12 November 17, 2010 + Over the Edge Web Surfing and You The good, the bad, and the ugly of the internet world ECATERINA CIUGUREANU FEATURES EDITOR November is basically the week of ‘crackdown’ at UNBC. If you have kissed goodbye the pen and paper, and instead, are using your laptop or computer to get stuff done, the uphill struggle just got a little steeper. Here a list of websites that will either aid you or work against you in your journey through November. The Good: These sites could be distractions, but they can be useful in your everyday life as well. | can’t find my phone www.icantfindmyphone.com Do you have that one friend who is always like, “I can’t my phone, can you call me?” Better yet, are YOU that person? What if there is nobody around? Well this website is designed to tackle the problem. Enter your phone number and it will automatically call you - at no cost. | personally tested it. Genius! Do | need a jacket? www.doineedajacket.com What more do you need to know about the weather anyway? You enter a location in the world wide search and you will be welcomed with a jingle informing you whether you should or should not wear a jacket and the reasoning why. For example, “because it’s kind of chilly.” Hype Machine www.hypem.com Do you need some fresh music on your iPod? This site tracks music blogged about by people around the world and allows you to stream the mp3 tracks on Hype Machine. It is a uniting force for many styles of music and the independent voices blogging about them. It allows the music to speak for itself, simultaneously providing you with the opportunity to come across some really cool music blogs. OttoBib www.ottobib.com/ This site is an automatic bibliography maker. Type in the ISBN of a book you are citing and it will spit out the citation in MLA, APA, or Chicago format. The downside is that it cannot cite articles, but this site proves a hassle-free way to speed up the referencing process. Write or Die www.writeordie.drwicked.com Do you have to get a paper done as soon as possible, but you just cannot seem to concentrate? This site is on it! Set your word goal (i.e. 500) and your time goal (i.e. 2 hours), consequences (gentle, normal, kamikaze, or electric shock), and grace period (forgiving, strict, evil). Then type into the space on the site and work away while it provides you with the word count, countdown of time, and various prompts if you are inactive. You can paste your work into a word doc after. The Bad: These sites serve absolutely no purpose but entertainment and distraction (but they are still fun!) ie Fight of the month = . ¥ ABONDANCE Internet faynette | Results on Google : France 74300000 results ? _ see } CO! @ = 3 Uruguay Rey 14300000 results or ——— 5 France REFERENCEMENT 2.0 Olivier Andrieu Le livre sur le | Uruguay référencement de sites web X ( Make afight : -, “er, ii ae — I | CAN’T ] nomyvV { hity PHONE HELLO? ONLINE SOURCE Have you ever lost your phone at the club or a party? Well now you are one step closer to finding it. ONLINE SOURCE Do you ever wonder what gets searched the most on Google? Well now you can find out with googlefight.com Free Tetris www.freetetris.com Dare | name drop my roommate Emily again, but for 3 years | would overhear the Tetris sounds coming from her room late at night. It’s easy enough that it can make you feel good about yourself, but also challenging enough to keep you coming for more. What’s the highest level that you’ve reached? Lessons Learned the Hard Way www.mistakereports. tumblIr.com This site is similar to FML or Post Secrets, but you can justify reading it. You are doing what you have always been advised: learning from other people’s mistakes. Thanks to this site you will now know not to go ice skating after drinking martinis, not to trust the hair dressers’ sense of style, to always make sure that your salad dressing cap is tightly secured, and much more. TED www.ted.com This site is a collection of speeches and presentations from notable people who really know what they are talking about. Al Gore, Jane Goodall, even Andrew Bird are featured on the site. It is also an 100% guilt free experience because you are sure to learn some really great stuff that relates to your school work. Search for the Obvious www.searchfortheobvious.com/ This is a creative project that asks people to post photos of objects that helped better the world. There are different challenges that are also advertised on the site. The really cool thing about the site though is that it is closely associated with the Acumen Fund and is out to change the way we look at poverty. Project Free TV www.free-tv-video-online.info/ Missed your favourite TV show or you don’t get the channel? This site can fix that. It allows you to stream all of your favourite shows online and free - plain and simple. The Ugly: Websites that ooze guilt and shame Texts From Last Night www.textsfromlastnight.com This site allows you to read other people’s misadventures. Not only is it nosey, but it’s also the Jersey Shore of the Internet. Sample TFLNs include: “What is a vodkaffle? It’s where she puts vodka in the waffle mix’, “My grandma had to be escorted out by the police”, and “Do you think it would be good to mention in my admissions essay that | was the guy who streaked across the field last night?” Perez Hilton www.perezhilton.com/ This site is primarily celebrity gossip, but sometimes Perez draws on the famous people’s faces with white ink. | think the white ink triggers the cocaine centres in the brain because like our Editor in Chief says, “I! went to check out a trailer and ended up reading 42 pages.” Tumblr www.tumblir.com Honestly, this is just a blogging site that allows people to use various media forms, such as text, photo, video, links, etc in mini blog posts. If you search Tumblr, you can find virtually anything, which is the problem. It's like Google's younger brother. Epic Fail www.epicfail.com This site displays photos and videos of people’s terrible mistakes for our amusement. Tanning fails and a collage of Robert Pattison included. Google Fight www.googlefight.com The fact that | spent 3 minutes on this website, while ‘researching’ is just shameful in itself. Do you ever wonder what gets searched on Google more: France or Uruguay? Me neither, but we can find out on this stupid site. It’s France by the way. Extras 1010 Project 1010project.com Photos taken all over the world on October 10/2010. Facebook blocker webgraph.com/resources/ facebookblocker This site stops Facebook social plugins from running on sites other than Facebook itself. Young Me Now www.zefrank.com/youngmenowmelblog/ Art project of people re-enacting a photo of themselves taken when they were young.