Phil's Guide to the Internet

This web page serves as a collection of the sites on the internet that I find useful; I hope you find them useful, too.

News
New York Times - A good place for well-written news articles, if you have the time to read them.
Los Angeles Times - A paper for you left-coasters. I mean, West-coasters.
The Onion - A spoof on the news. Well-written, clever, usually quite funny. Read this after watching some depressing TV news and you'll feel much better.
Apple Insider - They usually know a bit about what's going to happen with Apple before it becomes public. They've been sued a couple times by Apple.
Phil's Osophies - Okay, I don't read this one, I write it. But you can read it. Call it a shameless plug. But it's my guide, right?

Situational Awareness
NWS Doppler Radar - Pick your site, bookmark it, stay informed. It might help to learn how to read radar maps if you don't already know.
CHP Dispatch - Live info on CHP traffic incidents. Official information. Takes a bit of decoding.
Sigalert - Live traffic maps for LA Metro

Connections
Friendster - A fun way of killing time. Search for old friends. Then annoy them.
Yahoo! Groups - Good for finding networks of people with a similar interest. Also good for those who compulsively put exclamations after company names. (Anyone else remember Yahoo before the exclamation point?)
Fred's TDI Club - If you drive a VW TDI then this might be of interest to you. Or learn what "VW TDI" means.
Crag's List - This one's for Los Angeles. Think "lowest common denominator" and you'll get along fine. Has other cities.
Los Angeles City Guide - Good for restaurants, hot spots, stiff like that. Has other cities.
Myspace - I think their website is polluted with ads and has no unity of interface. But everyone else is on there so I'm forced to use Myspace to keep up with the Jonses. And the Smiths. And the Johnsons....

Reference
Dictionary - Also see Thesaurus.
RadioReference - Good for finding public safety and agency frequencies. Also try Freq Of Nature.
HowStuffWorks - Great for gaining a basic understanding of most anything. One of my favorites.
Epinions - The next best thing to "try before you buy."
TitanTV - Local TV listings. Compatible with Elgato's EyeTV, among others.

Services
Netflix - I use it. If you haven't heard of it then you're out of the loop. Sorry.
Vonage - Take your home phone line with you wherever you go! And save some money while you're at it. NOTE: If you sign up, e-mail me and I'll get a discount for referring you! Cool, huh? I thought you'd appreciate that. And you get a free month of service, too.
Expedia - Find the lowest airfares. Afterwards go to the airline's website and book directly with them to avoid Expedia's fees.

Commerce
eBay - If you don't know what this one is, you shouldn't be using a computer.
PayPal - Online banking at its most electronic. A must for any serious eBay user.

Other
PGP - Personal data security (encryption) for the non-computer hacker. Get it, use it. It's free for basic functionality (you have to dig around the site a little). Remember, anyone along the path of your e-mails can read them if they're unencrypted. Computer hackers see GPG. Mac hackers see Mac GPG.
OAS3 - The Online Audition Self Scheduling System. Written by yours truly. It still has a few bugs. No guarantees.
Xastir - The best APRS software for Mac OS X, and possibly the only APRS software for Mac OS X. Also works on other OS's.
Phil @ Home - What Phil's Guide wouldn't be complete without a link to my own personal website? Hehe. Truthfully there's not much there. Most of my online contributions happen on my blog, Phil's Osophies™ (see above).

E-mail
There's nothing here. If you're cool like me you'll run your own e-mail server. (Really! It's easy!) I can't recommend any free services because you never really get something for nothing. Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail are all popular but I would recommend against the above because they do not come with IMAP access: I consider that critical. <sigh> Okay, if I have to suggest one, you might look into Fastmail. Free, fast, and it includes IMAP access.