The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Here's a list of some of my favourite websites.

Google, for searching. It has a crisp clear interface and its results are always more relevant than other search engines. Basically, Google makes all other search engines redudant. A while ago it improved the layout of its image results page, so that you get hundreds of images per results webpage instead of just a couple of dozen. 

Wikipedia, for knowledge. Because of its 'anyone can edit' policy, in theory wikipedia should be getting trolled on a second-to-second basis. But thanks to its dedicated supporters, its routine of saving a page copy each edit, its patrol bots, and, I suspect, its strange editing language, we have the best encyclopedia ever created.

Yahoo answers, for answers to questions. If you can't find what you need by googling, try asking it as a question at yahoo answers. Users are motivated to post answers because points are awarded for the best answer. And as we know, points win prizes. Oh, except in this case.

Hotmail, for email. I'm unsure about this one, because there may better email providers out there. Hotmail is the one I've been using for more than 10 years, because its where my first and main email address is. I have to add an email provider to this list because email is essential on the internet. I haven't had any problems with hotmail. The sign-up is free, quick and painless, the layout is fairly clean, etc. 

Facebook, for socialising. If I go online for enjoyment I'll first go to my email and facebook. One of the sources of basic human happiness is socialising, some of the others being hunting and killing, sex, food, and learning. Facebook turns socialising into an online form, with checking your notifications sometimes being the equilivent of a crack fix. And of course it has the all-important crisp clear interface, which its predecessor MySpace didn't have. 

Youtube, for entertainment. Essentially a website where the entire content is user-made. Youtube is for videos only, although since videos are both audio and visual it can theoritically encompass any media. Quality is ensured because of competition for views. 

Newgrounds, for entertainment. If your sense of humour is like mine, you'll enjoy the animations at newgrounds. Unlike youtube, everything is made with the animation program Macromedia Flash. Submissions are divided into video and games.

Knowyourmeme, for entertainment. Difficult to call it 'useful' but you may learn the meaning of those odd catchphrases people keep saying on message boards, such as 'what is this I don't even'. The meme examples are seldom unfunny.Quickmeme is a better site to view memes though, since their preview boxes are bigger.

Urbandictionary, for slang definitions. Use of slang seems to have risen exponentially during the internet age. Urbandictionary is the place to go for definitions your dictionary won't have, and usually provided in a humourous way. Great for the dubious occupation of expanding your knowledge of college life. 

Ebay, for shopping. Its layout is cluttered and unintuitive, but its survival is ensured because its essentially the only place to go for used goods. See Amazon, below. 

Amazon, for shopping. Amazon's popularity keeps rising thanks to its extensive catalogue of goods. If you need a book or dvd, the first step will be to 'look on Amazon'. Allowing people to sell was smart, since it lowers prices and makes obscure items more likely to be available. Ebay's auction format trumps amazon's fixed price format though, since with ebay you know for near certainty when the item will sell. 

Familyecho, for creating family trees. In its own words Familyecho provides a 'free online family tree service'. Unlike other family tree sites, Familyecho doesn't provide a genealogy service. Its strength is in its ease of ability to create a family tree, with a clean, simple layout and user-friendliness.

Thepiratebay, for downloading media. But only legal things, of course.

Blogger, for blogging. Free and easy to use, which is to be expected from the creators of Google. You can write posts about programs and websites you like, for example.

Photobucket, for uploading pictures to the web. Photobucket is a free image hosting website

Internet Archive Wayback Machine, for viewing old versions of websites. You can enter a url and the 'machine' will show you old versions of the website you entered. It's interesting to look at old versions of facebook, for example. Though I tried the url of a fairly obscure site and it wasn't available on the wayback machine.

I think the wayback machine works by actually saving copies of websites to its own hard drives. Surely it'd need loads of disk space for that??

Twitter, for sharing thoughts & news. I don't like twitter and haven't used it much. The news feed on facebook serves pretty much the same purpose. Twitter seems to be a constant stream of inane verbal diarrhaea.

By he way, I've been thinking about why I like these particular websites. Here's some reasons I've come up with:

• They're free
• Clear interface with little clutter, obvious how to perform basic functions, i.e. user friendly
• Single purpose. This one is less obvious, but think about how many successful websites only serve 1 purpose, e.g. facebook, google, youtube. Why would I visit a cluttered site like msn.com or yahoo.com when I could go straight to a website dedicated to the task I need it for?
• It does the job then shuts up and leaves me the hell alone. No harassment in the form of adverts / pointless notifications / pleas for donations.
• A catchy name. The less syllables and letters the better.
• A quick and easy signup.
• Often their creators have several of the following characteristics: male, young, computer programmer, genius, aspergic.