Issue 16 - March 2001

This article marks five years exactly since I started this column. So, as a treat before I go away for a while, instead of picking a particular subject, I'd like to give you a quick rundown of some of the sites I've visited over the years, but for some reason or other, was never able to include them in previous articles.

Now that I am moving abroad, I would like to be able to buy UK goods online and have them sent anywhere in the world. To that end, Expatshopping.com is a great site, containing over 1,500 goods ranging from sweets and chocolates to Marmite, apparently their top selling item. Having tasted Far Eastern versions of sweets like Kit-Kats, I am rather relieved to have the choice of eating the real thing.

The UK has started catching up with the US in the online gambling stakes. One site that guarantees repeat visits is tombola.com, featuring a small range of Java coded games in which a variety of cash prizes can be won, from £20 to £10,000. You can only play each game once a day, in which case you can visit the UK version of Uproar.co.uk, a site containing many games, both traditional, such as Bingo, or Catchphrase to more arcade fare, for the chance to win smaller cash prizes, but with better odds of winning.

As I am job hunting at the time of writing this article, the biggest jobsite in the UK, monster.co.uk is a good starting point, featuring jobs from home and abroad. You can store and edit your CV online, and create a variety of cover letters for particular jobs, and create job agents, who will scour the database for jobs specific to your desired criteria.

Something that I've always wanted to know was all of the country domains across the world. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority have the complete list at their site. But what is most interesting is that each country is registered to a registrar, who may have a website. This allows you to gain information about such far away places like Micronesia, Ascension Island, Nauru, even Pitcairns Island.

Now for fun at the expense of others. losers.org is a large archive of websites collected together for their sheer banality, bad web design, or lack of irony. Always updated, you will spend many hours here, guaranteed.

Speaking of web design, irt.org or Internet Related Technologies, is a huge archive of articles, tutorials and sample code on a wide variety of subjects, from the normal HTML, to Javascript, forms, and even dynamic html. Even java itself is covered to some degree. It's excellent search facility makes finding the solution to that elusive problem a pleasure.

Lovers of nostalgia (perhaps Valentine's Day made you look back on your dim and distant past) will appreciate a visit to TV Cream, a huge archive of mostly UK television from the 60s onwards. You may well find the odd sample or movie of a TV theme to rekindle your childhood. Marvellous.

For any new film out in the cinema or on video, you need to know if it's any good or not. Rottentomatoes.com goes a step further, it collects together all the major reviews of a film, and gives a simple consensus on whether a film is fresh or rotten. Easy to navigate and full of content, you won't go wrong in taking a look here.

Getting informed opinions on products or services is hard to come by, but dooyoo.co.uk resolves that. It allows registered members to submit opinions on any product or service that they wish. If you know the name of a company that you wish to do business with, or an ISP service you wish to join, you can get the low-down on whether they are good or bad.

Finally, I happened to key in my favourite sitcom Red Dwarf, as a dot com address, and lo and behold, Doug Naylor, the co-creator of this cult sci-fi show, has put together a rather nice looking site, for all the low-down on the past, present and future endeavours for the crew. Read an interview of Mr Flibble, and get the latest info on the movie, due out in 2002.

And that brings me to the end of my final article for a while. I hope you enjoyed the past year's worth of articles. It's a tough life, but somebody's got to do it. Feel free to send any suggestions for future articles to me, and I'll consider them for inclusion. In the meantime, enjoy getting netted!

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