Some of my Favorite Web Sites

Search Engines
Hotbot, anyone remember them. I used to use them ALL THE TIME! Looking back, I cringe. My IT teacher at primary school was a big fan of Yahoo and so that was imprinted on me throughout my youth. It wasn’t until I went to secondary school in 2001 that I finally learnt of Google. At first I was cynical, I loved Yahoo too much. However over time as Google added features such as Maps and Video, I used it more and more. Today, if you asked me to drop Google and go back to Yahoo. No Chance!

IM
For the longest amount of time I was a massive fan of MSN Messenger, all my friends at school used it and if you didn’t have it, you were considered NOT cool. As I grew up and left these friends behind, so I used it less and less. I used Windows Live Messenger for a bit, before I finally uninstalled it. These days I don’t IM, mainly because it used to annoy me when everyone would try and talk to me and I just wanted some peace. But I also feel that if someone wants to contact me, they can send me an email or leave a message on my Wall etc.

Desktop Search
Google Desktop! The absolute best at the time. Much better than Windows Desktop Search. Almost tempted to say it’s better than Vista’s Instant Search. These days however I use Spotlight.

RSS Reader
Google Reader. I’m new to the Whole RSS thing, but so far I’ve been very happy with Google Reader and would welcome any Alternatives

News
Initially I never used the Web to get my news. I mainly relied on TV and News Papers. However Google News Caught my interest and I enjoyed that for a while. But a source that I came across around 3 to 4 years and still use today is Podcasts. Shows Like “This Week in Tech” and “Tech 5” provide me with both weekly and daily doses to tech news. From around 06 to now, I used Digg a lot, but recently I felt that some of the stuff on there is a bit childish and I also feel like I don’t have control over what hits the front page like Kevin says. So now I tend to subscribe to lots of sites in Google Reader and get multiple opinions and viewpoints.

Maps
I’ve jumped around a lot when it comes to maps. Google Maps, Google Earth and Live Search Maps all have their pros and cons. Can’t choose.

Social Networking
Started off with MySpace, joined out of peer pressure. Hated it, don’t really use it much. Facebook on the other hand, loving it. I’ve made contact with a load of my old school friends and used it to find out names of current class mates. I knew it was a great platform when someone came up to me and said my name. He then started talking about my favourite TV shows and seemed to know too much about me. Eventually I realised he was someone I had befriended on Facebook and realised if we hadn’t spoken online, we probably wouldn’t have spoken in real life.

Micro Blogging
This is a new one for me. Very recently started Twittering, not sure about Pownce though. Mainly because, they seem like the same thing and it looks like everyone’s on Twitter and not Pownce. I you haven’t tried it yet, do so.

Special Mention
Thought I better mention Delicious. Started using it not so long ago. Much better than what I was using before, which was Google Notebook and Windows Live Favorites.

Overall
So there’s a nice list of sites to visit. All the links can be found here