I went a little overboard on the past few reviews, giving way too much attention to “girly” things. I’m all about equal time so here’s one for the guys. Unless you’re like me, of course, and enjoy car stuff as much as you enjoy hair and cosmetic stuff. Then it’s for the ladies as well.

I discovered All Info About Auto Repairs in 2006 when I was looking for information for my son who was helping his buddy with a car. They bought some parts and found a good price on the Chrysler 300 accessory they needed but had some other questions and turned to me for help. It isn’t that I know much about auto repair but I am pretty good at searching for info online. And yet, even I was amazed at all the information this site provided, completely free of charge.

This is another of those sites so overflowing with great info that I couldn’t possibly list everything here. Some of the highlights are the excellent Do It Yourself section for the most common car repairs, the Auto Repair Glossary and the Auto Repair 101 for beginners, and (my favorite) the illustration area divided by auto maker, both domestic and foreign. I love illustrations!

There are sections here on general car care, winterizing and even storing your vehicle. That one is a great find since my son will be needing to store his car long term now that he’s staying in Hawaii. I even noticed a special section just for the ladies! How cool is that?

The auto expert behind this site is Vincent Ciullo, a certified master technician with over 30 years experience. If you stop by the site and find it as useful as I have, why not drop him a line and thank him for being so generous with his knowledge? This is one of those perfect examples how wonderful the internet can be. Let’s thank Vincent and spread the word about this site!

My 16 year old son and 15 year old daughter have both had to write research papers this school year. Being the all-knowing computer guru that I am (at least in their eyes) they turned to me for help in finding the sources that were required. Only three sources could be online but Mom knows how to find stuff online that we can later retrieve from our local library. {Go Mom!}

I shared with my kids a site that I hope they’ll use on their own (if they can pull away from MySpace long enough). In fact, I instructed them to bookmark RefDesk because it’s one of the oldest and still useful portal sites online. I know, here I go again with a site from the mid-90s. I love a lot of the newer sites (and I was lost the other day when Twitterfox stopped working) but when a site stands the test of time and still works well, it’s deserving of a mention. Refdesk is just such a site.

As much as I’d like to list all the bits of information you can find here, that just isn’t possible. I could do entire blog with a post every day for a year and still not cover it all. To get a feel for the site, just check out the options in the three drop down boxes at the top right of the page. Or scroll down slowly and check out all the information on the main page. Yes, a little ajax-y goodness could make the site more Web 2.0 but that’s a minor flaw. The site is about providing information and it does just that. I know there are more modern desk reference sites but I can’t think of one that puts so much information right at your fingertips.

Refdesk.com is a free service but it does cost money to run and maintain. If you find it as useful as I do, please consider making a donation or at least blogging about the site so others will learn of it and possibly donate to it. Such a useful site that’s been online since 1995 really deserves to live on. This is truly a keeper!

I don’t often look at a government entity and think, “Now that’s the way to do it!” In fact, I’m usually dumbfounded by things that government bodies do. Web sites put out by government agencies, states, etc. are no exception. In fact, I’ve only once found a page at a government site that provided the information I needed. So I’m going to tell you about it.

The state of Hawaii, besides being the most beautiful state ever, also has an excellent page at their website. Hawaii’s Internet Portal page is nothing but links. But those links take you to pages with real information that you can use. Whether you want information on the Governor of Hawaii, Building Permits on a specific island, the FBI’s most wanted in the state or anything else about Employment, Education and a number of other topics, this page will link you to it.

Of course, you won’t find commercial information like grocery stores or home insurance quotes or hotels or movie theaters. There are plenty of tourism pages for that sort of thing. But for basic information for residents of Hawaii or those hoping to relocate there, this page in priceless.

Perhaps I’m impressed because my own state doesn’t have something like this. So I’m curious about other state websites. I know that Hawaii’s Portal page is not fancy, just presenting the links in nice categories. But that’s what I want from a government site - information, not glitz. So tell me, do other states have a portal page like this? Any other government sites? Drop me a link in the comments of any government sites that present information without the eye candy. I’ll check it out.

Seems this past week has been the ultimate in phone frustration. Trying to navigate through endless menus to finally speak to a real, live, breathing person with blood and progesterone and all that human stuff running through them is as close to an impossible task as I ever want to get. Yes, it is frustrating.

At some point during the week, I recalled a website I’d seen a while ago listing the correct numbers to key into the phone in order to get a real live human. A little searching through my bookmarks turned up Get Human. (Novel name, eh?)

The GetHuman 500 database lists various categories beginning with Automotive and ending with tv/satellite. Whether you’re trying to talk to someone from an insurance company, a pharmacy, or the us government, check Get Human first to see if there’s a shortcut to a living representative.

But Get Human is more than just a database of information on how to get a human rep on the phone. It’s a volunteer organization committed to seeing companies adopt a specific Standard for their phone systems. Anyone can help to grade the companies listed. Better yet, join the discussion group and find out what else you can do to make the database even better. And even though you’ll want to keep checking back to the list and participate in the discussion group, you can also print the entire list to keep near you phone for quick reference.

Now be sure to let the Get Human folks know if you discover a way to get through a company’s phone support system. Get Human gets better as more humans get involved.

Having been online since 1996, I have websites that I bookmarked a full decade ago. Some are long gone but I keep the bookmark as a reminder if I need to reference it for something. Others are still live but are hopelessly out of date and show no signs of life. And then there are those wonderful surprises: websites that taught you so much back in the day and are still being updated today. CoolNerds.com is such a website.

Alan Simpson, author of a number of tech books, uses CoolNerds.com to explain everything from HTML and Microsoft Access to Windows XP. He runs through the computer jargon that confuses and confounds newbies and explains in easily understood terms the concept of the internet as well as what, exactly, is a browser, email client and loads of other things that many of us take for granted. The section on Hardware is a must-read for anyone getting their first computer. It’s great if you’d like your kids to know more about their computers than how to get into MySpace, too.

And that is what is special about this site. Simpson doesn’t forget how daunting it is to embark on this techno journey, learning about words and phrases that are the equivalent of a foreign language to many. If you’re new to computers and the internet, this site is for you. If you’re an old pro then this site is for you, too. Surely, there are people in your life who turn to you for assistance. CoolNerds.com is like a Swiss Army Knife of knowledge for the newbie. Point them to Alan’s site and watch that look of understanding replace the confusion.

Oh, and read through it yourself. You never know when you might learn something.

I’m always looking for great reference sites. Sometimes I need an overall HTML/CSS reference and sometimes I need a basic grammar site. Many times, I’m looking for an all-around education reference site so that I can assist my kids with their homework while maintaining my parental image of being all knowing, wise and wonderful.

That gets more and more difficult to do as the kids get older.

Today I discovered TagEdu, a kind of social networking/bookmarking/tagging site. The Web 2.0 styling and technology allows the data to be refreshed without having to actually refresh the page.

Since TagEdu is a relatively new site, users are encouraged to add their own favorite resources. A site like this is only as good as the community that helps to build it. This one has the potential to be very useful for teachers and students as well as parents.

We often hear about all the bad stuff online; the naysayers have plenty of instances of evil to point out. TagEdu is one of the really good things out there. Even if you don’t think you can use it right now, how about digging through your bookmarks and sharing one of your favorite educational or reference links with others by submitting it to the site? And then, why not blog about TagEdu yourself? Let’s get the word out about this excellent resource!

I like information all in one place. I like it easy to find. If you’re going to call it an “Advanced Reference” then I expect to find it complete.

And that’s exactly what you’ll find at Index DOT CSS, The Advanced CSS Reference. Not only will you get an alphabetized list of every CSS property but also Support History, Spec History and Browser History.

You can also look up Syntax and Selectors, there. And if that isn’t enough to keep you coming back, a quick click will take you to Index DOT HTML, too. What could be better than everything you need to build a website, all listed in one place?

I discovered Brad Templeton’s website several years ago. I was researching copyright and found his 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained to be the easiest to understand yet most useful explanation of copyright as it applies to the internet. His Brief Intro To Copyright goes a step further to give you just about everything you need to know regarding this often misunderstood topic.

But that isn’t all there is to Brad. He’s a pioneer in the online world, having founded ClariNet as well as being involved with a myriad of other online companies such as Topica, and BitTorrent. He is Chairman of the Board of the EFF, too, and if you’re not a member there, you should join. And donate if you can.

I won’t enumerate all of Brad Templeton’s online involvements; the guy is active all over the cyber world. Just head on over to his Blog and read through his Ideas. He’s a fascinating man and reading what’s on his mind will expand your mind. From the everyday stuff, like passwords to the more sublime, like his future stuff category.

How much do I enjoy this blog? It just took me over an hour to write this little review because I kept getting lost in the blog. Oh, and I couldn’t pull myself away from his Burning Man phone booth pictures, either. Seriously, just go read. And enjoy.

1985? Or more specifically, where were you on March 15, 1985?

That’s the day that symbolics.com was registered as a domain. Today, symbolics.com remains an active website, the oldest continuously running website on the internet.

Do you know which other websites were registered in 1985 and are still up and running? Do you know what sites are on the list of the 100 oldest currently registered domains? Well, wonder no longer. You can see the complete list and check out those sites now. Although the list was last updated in 2003, most of those sites are still around, even if some are now re-directed to other sites or have changed hands.

Quite interesting, nevertheless.

Huh? Yes, you read that right. I know it’s confusing, but so are most eggcorns. And just what is an eggcorn? Well, I guess you could say it’s a very creative, albeit incorrect, way of hearing and repeating a common word or phrase. As you may have guessed, “eggcorn” had been used in place of “acorn” which led to the term.

The Eggcorn Database is filled with the most wonderful, entertaining word blunders online. The database is searchable and you can even add your own eggcorns via the Contribute thread at the forum. Just do a quick search for your eggcorn and if it isn’t listed, register at the forum and contribute. Here are my contributions, still waiting to be added to the DB:

Snow squirrel instead of snow squall. As far as I know, this is still be used because I don’t think anyone ever told him it was incorrect.

Move One’s Valves instead of move one’s bowels. Same guy that gave us the snow squirrel.

Out of Content instead of out of context. My former boss used this one so often I finally told him it was wrong but he kept using it anyway. And he used it in the wrong context, too! I wish I’d written down all his eggcorns. Every time he tried to sound intellegent, he laid an eggcorn.

If you enjoyed those then you’ll want to browse through the Eggcorn Database. There are over 500 of these gems listed.

Enjoy!