Yes, it's true - there are many more websites out there. And some of them are quite good at whatever it is they do.

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This is where I'm putting links to all sorts of things. Some of it is websites I like to use, but haven't found anywhere else to put links to them, some are sites I'm involved in running, and some of it is software I like. To visit the sites, click on the links.


NOTE: make sure you're allowed to install software on whatever computer you use, and virus-check anything before you run it. I'm not implying any of the programs listed will be infected, but better safe than sorry.

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SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Although I'm no longer involved in the Carnival, until they find someone else to do it I'm continuing to maintain their website, which you can find here.

Finally, as you may have read elsewhere, I had a plan for a project, which is pottering along over at Crowthorne Heritage

SOFTWARE

• For FTP uploads, I use an open-source program called FileZilla
• Firefox is a good browser, and it's customizable with loads of extra bits that make it much nicer to use than IE.
• They also have an email client available, called Thunderbird.
• For those of you who are into this social networking lark, you might like to . Flock is based on Firefox, but adds extra whizzy sidebars for Facebook Twitter, Picasa, Photobucket, YouTube and other sites.
• For a free anti-virus program, this one seems good: AVG
• And Zone Alarm is a free software firewall which seems to work well, once you've told it what to allow and what to block.
• Miranda is a useful IM and IRC combined client that saves having ICQ, MSN, AIM and other things all running separately.
• WordPress is the software I've used to get the Head First blog running.
• Occasionally I need to fiddle about with graphics, and have found a good bit of open source software called GNU Image Manipulation Program (or The GIMP). It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you've got the hang of it, it seems pretty good.
• Yahoo Widgets is a very useful, and customisable, program. You can download a variety of widgets which run on your desktop, including clocks, calendars, ones that tell you what's on TV, weather, how many emails are waiting for you, and loads of other things.
• Help in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence! You can tell your computer to run this program when it's not busy, and help analyse radio telescope data: SETI@home.
• Open source software is a great idea. It can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. It is not the same as freeware, although a lot of open source software is available at little or no charge. This is where a lot of open source software can be found: SourceForge

WEBSITES

• If you're interested, this is my broadband provider: PlusNet
• This is who hosts my site (along with my Crowthorne Heritage site, Simon & Christina's Wedding site, and the Crowthorne Carnival one: Fuzioned
• This is the software used to run this site (again, also the wedding, history and carnival ones): Drupal
• Watch That Page is a useful free service - tell it which websites to monitor, and it will email you when they change to tell you what alterations have been made
• I now use Google Mail for some of my emails (let me know if you want an invite so you can use it too): Google Mail
• This looks like an interesting idea. From what I understand, you tell it what music you like, and it finds similar songs and plays them as an internet radio station: Last.FM
  You can also download plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player, so it will automagically create charts of what you've listened to and suggest other similar bands. You can then tell people what you like listening to, and find people who like similar stuff to you.
• The BBC website is full of all sorts of information. I particularly like the News Magazine: BBC homepage
• If you've got things that you want to get rid of, but they are too good to just chuck away, you might like to have a look at Freecycle. You can also ask for things as well
• This is the site I use for photo and printing: Photobox
• I have also started putting photos on Flickr
• The UK website for the Rocky Horror Show (one of my favourite shows), and the official website for the Rocky Horror Picture Show (one of my favourite films).
• This site lets you list all the books you own, and can recommend things you might like based on what other people have got: LibraryThing
• I don't know where else to put this one, so it'll have to live here. People send postcards of their secrets, and they get put up on this site. Some of them are lovely, some of them sad, and some are a bit odd. It's a lovely idea, so go and visit it: PostSecret
• This is one very strange website that is pretty much what the name suggests: Stuff On My Cat
• And another site with kitties on is I Can Has Cheezburger. A bit odd, but often makes me giggle!
• I'm surprised at how useful Lovefilm is - you make a list of films you want to watch, and they post you DVDs. When you're done with them, post them back and they send you some more. Brilliant for lazy people like me!

OTHER (POSSIBLY) USEFUL LINKS

• OpenID lets you use one ID to log into multiple websites. A directory of sites using OpenID can be found here.
• Iconbuffet "So here's the deal... a few years back we launched the original IconBuffet. At the time we sold stock icons to web designers and other geeky folks all over the world. After a while we figured it would be totally sweet to give away free icons every month to IconBuffet members. Only there's a little twist... not everyone gets the same icons. So you have to swap icons with your friends to get them all. Kinda like baseball cards. Only you can use them on your website."
• eyeOS is a web desktop - like the one on your computer, but accessible wherever you can access the internet. I mainly use it for keeping files handy so I can update them when I'm at home or at work, as it saves emailing new versions to myself all the time.