Libraries, Google, and Beyond: The Good Web Stuff

Free Library Cards | Free Software | Best Web Searching Tools | Google Things |
Recommended Web Sites | Hot Stuff

Free Library Cards

New York Public Library   nypl.org

Get a library free library card from the NYPL. Use it to get to the databases and articles from home. To apply look for the box in the top right "How do you...get a library card." To connect to the databases, look for the link to "Articles & Databases" in the middle of the page under Books and Materials.

NOVELny   www.novelnewyork.org

Free access to databases for New York State citizens. Use your NYS license number or NYS ID number to log on.

 

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Free Software

AVG Anti-Virus   free.grisoft.com

A decent anti-virus program that will save you from buyinig Norton or MacAfee.

Firefox   www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox

An alternate web browser to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Many people prefer Firefox.

OpenOffice   www.openoffice.org

A free suite of software programs - word processer, spreadsheet, database, and graphics - comparable to Microsoft Office.

Picassa    picasa.google.com

A free program from Google that lets you view, save, organize, and edit your photographs.

 

 

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Best Web Searching Tools

A9.com    a9.com

A metasearch engine that lets you instantly search everything from Google to Amazon.com and the Internet Movie Database simultaneously. Select which things you want to search.

Clusty   clusty.com

Not only provides good links but also sorts the results in clusters of similar hits, helping you focus on the most relevant ones.

Librarian's Index to the Internet   lii.org

An excellent directory of web sites selected and described by librarians. Great for finding the best web sites on broad topics. Use a search engine like Google for more specific topics.

 

 

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Google Things

Google Help    www.google.com/support

Get help with all of Google's numerous features and software.

Google Toolbar   toolbar.google.com

Download this add-on to the bar at the top of your browser and be able to directly search or go to Google.

Google Web Search Help Center    www.google.com/support/?ctx=web

Google's own page with help in doing basic and advanced searching, setting preferences, and more.

 

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Recommended Web Sites

Books

Oprah's Book Club   www.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/asof/obc_featbook_asof_main.jhtml

         Includes lectures, reading suggestions, and lots of other goodies for the Oprah reading fan.

 

Business

MSN Money    moneycentral.com/home.asp

All-inclusive personal finance information covering investing, banking, retirement, tax information. 

 

Researching Companies Online www.learnwebskills.com/company/

"This business research tutorial presents a step-by-step process for finding free company and industry information on the World Wide Web."

 

Consumer Help

catalogchoice.com

Stop email spam, catalogs, and junk mail!

National Do Not Call Registry

Sign up with this federal service and get telemarketers to stop calling your house.

 

National Fraud Information Center www.fraud.org/

Helps consumers report fraud and avoid being scammed.

 

Games

Al Lowe's Humor Site   www.allowe.com/

Includes jokes, sight gags, sounds, video, games, and more. This will keep you busy for hours.

 

Just Letters web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/

If you love playing with refrigerator magnets, this is the website for you!

 

Orisinal www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

Cute, silly games to play online. Addictive. Good for the simple among us, and for those with grandchildren.

 

Word Count www.wordcount.org/main.php

Enter a word and find out where it ranks in terms of usage. Sound stupid? It's really fun...

 

Genealogy

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet www.cyndislist.com/

Over 100,000 links to genealogy web sources, organized by categories such as place names and subject (e.g. obituaries, diaries, census). One of the best on the web.

 

Government

FirstGov for Seniors  www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Seniors.shtml

Everything you might want to know about government programs and opportunities for senior citizens, plus a guide to government branches and agencies.

 

Health

Caring Bridge   caringbridge.org/

Keep family and friends up-to-date on the condition and news of a loved one who is ill, recovering, or dying.

Diagnostic Tests  www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/diagnostics.shtml

Explains medical tests, how to prepare for them, risks, etc.

 

Food 411 www.food411.com/

"The ultimate resource for everything on the Web related to online food shopping opportunities; gourmet foods, ingredients, recipes, cooking, and dining, food blogs, unique gift ideas, meals delivered."

 

Lab Tests Online www.labtestsonline.org/

Explains and interprets lab tests.

 

Medicare Drug Benefit Calculator www.kaisernetwork.org/static/kncalc.cfm

"This calculator allows users to enter their prescription drug costs to determine what they will pay starting in 2006 under the Medicare prescription drug law."

 

MedlinePlus medlineplus.gov/

Terrific government consumer health site that covers all aspects of health and illness. For just about any medical information, start here.

 

History

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library memory.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html

Photographs, maps, sound recordings, movies, letters, posters, pamphlets, baseball cards - this is a fabulous online collection of pieces of American history.

 

Magic Lantern Slides   geoimages.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/LanternSlides/LanternSlides_TOC.html

Really. Just old lantern slides reproduced online. Lovely bits of history.

 

Turning the Pages    www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation1.html

Leaf through the pages of the original Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks or the Lindesfarne Gospels as if you had them in your hands. Amazing! The British Library has also digitized versions of Gutenberg's Bible.

 

Long Term Care

Extended Care Information Network  www.extendedcare.com/

This site includes a database of 70,000 providers and facilities including retirement communities, assisted living, hospice, and nursing homes, long-term nursing care. Search by location, type of services offered, type of payment accepted, and more.

 

Museums

24 Hour Museum www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/

Take a leisurely stroll through over 2,500 museums in the United Kingdom. Search for a topic of your choice, from railroads or tattoos, and wend your way to a museum exhibit.

 

Music

Allmusic.com    www.allmusic.com/

A kind of encyclopedia, discography, and genre information website off all things musical.

 

Pandora pandora.com

Create online music stations based on the music you like with no advertising. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

 

Unheard.org www.underheard.org/

A collection of the best of independent and community radio, time-shift specific shows.

 

News

BBC News   news.bbc.co.uk/

Get world news from a perspective other than American. It's eye-opening.

 

National Geographic News www.nationalgeographic.com/news/

Fascinating, brief articles on topics of anthropology, science, archaeology, culture, etc.

 

Photos

flickr www.flickr.com/

This is the place to upload photos, label them, organize them, and share them with friends, family, and the whole world if you want. The hottest place on the web these days.

 

Reference

Dictionary.com   dictionary.com

A very handy dictionary and thesaurus always at your fingertips when you're online!

 

Reference.com reference.com/

Simple, easy. Lots of basic tools such as dictionaries, atlases, phone and address directories.

 

Wikipedia   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

A free, ever growing encyclopedia.

 

Science

BBC - Human Body www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/

Find out more about your own body and mind than you ever imagined possible. Lots of graphics and nifty interactives.

 

How Stuff Works travel.howstuffworks.com/

For the curious. Can you really disappear in quicksand? Why do golf balls have dimples? Find out here about everything and anything in science, health, the home, entertainment, computers, and more.

 

NASA www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Is the space program still alive and well? Meet the new crop of astronauts; learn about the space shuttle and the space station; read about solar systems, stars and planets. You can spend days on this site.

 

National Science Digital Library nsdl.org/collection/ataglance/browseBySubject.html

An unusual, graphic directory of science-related web sites. Pretty cool. Pop-up blockers must be turned off for this to work properly.

 

Shopping

Bestwebbuys www.bestwebbuys.com/

Find the best online price for books, music, videos, and electronics. Searches dozens of online stores.

 

Buy.com    www.buy.com/

Great discount shopping, particularly if you have a specific product. No tax in New York State and often free shipping and handling.

ConsumerSearch www.consumersearch.com/www/index.html

Find product reviews and price comparisons in electronics, sports, office, kitchen, health, automotive, and garden.

 

Craigslist

Community shopping - select your town and see what people are selling. Includes rentals and more. Very popular.

 

Epinions.com   www.epinions.com/

Products are rated based on consumer reviews, as opposed to those of the professional reviewers.

 

Overstock.com   overstock.com

Great prices on just about anything you might want.

 

Woot! www.woot.com

Looking for a hot deal? Here a consumer electronics distributor unloads excess inventory of a single item each day at a steep discount.

 

 

Sports

 

Baseball Almanac baseball-almanac.com/

The ultimate baseball site. Get history, stats, schedules, jokes, movies, quotations, etc.

 

Travel

Elderhostel   www.elderhostel.org/welcome/home.asp

Travel and learn with fellow adults. "Elderhostel offers over 10,000 programs a year in more than 90 countries."

 

Sidestep www.sidestep.com/air/

Compare deals across popular travel websites.

 

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Hot Stuff

del.icio.us   del.icio.us

Organize and save your bookmarks online. Get to them from any computer with internet access. Share them with everyone in the world.

Facebook  facebook.com

A social network where friends and family can communicate, share interests, share photos, and more.

Flickr   www.flickr.com

Organize and save your photographs online. Share them with anyone you chose.

netlingo   netlingo.com/

"Everything you need to know about online jargon and text lingo." Find out the meaning of bff, lol, and all those other funny letters kids use in chat and text messaging!

Second Life    secondlife.com

You can join this virtual world for free, create an "avatar", and interact with odd strangers from all around the world. Go to concerts, go dancing, play games, visit virtual tourist sites, carry on conversations with people you don't even know!

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Kay Benjamin (benjamkd@oneonta.edu)
May 2008