Website Highlights - Digital Photography School

http://digital-photography-school.com


If you do digital photography, you need to read Digital Photography School. What started as a simple blog with tips for digital photographers has evolved into a one-stop site with articles, reviews, news, contests and forums.

Personally, I read the site for the articles. Some of them don't apply to me, but others have some good tips and ideas to try. Some are more instructional, others get you thinking creatively.

One thing to keep in mind about this site is that it is aimed toward owners of DSLR cameras. Photographers like me who don't have one and use a point-and-shoot might not find information about lenses, filters and other specialized equipment very helpful. However, there are enough tips for photographers of any type of camera to make the site useful for all.

Articles are posted most every day (and of course you can access them through a feed reader), so there are a large number of items to explore in the archives. This site is one that any photographer, amateur or pro, should bookmark and use.

Website Highlights - Deviant Art

http://www.deviantart.com

Deviant Art is the site for you if your creativity leans outside the normal. Don't take the 'Deviant' part of the name too seriously - it merely refers to the site's deviation from the typical and average. The pieces of art here are always imaginative, expressive and indicative of the diversity of the users on the site.

What can you find here? Nearly anything. Photography, painting, digital art, poetry, literature, skins, designs, and much more. Navigate the site from a cool bar on the left side of the page. Click each category and subcategory until you find what you need, or do a search.

Deviant Art also gives you a very large community of like-minded artists. If you have an account on the site, you can comment on anything you see. Encourage others, and be encouraged in your own works.

I have to admit I don't spend as much time here as I do on Flickr, but I certainly appreciate the attitude behind this wonderful resource. Click the link above and explore!

Website Highlights - Cracked.com

http://www.cracked.com

Cracked.com started out as an online humor magazine, but has morphed into much more. It now has a blog, videos, message boards, and user accounts for posting comments.

What hasn't changed, and what keeps me coming back, are the hilarious lists the site's writers post several times per week.

Here's a sampling of what they offer:

8 kids movies that lied to us
The 7 most bizarre celebrity blogs
The only prescription: Top 10 cowbell songs
The 30 most unsettling German Halloween costumes

To find more, go to the main page and navigate the category links at the top left.

This is a site I try to check frequently (or let Pop Candy clue me in to the latest funny lists) because there's usually something entertaining or interesting to read each time they update.

Website Highlights - Chronicles Of George

http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com

This website is simple but funny. It's a collection of support tickets written by "George," a tech support worker whom the site's author worked with some years back. What's so funny about it? Each support ticket features George's faulty spelling, odd grammar and general idiocy. There's also a forum to read, which has grown far beyond the original purpose of discussing the main pages.

To be quite honest, I haven't read this site in ages, but it's on my sidebar anyhow. I think it's pretty humorous and worth a few minutes of your time, at the very least.

Website Highlights - Bored.com

http://www.bored.com

Bored.com is simply a list of fun links in several different categories. As the title implies, this is a good place to come when you're bored.

This site is one I've known about since earlier times, when we first had the internet. I'm not sure how relevant it is in this day and age. You can probably find much better lists of random sites in other places. I can't even vouch for the level of fun you'll find in these links, nor can I guarantee that any of the links are virus and spyware-free.

So why do I link to it? Well, you can't beat the name. It's a very easy thing to remember. If you're bored, you can go to bored.com! I'm sure some of the links are gems, so just hunt around on the site and see what interests you.

Website Highlights - Bloglines

http://www.bloglines.com

Reading content on the world wide web hasn't been the same since RSS feeds were introduced. Instead of going to each site and checking to see if anything has been updated, you can now have the updates sent to you! There are many ways to access RSS feeds - external feed readers, services like My Yahoo! and the like. My personal favorite is Bloglines.

What is Bloglines? It's a website where you create an account from which you can access all your RSS feeds. What's great about this setup is that you can read them from any computer, at any time. What can you add to Bloglines? Any RSS feed that you find on the web. Blogs? Check. News sites? Check. Podcasts? Check. Flickr pages? Check. If the site offers a feed, you can put it on Bloglines!

It may seem confusing to set up at first, but play around and you'll get the hang of it. You can organize the feeds into different folders and set up options for each individual feed. And get this - you don't even need to know the actual feed address. Just enter the URL for the site, and Bloglines will show you what feeds are available.

The site layout is pretty simple. The feeds and folders are on the left side of the screen, and the content is on the right hand side. Click the title of the feed to go to the originating page, or click on the title of each post to see that individual post.

Bloglines also has a new beta site available. You can use either or both at this point, whichever you prefer. Once they get the bugs worked out, it will be better than ever!

How important is Bloglines to me? Well, whenever I'm using the internet, chances are I have Bloglines open in my browser. I couldn't function online without it.

Website Highlights - Architecture of the University of Oregon

http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/architecture/oregon/index.html

This site may only be of interest to me and anyone else in my area. If you are in any way connected to the University of Oregon, you'll probably find this site very fascinating.

Run by the U of O Library system, this website takes an historical look at the buildings of the University. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see a list of buildings old and new, gone and still around. Click on any building name and you'll find details about the building - the architect's name, the building's history, and even historical photographs. Want even more information? The pages even have lists of articles you can research.

You can also find timelines, information about campus art and sculptures, and, of course, a map to find it all.

If you bleed green and yellow, this is the site for you.

Website Highlights - Aftenposten

http://www.aftenposten.no

I'm of Norwegian heritage, and when I began college at the University of Oregon, I decided to take classes in the Norwegian language to fulfill the foreign language requirement for a B.A. I enjoyed the class very much, learned a lot, and had a great time exploring the many different sources available for reading Norwegian.

One of those sources was the daily newspaper in Oslo, Norway, the Aftenposten. Our teacher encouraged us to go online and read the paper's contents for practice. I still do that from time to time, attempting to decipher the meaning of each story from the little Norsk I still remember.

Aftenposten is one of the major newspapers in Norway, and it is written in the bokmål variation of the Norwegian language. That's good news for me, because bokmål is what I learned in college!

This site is probably only a curiosity to my readers, but check it out if you want to see what Norwegian looks like in online newspaper format.

Website Highlights - Afrocelts.us

http://www.afrocelts.us/

Afrocelts.us is the site for the Afro Celt Sound System message board. Afro Celt Sound System is my favorite music group of all time, and this site is where you can go to talk about them, read the latest news about them, and maybe even interact with one of the band members!

The band's forum has had many homes in the past, but was finally made permanent at the afrocelts.us URL a few years ago. It has been fairly quiet since then, probably due to members losing momentum after so many address changes for the forum. However, it's still the best place to get the latest on the best band on earth! When the band starts and releases their next project, I'm sure things will get going again on the Afro Celts forum.