Net Trends: Interesting Sites

If you scour the net on a frequent basis, sometimes you stumble on stuff that you never even knew existed. The good thing is some of the newest sites are very innovative with their concept on the kind of service that they provide. I’ll give you a run down of a few of these websites and the kind of service that they offer. For sites that I haven’t tried, I will purposely omit the site name. It’s up to you to google it up, if you really are interested to know about them.

1. Del.icio.us – Just as the name implies, I’m finding my way back to this site for more yummy treats time and time again. I spend ample time on this site because it has a lot of good stuff. Del.icio.us is a book marking site that allows you to compile or index your favorite internet sites. If you are a member, you can post your favorite sites for other people to know. Membership is free. This site works much like your favorites icon on your desktop. The only difference is, since it is shared by different users with different topics of interest, you are provided with more or less the crème de la crème of internet good finds. Besides, it is so easy to spot a good site based on the number of people who bookmarked it. Even if you are not a member, you can visit the site and be able to view the hottest postings. Del.icio.us has now grown into a huge searchable database of the best web pages that you can find on the internet. I’m sure there are other book marking sites out there, but since this one spells yummy…licious, I’m all for it.



2. www.oswd.org - How about a site of open source web designs that are not poorly created? I am emphasizing this because there’s a lot of free web layouts in the internet, but they are of course crappy. This site has a lot of contributors, so there is ample diversity in the layout that you can choose from. Being open source you can choose the layout that meets your requirements, e. g., you can specify how many columns you want; what kind of encoding is used—html, xhtml, strict or transitional, with css, with javascripts. You can even do advanced search using a keyword like ‘Blog’. Kudos.



3. How about a site that’s basically a billboard for your claims? That’s a fresh idea. Members of this site can post any claim, say “My blog is the best thing that happened to the blogosphere.” Other members will then vote on your claim and you will see how many people agree or disagree with you. You can even send this claim to your friends and anyone you know. This is a good place to hang out, every once in a while, especially for those of you who want to “big-note oneself”. It’s free, so you have nothing to lose, unless of course you claim to be the most beautiful person in your household, and everyone else disagrees with your claim. That’s a lot of face to lose. The good thing about this site is it uses open id system.



4. Dedicated search engine sites. A neat idea? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I guess the advantage is your search results will be more streamlined to a particular criterion so you’ll get more relevant results. On the other hand, it’s boring because you don’t get too see much surprises. I do think that it is cool because if you are a busy person you don’t want to waste time browsing through all the search results. I’ve seen two of this kind so far--one was a search engine for all electronic parts and the other one is a search engine dedicated for beauty products.



5. How about a site that is solely for object coding? Let’s say you have a website, and you want to implement a specific function, but you have no programming skills? You can just visit this site, submit a job request for a particular implementation and then, they provide you with a quotation from several programmers that are just affiliates and you can either accept or reject the offer. On the other hand, if object programming is your forte you can work for this site by submitting your code for a requested implementation.



6. How about a site that is seventy percent ‘googled’ but is in no way affiliated with Google. This site claims that it has all kinds of Google add-ons that you can think of. The best thing is you can easily download the add-ons and customize the contents of your Google homepage--from ip address identifier (who owns a particular ip address) to games, jokes of the day, stock quotes, weather update, sporting scores update, web design freebies and the list just goes on and on. The bad side is who knows what else comes with the add-on when you add it to your desktop?



7. How about a site that let’s you customize your message graphically and send it to anyone you know? Let’s say your name is SCOTT. Then you want to say “SCOTT ROCKS!” You have the option of having it as a Hollywood sign, or a neon light or a scribbling on the sand and some other ways then you can email it to a friend. It’s free. Try using it to promote your web page. It’s probably more effective than embedding links to your site in your e-mail invitation. Or try using this to apologize to someone. There’s many other ways you can use it. All you have to do is type in the text, choose how you want it presented then you’re ready to go. The downside is, apparently, it can only hold short messages and there aren’t enough graphical options to pick out from. But it’s fun for the inexperienced user who wants a colorful media of expressing themselves.



8. www.Gmail.com - Are you still jumping from one mailbox to another to check your e-mails? In case you don’t know, Google mail has an option for you to check e-mails from your other e-mail accounts, right inside the Google mail box. Just set up your Gmail account to extract mails from your other e-mail accounts with the option to delete the extracted e-mails or leave copies of them in the source mailbox. Don’t have a Gmail account? You can sign up now without the need for an invitation (this is the way they used to do it before you can open a Gmail account). Though this service is still in beta stage, I think it’s worth trying.

So that’s about it guys. Have a good time surfing the net. But be safe!