THE BEST SITES ON THE NET

The Internet is often in the headlines. Everyone's heard about
the music industry crackdown on downloading music.

Other headlines are made every time the Internet is used by
pedophiles to lure unsuspecting teenagers, or to download child
pornography. 

Given the high-profile nature of these news stories, along with
the frequency with which they are reported, one might get the
impression that the Internet is nothing but a vast wasteland of
debauchery. 

But there is good and bad in almost everything. And people using
the Internet for good purposes seldom make headlines.

To drive home the point, I am about to describe five of the best
sites on the Web. This represents my own opinion, of course. But
these five sites are good because of the vast amounts of
information they contain and because they appeal to audiences
with a wide range of tastes.

First, if you watch movies frequently the Internet Movie Database
(www.imdb.com) is an invaluable tool for finding everything you
would ever want to know about every movie ever made and every
actor who starred in them. It even lists movies that haven't been
made yet.

Have you ever been watching a movie and saw an actor that you've
seen before but couldn't place? The Internet Movie Database will
cross reference every actor and actress to every movie they've
ever made. There are dozens of informative pages devoted to every
movie listed.

When I plug a movie into the DVD at home, my computer is almost
always tuned to the Internet Movie Database. It's a wonderful
companion tool for whatever flick I'm watching.

The second of the top Internet sites is the musical counterpart
to the Internet Movie Database. It's called the All Music Guide
(www.allmusic.com). Look up any singer, any song title, any
album, or any genre and you'll find everything there is to know
about each.

Another great site that I visit daily to catch up on the news is
MyWay.com. It's a portal site, similar to Yahoo, but without the
ads. You can read all the day's news in every category and from
all the major news sources. You can find stock market reports,
horoscopes (if you're into that nonsense), sports scores, and
poll results. You can get a road map to anywhere, including
driving directions. And you can look up any business in the U.S.
or any individual who has a listed phone number and then get a
map to their house. 

You can even use the free e-mail service, chat service, and
newsgroup forums. And there's not a banner ad nor pop-up ad to be
seen. It's surfing freedom at its best.

The fourth of the five best sites on the Net is the Weather
Underground. They say that everyone talks about the weather but
nobody ever does anything about it. Well, this site
(wunderground.com) may not be able to do anything about the
weather, but it can report as much information about it as anyone
would ever want. This includes local Doppler radar images,
satellite photos, and precipitation amounts.

In addition, you can see submitted weather photos from all over
the U.S., including Edinburgh. And you can get updates on all
hurricanes, too. 

And, finally, if you want to look up information on the history,
customs, and traditions of all the major holidays, or if you want
to listen to hours upon hours of computer-generated music, solve
some word search puzzles, get information on nutrition and low-
carb dieting, or just read every "Over Coffee" column I've ever
written, you would have to visit my own site at Wilstar.com. 

Happy surfing.