My Favorite Sites
The Internet and the World Wide Web is replete with information and venues to exchange ideas. Google will usually turn up useful information about anything one might be looking for. Here are some of the sites I visit more frequently, usually at least once a day.
Automotive Sites
Formula1.com - I'm a casual Formula One fan. I usually just get the results from here, and read the news and press conferences. Watching the races live in Europe is a problem when in the US. So this is the next best thing.
Tsikot.com - contains a forum for Filipino car enthusiasts. There are a several general car enthusiast sites catering to Filipinos. The crowd here is much more polite and civilized. I used to frequent Kotse.com until 2003 when it got ugly. I lurked at AutoIndustriya, and used to browse their old classifieds section a lot.
There are other club forums catering specifically to owners of certain makes and models, but I rarely visit them. There was also a site linked to the local drag racing scene, but I have not been there in a while. One worthwhile mentioning is KotseAudioClub. The crowd is similar to Tsikot.com, but the discussions are more focused on car audio.
General Reference Sites
- usually the first place to search for anything on the web, from song lyrics to product reviews and everything else in between. It's worthwhile to learn some of the advanced search options to optimize your search and narrow down the results. Google Maps has also become an indispensable tool while in the US.
![[ Yahoo! ]](http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/yahootogo/ytg_search.gif)
- is the portal I use to get world news, local news, entertainment news, business news, technology news, even odd news. I've used Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Travel once each for actual purchase transactions. But I mainly use Yahoo as my news portal. Yahoo! Finance is also good for casual investment research. I've tried Yahoo! Photos but switched back to Webshots just to vary it a little bit.I find the Travel Guides on Yahoo! Travel useful as well.
For trivial research, Wikipedia.org is a good place to start. Encyclopedia.com is a distant second. However, I have to mention that the Internet is also full of unverified facts to downright fabrications. I would couple Internet research with a visit to the library with real books to cite as reference. Online versions of actual encyclopedias may be available for a price.
Dictionary.com and its sister, Thesaurus.com, are almost as reliable as their printed counterparts. While AcronymFinder may be useful to find many acronyms from the common to the obscure.
Movie Sites
For anything about movies, actors' bio, the Internet Movie Database is the place to go. I particularly like the Trivia and Goofs section for each movie, and I use their lists of Top Rated, Top Grossing, or All Time Favorite movies to rent DVDs on Netflix. Netflix as a service is excellent. The site is also very user-friendly. Searching and selecting movies is easy. Managing the movie queue can be improved, but all in all, the web interface and the service is top notch.
Shopping
I've been shopping at Amazon for a few years on and off. I've been more active now that I'm in the US. I purchase CDs most of the time. But I have tried other products with satisfactory results. CDs are almost always cheaper, especially when I don't pay sales tax on my purchase. For other items. usually I check the price first at regular stores or other sites. If I find Amazon cheaper, I buy it there and choose Super Saver Shipping so that shipping is free.
I've also tried selling stuff at Amazon. The good part about it is listing the item is free. The last time I checked (which was a couple of years ago), eBay charges for the listing of an item.