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Hidden Gems

Every year we're pleasantly surprised to discover sites that solve a problem, meet a need, or tickle the funnybone in some new way. These are the best sites you've probably never seen.

Tech Talk

WebTalkGuys

They're not as witty as Click and Clack, NPR's Car Talk guys, but the WebTalkGuys--actually two guys and a gal--put on a good low-key show with interesting guests and lots of useful advice. Past shows, archived on the site, include tips for online stock trading and car buying, developing a community on your Web site, and photo trading. Issue-oriented discussions cover finding a tech job in tough times, navigating the domain name wars, using file-swapping services, and dealing with spam. When it comes to the Web, there's a lot to talk about.

"Look! Up in the Sky!"

NASA Human Space Flight

Ever feel like shouting, "Stop the planet; I want to get off!"? (Who hasn't at some point in the past year?) NASA's Human Space Flight will give you the lift(off) you need. The site uses real-time data to plot an image moving across a world map that pinpoints the location of the International Space Station, traveling at 17,000 mph. It makes beautiful use of Flash to depict the people and events of the most recent space shuttle mission. There's a list of spacecraft-sighting opportunities in cities from Houston to Hanoi, and the Skywatch Web-based Java applet lets you predict when an orbiting spacecraft will be visible from your backyard; the information is presented in graphical form so you can see how the craft will look against the stars in your location.

Your Own Private Search Engine

Atomz Express Search

Lots of personal and small-business sites are a little like the Internet at large: They're bursting with useful information that's nearly impossible to find. If that sounds like your site, sign up for Atomz Express Search, a remarkably potent free service that allows even the most impecunious Webmaster to add Google-style search tools for finding content within a site. Chameleon-like customization features let you mold the Atomz interface to match your site's design, and you get reports of the terms that visitors search for (be prepared for some surprises). The catch? Express Search is available only for sites with fewer than 500 pages. But big-time operators can opt for the site's fee-based service, which offers even-more-powerful tools starting at $15,000.

"An Informed Democracy..."

Thomas

The Patriot Act, passed swiftly in the wake of the September 11 attacks, granted new powers to government agencies, disturbing many privacy groups. Numerous amendments to the act have followed, not all of which have been reported in the news. The Thomas site, named for Thomas Jefferson and run by the Library of Congress, helps you track congressional activity and stay on top of what your representatives are doing. The site's simple design makes it easy to find and read House and Senate committee reports, view roll-call votes to see how each representative voted on a bill, and search for bills based on bill number or on keywords. A link for legislation related to September 11 gives you a rundown on resolutions tied to that day's events.

Make Some Noise

FindSounds.com

You may be hearing less about the Web since the dot-com crash, but the Internet can still make plenty of noise. This search engine locates sound files in .wav, .aiff, and .au formats, ranging from splashing water to crying babies. You can use the files to liven up e-mail messages or Web pages. The site's directory divides sounds into 16 categories, including nature sounds (an earthquake, a waterfall, thunder), musical instruments, and a host of household noises (aerosol spray, a toaster, a lawn mower). A free audio player shows you a color graph of sounds as they play. Drag your mouse over any portion of the graph, and you can instruct the engine to find a similar sound.

Picture Perfect

DotPhoto

Online photo-storage sites have come and gone, but DotPhoto is still standing. The free service lets you create online albums, with sound clips (using your computer's microphone) and captions to personalize your photo collections. Upload your digital prints, or send a film roll to DotPhoto and let its staff process and upload the pictures. The service's free editing tools let you arrange and crop pictures and add text and sound. A one-year nonpaid subscription gets you 30 free prints. Thereafter, 4-by-6 prints cost 19 cents each, and poster-size photos are $7. A $5 monthly subscription lowers your printing costs.

Adventure by Proxy

AdventureTV.com

The collapse of the sports site Quokka.com left a dry riverbed in the streaming-video space, especially for adventure seekers looking to conquer the world. But AdventureTV.com steps in to fill the void with its own brand of high-quality streaming video that's more suited to virtual voyagers desiring a quieter, gentler pace. The site offers documentaries and travelogs of television quality from independent producers and tourism organizations. The seven categories of videos include mountains, desert, and safari. The videos are best viewed over a broadband link, but watching a Namibian bush healer slice the backside of photographer Peter Beard and suck the blood out of his elephant wound is enthralling even over dial-up.

(Over)Clock Watchers

HardOCP

If you're a hard-core PC enthusiast and you like to push your computer to its limits--and beyond--then HardOCP is the site for you. The OCP (Overclockers Comparison Page) is operated by Kyle Bennett, who runs popular seminars on overclocking CPUs. Bennett's good relationships with chip manufacturers mean that his site is usually among the first to overclock new generations of processors and to test new motherboards. The well-organized site includes helpful forums as well as a few cool tools, such as WCPUID, which tests how fast your machine is really running.

That 70s Game

Rubik's Cube

This brainteaser was an international obsession in the seventies and eighties (one German woman even cited the boxy toy in divorce proceedings). And now the fixation has taken to the Net, which has been co-respondent in some divorce cases itself. The site is immensely simple, but refreshingly well done with great graphics and smooth motion. Simply drag your mouse over the background to view the cube from any angle, then click and drag sections of the cube to move them left or right, up or down, until you manage to make every side of the cube a solid color. There's no danger of getting Cubist's thumb or Rubik's wrist with this version of the game--though carpal tunnel damage remains a risk.

Information in the Crosshairs

Safari Tech Books Online

Hunting for tech information just got easier with Safari Tech Books Online, a subscription site with the digital versions of more than 600 books from publishers such as O'Reilly & Associates and Addison-Wesley. The books are fully searchable, and you can annotate pages as you read them. Server-based bookmarks give you quick access to pages from any PC connected to the Net. You can run multibook searches with keywords and preview sections of any book before subscribing to it. You can save books to disk or print them out (though you can't download them to an electronic-book device). The best part: Every 30 days you can swap any or all titles in your account for new ones, so you can trade up from introductory titles to advanced ones, for example. Subscription rates are based on the number of books you buy. Each title is assigned a point value of one to three points, with a minimum five-point subscription costing $10 a month (pith helmet not included).

Patent Pending

Delphion

After years of toiling unrewarded in a dark lab, you've finally developed an ingenious method for defying gravity--shoes that let you lean forward 45 degrees without falling over. Quick, get thee to a patent office! Oops--Michael Jackson beat you to it. Before wasting energy on R&D, search the patents database at Delphion. The free service covers patents filed in the United States, Japan, and Europe, and it lets you find patents that are available for licensing. A corporate subscription gives you the ability to trace the genealogy of a patent and to determine the companies and technologies connected to it. While you're there, be sure to check out the Gallery of Historic Patents and the Gallery of Obscure Patents. The latter includes a patent for pants that separate at the crotch, allowing you to mix and match pant legs.

Drivers, He Said

DriverGuide

You upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP, and some of your peripherals go AWOL. It's likely that your new operating system doesn't contain an updated driver for your Rockwell modem or OPTi sound card. So where do you find the driver that will set everything right? DriverGuide saves your old peripherals and parts from obsolescence by providing nearly 70,000 downloadable driver files, including hard-to-find ones from vendors gone belly-up. The site has drivers for printers, scanners, digital cameras, and network adapters, among other devices. And if you can't find the driver you need, post a message to the request board. Just don't forget: Back up your system before installing any new device driver. Unless you like running in Windows' Safe Mode, that is.

"The Play's the Thing..."

Boxerjam

The next time you find yourself stymied, take a break and clear your head at Boxerjam, one of the oldest game sites on the Net. The site contains game shows, word games, and puzzles at various levels of difficulty. For instance, Know It All lets you match wits against other players in a fast-moving, real-time quiz show that covers art, politics, and culture. And Crossword Plus is a well-designed puzzle that lets you enter answers easily from your keyboard and click for help letters and words when you get stuck. The site has plans to begin charging a small monthly fee (perhaps $3 to $5), but when the charges will take effect is uncertain. Boxerjam reminds us not to take the Net too seriously.

Do-It-Yourself PDFs

Adobe Create PDF

Want to create a professional-looking report or portfolio with pictures that anyone can view no matter what programs they own? Adobe's Create PDF site lets you convert up to five files to Adobe's Portable Document Format for free. You can make PDFs from files in Microsoft Word, Office, PowerPoint, Photoshop, and other popular formats. The files can be no larger than 100MB, and they must be processed in fewer than 10 minutes, but the conversion is easy to complete after a simple registration. You're sent a confirmation e-mail once the conversion is done. For $10 a month (compared with $250 for purchasing the Adobe Acrobat 5 software), you can create unlimited PDFs, tag your files, and transfer hyperlinks from your original file.

Get a Move On

Animation Factory

Do you feel that your online communication is a little lifeless? Then perk things up with the Animation Factory's colorful wares. A one-year, $60 membership gives you access to more than 150,000 animations, as well as to 3000 animated GIFs for use on personal Web pages or in e-mail messages. Your membership also entitles you to use any of the 150,000 designs in online newsletters or for other commercial purposes, and the site's 50,000 Media Builder designs to create Web page buttons and navigation panels. A $100 membership adds access to extralarge GIF designs suitable for PowerPoint presentations. The site's templates help you drop your animations into place.

Browse Safely

Qualys Browser Checkup

So many software security warnings are published that keeping abreast of all the fixes and patches you're supposed to install is difficult. Internet Explorer has been especially rife with dangerous holes. Qualys, a network security firm, offers a comprehensive and free Web-based browser test that tells you whether your IE setup is making you vulnerable. The tests disclose cookie, clipboard, and hard-drive snooping; malicious executable programs; and Web spoofing (whereby hackers send you to what appears to be a legitimate site but is actually a front for collecting credit card numbers and other personal data stored on your PC). In cases where a patch will fix the problem, Qualys directs you to the latest cumulative download from Microsoft; if the software giant hasn't yet released a patch, the site provides a workaround solution until a formal fix is available.

Big on Site Building

Reallybig.com

This site for site builders isn't particularly attractive, but then warehouses are rarely beautiful. And that's what Reallybig.com really is: a warehouse of tools for building Web sites. With luck the site will have jettisoned its green wallpaper by the time you read this, and the current layout of elements on Reallybig.com's home page will make you want to call a building inspector. But you'll find loads of CGI scripts, JavaScripts, Web graphics tools, HTML editors, site search engines, calendars, and guest books to create a site you can be proud of. Most of the offerings are free. Sometimes "really useful" is more important than "really pretty."

Star Gaze With Dr. Hubble

HubbleSite

If you were stunned by those magnificent pictures of gaseous, glowing nebulae and colliding galaxies that the Hubble Space Telescope recently captured, you'll want to check out the encore presentation appearing at the Space Telescope Science Institute's HubbleSite. "Nearly four hundred years after Galileo first observed the heavens through a telescope," we're still searching for meaning in the cosmos. This site takes you closer to the source than you've ever been before. You can view an animated simulation of the merging of the Mice Galaxies, take a close look at the Eagle Nebula, or choose from eight Hubble photos for your PC wallpaper. There's also a behind-the-scenes look at how the Hubble telescope works.

Toon Town

Cartoonbank.com

The New Yorker magazine is known for its witty cartoons and cover art. The Cartoon Bank offers for purchase 20,000 original, signed, pen-and-ink New Yorker drawings, as well as 60,000 illustrations from other publications; it also has a few free drawings for sending in e-mail. You can frame original cartoons for your wall or buy imaging rights to reproduce illustrations on your Web site or in presentations, newsletters, or ad campaigns. Permissions cost between $50 and $800, depending on your intended use. Of course, you can view the works even if you're not buying. Most of the covers for sale were published before 1993, but you can buy lithographic prints of other colorful covers.

I Stream, You Stream

Streaming Media World

If you're more interested in creating streaming media than in watching it, Streaming Media World is your place. The site offers tips and tools for making animations, as well as tutorials on compressing files and shooting and editing video for streaming media. Also featured on the site are news reports and interviews with top creators and executives in the streaming-media field.

Got Ketchup?

Condiment Packet Museum

If the Internet Archive is preserving our Web history for posterity, it seems only appropriate that someone capture our condiment legacy for future generations. Thank goodness the Condiment Packet Museum has us covered. The site is a Warholesque tribute to the culinary equivalent of the fashion accessory. Over 500 individual condiment packets are on display, from Lucky "Year of the Sheep" Soy Sauce to Bojangles' Cajun Hot Sauce. The pages load slowly, but as they say at Heinz, the best things come to those who wait.

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