I find myself thinking “so how many cool new things am I missing out on today, simply due to ignorance?” quite often these days. I don’t nearly spend as much time with the computer as I used to, and the time I spend I sit on “DND” on Pidgin studying kanjis about 99% of the time, but even when I was using the computer for more or less most of the day, I still had that feeling that I am missing out on cool things.
And thus, a meme. Make a post on your blog listing up to 5 sites or services that amuse you/intrigue you/help you the most at the moment. This list (at least for me) always changes, as I tend to discover new things, or grow bored with old ones.
Or as in the case with dictionary.com … I had enough of the god damn ads. It’s as if they added a new banner or “text-ad” once a month for the last year. I used their dictionary service very very satisfied for I can’t count how many years (from before my Skotos days), but now my faithful “di” keyword in Firefox went from dictionary.com over to dict.org, which is quite ad-free, thank-you-for-asking.
So my list of 5, backwards because I’m hip that way:
5. dict.org — a free dictionary, and by free I mean very free, as in free of ads and stuff
4. smart.fm — I have been lagging behind recently, because I’m nearing closure on my kanji studies and that’s taking up most of my spare time, but this is a cute site for hammering Japanese (or whatever language it is you wish to study) vocab into one’s brain.
3. gmail — boring, I know, but gmail is actually sort of new to me. I went with POP3 for the longest time, but when my move to Japan started drawing near, I realized that it was just stupidity not to stop with the POP.
2. VISA exchange rates page — call it a blessing, call it a curse, but at least it tells the truth. Most of the time*. Oh and yes, this is above gmail. That says something about my economic situation, I’d say.
1. Zero Punctuation — this guy makes my day. Totally. He reviews games (PC, console, etc) and as the title suggests, he speaks very very fast and very angrily, most of the time. You’ve gotta see it to understand. Even if you don’t know any of the games on the list, just check one out anyway.
Now your turn. I’m not asking you to do this to make me feel all gooey about having started a meme, I’m asking you to do this because I’m honestly curious about what the people I know are entertaining themselves with that I have yet to discover. Call me a greedy bastard.
*) Once about a month ago I went there and saw that the yen had dropped like a rock in the ocean. It had happened overnight, and it was a matter of something like a 30% difference in “price” for me right there. So I scampered off and withdrew money, and when I got home, the amount withdrawn was not at all matching up with this new, glorious number. Turns out the Visa site screwed up somehow, because the day after it was all back to “normal”.
First I wonder, dont you use some sort of ad-blocker in your browser? Running firefox without ad-block gives me a fucking stomach ache… hehe.
Secondly, have you tried using gmail with IMAP and thunderbird? Works wonderfully. =)
Well, I do have adblock, but I just kind of on principle got antsy about dictionary.com. I could block all the ads but that doesn’t make them less assholes, … in theory. And nope, never ever tried IMAP though I guess that’s an option, yeah. Doesn’t differ much from just going to gmail.com though does it? The web interface handles email better than Thunderbird did back when I used it (i.e. conversations etc. and not just a fuckload of emails titled “Re: [foo]“, “Re: Re: [foo]“, “Re: Re: Sv: Re: Sv: Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Sv: [foo]” etc etc etc. Maybe they fixed that?
My top 5 sites in no particular order:
1. Livejournal
2. My e-mail host
3. Yahoo (both for news stories and to check my mail there)
4. Facebook (I can’t believe how often I check this site daily. Embarrassing)
5. Weather Underground
My online presence isn’t very exciting these days…
Nice, well here are 5 websites I use and recommend, and I’ll also do them backwards.
5. readthekanji.com
A new entry for my Japanese learning
4. gaijingamers.com
A small group of gaijin in Japan talking about Japanese life (and games, but I don’t go there myself).
3. news.bbc.co.uk
My one and only news source.
2. finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GBPJPY=X
For watching the rapid falling of the pound versus the yen and controlling my resulting tears.
1. reader.google.com
I have all of my RSS feeds (including yours, natch) in this, and it means it always knows what stories I’ve read on the website or on my iPhone or wherever.
well. The main feature of IMAP is that you can use it simultaneously on several computers. Its more like viewing a folder with textfiles than downloading the content of a folder and then cleanslating the folder.
Personally I prefer IMAP since its impossible to handle 1000 mails a week with webmail.
Mark:
readthekanji page — pretty neat! I made an account and tried it out. Will definitely play more. Thanks!
As for the RSS reader… yeah, I need to get around to doing that. Right now my RSS feeds are in a big pile in a bookmark folder in Firefox. *sighs*
6d: Yeah, I know how IMAP works, just never saw that golden desire/opportunity to jump on it. I think when I did join gmail they didn’t have IMAP and when they announced it I was all webmaily anyway so it didn’t matter at that point. If I decide I hate webmail again I might look into that though.
Annie: Crap, sorry, Akismet thought you were spam and I didn’t realize until just a moment ago. *giggles at your list* Yeah, that sounds like me.
Ooohs. Hmmm, I’ve been trying to avoid the internet lately to get my studies done =P I am not very successful!
They aren’t in any particular order.
1. Hotmail! I check my e-mail like 5 times a day.
2. Xanga.com; I don’t even blog anymore– I just like reading what others blog about =)
3. mysoju.com; I love Asian dramas <3.
4. fmylife.com; Hmmm, some of the anecdotes are quite intriguing xP! You should try it.
5. livejournal; to stalk down my favorite group: Arashi!
Many thanks for the tips, Shiho!
mysoju looks oh so deliciously delicious. But none of the vids I tried work for me. Maybe my ISP is blocking.
fmylife … eeeeeeeeeek. Either people are lying their brains out on that thing or the world is a crazier place than I thought. :O
The other ones I know and, well, aside from Hotmail, respect.