Dan Harkless' Bookmarks
Visited Regularly
Internet Connectivity: Connection Speed Tests
(also see below)
Search (also see below)
- Google Advanced Search
(ranks by amount linked to; cached pages; verbatim search: "term")
- Google Verbatim Search
(by default, no spelling "correction", stemming, or term omission)
- Searx (non-tracking metasearch with
engines selectable by cookie; can use Google w/o profiling & via Tor)
Visited Occasionally
Index:
In addition to these Visited Occasionally bookmarks, I've also saved some old
ones that I'm not likely to ever need to visit again, but that I wanted to keep
links to, for one reason or another (mostly defunct sites on archive.org).
They're on a separate page:
Animals
- Animal Diversity Web
(animal info, drawings, photos, browseable taxonomy trees, etc.)
- Animal Pictures Archive
(site dating back to 1995 with animal photos from Usenet & the web)
- California Herps (reptile
& amphibian ID guides, A/V recordings, non-native species in CA, etc.)
- WhatBird (N.A. & U.K. bird IDs via features search or wizard; results
w/ calls, pics, range, etc.; forum)
Art
Audio / Books / Video
Primarily Audio
Primarily Books
Primarily Video
- Advanced Intelligence Spy
Shop (IR camcorder glasses, A/V bugging, anti-bugging, etc.)
- Anthony W. Haukap (home theater calibration, incl. docs on TVs' hidden
service modes, etc.; archive.org copy from 2012)
- AviSynth (video-editing script language
and frameserver originally by Ben Rudiak-Gould)
- blender.org (commercial-quality
cross-platform open source 3D creation suite & films created using it)
- CinePaint (formerly Film Gimp; paint
on individual frames of video clips and flipbook-view them)
- Compression.ru project
(incl. Video Quality Measurement Tool, codec info & comparisons...)
- Creative Cow — User-focused Forums
for Dynamic Media Pros (package-specific forums for digital
video)
- DebugMode (freeware Windows SPFX
software: WinMorph; Wax with RotoMate, Particle Generator, etc.)
- Digital Digest (PC-DVD
Region-free Guide, Macrovision-removal Guide, DVD ripping, etc.)
- DigitalFAQ.com (Blank DVD Media
Quality Guide; guides on video restoration, authoring, burning, etc.)
- DV Tape FAQ at ZenerA.com
(info on the issue with dropouts from mixing DV tape brands, etc.)
- DV, DVCAM, & DVCPRO Formats --
tech details, FAQ, and links. -- AdamWilt.com
- Eugenia's Rants & Thoughts: 24p Reverse Pulldown (SW roundup)
- Gallery of CSS
Descramblers (exploration of free speech re: de-CSS algorithm)
- Green Button, The (Windows
Media Center forums & wiki; lots of great info on software & hardware)
- iuLab (featuring iuVCR, a VirtualDub
type program for WDM drivers, plus a bugfixed universal Bt8x8 driver)
- Jukka Aho's site (inc. "A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and
Aspect Ratio Conversions")
- Lagarith Lossless Video
Codec (reportedly offers better compression than Huffyuv, etc.)
- Markertek | Audio and Video Equipment |
Professional Broadcast Studio Equipment (catalog / ecommerce)
- MediaInfo (replacement for the
abandoned GSpot — displays codec data, tags, etc. for media
files)
- MonoPrice.com (best prices on
the web for HDMI cables, switchers, etc.; other A/V & computing parts)
- MPEG-2 Encoder Tests
- OneRiver Media // Codec Resource Site (special test image compared
across codecs)
- rec.video.dvd FAQ
- TDC
Ltd - PC, Video & Multimedia (info on SD & HD video chipsets)
- TMPGEnc (one of the highest
quality MPEG1/MPEG2 encoders for Windows; low-cost and featureful)
- Videographica (detailed MPEG encoder reviews; info on MPEG editors,
bitrates, TV cards, TBCs, etc.)
- Videoguys.com: the video editing and
production experts (video information, hardware, and software)
- VirtualDub (GPL'd video capture
& processing app.; many high-quality 3rd-party plugins available)
- VirtualDub Sync (syncs audio
w/ sample rate conv., not frame dropping/duplication; last updated in 2003,
possibly obsoleted by recent VirtualDub versions; like older VirtualDub vers.,
natively uses VFW capture drivers, WDM via wrapper)
- yt-dlp (best video
downloader for YouTube, 1100+ other sites; Python script or Win32 EXE)
- 10 Great Websites To Download Movie Scripts (guide to script &
transcript sites from New York Film Academy, w/ descriptions of each)
- Anime´ - No Editing Zone (info on cuts and changes made to anime
titles in U.S. releases; archive.org copy from 2010)
- CENSORED CARTOONS Page, The
- DVD Journal, The (dead as of
2007, but the DVD MIA list is still of use when it isn't out-of-date)
- DVD-Register.com ($45/yr. for
cataloging app. & DB of all LDs, DVDs, and BDs published in the U.S.)
- Hidden DVD & Blu-Ray Easter
Eggs (over 2,600 titles; currently, last updated in 2019)
- High-Def Digest (Blu-ray and
HD DVD info, inc. good reviews that compare features to DVD releases)
- Internet Movie Database, The (IMDb)
- Movie Spoiler, The (read full
plots of movies you're curious about but not enough to see)
- QuoDB | The movie quotes database
(enter quote fragment to get movie/show it's from, with time index)
- rewind @ dvdcompare.net
(comparisons of different region versions & releases of DVDs/BDs)
- Tron Sector (news, forums, info,
and media for all the "Tron" movies, shows, and video games)
- TVShowsOnDVD.com (great site for early and detailed news on DVD
releases of beloved TV shows)
- Wikipedia: List of
3D films (which films shot/rendered in 3D vs. post-converted)
Video hosting
Video titles for sale
Automobiles
Career
Career: Curlie (was DMOZ) Categories
Career: Not In Or Poorly Categorized In Curlie
Color
- Apple - Pro - Color (info on ICC color management on OS X & color
design; archive.org copy: no longer on apple.com as of 2011)
- Colblindor (color
blindness info & tests, Color Blindness Simulator, Color Name & Hue tool,
etc.)
- Color and gamma info by
Charles Poynton
- Color Matching (great ExtremeTech article on sRGB, scRGB, and
ICC)
- Color Oracle (3-mode system-wide
color blindness simulator for Linux, Mac, and Windows)
- International Color Consortium
(info on the pro-level ICC color profile standard, etc.)
- Martin Krzywinski (colorblind-safe
palettes, 8,300+ color name list, data vis., wide-ranging neat stuff)
- sRGB (HP / Microsoft-developed consumer-level device-independent color
std.)
- Wide-Gamut
Troubleshooting (demos & info on wide-gamut monitor issues)
Computer History
Financial
- Bank Reg Data (detailed bank
ratings incl. non-performing loan info, comparisons to peers, etc.)
- Bankrate.com (bank ratings; rate
comparisons for CDs, insurance, loans, MMMFs, savings accounts, etc.)
- BauerFinancial (star
ratings of banks & credit unions, more detailed pay reports, CD rates,
etc.)
- BestCashCow.com (quick tables with
best rates for different types of accounts, user reviews, news, etc.)
- Currency Converter |
Foreign Exchange Rates | OANDA (w/ ATM / credit % adjustments)
- Deposit Accounts (formerly
Bank Deals & High Yield Checking Deals: rates tables, reviews, etc.)
- StockCharts.com (PerfCharts very
handy for displaying multiple items at once, but has only ~1 pt./day)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
(Consumer Price Index, pay & benefits, unemployment, & other stats)
- Yahoo! Finance (stock quote page
updates in real time w/o having to refresh; chart w/ Compare multiple)
Food
For Sale By Owner
- craigslist (free online
location-specific classifieds (locations on right), inc. personal ads)
- eBay (seller fees a little on the
high side, but good eyeball count, especially for collectibles)
- Freecycle.org (location-specific
Yahoo! Groups for giving away & getting free stuff; a bit rules-happy)
- PennySaver (website of the
home-delivered classifieds flyer — free online and pay print
ads)
- Recycler.com (website of the So.
Cal. classifieds newspaper — free online and print ads)
Games
- Abandonware: The Official Ring
(4+ year old console and PC games no longer supported or sold)
- Arcade Games: Emulation & ROMs (ROM site links incl. disc-burning
services)
- arcadecontrols.com (w/ links to
arcade control suppliers & info on interfacing with emulators)
- Coffee Break Arcade (browser-based games)
- Coinop.org (large database of
arcade game info, repair guides, restoration logs, parts for sale,
etc.)
- Dadgum Games (Halcyon Days:
Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers, etc.)
- Digital Leisure (developers of
Blu-ray, CD-ROM, DVD, DVD-ROM, etc. versions of Don Bluth's LaserDisc
games)
- Dragon's Lair Project, The (tribute to all LaserDisc games)
- Emulators Unlimited
- Gaming History (w/ database
of info on 131,000+ arcade games, computer games, console games, etc.)
- INFOCOM: The Unofficial Homepage (info on all Infocom games and
downloads of public domain ones; archive.org copy of site from 2011)
- Interactive Fiction Archive, The
(public domain and shareware IF games, tools, walkthroughs, etc.)
- Interactive Fiction Archive, The: Baf's Guide (reviews of games in the
archive, search engine, etc.; archive.org copy from 2013)
- International Arcade Museum
(incorporates the KLOV, etc.; s.t. more detail than Coinop.org)
- Macintosh Garden
(Mac abandonware games)
- Magic: The Gathering: Gatherer
(WOTC Magic Card DB, with art, artist search, etc.)
- Pagat.com: The Card Games Web Site: rules
and information about card and tile games from all parts of the world
- Penny Arcade Website, The
(photos of collection of early arcade machines, w/ historical info)
- Phosphor Dot Fossils
(classic arcade/home game reviews/info w/ Flash movies of gameplay)
- Play DOS games online | 3,300+
Abandonware Games/Software (play directly in HTML5 browsers)
- ps3hax.net: Playstation 3 Hacking and Modding Community (nice Complete
History Of The PS3 article...)
- STARCADE (official website of '80s kids' video game game show, w/
classic game footage)
- VideoGameCritic.com (short,
entertaining, comprehensive game reviews for most old & new consoles)
Genealogy
Halloween / Costuming
- 9mm Special Effects (awesome large
collection of hand-painted theatrical contacts, incl. many scleral)
- A Masquerade (masquerade masks,
nice rental costumes, wigs, inexpensive footwear not seen elsewhere)
- Alley Cat Scratch's Home Pad
(LOTR costume research, Halloween in LA comprehensive calendar...)
- Aradani Studios Fantasy
Costuming (exclusive ear and orc face prosthetics, etc.)
- Bone Clones Osteological Replicas
(huge variety of human & animal bone, skull, and skeleton replicas)
- By The Sword (best selection
of ancient/Medieval/Renaissance clothing, armor, weaponry, etc.)
- CAS Iberia: Swords, Knives, Reenactment
(ArmsOfValour.com was changed to redirect here in 2014; unfortunately CAS
doesn't have as wide a selection, missing such products as sword frogs)
- Cinema Secrets (they still carry
the "Woochie" Halloween line, but unfortunately lots of products from the glory
days, like the Troll Ears and similar prosthetics, and pro-quality costumes are
no longer there)
- Composite Effects (large line
of great silicone masks & gloves, foam latex prosthetics, etc.)
- Costumes.com (the great
BuyCostumes.com, around since 1999, started redirecting here in 2022, but not
sure if they're actually related)
- Death Studios (unique line of
beautiful whole-head masks, chests, gloves, puppets, and props)
- Dental Distortions (FX
teeth that only cover the front; detailed fang-making tutorial)
- FX Warehouse (best SPFX
makeup selection, including PAX paint, alcohol-activated colors, RMG,
etc.)
- Greyland Film (Czech company
with pretty amazing mask line; more movable than normal latex ones)
- Hightower Crafts (UK-based
seller of leather armor, clothes, prosthetics, etc.; no online orders)
- Historical Emporium
(Victorian men's & ladies' clothing; sister site w/ Old West stuff)
- Knighthawk Armoury (foam
latex weapons approved for LARP combat, including LOTR designs)
- Make Up Mania (large selection
of Rogue Planet prosthetics, custom appliances, stage swords, etc.)
- MakupArtist.com (Czech co. w/ foam
latex masks; sculpts mostly bad compared to Greyland, but a few good)
- Maximum Impact Liquid Latex
(seems to be the best replacement we have for the late, lamented
Deviant)
- MostlyDead.com (small
selection, but includes many really cool prosthetics not available
elsewhere)
- Michael Davy Film & TV Makeup
(RMG, PAX paint, alcohol/acetone dissolvable-edge bald caps, etc.)
- Monster Makers, The: Complete
1-stop shop for DIY monster makers (foam latex, teeth materials,
etc.)
- Noble Collection, The
(weapons, armor, movie prop replicas incl. LOTR & Harry Potter)
- Rubber Gorilla (UK site
w/ unique line of great masks, etc., some unofficial film adaptations)
- Running Wolf Productions
(a unique line of mostly werewolf hands, feet, customized masks,
etc.)
- Scream Team, The: Beyond Halloween Masks: Foam Latex Prosthetics
- Spirit Halloween (original
Halloween superstore; selection somewhat limited but good exclusives)
- Trick or Treat Studios
(masks, costumes, props, etc., incl. those formerly found at Lubatti
Designs)
- Tudor Shoppe, The (reproduction
clothing, weapons, etc., from 1485-1603, incl. a pirate collection)
- Vampfangs (Scarecrow custom-fit
fangs, FX horns, veneer teeth, plano lenses, Bloody Mary makeup, etc.)
- Zagone Studios (unique line
of moving-jaw and normal latex masks, costumes, hands, and feet)
Health
Housing / Moving
- Apartment Ratings - insider
reviews of apartments (37,000+ apts. — best Google rating of such
sites)
- City-Data.com (great per-city &
-ZIP pages w/ demographics, home sales stats, etc.; per-loc. forums)
- DEA National Clandestine Laboratory
Register (check for unsafe former meth lab houses)
- GreatSchools.org (handy for
looking up local school ratings, which affect home resale value)
- Housing and Transportation Affordability
Index (metro regions, or zoom all the way to the block level)
- Inside Tract, The (free info
on So. Cal. tracts & neighborhoods, fee-based info on builders/floorplans,
etc.)
- New Home Source: Search more new
homes than anywhere (missing much from VillagesOfIrvine.com)
- Redfin (all MLS listings, unlike
Trulia & Zillow; FSBO; historical market data graphs for cities, etc.)
- SAFER (use the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration's "Company Snapshot" to get records on moving
companies)
- Zillow (can get est. price range
for properties not on sale; "Zestimate" usu. higher than RealQuest)
Humor
Internet Connectivity
Connection Speed Tests
(also see above)
Free Site Monitoring
- Service Uptime (free version
allows 1 any/tcp check every 30 min. from 9 U.S. & E.U. checkers; http[s]
regexp check)
- SiteUptime (free version allows
1 FTP/HTTP/POP3/SMTP check every 30-60 min. from 1 designated location of 8
worldwide)
Internet Connectivity: General
- American Registry for Internet Numbers
(ARIN) (does IP registration in U.S. formerly done by InterNIC)
- badssl.com (many different subdomains
for testing error-catching and protocol compliance in HTTPS clients)
- BGP4.net Wiki (links to IPv4 & v6 ping, looking glass, traceroute
pages, and route servers)
- Bufferbloat and
Internet Speed Test - Waveform (bufferbloat causes latency problems with
real-time communications; test with letter grade & detailed specs; recommended
routers with Smart Queue Management)
- Broadband Bulletin Forum
(created to be the successor to DSLReports (archive.org link) / Broadband Reports, which ended 2025-01-15, but it just has new forums, not the old forum content,
news, or tools from the old site)
- CAIDA: the Cooperative Association for
Internet Data Analysis (tools & analyses: topology, routing...)
- DNS-OARC source
port entropy test (unlike DoxPara, can test arbitrary servers)
- DomainNameBuyersGuide.com (dead as of 2002; archive.org copy)
- Downdetector by Ookla (outage
reporting, graphs, etc. for ISPs and selected major websites)
- IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
- IDN Punycode
Converter by WhatsMyDNS.net (convert International Domain Names to &
from WHOIS-lookupable Punycode)
- Internet Health Report by
Mozilla (report on legal & social aspects of 'net connectivity)
- Internet Traffic Report
(resp./loss GIFs/CSV: 24hr/7day periods by continent/router/global)
- intoDNS: checks DNS and mail server
health (the most thorough free zone checker I've found)
- Let's Encrypt - Free, automated, and open
SSL/TLS Certificate Authority (non-profit; works w/most brows.)
- NoDaddy.Com - Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain
Names (by Insecure.org's Fyodor)
- Public Suffic List
(software-parseable list of all top-level domains; used by the major
browsers)
- Qualys SSL Labs (detailed HTTPS
checker incl. cipher-suite-based security ratings; SSL survey stats)
- SpeedGuide :: Broadband Tweaks,
Wireless Networks, Security (articles, forums, news, & online tools
(including a speed test), with a
focus on improving networking speeds & latency)
- Squish DNS Checker
(traverses DNS tree & gives all possible routes and answers)
- SSL Shopper (SSL Checker &
other tools, FAQ, user reviews of SSL providers screened for shills,
etc.)
- traceroute.org (web-based
traceroute tools sorted by country; looking glass & route server info)
- WhatIsMyIP.com (reports IP
address your web browser is coming from, with ISP & approx. location; can also
look this up, along with DNS, WHOIS records, etc., for any entered IP)
- WhoISrequest.com (domain NS
history from 2002+; no contact info history: only pay sites have that)
Japan / Japanese
Languages / Translation
Legal
Maps
Driving Maps
- Bing Maps (Microsoft's Google
Maps imitation; has unique, high-detail Bird's Eye view option)
- Google Maps (draggable, Google
Local integration, high-res zooming, satellite view, and hybrid view)
- MapQuest (line-drawing street
maps (aerial photos discontinued), driving directions, world atlas,
etc.)
- Sigalert.com - Personalized Traffic
Reports (So. Cal. fwy. 4-speed traffic maps w/ incident popups)
Other Maps
- CAL FIRE (maps of current and past
fires, at-risk areas; incident info; fire safety; forestry; etc.)
- CAL FIRE: Office of the State Fire Marshall: Fire Hazard Severity Zones
(map downloads; comparison tool for previous vs. current map
releases)
- California Earthquake
Authority (no maps, but gives earthquake insurance est. by ZIP)
- California Geological
Survey: Seismic Hazards Zonation Program (web app with links to PDF maps
of liquefaction and landslide zones, etc.)
- FEMA: Maps (discontinued, but still interesting are the Presidential
Disaster Declarations maps, based on data from 1964-2007)
- FreeMapTools (ZIP code map
overlays, distance calculators, radius tools, etc.)
- GlobalIncidentMap.com
(incidents plotted on Google map: terrorism, disease outbreaks...)
- GPS-coordinates.net (gets
lat. & long. for Google Maps locations, does DMS conversion, etc.)
- Land Matters (special maps like
land status, historical, geology, minerals, mines, parks, water, etc.)
- Local Crime News (arrest
records for California cities in Google Map, graph, email or RSS form)
- NUKEMAP by Alex
Wellerstein (maps effects of a selectable-power nuclear explosion at a
selected city in the world, with interesting presets)
- OpenStreetMap (community
driven Google Maps alternative with unlimited free API use)
- Orange County Fire Authority (fire
station locations, incident list, AlertOC email/text/call list signup,
etc.)
- South Coast Air Quality
Management District (past, current, forecast So.Cal. maps/data)
- Southern California Earthquake Center
(USC-based consortium of scientists; animated simulations, etc.)
- TIGER (U.S.
Census Bureau web app with unusual map features like school districts)
- U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers
- US Forest Service: Wildland Fire Assessment
System (maps of current fire risks, lightning; forecasts; etc.)
- USGS:
Earthquake Hazards: Maps (including recent quakes, risk areas)
- USGS: Geographic Distribution Of Major Hazards In The U.S.
(archive.org copy from 2005)
- USGS: Maps (including
geologic, topographic, & other scientific maps)
- UT Library Online -
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (inc. historical)
Miscellaneous
Musician Sites
- American Musical Supply - Music
instruments and musical equipment catalog
- Full Compass Systems - Professional
Audio, Video, and Lighting Equipment
- Musician's Friend (now
acts as the catalog / web store operation for Guitar Center)
- SamAsh.com: The on-line musical instrument megastore!
- Solid Merch (affordable
small-run Blu-ray, cassette, CD, DVD, and vinyl duplication and printing,
etc.)
- Sweetwater (feature articles,
great catalog, bi-monthly newsletter, quiet rackmount/desktop PC line)
PC Components
General PC Components
- AnandTech - your source for hardware
analysis and news (great in-depth hardware reviews & previews)
- Backblaze Hard Drive Stats (cloud storage & backup company shares
failure rates & other data on their 100,000+ HDs; blogs about various HD & SSD
topics)
- bit-tech.net (UK site w/ hardware
reviews, etc., including motherboard reviews w/ unique stress test)
- CD Slimspine (spine labels for
slim jewel cases, plus Windows software for printing on them)
- Chris Hare's PC Hardware
Links (amazingly comprehensive data and links, incl. CPU wattage
figures)
- Dan's Data - PC hardware reviews and
tutorials! (good case and fan reviews; also gadget reviews)
- ExtremeTech - Deep technology for
enthusiasts and professionals (OK hardware reviews, good news)
- iFixIt (per-model disassembly
guides w/ photos; tools and upgrade/repair parts for Macs, PCs, phones, game
consoles, etc.)
- Neoseeker - Hardware and Games Reviews
Index (also in-house articles and user reviews, news, etc.)
- PC Guide, The (includes especially
useful Hard Disk Drives guide with info on RAID, IDE vs. SCSI, etc.)
- SIMMtester.com
(hardware RAM testers; DocMemory, an old memtest86 competitor)
- StorageReview.com - Hardware,
Benchmarks, Reviews, Reference, Research, and Surveys
- Tom's Hardware Guide (German
English can be awkward, but some great articles like CPU cooler one)
Quiet PC Components
Phone Numbers
Price Comparisons / Reviews
- AVS (Audio/Video Science) Forum
(these A/V discussion forums a good place to find user experiences)
- CamelCamelCamel.com (Amazon
price tracker w/ data back to 2016; handy text summary; alert emails)
- Google Shopping (formerly
Froogle; handy for finding the online vendors selling a given product, with
prices)
- Keepa (Amazon price tracker w/ data back
to 2014; graphs have more options than Camel³, and are interactive)
- RTINGS.com (detailed reviews of
audio, computer, and several other categories of products, tested with
standardized benchmarks)
Radio
- Acronym Finder: 336,000+ acronyms /
abbreviations (though beware popup ads, & some censorship, e.g. on
"FUBAR")
- alt.usage.english Home Page
(with FAQ, accent audio samples, ASCII IPA notation guide, etc.)
- Archive Team (Wiki dedicated
to news of content-hosting website shutdowns, archiving methods, etc.)
- BarCode 1 - A Web Of Information About Bar Code
- Beall's List of Predatory Journals and
Publishers (continuation of Beall's killed-off project)
- Better Business Bureau
(trustworthiness ratings of businesses and general info on complaints and
how resolved)
- Fast periodic table (extra details when hovering over
elements)
- Internet Archive, The (archived
websites, audio & video, books, images, software, Usenet posts, etc.)
- IP2Location (WHOIS &
traceroute often more accurate, but can be useful for non-U.S. IPs)
- iTools: Quick access to the best Internet
tools (financial, language, map, research, and other tools)
- Jargon File, The / The New Hacker's Dictionary
- Ken's Electronics (best
site I've found for identifying obscure power, audio, etc. connectors)
- Linux Device List (useful for translating major & minor numbers, e.g.
from /dev listings, to device details)
- MAC Address Vendor Lookup: MAC/OUI/IAB/IEEE
Vendor Manufacturer Search
- Merriam-Webster: America's Most Trusted
Dictionary (free-access dict. & thesaurus; by-subscription unabridged
dict. w/ extra features)
- Object
Identifiers (Wikipedia page with links to OID lookup sites; these
IDs, defined by ASN.1, are used in LDAP, SNMP, TLS, etc.)
- OneLook Dictionaries: The Faster
Finder (a multi-language dictionary meta-search with
wildcards)
- Online Etymology Dictionary (a
useful lookup site whose info is compiled from several books)
- Oxford English Dictionary (Wikipedia page's External links section includes freely accessible versions; pay site is
oed.com)
- RFCs: FAQs.org's BCP/FYI/RFC/STD
Archives, with good indices and full-text ranked reference search
- RFCs: RFC-editor.org, including prefix
/ whole-word Author/Keywords/Title search, errata, and tar archives
- Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center
- TIOBE Programming Community
Index (prog. language popularity stats, with historical trends)
- UrbanDictionary.com
(definitions submitted and rated by users; great for new slang)
- Virginia Tech Dendrology and Forest
Biology (N. American & introduced tree identification pages, mobile
apps)
- Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
(multilingual encyc. you can edit yourself; surprisingly high
quality)
- Wiktionary: a wiki-based Open Content
dictionary (the dictionary equivalent of Wikipedia)
- Word Detective, The (indexed archives of humorous newspaper column on
word and phrase origins; author died in 2017, but had still been up until
2025)
Search (also see above)
Skepticism
Software
Anonymizing Services
- BugMeNot.com (communal anonymous
logins for almost 50,000 websites with compulsory registration)
- Security.org: Guide to VPNs
(detailed survey of major VPNs; site also reviews home security systems,
security cameras, etc.)
- Tor (Tor Browser can
anonymously browse the web, and special ".onion" sites, w/o separate VPN; Tor
SOCKS proxy also
exists)
Audio / Burning
- Alcohol Soft (Alcohol 120%
can back up copy-protected CDs & non-CSS DVDs, mnt. imgs. as virt.
drives)
- CD Media World (collection of
CD and DVD utilities, inc. CDR Identifier — ID good & bad CD-R
mfgs.)
- dBpoweramp (best CD ripper for
Windows & Mac; rich featureset; compares track checksums to a database of other
people's results, along with other features to ensure error-free rips)
- EAC - Exact Audio Copy (aims
to be the most error-free CD audio extractor, esp. for scratched CDs)
- ImgBurn (best freeware Windows CD
/ DVD burning software; not updated since 2013, but so feature-complete &
unbuggy, it hasn't needed to be; however, download from the provided
MajorGeeks
mirror to avoid the OpenCandy adware added after ImgBurn development ended)
- LAME (the standard open-source MP3 encoder)
- SimplyBurns (GPL'd
macOS software that, unlike Disk Utility, can image & burn audio CDs)
- Sound & MIDI Software For Linux (includes sound software that works on
other UNIXes as well; archive.org copy of 2023-defunct site)
- Total Recorder (replacement
Windows sound driver that can capture streaming audio to WAV/MP3 file)
Data-Wiping
Development Software
General Software
- AlmaLinux (one of the two
successors to the discontinued CentOS; like it, it's extremely
stable due to being built from essentially the same source code as Red Hat
Enterprise Linux)
- Bootdisk.Com (boot disk images
for DOS 5-6.22, Windows 95-XP; links to other utilities & how-to
guides)
- Cygwin (library that implements
UNIX API on top of Win32, and large collection of programs compiled for
it)
- DistroWatch.com (capsule
descriptions & OS + package version tracking for all major & most minor
Linuxes & BSDs)
- EditPad Lite (can open large,
UNIX, & Mac files like WordPad, and locked files like Notepad)
- FileFormat.info (great pgs. on
each Unicode char., w/ encodings, font support, Std. vers.+date; etc.)
- FSF (Free Software Foundation)'s Links to Other Free Software Sites
- GNU ddrescue
(better than dd or dd_rescue + dd_rhelp at recovering failing HDs)
- GParted (powerful Linux partition
editor that works with Linux, Windows, & Mac filesystems; Live CD/USB)
- Hermann Schinagl's NT
Utils (see/make junc./hard/symlinks in Explorer; ln; dupemerge)
- IPTraf ('ntop' is described as like
'top' for network connections, but this tty program really is that)
- IT Samples (freeware & open src.
utils incl. Network Activity Indicator tray app, passwd. recov., etc.)
- Just Solve the File Format
Problem (Wiki on file formats/extensions, many w/ sample files)
- Memtest86: a thorough, stand alone
memory test for x86 architecture computers (open source)
- memtest86+ (based on Memtest86,
but with support for ECC polling on newer chipsets, SPD readout,
Mac...)
- MyPortableSoftware.com
(donationware utils incl. Free HDD LED: R+W "LEDs" for each HD)
- NirSoft (freeware CLI equivs. of GUI
actions, crash view, netwk. monitor, passwd. recov., other Win. utils)
- nmh Message Handling System (a
continuation of RAND / UCI's commandline email suite
MH)
- OldVersion.com - old versions of your
favorite software (mostly Internet and multimedia software)
- Rocky Linux (one of the two
successors to the discontinued CentOS; like it, it's extremely
stable due to being built from essentially the same source code as Red Hat
Enterprise Linux)
- Shapecatcher (draw a char. in the
on-page box; recognition engine lists the most similar Unicode chars.)
- Superfly
ShowKeyPlus (analyzes installed or entered Windows Product Key)
- Sysinternals
(excellent Windows utilities including file and process monitoring)
- SystemRescueCd (Live CD /
USB Linux ISO w/ GParted, etc.; more robust than many Live distros)
- The Emacsmirror (growing
collection of Emacs Lisp packages available as Git repositories, including
unmaintained ones no longer distributed by their authors)
- XEmacs (formerly Lucid Emacs; "Sumo"
tarball bundles a ton of extremely useful Lisp library modes & functions often
not available for GNU Emacs)
Graphics / Digital Imaging
- Blender (formerly commercial open
source 3-D modeling, animation, rendering, and game creation suite)
- Dia (open-source Visio clone)
- ExifTool (Perl-based / standalone
EXIF-manipulating commandline tool for audio, image, & video files; also works
with ICC, ID3, JFIF, XMP, and many other data types)
- GIMP Homepage (venerable open source
Photoshop replacement for UNIX, Mac, and Windows; has some UI issues)
- ImageMagick (cross-platform,
cross-language image creation/manipulation libraries and toolset)
- JPEGclub.org (the reference JPEG
library implementation; tools supporting lossless JPEG rotation &
cropping)
Mac
Security / Privacy
- AV-Comparatives (thorough
independent effectiveness benchmarking of all the major antivirus
packages)
- Bugtraq Mailing List Archives
(was the premiere full-disclosure security hole discussion list, from 1993
until Symantec killed it in 2020)
- CERT Coordination Center:
Vulnerability Notes Database (detailed advisories with multi-vendor
responses on high-profile security flaws)
- CrackStation - Online Password Hash
Cracking, Rainbow Tables, etc. (16 algorithms, intelligent
mangling)
- Degaussing Magnetic Media (incl. which media degaussing kills)
- dropsafe by Alec Muffett
(includes Crack & CrackLib password strength utilities)
- DShield - Distributed Intrusion Detection
System (amalgamates user firewall logs into global IDS report)
- ElcomSoft Password
Recovery Software (very expensive, but the trial versions are more
functional than Passware's)
- Fulldisclosure (a successor to the original 2002-2014 Full-Disclosure
mailing list)
- Gibson Research Corporation (personal
firewall shootout, portscanning CGI, SpinRite HD recovery tool, etc.)
- Hash Function Lounge, The (2007 review of hash functions &
attacks)
- Have I been pwned? (info on
site breaches w/ query & notifier to see if email/account info stolen)
- Insecure.org (NMAP, the best port
scanner and remote OS identifier, Exploit World archive, etc.)
- Nikto (open source web vuln.
scanner; static checks, e.g. for known insecure script names/versions)
- Offline NT Password &
Registry Editor (boot CD/USB can reset local account passwords,
etc.)
- Openwall Project (incl. John the
Ripper, password strength checking PAM, Owl secure Linux distro, etc.)
- OWASP: The Open Web Application Security
Project (excellent security tips in OWASP Guide & App Sec FAQ)
- Password recovery tools by Passware
(password recovery/cracking software for many applications, mostly for
Windows)
- PGP: GnuPG (open-source commandline
PGP for file & email encryption and signing)
- PGP: OpenPGP (info on the IETF
standard, and links to email software & add-ons integrating it)
- plp_snprintf (free, portable, robust implementation of
missing-in-old-OSes [v]snprintf(); part of
LPRng)
- SecurityXploded.com (200+ free
security & other utils, inc. app-specific password decryptors &
crackers)
- SmashGuard.org's Buffer Overflow Page (archived page on buffer
overflows & protection technologies last updated in 2005, but still has much
useful info)
- socat (like a next-gen.
netcat:
bidirectional xfers between files, pipes, devices, sockets, etc.)
- TrueCrypt (open-source disk
encryption for Windows (incl. full-disk encryption), Linux, and Mac)
- VirusTotal (comparitive results
from dozens of AV programs for uploaded files (or their MD5, SHA-1, or SHA-256
hashes) or URLs)
- ZAP: Zed Attack Proxy (fork of
discontinued Paros Proxy: interactive HTTP[S] proxy allowing you to view &
change headers; also has spider & web app security scanner)
WWW Software
- GNU Wget
(commandline web and FTP site downloading and mirroring tool; I used to be
the co-maintainer for it, back in the day, but I'd link to it regardless, as
wget 1.x is still the best for many types of mirroring; note 2.x is a
scratch-rewrite with far fewer features)
- HtmlUnit (a Java-based
GUIless browser framework with fairly complete JavaScript support)
- List
of JavaScript engines, runtimes, interpreters (quite a comprehensive
list, including ones like njs that can be run at the commandline, e.g. to
evaluate obfuscated JS code)
- Lynx (text-only WWW
browser; also see the similarly named Links)
- MozillaZine Knowledge Base - About:config Entries (not exhaustive, but
a fairly up-to-date list of these mostly hidden settings in Firefox &
friends)
- Session History
Scrounger for Firefox (can convert all versions of Firefox session
stores to HTML or sessionstore.js; looks like a web app, but runs
in-browser)
- wikEd diff
Online Tool - Cacycle (use Wikipedia's improved diff with moved block
tracking & word/char.-level resolution on dropped files/pasted text)
Spam
- Abuse.net: The Network Abuse Clearinghouse
(master contact database & tools for reporting abusive users)
- Blocklist Resource (DNSBL news,
reviews, stats indicating spam hit & non-spam false positive rates,
etc.)
- Brad Templeton's Home Page
(includes interesting pages on the history and etymology of "spam")
- DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
(like SPF, but with crypto-signed headers vs. allowed sender IPs)
- dnsbl-milter (can
select different DNSBL sets per user, unlike with bare sendmail)
- DNSBL Information - Spam Database and
Blacklist Check (not as comprehensive as the defunct drbcheck, but presumably most of those ~900 lists are no longer
maintained)
- dnswl.org (DNS whitelist for
allowing owners of IPs in blacklisted ranges to register as
non-spammers)
- Get that spammer!
(dig, ping, whois, etc. CGIs & how to use on spam header info)
- Greylisting: The Next
Step in the Spam Control War (uses SMTP temporary failure errors, which
dedicated spam-sending software typically treats as permanent failures, unlike
real MTAs)
- Junkfax.org: Dedicated to
helping stop junk faxes (with detailed, if rambling, profiles on the
spammers)
- SPF: Sender
Policy Framework (prevents spoofing: DNS record(s) of IPs that send mail
as your domain)
Theme Parks
- Bear-yTales (the original
Knott's Berry Farm fansite; additional material available on archive.org at its
pre-Blogspot URL, where it existed through 2010, though it's easier to navigate on 2006 and older copies, since they used textual navigation, rather than
images that archive.org mostly failed to save)
- Bertino Disney archives, The (FAQs, ride maps, scripts, etc.)
- Defunct Amusement Parks
- DoomBuggies - a Tribute to Disney's
Haunted Mansion in Horrifying Sight and Sound!
- DoomBuggy Productions (extinct attraction videos, backyard imagineering
projects, etc.)
- hiddenmickeys.org's Fun Facts / Secrets of Disney
- Knott's Preserved (Knott's history website by Chris Merritt, author of
the book of the same name)
- LaughingPlace.com, The #1 Disney
Source (many great exclusive articles on the theme parks)
- MiceChat.com (incorporates
MiceAge, the site originally by the late Al Lutz of the Disneyland Information
Guide and Kevin Yee of the Disneyland Vegetarian Guide)
- Modern Day Ruins (infrequently updated site dedicated to abandoned theme parks et al.)
- MousePlanet (tons of great Disney
park info, including restaurant menus)
- Persistence of Vision Magazine — Preserving Walt Disney's Creative
Legacy
- the studiotour.com (the best
Universal Studios Hollywood fan / info site; other studio attractions)
- TouringPlans.com - The Unofficial
Guide to Walt Disney World (w/ Crowd Calendar; partially
paywalled)
- Widen Your World: The Original Walt Disney World History & Lost Attractions
Site
- UltimateHaunt.com (the main
Knott's Scary Farm fan site, plus info on retired Knott's attractions)
- Yesterland — The Discontinued Disneyland
Tickets
- Fandango.com (only listings for
partner chains like AMC, Regal, & Regency, so missing Cinemark, etc.)
- Moviefone.com (the oldest 3rd-party
movie ticket seller, with pretty comprehensive theater coverage)
- StubHub! (person-to-person ticket
sale site now owned by eBay; haven't found any great deals here)
- Ticketmaster
Time
- NIST: Time
and Frequency Division (U.S. atomic clock time via modem, phone, radio, & WWW)
- ntp.org: Home of the Network Time
Protocol (formerly on udel.edu; software for most OSes, server list,
etc.)
- NTPpool.org: The Internet Cluster of NTP
Servers (global server pools, with the ability to drill down via DNS
subdomains to get closer to your location)
- PDFCalendar.com (generate blank
printable PDF calendars in 1-month, 1-year, or N-weeks formats)
- TimeAndDate.com (Time Zone
Map, Converter; Calendar generator, good for checking dates in other
years; etc.)
- www.time.gov (U.S. time zone map with
atomic clock times accurate to 1 second; previously also had an interesting
page of Time Exhibits links)
- WorldTimeZone.com (world and
country maps with timezone demarcations and current local times, etc.)
TiVo
- 9th Tee Enterprises (TiVo upgrade
parts, including TiVoNET boards; also other electronics parts)
- Hinsdale How-to
TiVo upgrade (only complete, up-to-date guide at this writing)
- OzTiVo (this defunct TiVo hacking site was in Australia, but most info
is internationally useful)
- TiVo Community Forum, The
(original, best-known TiVo forum, but some hacking topics censored)
- TiVo Utilities Home Page
(TiVo hacking programs, datasheets, and manuals)
- Unofficial TiVo Hackers Site, The (was the home of TiVo Hacking FAQ &
BlessTiVo utility)
- WeaKnees.com (TiVos and upgrades;
Maxtor QuickView PVR HDs, quieter replacement fans, and other parts)
Travel
- Cheap Tickets - Flights, hotels,
cars, cruises, last minute trips (unpub. fares; FlightTracker)
- Expedia Travel (was started by
Microsoft, but was spun off; seems to be the standard now)
- Hotwire (specially-negotiated
deals unique to them; can see prices w/o entering payment info, unlike
Priceline)
- Orbitz (old study showed they
return 20% more choices than closest competitor)
- Oyster.com: Expert Hotel Reviews,
Undoctored Photos & Best Prices (with Photo Fakeouts blog)
- Priceline.com (name your own
price, but you have to enter payment info & pre-commit to it)
- Southwest Airlines (good, cheap
domestic airline; travel websites generally don't carry their flights)
- Travelocity.com (the long-time
ASP of Yahoo! Travel)
- TripAdvisor - Reviews of vacations,
hotels, resorts, vacation & travel packages (reviews & forums)
TV
Weather
WWW Authoring / Fonts
- 23 Free Website Accessibility Checkers (note some of them, like
WebXACT, are now defunct)
- CanIUse.com: Support tables for HTML5, CSS3,
etc. (more up-to-date browser support info than any other site)
- CodeStyle.org (CSS and other web authoring info, incl. a multi-platform
font availability survey; archive.org copy of 2013-defunct site)
- Color Vision (check
text / bg. color combos as seen by people with different colorblindness
conditions)
- Dan's Web Tips (web authoring
tips after my own heart (different Dan); interesting info like obscure browser
descriptions)
- Eric Meyer: CSS (site by the
author of popular CSS books, including browser support specifics)
- FontStruct (free online tool for
building TrueType fonts; gallery of downloadable creations)
- Google Search
Console (formerly Google Sitemaps: get crawler/search stats on your
site; submit map to hidden URLs)
- Identifont (can find fonts by
partial name, by similarity to another, by unusual glyph features, etc.; also
font comparator; cool free fonts; and more)
- Indice degli Initcaps (beautiful initial capitals by an Italian
designer)
- Jukka Korpela's Web Authoring
Documents (not updated much recently, but has the best HTML 3.2
reference on the web, and other good info that's still of use)
- Icon Archive - 800,000+ free icons & stickers, PNG, SVG Downloads
- Lord Kyl's Medieval and Fantasy Fonts
- Microsoft
Typography (info on fonts avail. w/ diff. OSes and apps, web embedding,
etc.)
- mnot - Mark Nottingham's Web home
(tutorial on web caching issues, cacheability-checking CGI, etc.)
- MyFonts: Find Fonts, Try Fonts, Buy
Fonts (w/ WhatTheFont: upload image of text to identify font)
- Netcraft Site Report
(lookup a website's server software, date first seen, Netcraft site rank,
etc.; no longer reports OS, provider history, or security issues)
- QuirksMode.org (CSS &
JavaScript tips & tricks, cross-browser example scripts, obscure bugs,
etc.)
- rel="nofollow" (way to link to a site w/o giving it additional Google
PageRank)
- W3C HTML Validation Service (web
robot that checks your web pages against the HTML specs, and reports problems;
they also have a CSS Validator)
- Web Robots Pages, The (home of
the Robots Exclusion standard, a catalog of known robots, a FAQ, etc.)
- WebGround: on a clear
page you can texture forever (7000+ tileable background images,
organized by brightness, and gray vs. color)
- WebmasterWorld (lively
discussion board with many forums on SEO, web development, etc.)
- Wikipedia:
Core fonts for the Web (10 free fonts Microsoft put out in '96)
- Wikipedia: Favicon
(article on favicons and apple-touch-icons)
- Wikipedia: Usage share of web browsers (historical + new data)
Dan Harkless
Page created: July 23, 1997