students to complex issues.

Wikispaces

This is the quintessential collaborative tool! This easy-to-use website allows anyone to write, edit and share content, depending on the permissions granted by the wiki owner.

Tip: Students can use a wiki as a research journal, documenting their progress from beginning questions to finished products, as they receive feedback directly on the wiki from their classroom teacher and librarian.

Zoho

Zoho offers an all-in-one online collaborative package; it provides online tools from mail and presentations to notebooks and wikis, with many tools in between.

Tip: Students can share their work and presentations on the web for fellow students, parents, administrators, and educators to view.

back to top

Curriculum Sharing

Guidelines for School Library Programs: Instructional Partner
“The SLMS collaborates with classroom teachers to develop assignments that are matched to academic standards and include critical thinking skills, technology and information literacy skills, and core social skills and cultural competencies. The SLMS guides instructional design by working with the classroom teacher to establish learning objectives and goals, and by implementing assessment strategies before, during and after assigned units of study.”

Curriki

Seeking new teaching strategies? If you’ve got an old lesson that you want to breathe new life into, Curriki can help. It is a free member website where educators share ideas and hear from others in the profession.

Tip: If you have a lesson that you love to teach with your students, share it with others. Everyone can be successful if we all help each other to be better teachers.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

What skills will our students need to be successful in the 21st century? Partnership for the 21st Century offers educators information, resources, and tools to understand, identify and integrate the 21st century skills of creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving skills and communication and collaboration skills.

Tip: Here’s a great resource to help educators learn how to integrate 21st Century Skills into the curriculum.

Primary Access

Capture your students’ imagination with movie narratives based on primary sources. Primary Access is an online tool that allows students and teachers to combine text, visual, and sound elements, which are then combined to convey information about their chosen historical event or time frame. A library of Primary Access movies is available through a catalog by historical time period.

Tip: Encourage active learning: have students choose a historical event or time frame to research and synthesize their information through a Primary Access movie.

SOS for Information Literacy

Learn how to effectively incorporate information literacy into your lesson plans. S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a dynamic, collaborative web-based multimedia resource for educators, K to 16. This site links lesson plans and teaching ideas for information literacy through a comprehensive quality control system to ensure that lessons are high caliber.

Tip: Create an account and build your own lessons or activities.

back to top

Media Sharing

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.4 - Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and und understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess.
• 3.3.4 - Create products that apply to authentic, real-world context
• 4.1.8 - Use creative and artistic formats to express personal learning

Animoto

Create a video in five minutes – no kidding! Using Animoto, educators and students can create videos that contain photos, graphics, music, text and more! It is only limited by your imagination.

Tip: A great resource for visual learners! Instead of the typical book report, challenge your students to create a dynamic Animoto to capture the essence of their favorite books.

Our Story

Create your story! Our Story permits users to develop and save collaborative timelines that can be personalized with annotations, photos, and videos. Stories (timelines) can be printed in book format, archived on DVD, or even sent as postcards.

Tip: Teach your students to develop content-specific timelines that are linked to the teaching of research and information literacy skills.

Teacher Tube

What could be better? You Tube – just for teachers and students! Teacher Tube offers videos solely for the field of education. Videos are created by teachers and students to be shared with other teachers and students.

Tip: A great way to have students share their work with parents and for teachers to share with other teachers, peers, and administrators, both on-campus and off.

VoiceThread

The end of the boring slide show! VoiceThread allows users to share images, documents, and videos with added narration by the authors and others.

Tip: Bring oral history to life in the classroom, as students narrate a series of images that relate to the skills and ideas they have learned in a particular lesson.

Wordle

Do you like to play with words or create visual poems? A “Wordle” enables you to create a word “cloud,” visually depicting the relationship between words based on their frequency of use. You can tweak your word “clouds” with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Tip: Teach students to create a Wordle to express their reading interests or their favorite book.

back to top

Virtual Environments

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 2.1.5 - Collaborate with others to exchange ideas, develop new understandings, make decisions, and solve problems.
• 3.1.2 - Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners
• 4.3.1 - Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person.

RezED

Learn about virtual worlds in a safe, supportive environment with other educators. RezED is the hub for learning about virtual worlds, providing practitioners with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field.

Tip: Check out RezEd’s monthly podcasts, online webinars, virtual chats, and discussion groups.

Second Life

Create an avatar and join other educators in Second Life to explore virtual reality, a world where you, the user, can participate in professional development, meet colleagues to explore and discover and create new understandings about learning in virtual worlds.

Tip: Meet with people from all over the world without having to leave your classroom , library, or home office.

back to top

Social Networking and Communication

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

• 3.1.2 – Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners
• 4.1.7 - Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information
• 4.3.1 - Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person.

Classroom 2.0

Do you find it difficult to keep up with the latest Web 2.0. technologies? Join Classroom 2.0 Ning, a social network for educators who are using or want to use Web 2.0 in their libraries and classrooms.

Tip: Look at the Classroom 2.0 weekly webinars, featuring leading Web 2.0 educators  – a great way to learn for both the novice and experienced educator.

Edublogs

Do you want to blog? Edublogs, created especially for educators, is a resource where teachers and librarians can create their own blogs with templates and help from other educators.

Tip: Blogging is a good strategy to help students develop their own voices in writing.

Facebook

Facebook is a popular social networking site that allows users to share with friends and colleagues. The key is sharing information and Facebook allows you to set personal and professional limits on the information you share.

Tip: Use Facebook to engage students and support the curriculum: a team of students are challenged to create a Facebook page for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Good Reads

A social network for book lovers! Members can keep track of the books they have read, make recommendations to others, vote on book lists that are posted, see what their friends are reading and recommending, and form book groups.

Tip: Teachers can develop a reading group for their students where discussions can develop, suggestions for new material can be found and lovers of particular genres can find each other.

Ning

Create your own social network for your classroom, your school group or your library. Share your ideas, pictures, and plans. Choose the features, a forum, a blog, members’ pages, RSS feeds – whatever you would like to share and collaborate and control the membership.

Tip: Classroom or library nings give students opportunities to learn how to effectively and safely be members of an online social network.

Skype

Can you hear me? Skype is a basic and easy-to-use service that offers free voice, video calls, conference calls, instant messaging and group instant messaging. Download the software; connect to the Internet and you’re good to go.

Tip: Invite an author or a content expert to Skype with your students.

Twitter

What are you doing? Twitter, a website for communication among friends and colleagues, is based on this question. Everyone who is connected to your account can know what you are doing at anytime, just send a “tweet.”  This is a way for everyone to keep track of everyone else.

Tip: Students working in research teams, designate secretaries to keep the instructor and librarian up to date on how the group is doing throughout the project.”

There’s a difference between becoming pigeon-holed in your current job and remaining committed. Make sure that you are constantly reevaluating your next career move and at least one to two times a year consider the next steps. For those of you looking to advance or make a change, here are some good job search sites to begin with, and some are especially geared towards the education industry.

Post-A-Comment-Starters:  Discuss your favorite job search websites and why or evaluate one of the job search engines in the list below.

Education and Teacher Job Search Engine List of Website Resources

1. America’s Job Exchange
2. Catapult Learning Career Site
3. Craigslist
4. Fresho.com
5. Google Base
6. Job.com
7. LinkUp.com
8. Eastern Mennonite University – Just For Teachers
9. NewYorkJobs.com
10. Indeed.com
11. JobSearchUSA.org
12. JuJu
13. Oodle.com (Craig’s List competition?)
14. SimplyHired.com
15. VetJobs.com (Veterans only)
16. SchoolSpring.com
17. Jobs.Teachers.net
18. Teachers-Teachers.com
19. EdJoin.org (California only)
20. AcademicCareers.com
21. EducationAmerica.net
22. HigherEdJobs.com
23. NationJob.com
24. EducationAmerica.net
25. The Chronicle of Higher Education Jobs
26. USA.gov
27. TEdJob.com (Higher Education Jobs only)
28. Academic360.com
29. Academploy.com
30. TopSchoolJobs.org
31. AcademicKeys.com
32. EducationPioneers.org
33. New Leaders for New Schools
34. SchoolStaff.com
35. Scholarlyobs.com
36. Job-Hunt.org (Links to other Job Sites)
37. JobSearch.about.com  (Links to other Job Sites)

This list continues to grow so don’t forget to check back every now and then!

So, you say you were up last night at 10:00 pm, searching the Internet for directions to tomorrow’s meeting… and at 3:00 a.m. you found yourself still blissfully surfing, searching lists of tainted dog food to make sure your dog’s brand wasn’t on there, and looking at pictures of what was in Abraham Lincoln’s pockets the night he was assassinated?  How the hell did that happen?

Because, my friend, the human mind is an extraordinary thing, and the Internet is the closest thing we’ve got to an electronic simulation of it.  So, naturally, we are drawn to instant satisfaction, the saturation of knowledge, information overload, and the simply morbid and taboo.  Bright, colorful bursts of data, pictures, movies, sound, and communication options!  It’s like a vast never-ending episode of the original Sesame Street… that’s why the Baby Boomers and their offspring, the Gen-Xer’s are addicted to it.

You remember the thirty-second “educational” animated skits that show had to offer.  In a hallucinogenic sound-infused blast of color, things such as  words and numbers flashed before your eyes accompanied by a catchy tune.  You can still hear it, can still sing it:  “One-two-three  FOUR  five  six-seven-eight  NINE-ten, eleven-twel-el-el-el-elve!  Doo doot doot doot DOO do…” Yes.  The pinball machine.   And The Teeny Little Super Guy, the Spanish vocabulary, the manic and neurotic Muppets… it went on and on.  I blame Sesame Street for the popularity of the “Information Generation”.  Well, that’s why rap and raves got so popular, too… but thank goodness the Internet had more staying power.

Aside from the fact that the infinitive “to google” has become an official verb in Webster’s Dictionary, googling can be a huge time-waster, if you don’t know how to search the Internet efficiently and effectively.  After extensive research (and fifteen years of teaching Internet classes), I’m here to sort out the Internet for you, and to give you  the best and most interesting things to check out – or at least put you on the right track.

As any good webmaster or blogger knows, there shouldn’t be any links here because the golden rule to blogging is, keep your readers on your page as long as possible. Unless there are immediate link-backs, you’ve lost them forever once they’ve wandered off.   Like toddlers, only less dependent.  I am going to trust you.  Take notes, then go surfing later.  Or if you’re a capable multi-tasker, open Word and feel free to copy and paste to create your own master list of the Internet’s best!

The “Big Guys” are all here, too.  You are probably already familiar with all the biggies – the enormous “Wall-Marts” of the Internet:   Amazon.  e-Bay.  YouTube.  Wikipedia.  Imdb.  Craigslist.  Babelfish.  Facebook.  Lonely Planet.   No list (in 2009, anyway) would be complete without them.  I’m hoping, though, that this list provides you with a million other pieces of information you may not be familiar with – It’s out there, you just have to get someone point you in the right direction.  I am grateful to everyone who has shared new and interesting websites with me.  I’m glad I have this opportunity to share them with you, too.  If anyone knows of any other interesting, fun, crazy websites, please feel free to leave a comment with the link.  BostonSun will check it out and add it to the list if you so desire.

Be sure to be at home (as opposed to “on the company’s time”) when investigating these sites, and have plenty of time to do so.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.  Enjoy!

Hi Guys we are bringing a series of fantastic websites for you. These websites would be inspirational websites and will enhance your mind power to think big and vast.

So today we are bringing an example of combined work of  designing and JQuery. So we chosen this website as “Today’s Best Website” for 4th May.

Visit Site 

With the abundance of website ranking resources on the internet these days, it’s hard to decide which ones to join.  Each time I see one of these sites, I join and see how I rank compared with the other members.  While many of these sites are nearly identical, I’ve found a new one that has several features that put it at the front of the pack.  PolitiPoll.com, formerly known as PolitiPoll.net, is an up-and-coming political web site ranking service that goes beyond the typical site ranker.  In addition to ranking websites based on daily unique visitor averages, PolitiPoll.com gives its users an opportunity to acquire a free ad on the pixel ad page, join the banner exchange, and place a useful hit counter on your very own website.  The pixel page opens your site up to potentially thousands of visitors looking for unique political content.  The special hit counter that displays your rank also displays your site’s unique visitors and your site’s average daily unique visitors.  The website is just now getting started, so join today to get a high ranking for your blog or website!

To visit PolitiPoll.com, click here.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

I have created a list of what I believe to be the top 20 websites on the web. Well some of them are not at the top but are very useful! The list Is in no particular order.

1. Facebook – The best way to stay connected with friends and family.

2. Google – In my opinion the best online search engine available.

3. Twitter – A micro-blogging site where you tell the world what’s going on!

4. Wikipedia – The easiest and best online encyclopaedia there is!

5. Youtube – The best video sharing website to ever exist!

6. Myspace – A great way to stay on top of your favourite artists, and friends.

7. FML- Do you ever just sigh and think fuck my life”? Read and post FML stories.

8. Digg – Share links and stories and view and rate the best ones!

9. Imeem – The world’s largest social music service with millions of free streaming songs and videos

10. Howcast – The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides.

11. Yahoo! Answers – Ask any question you want and get answers in minutes!

12. Rate my teacher – Pretty self explanatory!

13. Mapquest – Need directions? Mapquest is all you need! Exact directions anywhere in North America.

14. Urban Dictionary – A dictionary defining all slang words, add your own!

15. Hulu – Watch your favourite television program whenever you want!

16. Ebay – Buy and sell anything you need, for the prices you want!

17. Flixster – If you love movies, you’ll love Flixster. Share and rate movie reviews, never watch a bad movie again!

18.  Del.icio.us – Keep, share, and discover the best of the Web using Delicious, the world’s leading social bookmarking service.

19. The Top Tens – View and add your input to hundreds of top ten lists or create a new top ten list.

20. MSN - MSN is Microsoft’s portal, offering MSNBC News, sports, MSN Money, games, videos, entertainment & celebrity gossip, weather,  technology, love, articles, shopping and more great content

21. Bonus – Fan Fiction – Read and write fantasy and fictional stories !

Here are some other great and very useful websites that are well worth visiting:

• Zeer – All your favourite food nutrition and ingredient information
• Easy bib – Automatic work cited and bibliography
• Concrete loop – Celebrity news and gossip – for black celebrities.
• Geni – Geni is the fast, free, fun way to create your family tree.
• Mint – Graph up how much and what you spend your money on, finance advisor.
• Nymbler – Having trouble choosing a baby name? Get suggestions based on names you like.
• Picnik – Make your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools.
• Search Me – Want to see the pages you search up on google first? View them like the cover flow option on iTunes.
• TinyUrl – Make a long URL short, great for copying links from computer to computer!
• Mobaganda – Create and update invites to events!
• Kongregate – Play awesome games for free!
• Ffffound – View and save rare and abstract photos, a must see website!
• Someecards – Ecards celebrating every kind of humerous event, the kind of ecards you’ll hesitate to send.
•  Penny Arcade – Graphic novels/comics
• Carbon Ralley – Up for a challenge that will help make the world a better place?
• Free Rice – Want to improve your vocabulary or study for a test and donate rice to the poor at the same time?
• Hypebeast – Covering the latest trends!
• Kiva – Make a loan to an entrepreneur across the globe for as little as $25!
• Nibble Dish – Amazing Recipes. Delicious Food. Beautiful Photography. Created and rated by you and fellow food-lovers from all over the world.
• WikiSky – Like google earth, but google universe!
• You Mail – A free online voicemail replacement with personal greetings. Must see for all cell phone users!
• Bugmenot – Access and share logins for websites that require you to register in order to view content.
• Mosio – A bit like Yahoo! Answers but on your mobile device! Great for solving bets!
• Jott – Send reminders, commands and texts through your voice!
• NuTsie – Upload your iTunes library online and listen to it when not on your computer!
• Text-Image – Upload an image and convert it into text!