15 Specialty Sites You Should Know About

The Web is far too various to fit into neat categories. It’s filled with sites, like the ones below, that provide good information on how to accomplish a specific tasks–things you don’t need to do every day. Keep them in mind for that special day you need to learn to foxtrot (ballroomdancers.com), or make a wallet out of duct tape (wikihow.com).

Your teen loves video games but won’t touch a book. Solution: Find some great titles for young adults at this site: teensreadtoo.com

Tonight’s the night you’ll finally learn how to play the “Stairway to Heaven” guitar solo. www.vanderbilly.com

Watch cheeky videos that help you discover the differences among dry German Riesling wines. tv.winelibrary.com

“I’ve seen people do it on TV, and I really want to photocopy my buttocks on the Xerox machine at work. Is this considered appropriate?” www.emilypost.com

Darn it all, you want to learn to rumba. But not in public. From the foxtrot to the cha-cha, this site will teach you all the great dances in the privacy of your own home. www.ballroomdancers.com

They all sound the same! Who should you vote for in ’08? ABC’s and USA Today’s Match-o-Matic can help.

What did eBay’s home page look like on May 14, 1997? Hop in the Wayback Machine to find out. www.archive.org

You’d like to donate to charities just by clicking around the Internet as you always do. GoodSearch is a search engine that splits its advertising revenues 50-50 with charities and schools. www.goodsearch.com

Want clear instructions on how to throw a wicked curve with a Wiffle ball? What about steps to make a duct tape wallet? www.wikihow.com

So you want to learn the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ in Spanish. Babel Fish translates whole paragraphs of text into and out of English. babelfish.yahoo.com

You want to read James Joyce’s notoriously difficult Ulysses, or Fin­negans Wake, but you’re afraid, very afraid, and you need someone to help you through it. www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce

You want to hurl in­­sults just as the Bard did, as in “Thou mammering swag-bellied yard ape…” Zing! To learn, visit the Shakespearean Insulter .

Just want to turn on some Pink Floyd and gaze far out into the universe? See it though the lens of the Hubble Telescope (Pink Floyd not included). www.hubblesite.org

‘I need to get the real story on the mysterious Chupacabra (goat-sucker). And why are they still covering up what happened at Area 51? Homeland Security is not returning my calls.’ www.occultopedia.com

You heard someone in the lunch room say ‘murketing.’ Then, just a couple of hours later, someone explained how they’ve started ‘fampooling’. You need to know what these fresh entrants into the lexicon mean. www.wordspy.com

Return to the “ 100 Incredibly Useful and Interesting Web Sites ” main story.